Computer Programmer appears in a New Yorker story

The May 9, 2005 New Yorker magazine contains the final installment of Elizabeth Kolbert’s series of articles on climate change.  The series started off with interesting accounts of scientists at work and people living in the Far North.  It ends with boring government officials negotiating and a prediction that the human race will go extinct due to climate change.  Kolbert’s lack of faith in human adaptability stems perhaps from her not seen Peter Ginter’s show at SlideWest 2005 in which he documented the life of folks living in one of Manila’s flooded ghetto.  The Filipinos in the photos don’t seem to enjoy wading through knee-high water to get from house to house but the cycle of birth, education, marriage, and reproduction seems to continue unabated.  Even if one isn’t despairing for the survival of the species, however, it might not be wise to buy a beach house 10′ above sea level with the expectation that one’s grandchildren will enjoy it…


The good news from the rest of the issue is that a computer programmer makes it into a story as the main character for the first time in memory.  “Along the Highways” by Nick Arvin starts with Graham, a “thin and bald” thirtysomething guy who “studied computer science in college” and is in love with his brother’s widow Lindsey.  Graham is disturbed to find Lindsey riding down the highway in a convertible with a big pudgy guy named Doug.  He pursues them for many hours, punctuated by mobile phone conversations among the parties, and finally the story ends at the side of the road with Lindsey encouraging Doug to beat up our programmer protagonist.  Graham ends up in a heap by the side of the road while Doug and Lindsey drive off.

7 thoughts on “Computer Programmer appears in a New Yorker story

  1. I thought it was a lot more significant that the Kolbert article contained a paragraph of Fortran code…certainly the first time I’ve ever seen that in the New Yorker! Maybe they’ll make it a regular feature (“Algorithmic Notes From All Over”).

  2. Philip, I thought you were going to reference the FORTRAN, too; which is almost more freakish in something like NewYorker. But the story struck a resonance in me as well.

  3. The story was pathetic. The three personalities involved lived aimless lives and the author’s description of loss is a poor attempt at extending his imagination. The author could not have not known ‘loss’, for loss is a pain that can’t be justified in any which way except to see yourself as a wretched soul being emptied.

  4. It doesn’t sound like the story about the programmer
    has much to do with programming.

    20 years ago, everyone who played recorder had
    to read a story John Updike published in the
    New Yorker about a group of recorder players.

    He actually did do all the recorder group local color
    right, but it was otherwise a typical New Yorker story
    about marital infidelity and pointless lives.

  5. The irony is Philip was delighted to see his beloved-then-scorn profession finally make it to the magazine, then he gleefully witnessed it beaten to a pulp. It’s a matter of fact (story-wise) but Philip, you make a gleeful note with a hint of self-pity to it. It’s a lost cause?

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