Great Beginnings Book Club discussion

Hurray for a second month with Great Beginnings on Goodreads! Persistence is an adequate test for quality, right?

This month's book was Sourdough by Robin Sloan. Although it is a more whimsical and light-hearted book than some of our recent selections, there are some ideas that merit a closer look. Sloan has built a reputation for writing books about obsessives and fanatics - about people who tirelessly devote themselves to a single (and largely niche) interest. In Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore that obsession was books. (Books about books are an easy shortcut to a librarian's affection.) Sourdough is, clearly enough, about bread. It is a tricky balancing act to write a book that hinges exclusively on a rare and unusual passion. Delve too deeply into the subject, and readers who do not share that obsession may find themselves wearied by someone too caught up in their own interests and cleverness. Remain too distant, however, and the substance of the novel recedes into vapor. Not everyone can (or should) subsist on sourdough alone.

I am happy to conclude, however, that Sourdough provides enough ideas, substance, and enjoyment beyond its central conceit. Let's talk about it.

1. Much of the novel's early satire is of tech start-up culture and life in San Francisco. Lois is constantly anxious and unhappy with the demands of her work for the robotics firm General Dexterity. Is the culture of such a tech start-up inherently punishing and unsustainable? Alternatively, is Lois suffering from a more personal sense of displacement and loneliness when she moves away from her family to take this new job? What do you think of the irony that General Dexterity is working so hard to "remake the conditions of human labor" and thus, optimistically, to reduce the amount of work that people need to perform?

"The programmers at General Dexterity were utterly unlike my colleagues at Crowley, who had been middle-aged and chilled-out, and who enjoyed nothing as much as a patient explanation. The Dextrous were in no way patient. Many of them were college dropouts; they had been in a hurry to get here, and they were in a hurry now to be done, and rich. They were almost entirely young men, bony and cold-eyed, wraiths in Japanese denim and limited-edition sneakers. They started late in the morning, then worked past midnight. They slept at the office." [From Chapter - Number One Eater]

2. After a series of unlikely coincidences and bizarre misadventures, Lois finds herself in possession of the Clement Street sourdough starter, working with the chefs/mad scientists of the Marrow Fair, and convincing General Dexterity that she can better solve the problem of robots cracking eggs by spending part of her time as a baker. And she succeeds! The solution to the egg problem is a module of code called "Confidence" that works through simplicity, not complexity. It is the human capacity for elegant holism – performing a task without thinking of each separate subtask and motion, not exhaustively declaring and following instructions – that produces success. Is this scenario an accurate depiction of an advantage that humans have over computers? Are there some tasks that computers will never be able to perform? What other activities benefit from this sense of "Confidence"?

"I had solved the egg problem, and I had done so in the simplest way possible: not by adding code, but by taking it away. During the blink, the Vitruvian was no longer caught in a wash of continuous feedback. It was no longer second guessing its second guesses a thousand times every second." [From Chapter - The Egg Problem]

3. We spent a lot of time during our December 10 meeting talking about automation and technology in general. Some people even mentioned Andrew Yang - an entrepreneur running in the Democratic primary to be their 2020 presidential nominee - who argues that automation is the single greatest challenge to Americans' economic security and that some form of Universal Basic Income program is necessary to support people whose jobs have been automated away. Where have you encountered automation in your own life? How is our current situation similar to and different from the Industrial Revolution and assembly line styles of automation? Is any kind of job "safe" from automation? Do people need to work as an end in itself rather than as a mere means of supporting themselves and their families?

"'I'm sure you like your work here,' Kate said. 'I have no idea what you do. No, please don't try to explain it. But I feel like I have to tell you, for what it's worth ... feeding people is really freakin' great. There's nothing better.'" [From Chapter - A Catalog of Phenomena]

4. Stephen Agrippa, the cheese maker and goat herder for the Marrow Fair, has an ... interesting perspective on bacteria. He views them as truly alive, organized into communities and societies on a vast scale, and fighting each other for preeminence. Setting all of his fantastical embellishments aside, Agrippa’s ideas about the scope and importance of bacteria are persuasive. We hear with – increasing frequency – about the importance of the human microbiome and the role that bacteria plays in diverse and essential biological and environmental processes. What do you think of the idea that extremely complex and influential actions are occurring over a scale and time frame that humans cannot readily appreciate? Bacteria are extremely small and interact over a relatively short time span, but we can think of examples from the other side of the spectrum just a readily. Trees are extremely long lived compared to humans while geological features like mountains and oceans are bigger than we can truly appreciate. In fact, this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner was Richard Powers’s The Overstory , a novel about history through the eyes of trees. How does our decision making change when we shift our time horizons?

“‘In that cave, empires are rising and falling. There are battles under way. Wars. More soldiers on both sides than in all the wars of human history combined. And they are struggling. They are taking territory, making it safe. Building fortresses.’ He lifted the wheel he’d chosen out of his basket and hefted it. ‘There is a saga in here to put our whole history to shame.’ His eyes were a little defocused now, lost in the grandeur of his rant. ‘In every wheel of cheese, there’s revolution, alliance, betrayal … Can you feel it?’” [From Chapter – Agrippa]

Feel free to answer any, all, or bring up your own questions.