Adaptation to Life. George E. Vaillant. 1977.

Every person is given a unique set of challenges in life. To overcome them, a person employs a unique set of techniques. Most people, it seems, try to do the best they can within their circumstances. That being said, I'm sure all of us have at times wondered about those people whose successes exceed our own, and developed theories about how they accomplished what they did.

Maybe these people were born with natural traits far exceeding our own. Maybe they were not held back as we were by some obstacle or environmental shortcoming. Maybe they received help from their social or family environment we were not privileged to. Or maybe they simply mustered the will that we cannot.

Adaptation to Life is based on a longitudinal study of hundreds of men who entered Harvard in the 1940s. These volunteers were tracked over the courses of their lives and submitted exhaustive data about their careers, relationships and emotional states. The originators of this research (known as the Grant Study) felt that psychological data at the time focused too much on physical disease and that a more comprehensive data set would be needed to determine what constituted wellness. The author, George Vaillant, is primarily focused on what traits lead to or prevented success and happiness in lives of the test subjects.

The identities of the participants are kept confidential with the exception of John F. Kennedy. Even knowing he was one of the subjects of the data, however, does not reveal anything about him or any other subject specifically. The author's descriptions of the lives of these men are relayed via fictionalized characters that we are told best represent categories within the volunteers.

A great deal of Vaillant's analysis is based on the Freudian concept of defense mechanisms. In short, a defense mechanism is an unconscious impulse that protects the ego from anxiety caused by conflict between opposing id impulses or between the id and the super ego.

For example, one of the characters in the book is an avid outdoorsman. His relationships with family and friends are virtually nonexistent, but he seems consciously unaware of this fact. When asked if he is close with his sister, he says something to the effect "oh yes we are very close. She just had a child, but I don't know the name." The energy involved in mastering wilderness survival while ignoring his natural desires to develop human bonds is displacement. His unconscious mind replaces struggles he cannot bear with struggles he can.

Vaillant catalogs and defines dozens of defense mechanisms, and then makes a further argument that they can be placed on a linear scale from immature to mature. The most immature defense mechanisms are pathological and lead to criminal or otherwise socially unacceptable behavior. The most mature defense mechanisms balance competing id impulses and the demands of the superego, but they also produce positive side effects. 

This is Vaillant's scale of defense mechanisms from Adaptation to Life. He of course offers long, clinical definitions for each category. The quotes shown below are mine.

Level I - Psychotic Mechanisms (common in psychosis, dreams, and childhood) 

Denial - "I know I don't have a job, but there's plenty of food in the fridge."
Distortion - "I haven't worked in years, but I could get work anytime I wanted, wherever I tried."
Delusional Projection - "I try to find work, but everywhere I go to apply they all hate me." 

Level II - Immature Mechanisms (common in severe depression, personality disorders, and adolescence)

Fantasy - "I know I don't talk to the people I work with often, but they like me and respect my work."
Projection - "This new policy management is making us follow is stupid, I can tell everybody feels the same way."
Hypochondriasis - "Work has been so tough lately, and now on top of that I have this weird rash. I think I'll have to take some time off."
Passive-Aggressive Behavior - "This assignment my boss gave me is impossible. I'm going to have to stay all night working on it and I know I can't ask for help or she will think I'm an idiot."
Acting Out - "My job sucks, that's why I wake up every morning and get high." 

Level III - Neurotic Mechanisms (common in everyone)

Intellectualization - "This business plan isn't quite where it needs to be. I will start working on it as soon as I get the margins and the font exactly right."
Repression - "My team tells me this issue flares up in Bob's department once a month, but I never remember them raising it to me in the past."
Reaction Formation - "I LOVE doing this report. Sure there are issues every week I have to solve, but that just gives me a reason to talk to my team about concepts we don't have time to fully train."
Displacement - "That hole in the wall is from last week when I was talking to my boss and the call dropped. God I hate my phone."
Dissociation - "I don't remember much about the Christmas party, but everybody told me I spent the whole time with Bob and the rest of the jerks in his department talking about how much I loved them." 

Level IV - Mature Mechanisms (common in "healthy" adults)

Sublimation - "Bob can be so hard to work with sometimes. It was fun to kick his ass at tennis last weekend."
Altruism - "We have a huge problem in that department. Sometimes I go to their building, find 3-4 people to work with and I stay with them all day and help. It's a drop in the bucket, but it reminds me that there is hope."
Suppression - "It was hard to hear that feedback from my boss. I could drop everything and spend a day fixing all the problems that she raised. Of course, that might cause new problems. I've blocked out some time this week to address what she brought up."
Anticipation - "I knew the meeting would be tough, so I spent time thinking about the hardest possible questions that might have come up so I'd be ready."
Humor - "This company is a giant shit storm and all of these problems seem hopeless. Do you guys know if the Post Office is hiring?" 

It is probably obvious from how I've attempted to define each mechanism that I saw much of my own life in these techniques. So much of my personality seems to be built by a combination of these mechanisms. More to the point, it has been several months since I read the book, and now I can't help but see the behavior of so many others through this prism. 

Human beings are not completely rational beings. We have the capacity for rationality, but so much of what we do is guided by other motivations. We are driven by our emotions, but also by our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind could be much better at getting us what we want, emotionally, but it seems to be completely irrational. It will spend a whole life hiding a problem that, fully exposed, would take an afternoon to solve.

What emerges from this book, then, is a startling definition of identity. On one hand, the book is filled with talented, brilliant, wealthy individuals who are adept at making themselves miserable. More to the point, many of them seem to have no conscious awareness of their misery. Their principle obstacle is their own psyche. Many of the most pronounced personality traits these individuals exhibit, the things that make them who they are, seem to be elaborate tricks designed to shield them from having to confront elementary challenges.

The other side of that coin is, of course, those who clearly succeeded in their lives. These people are defined primarily not be idiosyncrasies but by generous helpings of mature defense mechanisms. These traits imbue their owners not with personality, but with a knack for openness. These people don't exert themselves on others, they accept and represent others. Their identity seems to diminish with their maturity. They are less themselves than they are a reflection of their environment. They are, in a word, an adaptation.

East of Eden. John Steinbeck. 1952.

A good story connects the audience with the lives of its characters. It provides enough detail to create a believable reality and enough meaning to compel the audience to imagine themselves in the characters' shoes. 

The best stories persist in our culture because the details that matter are timeless, making the conditions of life that change over time less important. On a timescale, the oldest stories are the simplest. Old stories are archetypal. They serve as the foundation of our understanding about ourselves and our relationship with each other and the natural world. More recent stories tend to be the most detailed on the surface. They have settings and challenges that the audience can relate to. Unlike older stories, they haven't eroded after years of being retold. But, because they have not yet been time-tested, it is possible that their allure is simply a consequence of the similarities of their surface details, as opposed to depth and meaning. 

East of Eden is a novel that links very old stories to a more recent story. It is essentially a retelling of Cain and Abel, set in early America. In this way it adds incredible detail to the biblical fable, while adding deep meaning to the condition of American life. The novel is beautiful, sad and profoundly true.

The story revolves around two sets of brothers, primarily in the Salinas Valley around the beginning of the 20th century. The first set of brothers, Adam and Charles, are the sons of Civil War Private Cyrus Trask. Cyrus, due more to his story telling abilities than his experience in war, becomes an important figure in the US military. Both sons hold him in great esteem. It is due to this esteem that his apparent favor towards Adam causes the younger brother Charles to resent and in one case nearly kill his sibling.

The second set of brothers are the twins Cal and Aron. It is never clear who fathers them, Adam or Charles, but they move with Adam to the Salinas Valley which is where the bulk of the story is told. The two brothers have a relationship similar to that of their father and uncle. Aron is likable, strong, popular and favored by his father. Cal is darker, complex, and in several situations not favored by his father.

Unlike Charles, however, Cal does not approach his resentment toward his brother with outward violence. He is more calculating, learning at an early age how to play his brother against others. He subtly teases and mocks the affection people automatically show Aron, finding ways to create situations where both his brother and the people who favor him feel rejected and hurt.

Both sets of brothers are allusions to Cain and Abel, a story so old that it has been worn down to 16 verses in the King James Bible (consolidated into paragraphs for space). Steinbeck makes an argument about the real meaning of this story that is described in the link below ("thou shalt"). Technically, this link gives away a critical theme of the novel, but even if you intend on reading the novel and don't want any spoilers, I encourage you to read it.

And Adam knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is they countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel they brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

And he said, What has thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from they face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

In an effort to help articulate what makes East of Eden such a wonderful novel, consider these elements of the Cain and Abel story:

• Cain, the unfavored brother, is apparently the father of the entire human race. We are all marked with the curse of his crime.
• This mark is not a part of Cain's punishment. Cain's punishment is being ejected from paradise. The mark is for Cain's protection, an act of mercy shown by God to ease his punishment.
• Abel was favored by God, but this does not mean Cain was necessarily rejected or inherently evil. Cain acted not out of malice, but out of love for God. A love that he felt was not returned.

As you can see, there is so much more to this fable than just what is on the surface. It is not simply about good versus evil. Using the two sets of brothers in East of Eden as instruments, Steinbeck creates a symphony of allusions to Cain and Abel. Cain's struggle repeats itself in multiple generations of Trasks in Salinas Valley and reverberates into the rest of the characters.

This topic, however, is just the foundation of Steinbeck's study in the human condition. The book is filled with poignant explorations into traits and truths we all share. A quick example:

In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this.

At times in the novel, whole paragraphs diverge from the story being told to plumb the depths of the people involved.

East of Eden connects a description of human life at the dawn of our nation to an outline of human nature at the dawn of our species (literally or figuratively depending on your beliefs). In doing so, it connects American life to a view of human life, in all its beauty, cruelty and depth. In this way it becomes less of a story than a meta-story, a story about the foundational stories of our culture. 

There is so much to this book, so much more than I can express here. In convincing you to read it, I will leave you with this closing argument. Steinbeck is one of the great American authors, and he considered this novel his best work.

When he finished East of Eden, Steinbeck placed his 250,000 word manuscript into a mahogany box he had carved and sent it to his friend Pascal (Pat) Covici. The note he placed on top became the dedication page of the novel.

Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, "Why don't you make something for me?"
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, "A box."
"What for?"
"To put things in."
"What things?"
"Whatever you have," you said.
Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And of top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.

After reading this novel, I don't think there is a better way to describe it. East of Eden is a box, and nearly everything is in it.

Cryptonomicon. Neal Stephenson. 1999.

When future historians analyze US culture in the beginning of the 21st century there will likely be many PhD dissertations dedicated to our fascination with WWII.
 
Sometimes I find myself watching another movie, miniseries or documentary, wondering if we will ever run out of material. Maybe it will never stop, not before we have a complete digital recreation of every moment. Like the project to model ancient Rome in 3D.

So what could possibly add to the discussion? What hasn't been explored dozens of times in countless mediums?

Cryptonomicon primarily covers the efforts of the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. This is the entity that enabled the Allies to decipher German and Japanese radio communications. The importance of code breaking in WWII is a topic that has obviously been explored, but I don't often see it referenced in fiction about the war. In that sense, the book is in a category of its own.

More important than that, however, the book is able to make a point about the war and its aftermath that I'd never considered prior to reading it. The point is complex, it can't just be restated. It involves really being inside the minds of people involved in the war and its human toll. It makes this point by switching between narratives in different eras based on characters with indirectly connected roles. For me, this was the intellectual meat in the book that made a lasting impression. 

Cryptonomicon is very long (almost 900 pages in paperback). My goal in this review is to provide a glimpse of what I believe Stephenson's point about WWII is. I hope it is enough of a glimpse to encourage you to make the investment in reading it.

So, let me set the stage.

In the early 1940s the human race was engaged in global warfare. A group of nations not raping, slaughtering and enslaving races of people were doing everything they could to stop a group of nations who were. Distinctions between civilian and military life were blurred or irrelevant. The future of human society was at stake. Would genetic identity have an official role in the future of a person's life? Or would equality and justice prevail?

Life in those times meant trying to find a way to apply one's life and skills to the war effort, there was no greater cause. 

Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse was a young man at the beginning of the war, and his attempts to apply his life and skills in the Allied forces is the narrative in Cryptonomicon focused on code breaking. Lawrence had the privilege/burden of being born with a rare type of mind. As a child, he is said to have had "a peculiar relationship with sound." Due to his father's occupation as a preacher, he spent a fair amount of time around pipe organs. One day, the church instrument broke and the only person who could fix it was the local math teacher. Being curious about the device, young Lawrence sat with the math teacher as he removed the panels concealing the pipework inside. Curiously, there were long pipes and short pipes.

The organist/math teacher sat down with a few loose pipes, a pencil, and paper, and helped Lawrence figure out why. When Lawrence understood, it was if the math teacher had suddenly played the good part of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor on a pipe organ the size of the Spiral Nebula in Andromeda - the part where Uncle Johann dissects the architecture of the Universe in one merciless descending ever-mutating chord, as if his foot is thrusting through skidding layers of garbage until it finally strikes bedrock. In particular, the final steps of the organist's explanation were like a falcon's dive through layer after layer of pretense and illusion, thrilling or sickening or confusing depending on what you were. The heavens were riven open. Lawrence glimpsed choirs of angels ranking off into geometrical infinity.

Lawrence, with his rare mind, is great at math. It is because of this greatness perhaps that he is an abject failure at pretty much everything else. Consequently, the interpersonal, self-discipline and goal-setting skills required to get, say, a degree in mathematics are things he does not possess. Even though he spends time studying with Alan Turing and others in Princeton, he eventually has no choice but to join the Navy. The only responsibility he can be assigned with any confidence in that organization is to play the glockenspiel.

This is what he is doing on the deck of the USS Nevada during Pearl Harbor. When the bombs begin dropping he is mostly preoccupied with the complexity of the events around him. Picking up a weapon is out of the question, he's simply not built to do such things.

The book is written in two eras, the second is present-day and concerns Lawrence's grandson Randall Lawrence Waterhouse. Randy is talking to his girlfriend about his male relatives (including his grandfather):

"One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for many people, is not that he's socially inept-because everybody's been there-but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it."
"Which is still kind of pathetic."
"It was pathetic when they were in high school," Randy says. "Now it's something else. Something very different from pathetic."
"What, then?"
"I don't know. There is no word for it. You'll see."

Lawrence Waterhouse is a mystery to his commanding officers and most of his colleagues and peers. What the military eventually discovers, however, is that despite these shortcomings, with a certain amount of freedom and resources, one of the byproducts of Lawrence's mind is near complete awareness of enemy communications.

Lawrence was a member of a nation with a particular approach to civilization. This approach involved, as a principle, making room for him and his idiosyncrasies. The Allied forces represented this approach to civilization. This fact had a decisive impact on the outcome of WWII, a war that decided whether humanity would live in freedom or in slavery. Freedom, apparently, works better. Consequently, we have more of it.

The Allied approach was perhaps messier, less formal, more concerned with what worked than tradition or code. At one point later in the war, Japanese soldiers are watching an incoming bomber squadron from the deck of a ship in the middle of a shipping convoy. Up to that point in the war, bombing runs at sea like this had been mostly ineffective. The bombers just could not line up their targets. A new device was developed, however, to counter this problem: an air-to-sea torpedo. This is the reaction of a Japanese soldier, Goto Dengo, as he watches the new device in action:

The Americans have invented a totally new bombing tactic in a middle of a war and implemented it flawlessly. His mind staggers like a drunk in the aisle of a careening train. They saw that they were wrong, they admitted their mistake, they came up with a new idea. The new idea was accepted and embraced all the way up the chain of command. Now they are using it to kill their enemies.

No warrior with any concept of honor would have been so craven. So flexible. What a loss of face it must have been for the officers who had trained their men to bomb from high altitudes. What has become of those men? They must have all killed themselves, or perhaps been thrown into prison.

The American Marines in Shanghai weren't proper warriors either. Constantly changing their ways. Like Shaftoe. Shaftoe tried to fight Nipponese soldiers in the street and failed. Having failed, he decided to learn new tactics - from Goto Dengo. "The Americans are not warriors," everyone kept saying. "Businessmen perhaps. Not warriors."

The Marine Bobby Shaftoe is a friend of Goto Dengo. They met while they were both stationed in Shanghai before the war begins. He is the heart of this novel, the character whose narrative most readers will look forward to returning to. He is the embodiment of the Allied approach to civilization, the personality that results from flexible, patient strength.

The following is an exchange between Shaftoe and a commanding officer during one of dozens of intelligence and counter-intelligence missions he is given through the course of the story:

Ethridge straightens up and, in the most accusatory way possible, holds up a fistful of pierced and perforated oaktag. "Sergeant! Would you identify this material?"
"Sir! It is general issue military stencils, Sir!"
"Sergent! How many letters are there in the alphabet?"
"Twenty-six, sir!" responds Shaftoe crisply.
Privates Daniels, Nathan, and Bramph whistle coolly at each other-this Sergeant Shaftoe is sharp as a tack.
"Now, how many numerals?"
"Ten, sir!"
"And of the thirty-six letters and numerals, how many of them are represented by unused stencils in this wastebasket?"
"Thirty-five, sir! All except for the numeral 2, which is the only one we need to carry out your orders, sir!"
"Have you forgotten the second part of my order, Sergeant?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" No point in lying about it. Officers actually like it when you forget their orders because it reminds them of how much smarter they are than you. It makes them feel needed.

Of course, the sacrifices of Bobby Shaftoe and the millions of soldiers like him who died in the war, result in victory and peace. A peace that we all now enjoy. It is a peace, however, that will only last until the next time power is seized by forces willing to trade destruction and death for a chance at more power. This is where the modern era and the narrative of Randy Waterhouse comes into play.

Randy's story involves a business he is attempting to build with his friend Avi (a grandson of a victim of the holocaust) and his girlfriend America "Amy" Shaftoe (Bobby's granddaughter). I won't go into a lot of detail about what this business is, except to say that it attempts to address complexities of human society that allowed the worst evils of WWII to happen. For example:

• Having money or power is not the same as wielding it, especially if it is your intent to wield that power in the prevention of suffering.
• Having information or knowledge of history does not necessarily mean you can prevent it from happening again. History is created by masses of people who do not know what you know. There are always forces that have an incentive to prevent the free flow of information for this very reason.
• Having critical information does not imply a way to act on that information. Sometimes, knowing more about a problem can only make it more difficult to solve.

Most readers will probably not identify with the Randy narrative. The idea Stephenson proposes (i.e. Randy's business model) has not yet been attempted even 10 years after this novel was published. For this reason it may be difficult to associate it with anything we deal with in our lives. For a technology-loving nerd like myself, however, the idea has stuck with me. I find myself keeping an eye open for a group involved in actually making it happen. 

I don't know if the idea will actually address these issues, but after reading the book I believe there is hope that it could. I don't know if I can describe exactly how, but it is an idea that seems to be philosophically connected with the approach to civilization the Allied forces represented.

I should stress, though, that Randy's business is not the point of the book. Readers who reach the novel's conclusion, which is focused on Randy's business, may be left feeling underwhelmed. The point of the book that I am trying to provide a glimpse into, is that the three narratives say something important about the Allied approach to civilization.

1. Lawrence is a social outcast and studies with other hyper-mathematicians who would likely not be supported in Axis nations. Alan Turing is a homosexual, for example, and would probably be imprisoned, enslaved or worse in Japan or Germany.
2. Bobby Shaftoe is a loyal but at times insubordinate warrior who would have had his independence beaten or trained out of him in Axis nations.
3. Randy is a lover of role playing games with an obsession for cereal. He succeeds in an environment that has been fertilized for innovation and change. An environment that would not exist today had Axis powers won the war.

The Allied forces represent an approach to civilization that America now largely upholds. As a consequence, all Americans have the privilege and burden of nurturing it. But in order to nurture something you have to understand it. This is why Cryptonomicon had to be so long. It is not enough to say that "we won". This book is about why we won, what made us different. It is about why the challenge will probably come again, and why we must be true to our history when that time comes.

Introduction

People who meet me tend to think I read a lot. I guess I just radiate that nerd vibe. But for most of my life, I really didn't. I would watch a lot of TV and play a lot of video games, but probably only read 2-3 books a year. What I did read would tend to be pretty light fiction. I always heard about books I really wanted to read, but never got around to starting them. Or I would start a book that was really thick and complicated (Gravity's Rainbow, Seven Pillars of Wisdom) and get about 30 pages into it and then get distracted by something easier, something that didn't require as much of an investment.

I knew I was missing out because when I would finish a book the experience was enriching. Books I've loved have stuck around in my mind for years. I also thought that if I let myself get any older without making reading a consistent habit, it would just get harder and harder to do so. Every month that went by represented a great book I could have read but didn't. Not only that, it represented that much more effort I'd have to expend to actually finish a good book because my habits had gotten that much worse.

Consequently, in 2009 I decided to make reading more frequently a new year's resolution. I took a note card and divided it into 52 boxes, one for each week in the year. My goal was a modest one: to read for one hour, three times a week. Each time I read for an hour I wrote the date on the note card in the box for that week.

I've kept up the same habit since then and there is no doubt in my mind that it continues to be a good investment.

The main purpose of this blog is to keep track of my thoughts about the books I read. My memory is not perfect and I'm sure things that seemed so important to me after finishing the last page won't stand out years after. More than that, however, I hope to encourage discussions or comments about the books that I read. Something fun is so much better when you can share it, even if sharing it means somebody tells you that you completely missed the point. I'm ready for that possibility!

So, whether or not you think I completely missed any point, I appreciate you taking the time to visit.