In Search of Imaginary Time... or at least a decent explanation of it

Books read since last post:
Life and Times of Michael K; J.M.Coetzee
A Brief History of Time; Stephen W. Hawking
Persepolis; Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis 2; Marjane Satrapi

Fitting that my first two post-Proust books had the words time or times in the title. With Coetzee it's obviously incidental - Michael K was very good and very haunting although I preferred Disgrace overall. It's a fairly meaningless debate to have (although M. Garrood might refute that point), both were worthy Booker winners and should the rest of his oeuvre come close to these, then Coetzee is a worthy Nobel Laureate.

I re-attempted Hawking after an aborted attempt 6 years ago. Even then I found it surprisingly accessible (not unlike my initial reaction to Proust). This time I ploughed through and finished it in 6 days - more than 2 chapters a day is far too hideous to contemplate. I can proudly say that I understood it... well most of it... some of it anyway. No look, I got the point of it and the general message - a remarkable enough achievement for a pop sci book on theoretical physics. Where Professor Hawking really lost me was with the concept of imaginary time, which he none-too-helpfully describes as being like imaginary numbers (e.g. square root of -1 = i) but with time... nope - I don't get it either and I'm not coming from his baseline "general members of the public" target audience. As I see it, anyway, the only practical implications of this might be that when counting days reading Proust in imaginary time I may actually have beaten Will... a mathematical proof requiring the full attention of the Lucasian Professor in Mathematics I feel - I'll pop next door to Caius and suggest it to him.

My other reading was a joy. I read both Persepolis books yesterday - for the uninitiated an autobiographical graphic novel by the great-granddaughter of the last Shah of Iran. Her parents are Marxist revolutionaries who are engaged in protests against the Islamic regime. The first part, about her childhood, is dreamlike and a joy. The second part, in which she lives in Austria for some time before feeling too out of place in the West and returning home, is a lot more political and still very good. I feel a lot more informed about life in modern-day Iran having read this - but best of all it's very funny and I laughed a lot. There's a movie out now - set to become the desperately cool film to watch over the next few weeks and in keeping with my trendy young don image I'll probably toddle along, but I recommend the book very highly first.