The Planiverse
lewis.h.mammel..jr
long ago, whether on r.a.b or not I don't recall. Anyway, I happened
to see it for $1 among some remaindered computer books ( It's
subtitled COMPUTER CONTACT WITH A TWO_DIMENSIONAL WORLD ) and I
snapped it right up. I don't know what was keeping me from it
in the interval since it's been published, since I raved
over Flatland in high school. Maybe I thought Flatland couldn't
be topped, or something. Dewdney really does it with this one,
though. In his acknowledgments he mentions "crucial suggestions
which made all the difference between a merely good book and one
which we all hope is excellent." I say this is more than a book,
it's a creation.
I expected it to be merely a vehicle for the technical speculations,
but instead the firmly grounded details form the basis for a
truly engaging narrative. I have to say reading this really affected
my mind, so that after reading a while, then getting up and walking
around, the familiar 3-d world seemed astonishing and precarious.
Another thing I liked was the computer contact device in the
university setting. This set up a lot of cross connections, and in
fact I think this book sort of lays right down on the bed of
Procrustes, as it were. For what is the Planiverse ( plain verse )
if not the printed page ? And what is "the Presence" other than
the author? From here you can just plug it into your favorite
deconstructor set. I will add that some of the narrator's
interviews must have been similar to some of the author's
real life conversations regarding his devotion to his sideline.
The ending owes a lot to Flatland, in that we haughty 3-d-ers
get a comeuppance of sorts. Here again, though, Dewdney goes
well beyond his precedent.
One technical point: the author takes pains to outline a 2-d
nerve crossing to overcome the objections that connectivity
can't be accomplished in 2-d, but the real problem is
size, or number really. It's well noted in the narrative how
much simpler and reduced 2-d life is, yet the denizens are
implied to live full 3-d style inner lives. The 2-d brain
brain obviously couldn't provide a sufficient substratum for
this, connectivity or no. On the other hand, the mere fact that
I make such an objection just shows how far I got sucked in.
Another thing: our 2-d hero is named YNDRD, pronounced
Yendred, and early on it is suggested in the narrative that
the name might be produced from "a systematic bit error" on
the ascii of some other five-letter word. It makes a cryptogram
of THESE or WHERE, but I don't know if there's anything behind
this little tease. An in-joke, perhaps ?
Lew Mammel, Jr.
David Goldfarb
)Another thing: our 2-d hero is named YNDRD, pronounced
)Yendred, and early on it is suggested in the narrative that
)the name might be produced from "a systematic bit error" on
)the ascii of some other five-letter word.
)An in-joke, perhaps ?
Reverse YNDWD and you get "Dewdney".
)Lew Mammel, Jr.
--
David Goldfarb |
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