literature.cafe chat

since last I've read Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg. The first half is a thought experiment about building consciousness (hence synthetic psychology) with the titular vehicles and that was fantastic, the second part was 40 year old neuroscience which I a) didn't care much about, b) didn't understand much of.

Then I read Sculpting in Time by soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. Had really high hopes for it because I love everything else he's made, but I didn't like it very much. For Tarkovsky fans I think it's definitely worth a read, but a lot of it is kinda stupid, my least favorite point one being that artists who make art that's not "their own" (e.g. commercial stuff) will forever lose the ability to make art that's "their own".

Right now reading Melancholia I-II by last year's nobel prize winner Jon Fosse. My very first book in Norwegian, which is very exciting (I'm Swedish, so it's not a huge achievement, but I like it). About half way through and liking it a lot so far. It's incredibly strange in a very good way.