I’m back again! I am seeing this pattern in which I do not post on Saturdays because I’m really just not at the computer on Saturday. I did, however, have a good reading day since I finally finished the third Thursday Murder Club book and a good chunk of Jane Austen, Game Theorist. Today, I finished the book so here are some thoughts.

I last read Jane Austen, Game Theorist… I think in 2013 when it came out so it’s been a decade since I read this, which might explain why I highlighted so many sections. I generally find the book to have done a good analysis of how Jane Austen’s novels show game theory, though I’m not too sure about the associations between cluelessness and autism, because I’m not sure if we should be applying labels that did not exist in Jane Austen’s time to her characters.

Now for some quotes that I highlighted:

• “Game theory has been criticised as capitalist ideology in its purest form – acontextual, technocratic, and a justification for selfishness. But Austen makes us rethink these criticisms, for example, in her argument that a woman should be able to choose for herself regardless of whether others consider her selfish.”
• To continue his argument against the idea that game theory (via rational choice theory) legitimises capitalism: “Some argue that rational choice theory legitimises capitalism (Amadae 2003, for example), partly because it seems difficult to condemn a system in which everyone is said to be making choices. But the fact that a victim chooses to hand over his wallet at gunpoint does not make the perpetrator’s actions any less criminal. Saying that slaveowners were profit maximizers and not sadists does not legitimize slavery (see, for example, Chwe 1990). The fact that a woman chooses to remain in an abusive relationship does not excuse the abuse.”
• “Just as intense emotion does not necessarily lead to poor choices, calmness does not necessarily lead to good ones.“
• Austen’s defense of independent thought is summarised as “Others can affect your behaviour through norms of what is socially expected but you cannot allow them to affect your judgment or thought process.”
• “Austen argues that self-management strategies are a matter of choice, not temperament; Elinor’s and Marianne’s strategies differ because they have different goals.”

For an academic book, I found it very readable! I think it helps that it’s about Jane Austen, whose novels I’ve read many times. Even though the book doesn’t presume that the reader has read all of Austen’s works, I think that would be helpful. I also found it helpful that Chwe, the author, provides an introduction too what he’s going to talk about in each chapter, which helps build “scaffolds” for the reader. You can roughly anticipate what he’s going to talk about so it’s easier to follow the flow of his argument.

After finishing this, I initially considered reading another Austen novel but ended up choosing something completely different: Ask the Past. It’s a collection of “advice” from various texts from the past and it’s hilarious. My thoughts are pretty much the same as my first review since there’s not much too say about a collection of different pieces of advice.

I did feel that this book is really yellow which is slightly depressing – I really think most of my books are not stored in optimum condition but I have no idea where else to move the books because there isn’t any more space. I’ll have to think more about this problem.

This week, I’m planning to switch courses and reread some Endo Shusaku – the BBC Podcast “In Our Time” did an episode on the Shimabara rebellion and that reminded me about the Japanese Christians which led me to think of Endo’s works.