Customer Reviews

Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been a fan of the wonderful Raymond Smullyan for over 20 years, since "What is the Name of This Book?", and I was glad to find that this book is indeed more than a simple compendium of Smullyan's previous books (though, honestly, not all THAT much more than that). My first pleasant surprise was seeing that this book was published by Thinkers' Press, a noted chess book publisher (I am very partial to chess). Sadly, though, there were none of Smullyan's excellent retrograde analysis chess problems in this book (except for the ones on the pictured covers of his other books "Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes" and "Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights"), and this book implied that Smullyan hadn't created any such problems since the 1950s. (Smullyan's last puzzle book, "The Riddle of Scheherazade", was rather a let-down on this score too since it had a chess diagram on its cover but no chess problems inside!)

I was also disappointed to read in this autobiographical work simply that he was born "in 1919" without a birthdate. Ever since "WitNoTB?", when Smullyan joked that he did not believe in astrology because he was a Gemini, I've been wondering when his birthday was since I too am a Gemini and I would be proud if our birthdays coincided!

And I was disappointed that Smullyan repeated a lack of rigor that he had made in "WitNoTB?" on the problem of what happens if an irresistible cannonball hits an immovable post. His answer, then and now, is that it is logically impossible for the two to exist in the same universe (the former is defined as a cannonball that knocks over everything it hits and the latter is defined as a post that is not knocked over by anything that hits it). Well, it's true that it is logically impossible for the former to hit the latter, but it hardly follows that it is logically impossible for both to exist in the same universe! It is perfectly possible for both to exist side-by-side in the same universe, just as long as the former never actually hits the latter. Indeed, in our very own real-life universe, there are plenty of both irresistible cannonballs (every cannonball that never hits anything at all, or knocks down what it does hit) and immovable posts (every post that is never hit by anything, or is not knocked down by what does hit it).

And finally, I was bothered by Smullyan's characterization of atheism as blind and static while religions have vision (albeit very distorted) and are dynamically growing toward the truth. Then, in the very next paragraph, Smullyan states that his favorite philosophical view along these lines is Cosmic Consciousness (that certain humans have evolved or developed great spiritual harmony and ability to directly see the truth and beauty in the cosmos), an atheistic philosophy (or at least one not inconsistent with atheism)! (The only example Smullyan gives in this book of someone who actually had Cosmic Consciousness (he elaborates on this in his latest book "Who Knows?") is Walt Whitman. It is interesting to contrast Smullyan's praise of Whitman's Cosmic Consciousness with Isaac Asimov's essay "Science and Beauty", reprinted in Smullyan's friend Martin Gardner's book "The Sacred Beetle and other Great Essays in Science", which chides Whitman for his disdain for the science of the "learn'd astronomer" that discovered vastly more truth and beauty in the Cosmos than Whitman was ever Conscious of.) So, would Smullyan state that an atheist who believes in Cosmic Consciousness is blind? What about an atheist who actually HAS Cosmic Consciousness? Actually, my characterization would be the exact opposite of Smullyan's: it is the religions that are static dead-ends, while it is atheism and science that have vision and are dynamically growing toward the truth! But I can live that discrepancy, since I guess it all depends on what kind of "truth" you are interested in (spiritual serenity and awareness or factual knowledge and awareness).

Don't get me wrong -- overall my impression of this book was quite positive (I hope Smullyan was at least a little bit embarrassed by the cheesy cover, though!), and Smullyan is a towering intellect who could poke a lot more holes in my logical thinking than I could ever quibble in his! The encomiums by other authors didn't add all that much to the book (though I quite liked Douglas R. Hofstadter's, as I am a fan of his as well). If you like Smullyan, or like thinking about mathemetical logic, I would definitely recommend this book.

Smullyan is a very likeable character and that shows in this collection of random thoughts/bits/incidents/jokes/etc. from his life. But it's not an autobiography; there are too many gaps and missing details, as well as a general disorganized approach. More than anything, Smullyan needed a strong editor to ask the important questions, organize the material, and help turn his memories into his life's story. So 3 stars, and if you want to get a better sense for what Smullyan is like, watch the movie "This Film Needs No Title" by Tao Ruspoli.

I read "What is the Name of This Book?" when I was thirteen, since then I have bought several of Smullyan's books, and every time I have fun reading his works. However this book is, as for originality, not up to my expectations.
As "rambly" account of Memories it is enjoyable but, as puzzle collection, suffers, honestly, a little excessive reintroduction to his main themes.
I would particularly recommend this book to every logic puzzles fan that doesn't know Smullyan yet

I hadn't read any Smullyan books for a decade or more, so this book was an enjoyable reintroduction to his various themes and ideas. It's short and sweet, and I found it interesting to learn a bit more about his varied background. The weak bits: he likes to drop names and tell us how well-educated and talented people admire him in various ways (especially his piano playing); he presents a few too many "this sentence is false" type paradoxes. Otherwise, it's a pleasant little volume, with some of the better puzzles he's created sprinkled throughout. Oddly enough, the thing I most enjoyed were some of the jokes he tells, as they were fun to retell to my boys.

Ignore the hideous cover. While this isn't a great book, it is an enjoyable one, tracing the unusual path that Professor Smullyan has taken through his entire life, and not least to earning a PhD and becoming a professor. The talk about his musical prowess does get a bit egomaniacal, but, apart from that, this book is simply great fun to read. Professor Smullyan's playfulness and ability to laugh at himself (an ability that I greatly value) shine through on almost every page, sometimes in the form of jokes (some good, some terrible), sometimes just in the narration of events in his life.

Many years ago I got fascinated with Smullyan's "What is the name of this book?", and since, have been buying most of the Smullian's books. It turned out however that all those books have been strikingly similar (with the only exception of "5,000 BC"). All the same logical paradoxes, jokes, and anectodic accounts from the Smullyan's life, which you do not perceive as funny after you read them again and again. This book beats all the previous Smullyian's records on repeating the old jokes and puzzles from his own earlier books, or even older folklore jokes. The only new "original" content here is Smullyan's unending boasting of how talented he is as a musician and magician, and how high other people think of him. I find this narcissism particularly distasteful (although the author himself modestly calls it "honest"). It would be much better for the humanity if, instead of publishing this tasteless compendium, they reissued his marvelous "What is the name of this book?" and "5,000 B.C. and other philosophical fantasies", which are long out of print.

A nebulous title and hallucinogenic dust jacket set the mood for what is an unpleasant journey through the muddled (if brilliant) mind of octogenarian mathemagician Raymond Smullyan.

Getting through this book was slow and painful. It was several months--was it years?--of try-again-no-put-it-back-down progress. This from someone who has enjoyed several of Smullyan's other books and has at least a tangential interest in some of his fields of study. But an interesting life does not (necessarily) an interesting book make. Like many people with oversize egos, Ray thinks he is hilarious. Sometimes, his stories are funny^. Sometimes--oftentimes--he sounds like that crazy old uncle who had too much Manischewitz before dinner.

The book is true to its title: the content does evidence *some* interesting memories. Unfortunately, the rest is uninteresting or at least unrelated to whatever the topic of conversation might have been. Worse still, many anecdotes are recycled from previous books. Thinkers' Press is known for their unique (though not always universally marketable) lineup of chess literature. But in my opinion they are not known for consistently readable prose. Some titles from this publisher exhibit tight writing. I think it must depend on the author. In this case, a team of editors was needed to stanch the streams of consciousness and self-congratulation. This autobiography is hagiography. Essentially, this book is a long list of testimonials from Ray's famous friends. He is honest in his bluster but that makes it no more bearable: "[A]ren't you readers shocked at this point by my lack of modesty in relating all these good things about myself?"

Approximately two dozen logic puzzles are scattered throughout the book, but it's not worth sifting through the chaff. Better to pick up one of Smullyan's niche books. For me, the most enjoyable is always going to be The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. (New edition coming out in early 2012.) For the non-chess puzzle solvers out there, The Riddle of Scheherazade is good choice.

^ Here's one of the funnies:

A typical feature of jokes about Vermonters is that when you ask one of them a question, the answer given is accurate but insufficient--he doesn't tell you enough. [T]here is the story of a farmer who visited his neighbor farmer and asked: "Lem, what did you give your horse that time he had colic?" Lem replied, "Bran and molasses." A week later, the farmer returned to Lem and said, "I gave my horse bran and molasses, and it died!" Lem replied, "So did mine."

I'm personally indebted to Ray, but I can't imagine a reader who wouldn't be fascinated by this uniquely talented man's reports of events in his life. Magician (he loved to entertain children). Musician (Nzdia Boulanger called him "a natural-born musician"). Mathematician (readers of this review already knew that -- here you're challenged by 32 more clever logic puzzles). This 159-page book is larded with jokes (for family reasons, I especially like the Vermont jokes on page 39). In Part III, eight friends write about Ray. They include Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, and Leon Kirchner !