How did I end up reading this book? Sometimes titles end up on my reading list, and by the time I get around to them I have no idea where they came from. This is one of those books – and after reading it I\u2019m not sure if I got any benefit at all from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The basic idea is interesting, I guess. The book describes what happens when a bored psychiatrist resolves to leave all decisions to the roll of a die. He is hoping to break out of his routines and allow some other \u201cminority voices\u201d have a chance at directing his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was thought-provoking, but it also seemed to be more than a little provoking in general. Written in 1971 there is a lot of content here that probably wouldn\u2019t fly in a modern novel, and a lot of graphic sex – to the point of obsession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe because of the age of the book and the changes in society a lot of what I think were attempts at comedy didn\u2019t really work for me. After a while it felt like most of the plot was just a way to end up in crazy sexual situations, and to titillate rather than provide any meaningful message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course there is something going on in the undercurrents – commentary on religion, psychiatry, and moral responsibility. But buried as it was underneath the lurid stories and silly situations, I\u2019m not sure it was worth exploring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next I am reading The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How did I end up reading this book? Sometimes titles end up on my reading list, and by the time I get around to them I have no idea where they came from. This is one of those books – and after reading it I\u2019m not sure if I got any benefit at all from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-W0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}