A is A

First off, regarding ATLAS SHRUGGED: I have finished it. It gets even MORE preachy at the end (pages and pages of nothing but philosophy -- the character who spoke it said it took three hours on radio, and I believe him). As a sci-fi it's got the dystopia grittiness that I'm so fond of, but there isn't enough interesting sciency bits to hold my attention and the parts regarding agriculture can only lead me to believe that the author knew very little about plants & environmental sciences and didn't think it was important enough to do further research. As a mystery it sets up the premises for solving both mysteries -- the person and the conspiracy, very well. However, a bit like how the BBC Sherlock mini-series, in their first episode, beats you to death with all the clues Holmes used to figure out who was the killer, there was so much clue given about the solution to both mysteries that I spent most of the following hundreds of pages (oh yes it was hundreds of pages) thinking, "Com'on, com'on, how SLOW can you get?" Then there's also the fact that the climax of the mystery-solving part does not achieve the level of climax and drama that any decent mystery stories should, and that, where usual mystery stories wrap up fairly quickly after the mystery is solved, this particular books limps doggedly on, resolutely carrying on until all the philosophical lectures are dotted, filed, marked "done". As a work of propaganda -- because that's what this reads like, at times -- like an ode to capitalism...well, I've read propaganda novels before, and this isn't that great at it either. It lacks a certain something in terms of subtlety and sympathetic characters (both characters that I found vaguely sympathetic died -- well presumably the other one died as well, the story was a bit vague, preferring to cut to a paragraph about piano music instead).

Okay, and then I went online to look up this book, and I'll admit to being impressed by the fact that Rand managed to create a new branch of philosophy with a novel. There are certain aspects, such as reason and logic being one of the virtues of man, that I agree with. There are other aspects, on how any government regulations in trade is Evil and that there's no such thing as a "great good" outside of the realms of Machiavellian manipulations, that I disagree with. I am not a philosopher, I am a scientist by training and by choice. I don't profess to be familiar with any of the Aristotle-inspired schools of thought, but I do feel a bit put out by the insistence that contradiction does not exist in nature (wave-particle duality, hello?).

The verdict: ATLAS SHRUGGED crosses the genre of mystery, sci-fi, and social commentary (I am going to pretend the romance component doesn't exist, because b the end of the novel it frankly makes me want to gag), but does not excel in any of those categories. However, it does offer a different system of thinking. It challenges the way I perceive the world and makes me want to take apart the novel, idea by idea, to try to understand why I will agree with some but abhor others. It makes me think. For that alone it was worth reading at least once.

And now back to our scheduled presentation:

Quest for the Meaning of Life continues. I want to share the bit yesterday when, having thought about academia vs industry some more, I decided to ask my PI about what it's like being a PI. Specifically, I said something along the lines of "There is either something else about being a PI that's really enjoyable that the rest of us (the grad students) have missed, or that all PIs are extremely masochistic."

His answer? "It's not an 'or' question." With a huge grin. (It makes him look manic. I should not be as fond of it as I am.)

That's not all of it, but the entire rest of the conversation would take too long to describe.

There's a pinworm infestation discovered in my collaborator's vivarium, where I ship my mice to be tested at a specific age. Currently the place's under lock down and all important and export of animals are halted. If it's not lifted soon my animals will be past the age when they can be tested, I would lose an entire cohort, and have to figure out some way to make up for it without pushing back my experimental schedule too much. Don't ask me what my schedule for spring break is like. I no longer know. I'm still waiting for some sort of pathology report.