The Greatest Invention

The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts
Silvia Ferrara
translated by Todd Portnowitz
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 1, 2022), 280 pages
Kindle edition $14.99, Amazon hardcover $23.78

The author is an expert in the world of writing and scripts. In The Greatest Invention she talks about the history of writing. And “talk” is an appropriate word here, as her style is conversational.

She begins writing about Crete and tells us that ancient Crete produced four scripts: Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A, the Phaistos Disk, and Linear B. Scholars have deciphered only one of those: Linear B. On the island of Cyprus there are four tablets written in what scholars call Crypto-Minoan. That is also undeciphered. From here Ferrara goes to Easter Island, where she discusses the Mamari tablet, written in the undeciphered Rongorongo script. Ferrara received a grant to lead a research group focused on the invention of writing and to decipher these so-far undeciphered scripts.

Ferrara then goes on to discuss when and how writing arises. She writes that when a civilization reaches a population of ten thousand you will find writing. However, she emphasizes that civilizations have existed without writing systems, and that “writing systems have formed like pearls in oysters, with no warning, no territorial expansion, no clear purpose.” Many people believe that writing arises out of the needs of bureaucracy, as we see in the Linear B scripts of Mycenae and the cuneiform tablets in Mesopotamia. That idea, she says “is just reckless drivel.” Ferrara dispels the notion that writing was invented only once. She cites multiple examples that show writing must have arisen entirely independently in different places.

Ferrara delves into means of communication that did not involve writing, for example, the Incan quipu, which she describes as “rows and rows of cords, all strung together like charms on a necklace, all covered in knots.” She says that these were used for record keeping, but perhaps also to tell stories.

The author spends a lot of space discussing the rebus: a combination of letters and images. It seems a lot of ancient scripts used them. No doubt you played with rebuses in elementary school. For example:

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She also writes about emojis. She tells us they are here to stay. Heaven help us. (One of the disadvantages of reading this book in the Kindle edition on my iPad is that the rebus and emoji images were very hard to see.)

In the final quarter of the book the author ends her conversational tone and takes on a drier, more academic approach as she discusses how scholars study language. She admits that computers have been of great help in attempts to decipher those still undeciphered scripts. But she emphasizes that it is the human effort that is the best tool for studying language and she insists it is a multidisciplinary undertaking. She enumerates: “epigraphists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geomatics engineers, historians, cognitivists, semiologists, and computer scientists. And linguists.”

Ferrara originally wrote the book in Italian. Todd Portnowitz translated it into English. This is interesting because there is a lot of casual language, idiom, and word play throughout the book. I have to wonder whether the Italian version differed somewhat from this English edition and if this is a revised version specifically intended for an English-speaking audience. I suspect Ferrara must have been involved in the translation. Her English is no doubt good enough. Her biography at the end of the book states that she studied at University College London and at the University of Oxford. It says she researched archaeology and linguistics at Oxford, and that she has taught at University College London, the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge. That makes me wonder why she didn’t simply write the English version herself.

No matter. If you are interested in the history and science of script and writing, take a look at The Greatest Invention.

Lost & Found

Lost & Found: A Memoir
by Kathryn Schulz
Random House (January 11, 2022), 241 pages
Kindle edition $12.99, Amazon hardcover $19.08

Kathryn Schulz’s memoir Lost & Found came out to favorable notices. Justifiably so.

Schulz opens the book describing her reaction to learning of the death of her father and her own experience of being lost. She writes about her father who came to the United States as a youngster, fleeing the war in Europe. She recalls her father as she was growing up, and how he was a skilled storyteller. Schulz then describes how her father was constantly losing things: keys, wallet, whatever. That didn’t bother him much, but it kept his wife and his two daughters busy following up. Schulz tells us how literate her father was and how capable he was as a lawyer.

The author then circles back and writes about her father’s decline and how hard it was on the family, as he did not have the clarity he once did. Staying on the theme of loss, she writes about how the family finally had to decide to let him go.

Schulz then moves to the theme of “found.” She writes about meeting a sister writer with whom she quickly fell in love. She describes how their relationship developed and how C. (as Schulz refers to her) helped her move her parents out of their house and into a condo (loss again).

She tells us that her parents loved C. and she describes meeting C.’s family who were completely accepting of her. The author provides a detailed account of their wedding and how well the two families got along. This was remarkable in that Schulz’s family was midwestern and nonobservant Jewish while C.’s family was Southern and devoutly Christian.

Near the end of the book Schulz tells us that she and C. were expecting a child. She did not say which one of them was pregnant nor how the pregnancy came about, but I suppose those things (especially the latter) are none of our business.

Lost and Found describes a lot of pain and a lot of joy. Rather like life.

Whole Earth

Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand
John Markoff
Penguin Press (March 22, 2022), 416 pages
Kindle edition $13.99, Amazon hardcover $25.97

If you spent any time in bookstores in the 1970s or if you were around the counterculture of the time, you no doubt encountered one of the many editions of the Whole Earth Catalog. Perhaps you subscribed to CoEvolution Quarterly, or as I did, to its successor, Whole Earth Review. If so, you are aware that the man behind these publications was Stewart Brand.

In his comprehensive biography of Brand, author John Markoff shows Brand to be a far more complex character than you might have expected. Certainly more complex than I expected.

Brand grew up in the Midwest, but he went west to Stanford for college. Markoff mentions that Brand joined the ROTC as a freshman but says nothing about his ROTC activities as an undergraduate. The military resurfaces when Brand graduates and Markoff notes that Brand wore his dress uniform to his graduation. The author then goes on to Brand’s time in the military and describes how Brand failed in his training to become part of the elite Ranger corps. Ultimately Brand got himself assigned as a photographer and was eventually able to secure early release from active duty. This came with the obligation for Reserve activities, reminders for which Brand tended to ignore.

After leaving the army he returned to the Bay Area where he experimented with LSD. He involved himself in some of the legal, controlled experiments at the time and also later indulged recreationally. Brand hung around the fringes of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters but was never fully a part of that group. Native American culture fascinated him and did a photo essay of the Warm Springs tribe.

Brand became intrigued by Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy and the idea of innovative uses for tools. He opened a business in Menlo Park he called the Truck Store where he sold books and tools. That, along with his fascination with Fuller’s work, eventually led to the Whole Earth Catalog.

Markoff describes in detail the creation and the ups and downs of the Whole Earth Catalog and its various editions. He also discusses Brand’s fascination with technology, and his creation of the WELL, the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, in the mid-1980s, which was an early online public online forum, though far from the first. If you think that managing online behavior is a recent phenomenon this book will tell you that Brand and his WELL manager, Tex, faced those same issues from the beginning.

Brand was not the maven of the counterculture that the Whole Earth Catalog might suggest. He had some conservative views and helped found the Global Business Network, where he gave lectures and presentations to corporations. He believed in city life (as opposed to rural) and in nuclear power as ways of combating global climate change. When he published these views in his book Whole Earth Discipline in October 2009 he made enemies and many who knew Brand’s work felt betrayed.

Stewart Brand was married twice. Both wives were key to the successes of his various businesses. His first wife, Lois Jennings, was the glue that held the Whole Earth Catalog together. That marriage ended in divorce, though Markoff’s subtext implies that the marriage could have worked had Brand put in a little more effort. Of his second wife, Markoff writes, “Patty Phelan had made him a nicer person.” That marriage lasted, and Phelan was an entrepreneur in her own right.

If the Whole Earth culture is part of your past or if it otherwise interests you Markoff’s biography will tell you as much about Stewart Brand as you could possibly absorb.