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The New Review: Books: SHORT REVIEWS: Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software Vikram Chandra Faber pounds 14.99, pp272(Observer (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Writer, programmer and linguistic gazelle, Vikram Chandra hammers a nail into the coffin of the two-cultures theory with every work he executes. But in his latest book, Geek Sublime, he argues against the notion that writing code is in itself an artistic pursuit. The result is a compendium of delight in which Chandra delves into the bowels of technology and the mechanisms of linguistic suggestion, drawing on his experiences to create an extraordinary thesis that is part autobiography, part crash course in coding and unfailingly an ode to language. Chandra's work is far from an esoteric indulgence. Amid the explanations of logic gates, the genius of the grammarian Panini and the beautiful poems of Shilabhattarika, lie truths those within the tech industries would do well to heed. Indeed Chandra is refreshingly blunt in his analysis of the gender imbalance in Silicon Valley and the pressures of an industry that never sleeps. But above all this is an eloquent tribute to text and its ability to shape our emotions, and rewrite the very world we live in. (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] |