Last month, CBS debuted new reality show The Briefcase. The basic premise is this: in each episode, two American families each receive a briefcase containing $101,000. $1,000 of the money is for each family to have a mini-spending spree at the beginning of the show. Each family may then keep all of the remaining $100,000, give away some of it "to help another family in need", or give away all of it. The catch is that each of the two families, if it chooses to give away money, would be giving to the other family. Each family learns bits and pieces about the other via text from the show's narrators, but never learns the other family has received a briefcase or is part of the challenge.
The families receive 72 hours to make their decisions. Throughout the 72 hours, there are three opportunities for individual people to make donations into the briefcase. Once money has been deposited, it is marked for the other family at the end of the 72-hour period. It can be withdrawn during future bank visits, though, making the first two visits pointless except for causing marital spats. On the plus side, each couple gets to visit the other's house, meaning Week 1's contestants got free trips to New Hampshire or North Carolina, and Week 2's contestants got free trips to Maryland and the Florida Keys. The families do the final swap in person, presumably to make things more suspenseful, and in Los Angeles, because that is where TV happens, I suppose.
Right from the start, the emotional aspect of the show is clear. To quote the main characters from the first episode:
"Obviously, you want to make more money to provide for your kids." -Joe Bergin
"We do have a lot." -Kim Bergin, referring to their family
"Because of ongoing medical conditions, [Iraq war hero] Dave [Bronson] is unable to work." -show's narrator
"My goal is to do what I have to do to take care of my family." -Cara Bronson
Reviews have been mixed, to be generous. Mortgage Fraud Investors (Miami), not usually the types to comment on TV shows, called it "poverty porn". The Atlantic, which comments on pop culture far more often, went with a more intellectual tack, comparing Victorian attitudes toward poverty with the show a couple days ago. It is easy to moralize about reality TV, about debt, or about the ethics of televising problems. Enough people are doing that, so I will not.
What I will add is completely different. "Logic has set in, and emotion has gone," says Joe Bergin partway through the first episode. "Amanda's heart is led by her emotions and I need to get her to see logic and reason," says John Musolino in the second episode. Turns out there is a lot of logic behind this show.
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Last fall, I administered a self-written variation of the famous Ultimatum Game. This is a simple sender-responder game. The sender receives an amount of money $X and then is allowed to give any amount of it to the responder. The responder may then either (a) accept the offer, or (b) reject the offer. Rejection leads to each player receiving $0. The game ends either way.
Any suspense that emerges during the Ultimatum Game is based on the responder's ability to punish the sender. Without that ability, the responder has no way to get anything from the sender. The ability to punish could hypothetically induce the sender to send all but $1, or 1 cent, or the lowest denomination it can keep.
The Briefcase is a real-life application of the similar Dictator Game. This is an even simpler sender-responder game. The sender receives an amount of money $X and then is allowed to give any amount of it to the responder. The responder must accept that much money, and the game ends. From an academic perspective, the Ultimatum Game is only mildly interesting, and the Dictator Game is not interesting at all.
With complete information, each family should predict what the other family will give and then give the same amount, leaving each family with $100,000 of distributable funds. This presumes each family is equally deserving of the money, which I think is a nice thing to believe. Each is sympathetic - if a family on this show were not sympathetic, CBS would have a potentially offensive show that is also boring. The problem there is the above rule that each family is in the dark about the other's role in the contest.
Being forced to act as though one is playing the original version of the Dictator Game, the classic best strategy is to give nothing. After all, there is no penalty for doing so. Experimental results yield different strategies, yet adjusting variables such as each player's perception of the other can push things in just about any direction.
"These are real people," says Susan Scott in the second episode. In saying that about the other family, she (accidentally?) identified one of the biggest variables in the Dictator Game. The more deserving the sender feels the responder is, the more money the sender gives on average.
Given the lack of ability for the contestants to interact beyond telling each other information about themselves with no indication of the game everyone is playing, the best thing to do may be to just split the money 50/50. With more information, the show would more resemble the Ultimatum Game.
The show attempts to pull heartstrings. It may for some and not for others. What it shows, perhaps more than anything, is the importance of intraorganizational bargaining. Featuring couples rather than individuals opens up the floor for disagreements within the couples that are, virtually by definition, more interesting than texts and vacant house visits. Seeing how people manage their spouses is more interesting than the Dictator Game.
For a list of the experiential results, click here.
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Perhaps the most practical note is reserved for last. CBS obviously does not plan for The Briefcase to have a long run. This may be for the best, as the show is so far best known for controversy, and controversy only powers a product for so long. The most pointed criticism I could level is that the game only works if the contestants do not know all the rules, specifically that the other family has a briefcase as well. If they know the rules, the game turns into the complete information version I explained in the last section. Now that most people will have either seen the show or read about it, it is difficult to imagine CBS finding enough contestants for a second season. The show's fifth and sixth episodes, its two last, air next week.
Another point is that because real names are used, and families play the game knowing they will be televised, there may be substantial social pressure to give away at least most of the money. This taints the results. Rather than a depiction of human nature, The Briefcase may simply be seeking the answer to the question, "Is being known nationwide as 'the people who shorted a family in need' really worth $100,000 to you?" A reputation like that could be career-ending, and $100,000 is not nearly enough for retirement. A CBS Moneywatch columnist presents $500,000 as a bare minimum baseline. Whether it is cruel that it is a CBS Moneywatch article advocating saving at least five times what each family receives on a CBS show is up for debate. To be "that couple who took all $100,000", a more fitting payoff may actually be about $1 million.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Tavern of Tales Presents (Compiles?) Some of the Best in Short Sci-Fi
Last fall, literary blog Tavern of Tales put together a series of six links noting some incredible short fiction, either science-fiction (5 of 6) or as part of a greater work of science fiction (the last one). The stories are meant to "blow your mind", and they certainly do. According to the blog, each story can be read in ten minutes or less. I found that to be the case, meaning the whole post takes under an hour! If you use the Tavern's times, it totals to 36 minutes, exclusive of time spent reflecting on the concepts within.
The stories are as follows:
The Egg by Andy Weir
They Are Made of Meat by Terry Bisson
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
The Others by Neil Gaiman
Biscuits by Douglas Adams
"The Egg" and "Harrison Bergeron" both contemplate what society can become, the former in a quirky way and the latter in a grim way. "They Are Made of Meat" and "The Nine Billion Names of God" both consider how alien races more advanced than us might perceive us. In either case, we are not very significant. The key difference is in how useful we are to them. "The Others" succeeds in typical Neil Gaiman cleverness, which I discussed a little last fall. "Biscuits" is a hilarious story about how poor the state of interpersonal communication is in the West.
A note on each: (***While I am doing my best not to spoil anything here, use your discretion in reading this next section.***)
--------------
"The Egg" invites all kinds of crazy analyses. Are we to believe our main character is, for example, giving birth to himself? This can go off the deep end in any number of ways. For a story that Tavern of Tales claims takes four minutes to read, and this is about right, I feel like readers could discuss it for hours.
"They Are Made of Meat" makes me wonder what else a brain should be. The only options that immediately come to mind are some other elemental material like silicon, or computers. Silicon-based lifeforms probably should not be so dismissive of carbon-based life forms - it would be like iron looking down on copper. Computers designing themselves is an interesting concept, but would probably lead to more creation debates than we even have now. Where did the first computer come from? and so on.
"Harrison Bergeron" is saddest perhaps because the escaped Harrison never actually hurts anyone. All he does is make a list of high-handed proclamations and then dance. Sneakier is that for a world in which everyone is supposed to be average at everything, the Handicapper General staff seem quite good at what they do (designing handicaps, enforcing handicaps, shooting guns). Equality for all except those enforcing the equality must have been very topical in 1961.
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is very imaginative, but how could an Arthur C. Clarke story not be? The idea of people contributing to our own destruction, but in a sci-fi rather than environmental disaster setting, is fun.
"The Others" is funnily cruel. Neil Gaiman does well in introducing the physical torture first and then shifting it into nastier, more personal territory. Any sort of morality horror makes me think of my own life, which I hope I have lived well enough so far. One question: what happens to the man-turned-demon when he is done torturing the next person/himself? Does he convert back to a man and do everything over again? Or is there a chain of people waiting to be tortured?
"Biscuits" makes me think of why it is great there has been such an explosion in mediation services. Four biscuits on a train is something to laugh about. Litigation, not so much. In true Matthew Gordon Books fashion, I cannot complete an entry without bringing in some seemingly unrelated discipline. More to the point of "Biscuits" itself, the playing up of British stereotypes adds to the laughter. I can imagine that exact scene unfolding on that exact train. As someone who enjoys riding the train, but who also loves crunchy snacks, I think I would have spoken up.
The stories are as follows:
The Egg by Andy Weir
They Are Made of Meat by Terry Bisson
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
The Others by Neil Gaiman
Biscuits by Douglas Adams
"The Egg" and "Harrison Bergeron" both contemplate what society can become, the former in a quirky way and the latter in a grim way. "They Are Made of Meat" and "The Nine Billion Names of God" both consider how alien races more advanced than us might perceive us. In either case, we are not very significant. The key difference is in how useful we are to them. "The Others" succeeds in typical Neil Gaiman cleverness, which I discussed a little last fall. "Biscuits" is a hilarious story about how poor the state of interpersonal communication is in the West.
A note on each: (***While I am doing my best not to spoil anything here, use your discretion in reading this next section.***)
--------------
"The Egg" invites all kinds of crazy analyses. Are we to believe our main character is, for example, giving birth to himself? This can go off the deep end in any number of ways. For a story that Tavern of Tales claims takes four minutes to read, and this is about right, I feel like readers could discuss it for hours.
"They Are Made of Meat" makes me wonder what else a brain should be. The only options that immediately come to mind are some other elemental material like silicon, or computers. Silicon-based lifeforms probably should not be so dismissive of carbon-based life forms - it would be like iron looking down on copper. Computers designing themselves is an interesting concept, but would probably lead to more creation debates than we even have now. Where did the first computer come from? and so on.
"Harrison Bergeron" is saddest perhaps because the escaped Harrison never actually hurts anyone. All he does is make a list of high-handed proclamations and then dance. Sneakier is that for a world in which everyone is supposed to be average at everything, the Handicapper General staff seem quite good at what they do (designing handicaps, enforcing handicaps, shooting guns). Equality for all except those enforcing the equality must have been very topical in 1961.
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is very imaginative, but how could an Arthur C. Clarke story not be? The idea of people contributing to our own destruction, but in a sci-fi rather than environmental disaster setting, is fun.
"The Others" is funnily cruel. Neil Gaiman does well in introducing the physical torture first and then shifting it into nastier, more personal territory. Any sort of morality horror makes me think of my own life, which I hope I have lived well enough so far. One question: what happens to the man-turned-demon when he is done torturing the next person/himself? Does he convert back to a man and do everything over again? Or is there a chain of people waiting to be tortured?
"Biscuits" makes me think of why it is great there has been such an explosion in mediation services. Four biscuits on a train is something to laugh about. Litigation, not so much. In true Matthew Gordon Books fashion, I cannot complete an entry without bringing in some seemingly unrelated discipline. More to the point of "Biscuits" itself, the playing up of British stereotypes adds to the laughter. I can imagine that exact scene unfolding on that exact train. As someone who enjoys riding the train, but who also loves crunchy snacks, I think I would have spoken up.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Southern Alberta Apparently Loved Animals Yesterday
Yesterday, the CBC reported on a Parks Canada video of a grizzly bear hunting spawning salmon. Here it is, embedded for your convenience:
As if that weren't cute enough, there was also this heartwarming story about a Calgary cab driver rescuing a family of ducks. Here's a picture of the mother and her ducklings sitting patiently in the back seat in anticipation of their ride to the Bow River:
I have a soft spot for our furred and feathered friends, as past posts imply. It seems like an entire region of Canada agrees.
As if that weren't cute enough, there was also this heartwarming story about a Calgary cab driver rescuing a family of ducks. Here's a picture of the mother and her ducklings sitting patiently in the back seat in anticipation of their ride to the Bow River:
I have a soft spot for our furred and feathered friends, as past posts imply. It seems like an entire region of Canada agrees.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
June's Book: Tigana
Yes, this is June's book. This is the first time I've ever written an entry on a month's book during the previous month! This is what vacation does, I suppose. It was also a fun read, which didn't hurt.
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Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fantasy (1990 - 688 pp.)
If I were to sum up Tigana in a word, it would be "swashbuckling". It hails from the height of the D&D/Lone Wolf era of high fantasy. It is stuffed with tropes to the Fantasy Novelist's Exam's chagrin. It is derivative enough to feel familiar yet is impressively released well before other '90s high fantasy epics like Wizard's First Rule (1994) and Game of Thrones (1996). The whole thing really feels like the perfect visual stimulation to have going while listening to, say, Keeper of the Seven Keys Parts I and II.
A hyper-quick summary, for those unwilling to achieve this from reading the first hundred pages: Devin, a young singer who is our hero, is called into action by a fellow musician named Alessan. Alessan opposes Brandin of Ygrath, who has conquered half of a peninsula called the Palm. The other half is controlled by Alberico in the name of the Barbadian Empire, who has made some enemies there who, unsurprisingly, link up with our hero as well. The beautiful Catriana is an early addition to the pack, her own singing voice acting as the recruiting tool. In true fantasy fashion, they are joined by a wizard (cannot even give you a name because that is how early spoilers start in plot-driven books like this one) and an engineer (Baerd). All this occurs in a world based very accurately on Renaissance Italy with some Spanish influences, albeit with less emphasis on family plotting. There is not much more I can say without giving away twists Kay throws at the reader.
A pleasant surprise was the relatively common occurrence of plot events that left me completely surprised. Reading enough fantasy books makes one used to the tropes, so when they are subverted in novel ways, it makes the reading experience more fun. Kay is highly skilled at this. For all the familiar twists and turns fantasy books throw at their readers, there were many times when I truly felt I had not read anything much resembling this book before. A character would act in an unanticipated way, or a plot point would deviate from what seemed right, or a dynamic would turn into something oddly cerebral. The best example of the last phenomenon is in the character of Brandin of Ygrath, who is one of the more compelling fantasy villains I have read and is my favourite character in Tigana. It is too bad his character is not revealed until far into the book, as the first half or so of Tigana feels like the heroes are opposing a force that is evil simply because the reader is told that force is evil. Feeling the struggle between good and quasi-evil toward the end makes Tigana what it is.
There are a couple minor issues with the writing and editing. One is Kay's use of comma splices, which is so common I have not bothered with examples. This is most likely a writing issue considering how often it arises. Although the writing is intentionally very casual, as in the removal of the comma before the word "though", I have a difficult time writing off comma splices outside of dialogue on this basis. Another is the repeated use of certain words. This is an editing issue, as keeping track of individual word use throughout an almost 700-page tome is unsurprisingly difficult for any writer. Some of Kay's favourites in Tigana include "equanimity" and "ramshackle". At one point, the latter appears twice in four pages (532, 535), implying some very run-down surroundings.
Hopefully the massive spike in popularity A Song of Ice and Fire has faced in recent years due to the hit TV show Game of Thrones will result in books like Tigana receiving a revival in commercial and critical acclaim. Tigana, for its story and rich world-building, to say nothing of the sex and violence that dot it, would make a great choice for a movie.
Ease of Reading: 8
Educational Content: 1
NOTE: Kay was born in Saskatchewan, grew up in Winnipeg, attended the University of Toronto law school, and currently lives in Toronto. It is always nice to see Canadian talent recognized. I think the linked interview's joining of literary and legal skills is perhaps overstated, as someone who has had to use both. Kay's seeming decision to write full-time is one I envy, though.
---------------------------
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fantasy (1990 - 688 pp.)
If I were to sum up Tigana in a word, it would be "swashbuckling". It hails from the height of the D&D/Lone Wolf era of high fantasy. It is stuffed with tropes to the Fantasy Novelist's Exam's chagrin. It is derivative enough to feel familiar yet is impressively released well before other '90s high fantasy epics like Wizard's First Rule (1994) and Game of Thrones (1996). The whole thing really feels like the perfect visual stimulation to have going while listening to, say, Keeper of the Seven Keys Parts I and II.
A hyper-quick summary, for those unwilling to achieve this from reading the first hundred pages: Devin, a young singer who is our hero, is called into action by a fellow musician named Alessan. Alessan opposes Brandin of Ygrath, who has conquered half of a peninsula called the Palm. The other half is controlled by Alberico in the name of the Barbadian Empire, who has made some enemies there who, unsurprisingly, link up with our hero as well. The beautiful Catriana is an early addition to the pack, her own singing voice acting as the recruiting tool. In true fantasy fashion, they are joined by a wizard (cannot even give you a name because that is how early spoilers start in plot-driven books like this one) and an engineer (Baerd). All this occurs in a world based very accurately on Renaissance Italy with some Spanish influences, albeit with less emphasis on family plotting. There is not much more I can say without giving away twists Kay throws at the reader.
A pleasant surprise was the relatively common occurrence of plot events that left me completely surprised. Reading enough fantasy books makes one used to the tropes, so when they are subverted in novel ways, it makes the reading experience more fun. Kay is highly skilled at this. For all the familiar twists and turns fantasy books throw at their readers, there were many times when I truly felt I had not read anything much resembling this book before. A character would act in an unanticipated way, or a plot point would deviate from what seemed right, or a dynamic would turn into something oddly cerebral. The best example of the last phenomenon is in the character of Brandin of Ygrath, who is one of the more compelling fantasy villains I have read and is my favourite character in Tigana. It is too bad his character is not revealed until far into the book, as the first half or so of Tigana feels like the heroes are opposing a force that is evil simply because the reader is told that force is evil. Feeling the struggle between good and quasi-evil toward the end makes Tigana what it is.
There are a couple minor issues with the writing and editing. One is Kay's use of comma splices, which is so common I have not bothered with examples. This is most likely a writing issue considering how often it arises. Although the writing is intentionally very casual, as in the removal of the comma before the word "though", I have a difficult time writing off comma splices outside of dialogue on this basis. Another is the repeated use of certain words. This is an editing issue, as keeping track of individual word use throughout an almost 700-page tome is unsurprisingly difficult for any writer. Some of Kay's favourites in Tigana include "equanimity" and "ramshackle". At one point, the latter appears twice in four pages (532, 535), implying some very run-down surroundings.
Hopefully the massive spike in popularity A Song of Ice and Fire has faced in recent years due to the hit TV show Game of Thrones will result in books like Tigana receiving a revival in commercial and critical acclaim. Tigana, for its story and rich world-building, to say nothing of the sex and violence that dot it, would make a great choice for a movie.
Ease of Reading: 8
Educational Content: 1
NOTE: Kay was born in Saskatchewan, grew up in Winnipeg, attended the University of Toronto law school, and currently lives in Toronto. It is always nice to see Canadian talent recognized. I think the linked interview's joining of literary and legal skills is perhaps overstated, as someone who has had to use both. Kay's seeming decision to write full-time is one I envy, though.
Friday, May 22, 2015
"The" Things People Search for on Wikipedia
Yesterday, when searching hand-dandy ol' Wikipedia for one of its hundreds of thousands of articles starting with the word "The", Wikipedia's commonly searched terms decided to give me some options:
Entries starting in "The" should be relatively neutral, after all, allowing us to see what people tend to search. There's no, say, "Xip" opening leading to prehistoric mega-predator-fish Xiphactinus tainting the search results.
Apparently, people love their pop culture and Darwin. Interestingly, "Theory of evolution" was the one selected article not to begin with the word "The" itself. I can understand wanting to talk about the Beatles. I haven't even bothered reading "The intersection of Clinton & Fidelity", which for humour's sake* I hope is an intersection of streets.
Note also the featured article on rodents. Cute. If I knew a Laura, I'd try to celebrate the supercontinent of Laurasia with her.
*You see what I'm referencing here. Yes, you do. Don't act like you don't.
Entries starting in "The" should be relatively neutral, after all, allowing us to see what people tend to search. There's no, say, "Xip" opening leading to prehistoric mega-predator-fish Xiphactinus tainting the search results.
Apparently, people love their pop culture and Darwin. Interestingly, "Theory of evolution" was the one selected article not to begin with the word "The" itself. I can understand wanting to talk about the Beatles. I haven't even bothered reading "The intersection of Clinton & Fidelity", which for humour's sake* I hope is an intersection of streets.
Note also the featured article on rodents. Cute. If I knew a Laura, I'd try to celebrate the supercontinent of Laurasia with her.
*You see what I'm referencing here. Yes, you do. Don't act like you don't.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
May's Book: The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Literature (1895 - 336 pp.)
Continuing my tradition of Victorian and natural world-inspired fiction, I come across a story that is simultaneously one of the most familiar yet unfamiliar to audiences my age up to about my parents' age. The Jungle Book, for all its notoriety in popular culture, is a quite possibly misunderstood collection of short stories that span the globe. Most are set in Rudyard Kipling's native India, and most of those contain all our favourite characters (Mowgli, Bagheera, Baloo, Shere Khan, et al.) but that is simply most of the most, not nearly all.
Anyone familiar with the 1967 Disney movie would barely recognize this book, to the point that I think the filmmakers should have started from scratch instead of appropriating an existing book. A particularly flagrant example is in the relationship between Bagheera and Kaa, the python. In the movie, Bagheera rescues Mowgli from Kaa. In the book, Bagheera and Kaa are friends. Akela, the leader of the wolf pack, also barely appears in the movie, and is a crucial figure in the book. More examples abound but would unfortunately be spoilers. Suffice to say that the central theme of the Law of the Jungle, in which the predators align themselves in a hierarchy based on military control, is probably not what the writers of "Bare Necessities" had in mind.
The core stories concern everything from Mowgli's adoption by the wolves ("Mowgli's Brothers"), to demonstrations of Kaa's power ("Kaa's Hunting", "The King's Ankus"), to the battle with Shere Khan ("Tiger! Tiger!"), to vengeance against man ("Letting in the Jungle"), to an attack by dholes ("Red Dog"). "How Fear Came" is an exercise in jungle history, narrated by Hathi the elephant. The world Kipling creates is one in which talking animals frequently go into expositions on the nature and laws of the jungle, which are interspersed with fight scenes. Mowgli is not a particularly nice character, as he often taunts creatures, but the animals are generally good at keeping him in line. Whether Mowgli's claimed superiority in light of Bagheera, Kaa and Akela watching over him is a commentary on human attitudes toward nature, I will leave to academia to debate.
The non-core stories occur around the globe. One of my favourites is the first non-core story to appear, "The White Seal", about a brave young seal who searches for a new home for his clan/tribe/group/pack. "The Undertakers", about a jackal, heron and crocodile trio having a conversation on the nature of man, has a dark sense of humour to it. "Toomai of the Elephants" was the only story I did not like - it utterly lacks action, consisting of 20 pages of a boy watching elephants dance. A pleasant surprise was "Quiquern", the only story set in Canada. Kipling's knowledge of Arctic geography is impressive, and the canine characters he creates are effective stand-ins for friendship in an unforgiving north.
The edition I read has some very helpful footnotes, mostly on points like geographical references and nomenclature. Although Kipling makes up some names, Mowgli and Kaa being the main ones, most characters are named after their species or some trait they possess. For example, Bagheera is a South Indian word literally meaning "panther", and Shere Khan is Hindi for "sovereign cat".
At the end, editor Arthur Pober includes a short list of questions useful for anyone teaching The Jungle Book to an elementary school class. The questions are far simpler than the ones I pondered while reading, such as how the book comments on human-animal or British-Indian relations, but they appear like the sorts of things one would ask an introductory reader. Whether I would expose young children to a book in which characters frequently cut each others' throats out is another matter but hey, it has less gore than White Fang.
Ease of Reading: 8
Educational Content: 4
Literature (1895 - 336 pp.)
Continuing my tradition of Victorian and natural world-inspired fiction, I come across a story that is simultaneously one of the most familiar yet unfamiliar to audiences my age up to about my parents' age. The Jungle Book, for all its notoriety in popular culture, is a quite possibly misunderstood collection of short stories that span the globe. Most are set in Rudyard Kipling's native India, and most of those contain all our favourite characters (Mowgli, Bagheera, Baloo, Shere Khan, et al.) but that is simply most of the most, not nearly all.
Anyone familiar with the 1967 Disney movie would barely recognize this book, to the point that I think the filmmakers should have started from scratch instead of appropriating an existing book. A particularly flagrant example is in the relationship between Bagheera and Kaa, the python. In the movie, Bagheera rescues Mowgli from Kaa. In the book, Bagheera and Kaa are friends. Akela, the leader of the wolf pack, also barely appears in the movie, and is a crucial figure in the book. More examples abound but would unfortunately be spoilers. Suffice to say that the central theme of the Law of the Jungle, in which the predators align themselves in a hierarchy based on military control, is probably not what the writers of "Bare Necessities" had in mind.
The core stories concern everything from Mowgli's adoption by the wolves ("Mowgli's Brothers"), to demonstrations of Kaa's power ("Kaa's Hunting", "The King's Ankus"), to the battle with Shere Khan ("Tiger! Tiger!"), to vengeance against man ("Letting in the Jungle"), to an attack by dholes ("Red Dog"). "How Fear Came" is an exercise in jungle history, narrated by Hathi the elephant. The world Kipling creates is one in which talking animals frequently go into expositions on the nature and laws of the jungle, which are interspersed with fight scenes. Mowgli is not a particularly nice character, as he often taunts creatures, but the animals are generally good at keeping him in line. Whether Mowgli's claimed superiority in light of Bagheera, Kaa and Akela watching over him is a commentary on human attitudes toward nature, I will leave to academia to debate.
The non-core stories occur around the globe. One of my favourites is the first non-core story to appear, "The White Seal", about a brave young seal who searches for a new home for his clan/tribe/group/pack. "The Undertakers", about a jackal, heron and crocodile trio having a conversation on the nature of man, has a dark sense of humour to it. "Toomai of the Elephants" was the only story I did not like - it utterly lacks action, consisting of 20 pages of a boy watching elephants dance. A pleasant surprise was "Quiquern", the only story set in Canada. Kipling's knowledge of Arctic geography is impressive, and the canine characters he creates are effective stand-ins for friendship in an unforgiving north.
The edition I read has some very helpful footnotes, mostly on points like geographical references and nomenclature. Although Kipling makes up some names, Mowgli and Kaa being the main ones, most characters are named after their species or some trait they possess. For example, Bagheera is a South Indian word literally meaning "panther", and Shere Khan is Hindi for "sovereign cat".
At the end, editor Arthur Pober includes a short list of questions useful for anyone teaching The Jungle Book to an elementary school class. The questions are far simpler than the ones I pondered while reading, such as how the book comments on human-animal or British-Indian relations, but they appear like the sorts of things one would ask an introductory reader. Whether I would expose young children to a book in which characters frequently cut each others' throats out is another matter but hey, it has less gore than White Fang.
Ease of Reading: 8
Educational Content: 4
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Life Experiences in College, as Someone Asked Me on Quora
Someone anonymous just asked me this great question on Quora: Which experiences should I have while I'm at college that I will never regret and remember for the rest of my life? As someone who's always trying to make the most of things, and who loves academia to death, this really appealed to me.
My main points in my answer were:
The rest of the answer is linked at the top of this post.
My main points in my answer were:
- Take courses that give transferable skills you can't necessarily pick up in the workplace.
- Get to know your professors.
- Be willing to live with random unknown roommates.
- Travel.
- Think beyond.
The rest of the answer is linked at the top of this post.
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