Mirrored Mind: My Life in Letters and Code
Ratings3
Average rating2.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating2.7
Vikram Chandra has been a computer programmer for almost as long as he has been a novelist. In this extraordinary book he returns to his early days as a writer, when he was beginning Red Earth and Pouring Rain, and looks at the connections between these two worlds of art and technology. Coders are obsessed with elegance and style just as writers are but do the words mean the same thing to both? And is it a coincidence that Chandra is drawn to two seemingly opposing ways of thinking? To answer his questions, Chandra delves into the writings of Abhinavagupta, the tenth- and eleventh-century Kashmiri thinker, and creates an idiosyncratic history of coding. Part literary theory, part tech story and part memoir, Mirrored Mind is a book of sweeping ideas. It is a heady and utterly original work.
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I just had to look again at the book's cover and the blurbs to question where I was lead astray to think that I'd enjoy this book. Nothing indicates that about half of it would be about the linguistics of Sanskrit and Indian poetry. It started out well, with the author's personal history and his musings about coding and writing literature, and then followed with ok chapters borrowing (but citing) from Charles Petzold's [b:Code 44882 Code The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software Charles Petzold https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328830222l/44882.SX50.jpg 44204] and Cordelia Fine's [b:Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference 8031168 Delusions of Gender How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference Cordelia Fine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348833681l/8031168.SY75.jpg 12635310]. The in-depth chapter on Sanskrit was still interesting even when too long, as it drew comparisons between the rigid rule-system of the language to programming languages. But somehow the book then diverged into the author's wish to recreate the language and narrative structure of old Indian poetry, giving us an academic overview and listing way too many poems. Also, the balance and connection between chapters felt off. About halfway in I allowed myself to skim pages and to even skip chapters.
