Skip to main content

Taking the Red Pill – Glenn Yeffeth (Ed.) ****

It’s an odd one, this. The book is a collection of essays inspired by the 1999 movie, The Matrix. It’s not going to be for everyone, but it can be appreciated by a much wider audience than just movie or science fiction fans. That’s because The Matrix itself is cleverer than the average SF action film, and is an ideal starting point for popular discussions of science and philosophy. Having said that, it’s pretty important to have seen the movie first before reading the book (see links for DVDs below).
As is usually the case with a collection of essays, it’s a mixed bag, so the impressive four star rating includes some 5 star gems, some 3 star so-so pieces and at least one dud. Even so, overall it’s a good mix. There are fascinating explorations of the different themes and inspirations that the writers very cleverly wove together in the The Matrix. Perhaps most interesting are the science/science fiction themes, particularly around artificial intelligence (don’t be put off if you don’t like science fiction – think of this as speculative science). A number of authors point out that the most obvious enormous hole in the science of the film (using human beings as living “batteries”, where actually the net energy flow would be in rather than out) could be interpreted as a misunderstanding – we are told this is what is happening by one of the characters, but he could have got it wrong, and the suggestions in the book are much more sensible. (Of course, what actually happened is the writers got their science wrong, but it doesn’t mean you can’t unpick the situation after the event.)
Also surprisingly effective are a couple of essays that go into the post-modernist influences of the movie. They are strongly present when explained, but won’t be noticed by most in the audience (this reviewer included) – but why should they? What’s great is the essays provide the first explanation of aspects of literary post-modernism that make sense, rather than the usual, much-mocked flow of meaningless jargon lifted from science with little comprehension. You may not agree with the ideas about modern society being obsessed with models of reality rather than reality itself, but it is understandable and interesting, and obviously of very direct relevance to The Matrix.
Perhaps less successful are a couple of religion-oriented essays. The Matrix certainly has strong religious overtones, both in the central figure as reluctant messiah, and many of the discussions that take place – but this is religion as story or myth, rather than driving force for living. Particularly weak is the Buddhist entry, partly because about half the long essay is just explaining Buddhism, and partly because the parallels drawn are so vague you could apply them to practically any movie. And there’s also a piece on the selfish gene (suggesting that our genes control us in the same way the Matrix controls its human inhabitants) that totally misunderstands genetics – perhaps because it’s written by an economist. But, of course, the great thing about an essay format is you can skip over a chapter and it makes no difference to the flow of the book.
Taking the Red Pill was published between The Matrix and its two sequels hitting the screen, so some of the speculation is a little out of date. For instance, it’s pointed out that one of the possible interpretations of the original movie is that even the “real” world outside the Matrix could be another computer simulation – how could they tell? This potential storyline comes up in the second film, where a strange event suggests it is true, but then the writers lose their bottle, and never make use of it. Similarly, there is a lot made in the book about parallels with messiah figures, but it isn’t obvious until the final movie that the writers were very strongly influenced by Frank Herbert’s Dune books, where the central “chosen one” figure suffers the same injury as Neo, the hero of The Matrix, an injury that should cripple him but in fact seems to make him stronger.
Despite this, though, it’s a fun collection of essays that help bring out aspects of a very cleverly constructed film and inspires thought on aspects of science, philosophy and morality – which can’t be a bad thing!

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein,  but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...