Smithology

I’m honoured to have been tagged by Mark Lawrence (a published author with positive press reviews) to participate in the Three True Things meme.

The rule is to post three true things you’ve read recently that are from fiction. Here are mine from recent memory:

The first is from Ozma of Oz which I think is truth on the nature of hypocrisy:

‘... it must be a great misfortune not to be alive. I’m sorry for you.’

‘Why?’ asked Tik-Tok.

‘Because you have no brains, as I have,’ said the Scarecrow.

‘Oh, yes, I have’, returned Tik-Tok. ‘I am fitted with Smith & Tin-ker’s Improved Com-bi-na-tion Steel Brains. They are what make me think. What sort of brains are you fit-ted with?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted the Scarecrow. ‘They were given to me by the great Wizard of Oz, and I didn’t get a chance to examine them before he put them in. But they work splendidly and my conscience is very active. Have you a conscience?’

‘No,’ said Tik-Tok.

‘And no heart, I suppose?’ added the Tim Woodman, who had been listening with interest to the conversation.

‘No,’ said Tik-Tok.

‘Then,’ continued the Tim Woodman, ‘I regret to say that you are greatly inferior to my friend the Scarecrow and to myself. For we are both alive, and he has brains that do not need to be wound up, while I have an excellent heart that is continually beating in my bosom.’

‘I con-grat-u-late you,’ replied Tik-Tok.

The joke is of course that neither the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodman have real brains or a heart so their claims to superiority are baseless (the Scarecrow’s head is fitted with a handful of needles and the Tin Woodman has a heart shaped silk pillow in his chest).

My second truth comes from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age.

“...there is an ineffable quality to some technology, described by its creators as concinnitous, or technically sweet, or a nice hack—signs that it was made with great care by one who was not merely motivated but inspired

And another from The Diamond Age because I am a goldfish and can’t remember anything except from only the most recent book I’ve read.

“To the other girls, the wall is a decorative feature, no? A pretty thing to run to and explore. But not to Nell. Nell knows what a wall is. It is a knowledge that went into her early, knowledge she doesn’t have to think about. Nell is more interested in gates than in walls. Secret hidden gates are particularly interesting,”

If I had a lot of time, I’d think harder and come up with better quotes because there really are plenty, especially in Stephenson but in all great sci-fi that is written, as William Gibson says, about the here-and-now: disguised to make us look at it afresh.

I tag Circulating Library and Goddard’s Letterboxes because they’re the only two blogs I follow that admit to ever having read a book.

blogging, books, neal stephenson, the diamond age, wizard of oz