As far as I can tell, the Moby Dick marathon is a thing simply for being a thing. There are a surprising number of gatherings dedicated to getting through Herman Melville’s dense 1851 whaling classic in one uninterrupted go. You’re probably familiar with the outline of the book–“Call me Ishmael,” Ahab, the white whale–but might not know that the plot is actually the minority of its roughly 600 pages and 135 chapters, plus epilogue. If you know about the rest of it, you’re probably asking what my friends asked me when I told them I was going to a two-day Moby Dick marathon in Mystic, Connecticut: why?
You don't need to be a hardcore gamer to appreciate the character's core purpose of strategic nibbling, with Pac-Man's gameplay both refreshingly simple and, ultimately, difficult to master. When it came to the original, gamers could either frenetically run around without much thought or, like many people did back in the 1980s, religiously read a How to win at Pac-Man guide that taught you how to memorise hundreds of complex maze patterns and optimal paths. Such tactical preparation would make you war-ready to compete at a Pac-Man tournament – of which thousands have been hosted worldwide.
Etchells claims this format was far less driven by testosterone than a lot of Pac-Man's rivals, and that was a big reason why the game made such a splash. "Pac-Man's creator Toru Iwatani has specifically said he intended to create a game that everyone could enjoy, and women in particular," he adds. "Pac-Man, and its colourful sequels like 1982's Ms Pac-Man, therefore stood apart from the primarily male-geared, shooting-based titles of that era, including Asteroids and Space Invaders, because it focused on a much broader range of demographics."
To Flett and Hewitt, the idea of perfectionism as a form of admirable striving is a dangerous misconception, one they have devoted three books and hundreds of peer-reviewed papers to overturning. “I can’t stand it when people talk about perfectionism as something positive,” Flett told me, as we sat at his kitchen table in Mississauga, a Toronto suburb where he has spent most of his life. “They don’t realize the deep human toll.” Hewitt, a clinical psychologist, has seen with his therapy patients how perfectionism can be “personally terrorizing for people, a debilitating state.” It’s driven not by aspiration but by fear, and by the conviction that perfection is the only “way of being secure and safe in the world.”
A few hours after I arrive at Hôtel Belles Rives in the south of France this summer, I’m seated at dinner when I see a flash of green light ricochet across the glittering water. It’s almost too perfect.
I’ve come here to visit the places that inspired the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald as he traveled across France with his wife and daughter in the 1920s. I’ve ended up in a scene from his most famous novel. In The Great Gatsby, the light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock shines green, entrancing Gatsby. I’m staring at a pinprick of a lighthouse in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea while a glass of vermentino sweats on the table in front of me, but still. I’m entranced.
The plot is like a zany Dungeons & Dragons campaign played with friends; the storyline is meandering but with a definite aim and purpose, and the characters are lovably boisterous (or hateful, in the case of the antagonists). It’s funny, surprising, smart and weird, and fully lives up to the high bar you’d expect from a great like Sachar.
Instead, Castillo writes a love story, neither trite nor pandering, over this terrain; it is simultaneously an interrogation of capitalism and tech ecosystems.