When Haoran Chen immigrated to the United States from China in the early 2000s, the then-preteen grappled with the challenges of cultural assimilation and exploring his own gender identity. It wasn't until he stumbled upon the mesmerizing lyrics of Sammi Cheng's "Shocking Pink" that the transformative power of Cantopop revealed itself. The vibrant celebration of individuality in the lyrics resonated deeply with Chen's journey of self-discovery.
"Don't worry about being in the darkness / You are the brightest pink in the night / Even if you are different from the crowd, try your best to shine,” the lyrics write. Written by well-known lyricist Wyman Wong, an LGBTQ+ activist, the song became a lifeline for Chen navigating doubt and uncertainty about his identity and sexuality in his new home.
A dining infrastructure with universal omakase would make us all better, more well-rounded eaters, and I’m sure our chefs would be relieved to simply cook what’s good rather than churning out the same uninspired popular dishes over and over again.
This novel is equally delicate, intellectually and emotionally, and equally bold in its formal arrangement.
Consider the foregoing points of data as raw materials: Wiman’s great editorial talent, the range of his reading, his curatorial gift for creating a literary conversation, the depth of his grief and suffering, his plucky gifts as a writer. Smelt them into a single alloy, and you might have something that looks like his latest book, Zero at the Bone. The uniquely conceived collection of 52 essay-like fragments touches on weighty themes—life, literature, God, and language—while ultimately offering a stay against despair, a subject Wiman knows better than most.
Nonetheless, Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and philosopher who wrote the popular book Free Will (2012), insisted not only that free will is an illusion but that the concept “cannot be made conceptually coherent.” Consider it a challenge: “No one has ever described a way in which mental and physical processes could arise that would attest to the existence of such freedom.”
Kevin J. Mitchell answers exactly this challenge in Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. A neuroscientist and geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, Mitchell sets out to rescue our intuitive sense of agency from a cloud of obfuscation. Yes, he says, free will exists. It is neither an illusion nor merely a figure of speech. It is our essential, defining quality and as such demands explanation. “We make decisions, we choose, we act,” he declares.
Most people who ponder these things take a different view. They think the universe could in fact have been different. They think it’s puzzling that it turned out the way it did, with creatures like us in it. They are tempted by the idea that the universe has some point, some goal or meaning. In Why?, Philip Goff, professor of philosophy at Durham, argues for “cosmic purpose, the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life” and the existence of value.
I’m not convinced, but I’m impressed. Why? is direct, clear, open, acute, honest, companionable. It manages to stay down to earth even in its most abstract passages. I’m tempted to say, by way of praise, that it’s Liverpudlian, like its author.