Who?

My wife and I were out for a walk last night after dark. I saw something move among the branches in the distance, which I at first took to be one of our omnipresent squirrels frolicking among the pines. (The squirrels around here are only slightly smaller than dachshunds.) As we got closer, I could make out a dark shape perched atop a street sign. My second mistaken assumption was that it was a turkey vulture waiting for a car to pass so it could feast on a roadkill delicacy. (The turkey vultures around here are only slightly smaller than Saint Bernards.)

Finally I realized what it was—an owl, and a big one at that. It took flight, then, casting a shadow with its enormous wingspan. I suspect it was a Great Horned Owl, though I didn’t get a close enough look to be sure. It was an impressive sight, though, and a thrill to see such a secretive, nocturnal creature.

This morning I started a review of Walter Mosley’s Fortunate Son for Accent Review, which will be back with new material in March after a brief hiatus. This is one of Mosley’s non-mystery novels, and is a combination of a parable, a fantasy and a cautionary tale. He takes an interesting narrative stance, somewhat distant and dispassionate, observing and reporting. In this case, it’s a surprisingly effective decision.

I’m working my way through Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality, which is subtitled A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Not a light book in any sense: 1000 pages and dense with mathematics. Stephen Hawking’s publisher told him that every equation in A Brief History of Time would reduce readership by half, so he included only one, e=mc². Using the same logic, Penrose’s readership must be down to about 100. Seeing two pages in a row without an equation or a geometric diagram is a rarity. He cuts no slack—by chapter two he’s immersing readers in non-Euclidian geometry. Ultimately we get to Penrose’s evaluation of string theory, which is where my interest lies. My understanding is that Penrose isn’t the world’s biggest supporter of that theory and it’s one I have a hard time swallowing, too, so I want to see what someone who really understands the stuff has to say about it.

It’s not easy going, and I have a background in math and quantum chemistry (though it’s been a couple of decades since I studied it—when I studied physics, neutrinos were still believed to be massless particles and I found out on Nova two nights ago that we now know differently). It’s also not a book to be browsed casually, which means it’s probably going to be “in process” for quite a while. After four days, I’m only three chapters into the thing, and I will doubtless set it aside from time to time to cleanse my palette with something less…studious.