Tag: 100bookschallenge

We don’t value tinkering as much, but that’s what makes the world great

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

Review of The Tinkerers: The Amateurs, DIYers, and Inventors Who Make America Great by Alec Foege 

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The inventions of the late 19th and early 20th century that define our modern life were the result of America’s tinkering spirit, claims Alec Foege, an American journalist in his book “The Tinkerers”. That tinkering gave us airplanes, telephones, alternating current, light bulbs and air-conditioners.

America’s founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, themselves inventors and scientists, infused this sense of tinkering right at the birth of the nation. But that can-do spirit has been replaced by hopelessness today. The stories of Alexander Bell and Thomas Edison made them heroes. But the mid-20th century needed more than one genius.

That pioneering need gave birth to innovative hubs like the Bell Labs, which invented semiconductor devices, or Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre, which built the first computer that used a mouse-based graphic interface. What made them special was that in these centres researchers were given a problem, plenty of resources and left alone to come up with a solution. Curiosity drove research rather than commercialisation. Karlheinz Bradenburg, the co-inventor of MP3 and a former Bell Labs employee, says: “It was like a university with famous professors, but no students”.

Foege argues that American culture is now focussed on efficiency and conformity rather than innovation. With the exception of Google and a handful of other firms, few companies embrace the spirit of tinkering.

But the tides are changing. The rise of the Internet has enabled these tinkerers to come together in larger numbers than ever before. The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement is America is larger than anywhere in the world, and it is growing rapidly. Make magazine, which started in 2005 with a focus on DIY projects, has over 125,000 subscribers today, and runs the hugely popular Maker Faire in many cities in America. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter are enabling tinkerers to raise money from the public to support their innovative projects. There is even a Tinkering School that involves children to work on DIY projects over summer camps.

It will take time for new initiatives to show any change. In a 2012 survey of the most innovative countries of the world, America came tenth. And perhaps by limiting himself to America—and this is the only criticism of an otherwise well-written book—Foege has missed out on making an even stronger case for the spirit of tinkering. Nevertheless the stories of dabblers and hobbyists, of immigrants and natives, of dilettantes and experts, all living to pursue one dream makes for an engaging, entertaining and inspiring read.

Image credit: TODOIT

On reading books

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

Francis Bacon’s words on reading books are worth memorising:

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Of course, now the question is which book should fall in which category?

Personal metamorphosis

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

Review of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

“Sir,” said a letter to Kafka in the last few years of his life, “You have made me unhappy. I bought your ‘Metamorphosis’ as a present for my cousin, but she doesn’t know what to make of the story.”

Having finished Kafka’s legendary story, which has “inspired countless stage adaptations and doctoral theses and scores of subsequent writers”, I can share the frustration of the cousin. This story of Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who one day wakes up to find he has become a giant bug, has a simple plot but is hard to make sense of without the right metaphors.

After shaking off the possibility that he is in a dream, Gregor does his best to fit in society that he was once part of. But as the story progresses, his attempts bear no fruit in a household which is finding it difficult to sustain their earlier lifestyle after losing the sole breadwinner. At the end, after enduring the growing distance from a family he still loves and feeling useless, Gregor dies of depression and self-inflicted harm.

Despite the dark plot, Kafka, through simple words and short sentences, keeps the mood cheerful almost all through, with comical interludes and many happy moments. Of the many analogies people draw to understand Gregor’s metamorphosis, this one convinces me the most:

The reasons behind Gregor’s transformation are not all that complicated. Kafka declines to spell out the specific reasons but still makes it clear that Gregor (and by extension, all the other Gregors in the world) had allowed himself to become a powerless insect long before actually physically turning into one. As someone who has selflessly sacrificed whatever independence he may have had to support his uncaring parents and their attempts to live an “upper class” life without actually having to suffer for it, Gregor has already willingly given up all the unique traits that make one a human.

The bit of the story that really gets me, though, comes right at the end, where, after the death of Gregor with whom the family still seems to have some attachment, they go on a drive and start thinking about what a “voluptuous” woman Gregor’s sister has become and how they would like to find him an upper class husband. And the fact that that end seems so out of place, forces readers to reanalyse what Kafka had in mind about Gregor’s metamorphosis.

Hat-tip to Emma Hogan, whose brilliant review of Kafka’s biography made me pick up this book.