Review and Highlights: The Age of Absurdity, Michael Foley

Review and Highlights: London Falling, Paul Cornell

London Falling by Paul Cornell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm not sure if it's my recent mood or the books that I've been reading that have led me to begin several recent reviews with, this book was not as good as I had hoped it would be. A book about a London police squad that suddenly becomes able to see the things that go bump in the dark and have to use that sudden ability to hunt down a supernatural enemy? Right up my alley. But the overarching story of this book left me disappointed. I kept reading, thinking that the focus on football was weirdly specific, but I hoped that some background information would give it a deeper meaning.

Unfortunately, the background info provided for the villain didn't really help. In fact, the thought that came to mind when I read it was how when a person learns about "past lives", they find that they were always Cleopatra or Napoleon or at least closely associated with a famous person or royalty of some variety. The author tried to establish a back story that in some way explained the heinous acts in the present, but the punch I think he was trying to throw just didn't land.

I also came across quite a few lines that I had to read several times, some of which still didn't make any sense. I read a good bit of British literature, so I don't think it's about a difference in language. In fact, it was so bad that I had to underline a couple of lines to come back to later. For instance, in describing the search for some missing children, there's this line: "They had so many alerts for missing children in place it wasn't true..." Now, you might think the previous line must include something that provides context: "Quill had been in conference with Lofthouse a great deal, trying to find some resource or clue in the evidence coming out of any of the searched houses, Tochack's included, but so far there had been nothing." If that sentence helps explain the following one, please leave me a comment and explain it to me, because I just don't get it. There were several moments like that through the book.

Another thing that bothered me was the graphic violence at the end. Which, for a book that includes depictions of a person's blood exploding out of them, is saying something. It just seemed overly graphic and didn't fit in with the way the violence was described in the rest of the book. Finally, I didn't appreciate the blatant set-up for the sequel novel. Not that this book ended with a cliff-hanger, exactly, but it reminded me of the old Halloween movies, where you think the villain is dead, then the final scene shows the empty spot where his body should be. It's a blatant set-up, and I find it extremely annoying. In fact, because of the weaknesses in this book and the way it ended, I don't plan on reading the follow-up. Your mileage may vary.

Because I read the paper edition, I will include my highlights here:

That had been the knife that had severed something she had herself stretched very tight. p. 85

It felt as if they hated her mistress, yet loved her at the same time. They lover her for being something they could hate. They might love her entirely if she became a victim..." p. 280

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Review and Highlights: Witness for the Defense, Katherine Loftus & Katherine Ketcham

Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial by Elizabeth F. Loftus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A really good, but deeply depressing book on how memory and eyewitness testimony can ruin lives. Less a treatise on memory, this book is more an autobiography focusing on Dr. Loftus' work as an expert witness for defendants in criminal trials. I particularly appreciated the insight into why she did the work she did, how she chose the clients to testify for, and even her troubling refusal to participate in the Demjanjuk trial.

The depressing parts of this book are the descriptions of the absolute destruction of people's lives. And this damage isn't only inflicted on those who were falsely accused and/or convicted, but the victims themselves. In one case, children's mothers essentially convinced their children that they were sexually abused by a camp counselor. Now these children have to live their whole lives not only convinced that this horrible abuse happened, but the person they are sure committed the abuse got away with it. Another victim, this time of rape, was so convinced that her identification of her assailant was correct that when another man actually confessed to the crime she refused to believe him. This long-lasting victimization of those who were already victims is heart-breaking.

The other depressing part of this book is that, despite being written in 1991, it doesn't seem like much has changed. People are still falsely accused and convicted based solely on eyewitness accounts. Luckily, we now have DNA evidence that can help exonerate the falsely convicted, but the process is still insanely expensive both in dollars spent and lives ruined. Even with no active malfeasance on the part of police and prosecutors, people are sent to prison or, if found not guilty, must live the rest of their lives with that suspicion hanging over them. And the victims of the original crime never get the justice they deserve.

Because I read the paper edition of this book, I will include my highlights here:

That's the frightening part - the truly horrifying idea that our memories can be changed, inextricably altered, and that what we think we know, what we believe with all our hearts, is not necessarily the truth. p. 13

Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our memories, are not objective facts but subjective, interpretative realities. p. 20

When the police have a suspect, they often show the witness a photo array and produce the actual lineup only if an identification is made. Almost invariable, only the person identified from the photo lineup also appears in the in-person lineup, and almost invariably the witness identifies the person he saw in the photos. This is called a "phot0-biased lineup," and the chances of a mistaken identification rise dramatically in such a situation. p. 26

"We are a society that, every fifty years or so, is afflicted by some paroxysm of virtue - an orgy of self-cleansing through which evil of one kind or another is cast out. From the witch-hunts of Salem to the communist hunts of the McCarthy era to the current shrill fixation on child abuse, there runs a common thread of moral hysteria." quote by Dorothy Rabinowitz p. 127

"Justice would less often miscarry if all who are to weigh evidence were more conscious of the treachery of human memory. Yes, it can be said that, while the court makes the fullest use of all the modern scientific methods when, for instance, a drop of dried blood is to be examined in a murder case, the same court is completely satisfied with the most unscientific and haphazard methods of common prejudice and ignorance when a mental product, especially the memory report of a witness, is to be examined." quote by Hugo Musterberg p. 156

Most people are unaware that new information can influence their original recollection of an event. They don't know that as we take new information in, it is gradually incorporated into our original memory. Believing that this metamorphosed memory is and always has been the real memory, the true, unalterable, indivisible copy of our primary experience all those months or years ago, we become fiercely committed to it. p. 168

What happened in those two months to change [the witness'] mind? He'd seen pictures of Mr. Haupt, he'd read descriptions of the suspect, and he knew that he was looking for a man with a pronounced bald spot. His original memory of a full head of hair was wiped out, erased, by this new information, and the bald spot nestled comfortably into his memory, becoming in his mind the real and original memory. p. 168

Like most people, jurors tend to believe there is a strong relationship between how confident a witness is and how accurate he or she is. p. 170

Fear turns inward; it eats your soul. Anger can be directed outward, toward others. p. 204

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Review and Highlights: The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery by Sam Kean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A really interesting, easy to read popular science look at neuroscience and the brain. Long before modern imaging, brain function was determined through dissection and the observation of what went wrong when the brain is damaged. Starting with the titular neurosurgeons who observed and treated King Henri II of France when he was injured in a joust, the author examines famous and not-so-famous cases of brain injury. The function revealed by a damaged brain is sometimes more interesting than a dry explanation of the different brain regions and how they function, and the author takes full advantage. Even the treatment of one of the most famous damaged-brain cases out there, the story of Phineas Gage, was interesting and more in-depth than many I've read. If you have an interest in neurology and want something entertaining and easy to understand, definitely give this book a try. (I will say that some of the images and descriptions are pretty graphic, so reader beware.)

Because I read the paper copy of this book, I'll include my highlights here:

"Are there any who imagine," Holman asked, "that my loss of eyesight must necessarily deny me the enjoyment of such contemplations? How much more do I pity the mental darkness which could give rise to such and error." p. 97

[On Capras' syndrome] Faces, though, cannot conjure up the proper feelings, and it's the chasm between what they once felt upon seeing a loved one and the deadness they now feel that inflicts the agony. p. 254

...while we joke about a poor memory as a sieve, that's actually the wrong way around. Sieves let water leak through, but they catch substantial things 0 they catch what we want to preserve. In the same way, a mind functions best when we let some things, like traumatic memories, go. All normal brains are sieves, and thank goodness for that. p. 295

Memories are memoirs, not autobiographies. And the memories we cherish most may make honest liars of us all. p. 297

"Consciousness isn't a think in a place; it's a process in a population." p. 337

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