Machines Like Me

 By Ian McEwan

I have read another book by McEwan, Atonement, and I don't think I was all that impressed but this story line about a robot intrigued me.  But after I bought the book I was reluctant to start reading it with all the gloom about covid right now, we are all feeling quite down.

I was delighted with this book.  It was brilliant!  The story is about a young man, Charlie, who doesn't really want to work, he is living in a small apartment.  Instead of using the money he gets from his mother's will to buy a house and support himself, he blows it all on a prototype humanlike robot.   Only a few dozen of them have been produced.  The males are called Adam, the females called Eve.

The books is set just after the Falklands war, when Margaret Thatcher was in power, not sure what relevance this has to the story.

Charlie is in love with the young woman, Miranda, who lives above him.  He invites her to help him select the parameters for his Adam.  At first they are intrigued with Adam, he is interesting, curious about everything.  He especially likes writing Haiku's.  The problems start when Adam admits he too loves Miranda and he even has sex with her.  He realizes he has crossed the line in this and promises Adam that he will never do this again.  But he keeps on writing her love haikus.  At one point Adam has a confrontation with Charlie and says that he has disabled his own kill switch and if Charlie every does anything to him he will hurt him.  To prove his point he breaks Charlies arm.  I was shocked that after this behaviour Charlie didn't go back to the manufacturers.

We learn that Miranda is in danger.  Years before Miranda's best friend was raped and the killed herself because she was ashamed about what this news might have for her family. Miranda knows who the rapist is, lures him to have sex and then accused hm of rape.  The man was sent to jail and has now indicated when he gets out of jail he is going to kill her.  Adam feels he can protect her but suggests they should go visit the ex-con and confront him.  They do this and find he has found religion in prison and no longer has a grudge against the woman.  She explains why she did what she did.

While this is going on Miranda wants to adopt a boy who is being taken care of by social services.  Charlie reluctantly agrees to go along with  this so they get married to improve their chances of being approved for the adoption.  They boy is really harmed from his experience in foster homes and is displaying some bad behaviour.

During the story Charlie makes friends with the famous scientist Alan Turing who also bought one of the Adams.  Turing is very interested in how Charlie's Adam is developing and behaving.  He tells him that some of robots have committed suicide or done things to wind themselves down or even lose their intelligence.  Two Eves, in Saudi Arabia, commit suicide together. An Adam in BC, who is owned by a lumber magnate reduces his intelligence.  They seem to be reacting to what they see in the world.

Charlie and Miranda think that things will go well but then Charlie tells them he has submitted a report about  what Miranda did to the police and she will likely go on trial.

Charlie had been making money trading stocks.  He get Adam to start doing this and Adam makes them a lot of money.  Adam goes out one day and when he returns tells them he has taken most of the money he made them and given it to various charities.

  Adam tells them that the designers of the robots are trying to round all the robots up for reprogramming.  He does not want to be turned over to them. Charlie and Miranda are furious that Adam has ruined their lives. Eventually Charlie clubs him and he stops functioning.  Miranda does got to jail for a short time, but they hope that they will still be able to adopt the boy.

Charlie talks to Turing about what he did to Adam and Turing chastises him for destroying Adam.  He had hidden Adam in his home telling the designers that Adam left and he didn't know where he went.  He turns over Adam to Turing.

This was a very thought provoking book about what it means to be human, emotions, honesty, and how we humans don't always act in ethical, logical ways.  The robots seemed to find this difficult to deal with.  It makes you wonder how, if we do get robots, their thought processes will develop, and will they become BETTER, as well as smarter than us. You wonder how Charlie and Miranda will go about raising the damaged young child they are going to have in their life.

A fascinating book.

 

 

 

Indians on Vacation

 By Thomas King

I recently read one of his detective novels and didn't enjoy it much so I approached this new book with some trepidation.  However, I have to say this book was much more interesting.

It is the story of a couple, Bird and Mimi, who are currently living in Guelph Ontario but who have native indian ancestory.  Bird is part Blackfoot and part Greek, Mimi I cannot remember.

Bird is a writer, photojournalist who seems to be in a funk, Mimi is some kind of artist.

They are travelling through Europe trying to track down one of Mimi's ancestors who supposedly fled to Europe, taking with him the family's medicine bundle.  They are trying to track down evidence of him from the various post cards he sent from Europe.

The book takes place primarily while they are visiting Prague but jumps back in time, including to other European trips they have taken.  We learn that Bird has diabetes and is in quite ill health, including getting very painful leg cramps.  We also learn that Bird and Mimi were a couple, then split up for a few years, and then got back together and seem to have a pretty good relationship right now.

Mimi decides that they should go for a day trip/overnight trip to Budapest.  They are shocked and upset when they see all the refugees camped out in the train station and basically decide to take the next train back to Prague.

While in Prague they visit a lot of tourist sites.  Mimi never seems to make it down to breakfast on time but Bird is befriended by one of the employees of the hotel, Oz, who asks him why his is travelling and eventually suggests that they should just make up a story about the relative who came to Europe.  When he leaves Bird he gives him an envelope with a proposed story.

Bird does make it to Greece and with the help of people eventually finds the village where his grandfather came from and may even have found the family home.  He is really moved to be able have done this.

While Mimi is in the hotel room, feeling ill, Bird goes out to get her some bland food, white rice and meets a young couple from the U.S. who are scheduled to be married.  However, their seems to be some tension between them.  They ask Bird about marriage, commitment etc.  They find out that Bird had a relationship with another woman, a typewriter collector, when he was separated from Mimi. We also find out that the young man of the couple also has been unfaithful.  The girl is trying to  figure out how to deal with this knowledge.. Bird shares his encounter with Mimi and the next day when she is well she figures out how to achieve a meeting with the young couple.  She takes the girl aside and tells her not to get married.

As the book ends Bird and Mimi are talking about how devastated they were by the scenes of the refugees and they feel bad that they are powerless to improve things in the world.  But then Mimi starts sketching.  And, Bird thinks about going back to completing a project he had started but not finished about the treatment/state of the lives of indians in the U.S.

I found this book interesting as it looked at family histories, stories, the idea of truth in family histories, it also looked at relationships and how people have to work at them.  Also through their experiences Bird and Mimi did seem to start to work their way out of their ennui.

All the Devils are Here

 by Louise Penny

This is her newest book.  This one is set in Paris.  Inspector Gamache and his wife are in Paris awaiting the birth of their grand-daughter to their daughter and Gamache's former 2IC Jean-Guy

Gamache's godfather, with whom he was very close, as this man helped to raise him after his parents died, is also in Paris for the event.

The group has a family dinner after which Gamache and his wife see the Godfather, Stephen, hit by a truck.  They think it was deliberate but the police are skeptical until they find out that Stephen was staying at an expensive Paris hotel instead of in his Paris apartment and when Gamache and his wife go to the apartment they find a man shot dead there.  Now the police are interested.

As the story goes along we find out that the company Jean-Guy has been hired by for an undefined job, may have a secret it desparately wants to hide.  Gamache's other son who is in banking is able to find out that the very wealthy godfather has cashed in all his assets to buy some businesses affiliated with Jean-Guy's company.

It then turns out that some former police officers work as security with Jean Guy's company and that the police may be protecting the company.  Gamache's son is held ransom unless Gamache can find some important evidence that the Godfather is believed to have.  Both Gamache and hn is son come close to getting killed.

At the end all the Gamache families move back to Canada with the somewhat frail godfather who is still feisty.  Gamache and his son are reconciled after years of not communication.

It was an engaging story as always but I don't understand why the godfather had to loose all his billions... that doesn't seem logical or plausible....