GPT-3 hints at a world in which machines can generate language. The consequences are vertiginous. To spend ten minutes with Sudowrite is to recognize that the undergraduate essay, the basic pedagogical mode of all humanities, will soon be under severe pressure. Take an A paper, change a few words in the first paragraph, push buttons three times, and you have an essay that fits the assignment. Whatever field you are in, if it uses language, it is about to be transformed. The changes that are coming are fundamental to every method of speaking and writing that presently exists.
I find the always fluctuating history of these forms fascinating, and the economic pressures worth talking about. But of course, art does have its own power. Books do tend to end up the length they want to be. As writers, we can choose to devote times to projects that seem more likely to be published or bring in income. We can work on that novel draft instead of short stories, or that book we think is an award contender rather than the one that’s too experimental to get published. But an individual work of fiction has its own desires and demands.
During a recent performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Pezzo Capriccioso,” a handful of audience members leaned forward attentively, their eyes bright, a few encouraging snuffles escaping from the otherwise hushed parterre. Though relative newcomers to classical music, they seemed closely attuned to the eight cellists onstage, raising their heads abruptly as the piece’s languid strains gave way to rapid-fire bow strokes.
When it was over, amid the fervent applause and cries of “bravo,” there could be heard a single, appreciative moo.
Like Chaucer and Boccaccio, Jordan begins with a group thrown together by circumstance and then tells stories associated with members of the group.
Although this approach also shapes many soap operas and Netflix series, no one should mistake this book for a mindless, merely entertaining beach read. While the author draws on models from both high and low culture, she has serious literary ambitions that she successfully achieves in this eloquent, tender and luminous book.
Second Place is worth reading for its sharp descriptions and powerful story alone, but it’s the in-depth exploration of the purpose of art that makes the story meaningful.
While some readers may struggle to stay afloat in this sea of glinting references and wandering currents, others will be happy to join Hoare in his diving bell to revelation. “In Dürer’s divine harmony,” he writes, “animals took on an emblematical role. He saw them the way a monk read the scriptures, or an astronomer peered into the sky.” The same might be said of Hoare’s subjects, animal and human alike. From their lives and works, he extrapolates an entire cosmology, a way of seeing the world every bit as rich and penetrating as Dürer’s.