Books Blog: English Literature & Linguistics

Terry Brooks’ Morgawr, the third in his fantasy series The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara is a 401 page mixed bag. On the one hand, it provides a few hours of entertainment on a rainy day. On the other hand, you might be better off just putting on your rainboots and splashing in the puddles.

The book takes off where the last one left off. Druid Walker is dying, and his legacy is a reborn Isle-Witch. Transformed by the mystic sword of Shannara, the Isle-Witch realizes the full weight of her childhood deception and becomes a catatonic Grianne. It ultimately takes her brother Bek’s forgiveness and love to bring her back to full reality. Her true self, she confronts her old mentor Morgawr, and with the help of her brother defeats him.

There are numerous side-tales, however. Airship battles, strange reptilian creatures, wraiths and shapeshifters, and some magic swords all help make the book come a little more alive. But, in the multiple threads, the story is lost. When a half dozen different parties are slowly reunited, the content you can include for each party is pretty low. So we get to watch in grand overview the reuniting of the party, the defeat of their enemy, and a love triangle between Bek, his sister Grianne, and his girlfriend Rue Meridian. Still, it’s not enough–there’s far too much overview, and not enough detail.

For that reason, I’m giving Morgawr :2star:. It doesn’t have the richness of Tolkien, or the action you find in a Mercedes Lackey novel, but in the end, it’s still not a terrible read–give it a go if you’ve nothing else to do, or like me just want to finish the series.

I was browsing in Barnes & Noble and came across that e. e. cummings book. It’s 100 great poems for only $10–well worth it. Here’s one of my favorite, a definite modern classic:

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
–the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

so i went into highschool thinking english was a used for clarity and to express ideas from point A to point B
then i came out of highschool realizing that language was a texture and had as many bumps and holes as anythign else out there– just another thing to be manipulated .
shakespereare was just the master manipulator in some ways - and i dindt like it because i didnt realize
so much of plot and device and shape of english comes from him

and then i went into college not enjoying the picking apart and the.. general… obvious-ness? of shakespeare (Tho i did like that his plays were very fast. none of this tension building and on and on climax climbing.
foreshadowing in 2 lines yes, 500 page monologues? no)
then i am in shakespeare classand… yknow? things like… “virtue is a fig!” and “who cannot be crushed by a plot” and “simply the thing i am shall make me live” (othello/alls well that ends well, respectively) make me that shakespeare felt highs and lows in acute manner… in 1600.

so reading hamlet again was good; though in all of shakespeare, it seems as if there is a theme of doubleness/straightforwardness. what DOESN’T have to do with appearance and dissembling the interior??
or maybe its my prof who loves to dwell on such things

Michael T. Heath’s Scientific Computing: An Introductory Survey is the textbook of choice for Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, or a 400-level Linear Algebra course. Note that this is only an introduction to Numerical Analysis; students looking for an in-depth resource will be disappointed at the broad overview given in Heath.

Contents

Scientific Computing is described in the first chapter, giving its historical origins, modern necessity, and a brief treatment of computational error. Thereafter, we leap straight into computation. Systems of linear equations, linear least squares, eigenvalues, non-linear equations, optimization, interpolation, integration and differentiation, initial and boundary value problems, partial differential equations, the fast fourier transform, and random numbers and simulation are the topics Heath covers, in 13 chapters.

A first semester’s introduction would cover chapters 1 through 6, up to optimization, saving the more salient advanced topics for a second semester’s discussion.

Quality:

It’s the attention to detail that makes this book shine. Every chapter includes a historical anecdote at the end, tangentially describing the history and future of the techniques in that chapter. Examples are littered everywhere, and algorithms are set apart in special code boxes with line numbers. Matrices and vectors are set off in an easy to read bold typeface, while chapters are split up in sections that slowly progress from introduction to advanced algorithms, each section building on the contents of the previous. Homework questions are included after each chapter. My only complaint is that odd-numbered solutions are not included in the textbook, as is common in most other mathematics textbooks.

Rating: :5star:

While sparse on the details of many of the algorithms and theorems mentioned, as an introduction, it covers a broad range of material–enough for two semesters of study. The writing is lucid, and when a proof of a theorem is given, it is easy to follow and explained in english afterward. Rationale is given for everything, which is a great benefit to a student not familiar with the nuances of sophisticated linear algebra.

Details:

• Edition: Second
• Type: Hardcover
• ISBN: 0072399104
• Length: 563 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Other Resources

• Buy it on Amazon.com