Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Ahhh Ian McEwan!

My love affair with McEwan and his books is such a seesaw of anticipation, hope, expectation and oh so often disappointment. Atonement is the only book that has lasted the distance for me, although I'm willing to give Chesil Beach another shot, as in hindsight, I read it for the first time at completely the wrong time in my life to appreciate it properly. 

Machines Like Me sounded very promising and I'm probably one of the few people that didn't get totally creeped out by the front cover. Alternate histories, artificial intelligence (aka science run-amok) and profound moral dilemma's are all my literary cups of tea.

I've been holding off writing this review as I waited for Mr Books to finish it too. I wanted to discuss it with him and combine our thoughts for this post. Because, love it or hate it, Machines Like Us is the perfect book group book - oozing with thought provoking ideas and many points to mull over and debate.

The trouble for me in the end, was that I didn't buy the moral dilemma and was frustrated by the alternate history storyline that felt unresolved and unexplained - a gimmick rather than a fully fleshed discussion point. Which isn't to say that Mr Books and I didn't have a healthy discussion about consciousness, mind versus brain, emotional nuances, black and white thinking and how we develop shades of grey thinking. We did. But neither of us ever believe that robot Adam was anything more than a robot. 

He and the other 20-odd Adam and Eve robots were unable to cope with the 'real' world of human chaos and complexity. Their logically processes and programmed responses were not enough. Perhaps if they had been created as children and allowed to learn gradually the responses appropriate for the society they were living in about how to exist in this particular world of adults before moving on to older bodies, they may have not have freaked out so much.

What makes us human? Is it our brains, our feelings, our sense of consciousness? Is it soul or spirit or some other undefined, unseen element that makes us, dare I say, unique?

Mr Books threw the 1999 Robin Williams movie, Bicentennial Man into the mix. It had similar themes - robots as household help/slaves and where, exactly, is the line between human and non-human. 

The human characters were less than impressive - flawed, messy, chaotic individuals. They were insipid, jealous, vengeful, judgemental and lacking in dignity with imperfect moral compasses. No wonder the Adams and Eves struggled to fit in.

In this version of 1980's England, Alan Turing is still alive an inventing.
I was fascinated by how one person's life (or death) could change the course of history and wanted more of this. Turing, alive and well and fully embracing his sexuality changed the course of the Falklands War for example in McEwan's world. Turing's insistence on open source for all his inventions, meant that everyone had the ability to create technology, including, or more to the point, especially military equipment, which allowed Argentina to acquire the capacity to blow England out of the water in 1982.
But he didn't explain how or why JFK survived that shooting incident in Dallas - it was just a mention in passing. Maybe the advanced technology allowed for better surveillance and faster response times, so that there was no second bullet. Or maybe bullet-proof cars were invented by then in this alternate universe. We don't know. It is all pure speculation. Or as McEwan said,  "What might have happened was lost to us."

Favourite Character: none

Favourite Quote:

The present is the frailest of improbable constructs. It could have been different. Any part of it, or all of it, could be otherwise.

Favourite or Forget: It's not easy to forget a McEwan read. They usually make for a good book group discussion with their contentious issues, moral ambiguity and loose ends. But this one is not a favourite of mine.

Former Posts:

• The Best & Worst of Ian McEwan
• The Child in Time
• Amsterdam
• My Purple Scented Novel
• On Chesil Beach

Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World by Michael Harris

As someone who understands and knows solitude pretty extensively I was instantly attracted to this title.

Feeling that my solitude and busy times are currently out of whack also made this seem like the right book at the right time.

But I'm not sure that Solitude by Michael Harris is really about solitude.

It was more of an exploration of our modern, connected, tech-obsessed society. He discusses what that looks like, how it happened and it's impact on our daily lives and on our long-term health. Harris wonders if social media has made us 'socially obese', like teenagers who need to be needed and loved. And he talks about the addictive nature of 'sharing'.

The technology becomes a salve, a way to calm our worries about fitting in or belonging.

Harris started off with the first line from an Emily Dickinson poem. I was curious enough to find the whole.

Part Five: The Single Hound XVIII THERE is another Loneliness That many die without, Not want or friend occasions it, Or circumstances or lot. But nature sometimes, sometimes thought, And whoso it befall Is richer than could be divulged By mortal numeral. Emily Dickinson

As someone who has an abundance of the nature and the thoughts that Dickinson referred to, this poem gave me great hopes for finding within the pages of this book, the richer stuff of 'true solitude' (as opposed to the 'failed solitude' of loneliness).

It was not to be, but Solitude did plant the seed I needed to rediscover it for myself.

There must be an art to it....A certain practice, or alchemy, that turns loneliness into solitude, blank days into blank canvases.

But, of course, as we all probably know anyway, these things have to be worked out for yourself, in your own way, usually from hard-won experience, determination and hard work.

Daydreaming our days away is a thing of the past.

Our phones and other devices suck up all of our spare time, our leisure time and much of our working time as well.

However good old fashioned daydreaming had it's purpose. Being on our own, with unfettered time and nothing to do, forced us into self-governance. It gave us those eureka moments and acted as a form of self-therapy.

The truth is that most of our daydreams are not particularly noble or important or fruitful (phew! perhaps I'm doing it properly after all!) An annoying truth about daydreaming is that it takes practice to get good at it.

Solitude also allowed us to be free and independent thinkers - more sure of our thoughts and less likely to be swayed by popular opinion.

The choices we now make online 'become less independent and more manipulated'. We begin to believe that the technology knows us better than we know ourselves. Our world becomes confined to what our known data thinks we would like to have more of. We stop being exposed to new, different and unusual things. We stop thinking for ourselves. We accept the decisions that come at us 'through our screens and accept them as our own'. Until, without realising it,

you become trapped inside an algorithmically defined notion of your own taste....you wont be exposed to things you don't know, things you haven't loved yet. Personal growth becomes stunted.

Thanks to our technology we now never get lost. There is no longer any wandering around trying to find our way and stumbling on something unexpected. Google maps are causing our 'wayfinding skills to atrophy.' We have stopped paying attention to the details of the world around us as we let our phones guide us to our destination. It is no longer the journey, and the stuff we learn and see and experience along the way, that is important. It's the getting there.

Harris then moved onto the art of reading and writing and how these technologies changed our world. 'Each technology drops its own lens over your eyes' - the printing age and the era of screens have both affected the way we tell stories. We believe in,

the fragile idea that your life is a cohesive story....the idea that you are a hero of some story...(however)...Real life feels more like a Tumblr feed than a novel. Real life is random, overpowering, and scarcely knowable as it scrolls past our bewildered, blinking eyes.

This tied in with memory and how technology has changed our ability to remember. Our memories change every time we remember them. They're reassessed to reflect our subsequent knowledge and experiences. So how does this process change when all our memories are documented on social media? And not left to the vagaries of time and revisionism?

So what did I get out of Solitude?

I realised that part of my blogging blues stems from an over-active, over-stimulated mind. I need to find calm, peace and joy. I need to slow down. I need to spend more time in nature and less time on my devices.

I might try the Japanese idea of forest bathing.

Ultimately, it's our choice to nurture our solitude or to allow it to be depleted.

I choose to calm down, slow down and find my centre again.

Picture Book Technology & Online Safety

It was only a matter of time before we saw picture books for children that contained themes about mobile phone use. The two latest offerings deal with the positive aspects as well as the addictive nature of technology and social media.

Australian writer/illustrator Nick Bland gives us The Fabulous Friend Machine. Popcorn the hen is a very friendly chook. She's even won awards for friendliness. One day she discovers a glowing device on the ground near her home. It appears to be very, very friendly.

But Popcorn quickly learns that spending hours and hours talking to her new online friends can cause problems with her real life friends. And who are these new friends anyway?

After nearly being running over by a tractor (because she was too busy looking at her screen) and discovering that her new online friends were actually wolves, Popcorn rediscovers the value of paying attention to her real life friends. She also learns to exercise more caution when using her new friend machine.

Nick Bland is a CBCA and ABIA award winning illustrator. He doesn't appear to have his own web page, but he did have an exhibition last year in Darwin (where he now lives), to show off some of the work featured in his previous 26 books. Bland's usual medium is acrylic paint and pens.

Tek: The Modern Cave Boy by Patrick McDonnell also deals with the addictive nature of mobile devices, online games and binge TV viewing, but plays around with the book's formatting to do so. McDonnell's Tek looks and feels like a tablet, with firm dark edges and a screen like set-up on each page. You can even see the battery life running low as you read along.

Both books use humour to convey their message. However Tek needs to learn to disconnect so that he reconnect with his family, friends and the real world around him. His technology obsession is making him uncommunicative and anti-social.

McDonnell is an American author/illustrator best known for his comic strip MUTTS. His recent forays into picture book territory have already elicited New York Times bestsellers and a Caldecott Honor winner.

Have you come across any other picture books dealing with online behaviour and mobile phone use for children?

Another Australian title is The Internet is a Puddle by psychologist Shona Innes - initially written to help some of her clients, it teaches us how to play safely online.

Please add titles or links to any other picture books (from anywhere in the world) in the comments below so that we can build up a picture book online safety resource list.