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LORRAINE DASTON (ed.), Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science. New York : Zone Books/MIT Press, 2004. Pp. 447. ISBN 1-890951-43-9. $37.50 (hardback). doi:10.1017/S0007087406218685
'Thank you for inviting me to talk to you. I haven't got long and these are complex and difficult matters, so let me begin with a simple description. I am a book. I suppose that makes me a thing, but I've noticed how often people use that word when they're not sure what else to say, it's vague, general and used in a dazzling range of ways, and mostly, I observe, it means, "not a person". But it certainly can be evocative. There's a book called The Social Life of Things, it's often praised and it uses the idea of things having a life history, a biography, so the word clearly has a lot of mileage. As to us things having lives, stories you might want to read about, it's a great idea and it works for some, but, I confess, I can't quite convince myself. If I'm a thing, I must also be an object. "Object" is connected to "objectivity". There's an idea of "formidable complexity" as I've heard academics saying. For now, however, let's be down to earth. You can't see me as I'm talking so I want to describe myself.
' Start...