Since I'm swimming in The Stalwart's wake this morning, now seems like a good time to articulate the frustration I share with other readers of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
I'll build on Eddy Elfbein's critique by saying that The Black Swan's prose makes me certain that Taleb leveraged all of the clout he earned through the success of his prior work Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets to block his editors from changing anything. It really does read like a first draft written by somebody who is deeply emotionally commited to every single syllable they utter and can't bear to part with any of them.
I'll build on Eddy Elfbein's critique by saying that The Black Swan's prose makes me certain that Taleb leveraged all of the clout he earned through the success of his prior work Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets to block his editors from changing anything. It really does read like a first draft written by somebody who is deeply emotionally commited to every single syllable they utter and can't bear to part with any of them.
That said, I am still enjoying it, if only perhaps because Taleb's tone, errudition, and endless, seemingly pointless digressions remind me, nostalgically, of listening to conversations at the family dinner table whilst growing up. Go figure.
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