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Apr. 20th, 2011 10:46 amToday is techday. Everything is computers and messages and backup and wondering if I'll be able to do my real work.
I managed some real work in the middle of backups, but I'm so ambivalent about it that I'm not at all certain whether to take it into the dissertation or leave it aside as an object lesson or to hope it's a clever novel with a practical joke at its heart.
An author famous for his careful research and vast knowledge has such a bad understanding of late Medieval science and outlook in the premise of his novel (which is, nonetheless, very well written and rather famous) that I want to cry. Such an opportunity wasted! Also, however, the lack of understanding of the science means that the whole premise of the novel collapses. Even worse, he slips information in from his research, and that information demonstrates (within the novel itself, but either entirely unintentionally or giving away a major twist - I'd have to read the whole thing to find out which, and reading it hurts so very much) that the social reality is only half right, the sciences are wrong and, well, that's enough. The worldview is badly done. But it could be intentionally. I am assuring myself that it wouldn't be so bad if it were intentional.
I can't ignore it, but I think I shall put it aside. I'll borrow it from the library again when I'm back from Europe and give my backbrain a chance to work out what to do. Maybe my dissertation will not require it at all.
Or maybe I'll find that the first hundred or so pages were simply playing with readers' minds. If it's not, I shall write an article about the problems with the basic research, I think, just because it's really worrying me. I shall dedicate the article to Robert Grosseteste, perhaps, in order to exorcise more demons. Then I shall hunt down a home for it. And the author in question will not like me. Not at all. Which means I do hope that it's a twist novel and that what I'm reading are poorly-expressed signals to that effect. The trouble is, I rather suspect I could track where the science came from and why the world view is so wrong, without much effort.
I'm going to distract myself with more computese and with a book on the relationship between the Middle Ages and its ghosts. I don't know yet if I need ghosts, either, but I need to be certain about the local society's view of time travellers and ghosts are the only option I haven't really explored in depth yet. Besides, I teach Medieval ghosts from time to time and it doesn't hurt to remember what I thought I knew.
I managed some real work in the middle of backups, but I'm so ambivalent about it that I'm not at all certain whether to take it into the dissertation or leave it aside as an object lesson or to hope it's a clever novel with a practical joke at its heart.
An author famous for his careful research and vast knowledge has such a bad understanding of late Medieval science and outlook in the premise of his novel (which is, nonetheless, very well written and rather famous) that I want to cry. Such an opportunity wasted! Also, however, the lack of understanding of the science means that the whole premise of the novel collapses. Even worse, he slips information in from his research, and that information demonstrates (within the novel itself, but either entirely unintentionally or giving away a major twist - I'd have to read the whole thing to find out which, and reading it hurts so very much) that the social reality is only half right, the sciences are wrong and, well, that's enough. The worldview is badly done. But it could be intentionally. I am assuring myself that it wouldn't be so bad if it were intentional.
I can't ignore it, but I think I shall put it aside. I'll borrow it from the library again when I'm back from Europe and give my backbrain a chance to work out what to do. Maybe my dissertation will not require it at all.
Or maybe I'll find that the first hundred or so pages were simply playing with readers' minds. If it's not, I shall write an article about the problems with the basic research, I think, just because it's really worrying me. I shall dedicate the article to Robert Grosseteste, perhaps, in order to exorcise more demons. Then I shall hunt down a home for it. And the author in question will not like me. Not at all. Which means I do hope that it's a twist novel and that what I'm reading are poorly-expressed signals to that effect. The trouble is, I rather suspect I could track where the science came from and why the world view is so wrong, without much effort.
I'm going to distract myself with more computese and with a book on the relationship between the Middle Ages and its ghosts. I don't know yet if I need ghosts, either, but I need to be certain about the local society's view of time travellers and ghosts are the only option I haven't really explored in depth yet. Besides, I teach Medieval ghosts from time to time and it doesn't hurt to remember what I thought I knew.