The overt meaning of UNSONG is “a book written by pseudonymous rationalist blogger Scott Alexander published as a website in 2017.” The kabbalistic meaning of UNSONG is “the nerdiest, most niche work one can consume, whose physical size as a massive tome may make carrying it around in a backpack across several countries more difficult and contribute to zipper failure.” This we derive from my personal experience. Both of these are discrete from the acronymic meaning of UNSONG, which is of course “United Nations Subcommittee on Names of God,” and thus illustrative of exactly why I enjoyed this book so thoroughly.
I had initially dismissed UNSONG as outdated. Surely this was an old and abandoned creation of Scott’s, less important than his contemporary contributions. I was also not hugely into the concept of website-books. It was thus fortuitous that these two concerns were addressed with an updated physical edition. “This was not a coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence.”
This book exists at the most wonderful intersection of things that I adore. I have already gifted a copy to a good friend, and intend to lend mine out enthusiastically to anybody who will take it.
A selection of wonderful quotes:
Bizarre surrealist painter Salvador Dalí once said: “I do not do drugs. I am drugs.” He was being silly. He wasn’t drugs. He was Salvador Dalí.
“Kissinger, are you sure this was a good idea?”
“There is never any surety in politics, only probability.”
“But you think it’s probable this was a good idea?”
“Yes.”
“What about our [expletive deleted] souls, Kissinger?”
“I fail to see how they are relevant to geopolitics.”
My mother was a Hindu, but Hinduism passes through the paternal line. My father, perhaps if he teaches me Torah then is Jewish. But Judaism passes through the maternal line. I am nothing.
Somebody has to and no one else will.
I’ve also added King James Programming, referenced occasionally in the epigraphs of UNSONG, to my RSS reader and expect to extract a certain amount of joy from that every day.
Some of the Hebrew in UNSONG is not fully intelligible. I have decided to accept this as suboptimal transliteration done in good faith, so that I can move on and love the rest of the book.
With all that said, they released a Kindle version shortly after I bought the paperback and would absolutely recommend you get that one instead as it really is quite something to carry around all the time. But do get it.