Saturday, May 28, 2022
Review: Silent Parade- a whodunit after a long time
This review does not contain spoilers
Thanks to a recommendation of C, in our book reading group, I finished reading Silent Parade by Keigo Hagashino. The book stars 'Detective Galileo'- a detective outside of the police force who has a full time other vocation (Physics research) but from time to time steps in to help out the Best of Tokyo with his perspicacity.
Evaluating it from a whodunit genre, it was a good read. The plot was replete with twists and turns. However, I think I am currently not in a state of mind to really cling on to the handle as a whodunit train goes through these curves, and fell off the train once or twice. I think it's entirely my own current state of mind- and nothing to do with the book itself. However, there is one genuine gripe with the book I have- I felt that some of the smoothness in the writing was lost in the translation, and the writing at times felt a bit staggered.
I am reading a whodunit after a long, long time. Maybe more than a decade. I have not watched a single 'detective' show, either, in the past decade. Yes, none of Grey's Anatomy, True Detective, Dexter, and so on. So coming from that perspective, I felt that in this book, the crime felt real. Given the nature of crime, stalking of an 'attractive' woman and subsequent violence (that is not a spoiler), such a crime and such a criminal could be lurking about in any big city. It was somewhat perturbing. This did not feel like an Agathe Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, in which the extinguishing of life through violent crime, and the concomitant impact it had on the society around, was dealt with in passing interest and the true spotlight or focus was always on the detective's idiosyncrasies and progress of the plot. However, Crime thrillers are such a popular genre of book and tv-show, I suppose the regular consumer of this content is quite comfortable with such crimes being depicted in the book or telly show. To me, it served as some sort of a wake up call , that violent crime can be quite closeby, and has made me increase my vigilance level.
The book does doff a hat to the legendary whodunits of yesteryear, such as famous capers from Agatha Christies and of Sherlock Holme's, even referring to them at times . For example, one section of the book starts with this quote:
"It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" - Arthur Conan Doyle, in A Scandal in Bohemia.
On a side note: The above deductive approach from the master (fictional) detective, Sherlock Holmes, is at odds with what is preached in Consulting. Consulting is explicit about being Hypothesis driven, and then searching for data to confirm or deny the hypothesis. During my times in Consulting, I did think that there is something to be said for the opposite approach too. Well, I should have remembered this quote from the famous short story, and deployed it at an appropriate moment. In fact, my best 'deduction' in Consulting, came from employing such an approach. When I ended up reading an entire public policy book, just to get an idea of the lay of the land. One of the ideas in there was one of the key planks of the solution we proposed to the client, with which they were happy.
The book interestingly depicts the societal interactions of Japanese suburbia. Pinball, music, video game parlours, parades, etc make an appearance. So it's also a decent peek into Japanese culture.
Keigo Hagashino is a prolific Whodunit author. His first book, 'Devotion of Suspect X', is supposed to be the inspiration for the Indian movie thriller 'Dhrushyam', which was originally a Malayalam movie and then made into 4 other Indian languages. So, if you ever feel like a Whodunit, do leaf through the works of Hagashino San.
Labels: Books
Atomic Habits- arrived late but wrote the review
Note: this does not contain spoilers
Even if I arrived at it a few years after it become such a big bestseller, atleast I arrived! And it's not too late, after all. It's not like I'm reading Moby Dick in 2022 (which I have not read. When I review that book, I will not give myself redemption points this way) I picked up this book because it was talked about highly by Morgan Housel, author of the current hot cake book Psychology of Money, when he appeared on an episode of The Time Ferris show.
I enjoyed the book. It starts off with powerfully establishing the importance of habits - how the most daunting of endeavors can be eased by a portfolio of good habits. The author James Clear then sets about deconstructing the steps of a habit - Cue, Craving, Reward and Response, and dives deep into each step. He talks about how to better our performance on each step for a good habit, and weaken each step for a habit. That's the structure- pretty 'Clear'.
The anecdotes and examples are numerous and powerful, as you'd expect at a time when prolific behavioural economists / psychologists such as Daniel Kahnemann are creating a wave in the Academic circles with all their research. Interestingly, only the Polgar sisters example is a repeat from what I remember to have read earlier (from Outliers by Gladwell) . I don't remember having read elsewhere some of the other anecdotes and examples, despite me being a fairly regular consumer of books in this genre (eg: Outliers, Blink, Give and Take). Also, his examples go back into the 19th century and include quotes and poems by literary figures, so the examples are not all new-age computer aided behavioural science experiments.
The tips are pretty practical and actionable. In fact, this very book review I got myself to get started on because of a point made in the book. The point being: In order to create a craving for a good habit, the book suggests to reprogram your brain to view the hard activity from a different perspective- from the perspective of the benefit that it gives you. So I wrote, regarding Book reviews: Writing a review is a way to once again enjoy the book by reliving the best parts. Sharing it enables me to further savor the book in the company of others. Writing a review also helps me cement my understanding of life, because every book after all provides a different perspective on life.
Voila- that's a review on reviews- how Meta.
Some parts of the book though do feel repetitive. His 4 steps are not mutually exclusive , because one of the actionables in the Reward Step is repeated from the Cue step (priming the environment). However, in my second reading, some subtle differences did become clear for this particular example. Then there's an actionable in the Craving that shows up earlier in the Cue (Cue asks you to stick new habit after exiting habit while Craving asks you to stick new habit before existing habit or reward). Then again, maybe the book is just faithful to itself by repeating itself (even if with a slightly different perspective) : after all, the book itself claims that the repetitions are important for habits to stick.
Yet another meta point!
The book clearly brings out some obvious but important points. For example it says at one point- 'the cost of good habits is in the present but the cost of bad habits is in the future'. And that although our logical mind knows this, the 'instant gratification monkey' (as WaitButWhy blog describes it), tends to overrule the logical mind. I would also say that the similar aspect applies for rewards- Rewards of good habits are in the future while reward of bad habits are now. The concept of 'discounting' - the classic underlying principle of modern economics (Rs 1 now is worth more than Rs 1 later), applies behaviorally too, and maybe the discount rate is really high in this realm. And that's where the aspect of rewarding yourself with some instant gratification for performing a good habit, or liking the boredom of repetition, as the book suggests, come in. Here's a nice article on the power of routines: link
Sidenote- I personally liked how his praises the habit of Journalling are scattered across the book. Now Journalling is a habit I admire though I haven't regularly cultivated. So, in three different places he has mentioned three different positives of journaling: makes you creative, makes you think clearly, and makes you a writer (though of course the last example is about writing 'a page' and not necessarily a journal, but I take creative license to interpret)
Labels: Books
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