The Sunday Salon – the middle of books, The Paris Review and ‘feeding the mind’

Not actually that much reading getting done today; I finished the excellent A Thousand Splendid Suns after a mammoth reading session yesterday as I literally could not put it down, so after such a fine book the thought of going back to my ‘inbetween read’ The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters which I wrote about last week (yes I’m still reading it, in truth not much more than I’d read last time) does not appeal. What is it about the middle of books? You’re past the intriguing set up and not quite at the explosive finale, I think it can easily be where a book fails. In my limited experience trying to write novels, the middle is always the hardest to write, a question of sustaining interest.

So deliberately not reading The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, I’ve been reading a couple of interviews in The Paris Review interviews volume 1; Saul Bellow and Jorge Luis Borges. I like what I’ve read of The Paris Review Interviews so far, most of the writers come across very clearly as a likeable if neurotic and bitchy bunch, Saul Bellow’s personality didn’t really shine through though, perhaps because of the weeks of editing of the interview that had been involved afterwards, as described at the beginning of the interview. Jorge Luis Borges came across as very likeable though, we both share a love of epic stories.

Other than that I’ve been reading a rare (for me) copy of the New Scientist, I’m a scientist by training, well I was one pre-motherhood but I’m very unlikely to go back but I still enjoy reading New Scientist every now and then, I find some of the stories spark my imagination, to use the cliche, feeding my mind. Anyway what usually dictates me buying a copy is if the cover looks particularly attractive and this week’s cover got my attention.

The cover story, concerning whether political leanings are in the genes intrigued me, the idea that we’re genetically wired to vote the way we vote interested me. Obviously (as the article stated) there is no ‘conservative’, ‘labour’, ‘republican’ or ‘democrat’ gene but it showed how research is being performed that suggests certain possibly genetically linked personality traits keyed the person to be a Tory or a Labour supporter. Following the thought that if we’re all hardwired to follow one political party or another (loosely divided into the choice of liberalism or conservatism) was political debate worth it? It made the valid point that although the people competing for power may always disagree with each because it’s in their genes, political discourse can still provoke change, if you take the example the article used, in the middle of the last century they were debating whether homosexuality itself should be legalised and now at least the debate has moved on to questions about same sex marriage and same sex reproduction rights, proving that political debate is still worth it, genes or no genes.