How was Walter Isaacson's new book, The Innovaters?
"It was interesting."
That's it? You don't have any more to say than that? Isaacson writes a book covering the development of the personal computer and the internet and why we now carry phones in our pockets, and all you have to say is, 'It was interesting'?
"I know. I feel the same way. I expected it to be fascinating and captivating, but the only reason it was a page-turner that I couldn't put down was because it was due back at the library two days after finals, which means that I didn't start it until right before it was due. If I hadn't had that deadline, I could easily see myself putting this book down and forgetting to pick it back up for a while. Again--it wasn't bad, or uninteresting, it just didn't draw me in. When I realized that I was going to finish it without owing the library a late fee, I set it down and watched the pilot episode of Agents of SHIELD. I'm the guy who usually will stay up until 3 AM when he realizes there are 'only' 125 pages left in a book. This one, though? I just decided to leave it until the morning to finish."
Why do you suppose that is?
"I'm not sure. I think it's the lack of a grand narrative or overarching purpose in the book. There was no great conflict that pushed the action forward. There was no race, like there was in the Space Race, no sense of urgency. There was no giant problem waiting to be solved. There were a bunch of people who took the available technology of the day and thought about how it could be improved. Each one carried the idea forward a little, some individually while others in groups, and as the technology was handed forward from one link in the chain to another, eventually computers became small and then personal, and then microchips and microprocessors enabled us to have computers and develop the World Wide Web.
There were some interesting characters in the book, but mostly they were just people (mostly men, but some very important women) who loved working on computers. Some sound like great people, some were definitely not, some became fabulously wealthy, some did not. They faded into the background and others came forward to take their place."
Well, I don't know what else to say. I don't feel compelled to go read the book now.
"I know. It's a strange feeling, to read a book so filled with information, some of which I already knew, written by a great author, and come away so.... blah. Isaacson's Einstein was great, truly engaging, and he's written The Innovators well. Maybe following the course of an idea rather than a person is simply more difficult and less compelling, especially an idea that doesn't have a specific course or need, but rather is developed by curiosity over decades.
I'll sum it up like this: some intersections along the road have traffic lights that are programmed to only change when a car is waiting there. Often, when I'm driving along, I'll approach a light where a car has been waiting in the other lane, and the light will turn green before I stop. Since I haven't stopped, I go forward, passing by the car that waited, grateful that it had already been there first and triggered the light to allow my unimpeded progress. Picture doing that all the way across the country, and then arriving someplace really cool, having seen the landscape along the way. That's what this book felt like."
That's the most uninteresting metaphor I've ever heard.
"Yup. And yet it feels so apt for this book. The scenery is interesting. The destination (massively powerful computers that fit into our pockets and can access the world's information in seconds) is awesome. Yet, the journey that Isaacson describes just isn't that fascinating to this reader. I learned some things. But I never felt compelled to keep reading by anything more than the library due date."
Well, thanks for sharing, I suppose.
"I'm working on Bill Bryson's One Summer next. I promise that's more interesting. America. 1927. Fascinating stuff happened. Google it."
I will.
"And if you really, really want to know why you can Google something on a computer that didn't exist when Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, in the 19th century, started thinking of a machine that could do such things, Walter Isaacson's The Innovaters will tell you about it."
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