📱Ebook

This man read one of the most influential short stories written by an incredible Argentine author and thought, “What if I make everyone a white, English-speaking American and then bring it up every other page with no further exploration?”

I can understand why people like this. It's short; there's a kiosk that can give you whatever food you want; and I think humans will always be fascinated by the concept of infinity (or finite numbers so large that there is no real difference between them and infinity). However, this was horribly written. It read like a creative writing assignment you would've written when you were 12 (good for a 12-year-old maybe, but Steven isn't 12). Some of the thoughts shared here were also just…wild:

”My lust seemed to have disappeared as she became a real person and not just a red-headed object with a nice face.” “I dared wonder if I had come to a new part of the library. Perhaps this was where the Chinese were kept! Maybe I could meet an Arab from the fifteenth century!”

The pervasive idea that the fact everyone was white meant that everyone was the same was so bizarre to me. People are still…people—unique individuals with different stories (this story continuously asserted that diversity is dependant on racial diversity. Is he aware that there are more kinds of diversity??). There was so much missing nuance here that, if explored, would've made the story so much better. As is…I thought it kind of sucked. I got way more out of Jorge Luis Borges's 8 pages than I did out of Peck's 73. I've also heard he didn't even get aspects of Zoroastrianism correct, which is the whole basis of the book! I didn't look into this so can't confirm, but it would not surprise me at all.

This is the kind of book that falls into my “certainly written by a man (derogatory)” category.