Bought this book by German author Phillip Schönthaler (1976) last February in Switzerland, after already considering it while in Berlin the October before, on paper. The narrator (which is the author) explores various scientists around the development of rockets, atom bombs, and computing, and their connection to fiction writing. This was published in 2024, and it reminds me a lot of Benjamin Labatut‘s The MANIAC and When We Cease to Understand the World, from 2023, and 2020 respectively, which I read August last year. As a result I’m left wondering if I really enjoyed this or not, or that I was just reading the German language version of a familiar story. I also bought some of this author’s non-fiction to explore.
Tag: science
ARC by Richard Osinga
A Dutch novel about memory. It takes the notion that the ARC gene is connected to brain plasticity and has virus-like properties, and turns it into not just an old retrovirus that gave us memory, but also a still existing virus that can carry information and memories between organisms. A US neuroscientist goes to India and gains insight, and ends up in Amsterdam in a coma. Very enjoyable book. The contour of Osinga’s fascination with the idea and topic stood out to me throughout most of the book, making me an observer of the story rather than being ‘in it’, but the ending made up well for it.