Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents

By Ellen Ullman

Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents, Ellen Ullman's cult classic memoir of the world of computers in the 1980s and early 1990s, is an insight of a world we rarely see up close.

"Astonishing... impossible to put down"San Francisco Chronicle

"We see the seduction at the heart of programming: embedded in the hijinks and hieroglyphics are the esoteric mysteries of the human mind"Wired

Close to the Machinehas become a cult classic: Ellen Ullman's humane, insightful, and beautifully written memoir explores the ever-complicating intersections between people and technology; the strange ecstasies of programming; the messiness of life and the artful efficiency of code. It is a deeply personal, prescient account of working at the forefront of computing.

With a new introduction by Jaron Lanier, author ofYou Are Not a Gadget

"By turns hilarious and sobering, this slim gem of a book chronicles the Silicon Valley way of life... full of delicately profound insights into work, money, love, and the search for a life that matters"Newsweek

Ellen Ullman'sClose to the Machine, a memoir of her time as a software engineer during the early years of the internet revolution, became a cult classic and established her as a writer of considerable talent; with her second book,The Bug, she became an acclaimed and vital novelist;By Bloodis her third. All three titles are published in the UK by Pushkin Press. Her essays and opinion pieces have been widely published in venues such asHarper's,The New York Times,Salon, andWired. She lives in San Francisco.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Release date: Dec 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781782270249

Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman wrote her first computer program in 1978. She went on to have a twenty-year career as a programmer and software engineer. Her essays and books have become landmark works describing the social, emotional, and personal effects of technology. She is the author of the novels:By Blood, a New York Times Notable Book; and The Bug, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her memoir, Close to the Machine, about her life as a software engineer during the internet’s first rise, became a cult classic. She is based in San Francisco.

Reviews for Close to the Machine

[jpsnow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

True technologists are so smart and yet so different. This author has been a consultant for 20 years and persevered through several languages, operating systems, and software revolutions. Most of her book is an intelligent commentary on the nature of the technical career; occasionally interrupted with the nature of the technical fringe and her own sexual exploits. Her thesis is that technologically-oriented people grow closer to the technology because it is easier, "safer," and more productive for them. Her example of the programmers continuing to work hard amidst the loitering finance and sales staff at a take-over target demonstrates the point.

[kiparsky-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is not a book about software or engineering or the economics of highly-portable information and fluid capital. This is a good storyteller telling stories which have to do with those things and some other stuff. Ullman doesn't have a case to make or a point to prove, but she does give you a lot to think about. She's also a pretty keen observer, both of people and technology. Her description of the amorous attentions of a cipherpunk is oddly affecting: "His lovemaking was tantric, algorithmic... This sex was formulaic, had steps and positions and durations, all tried and perfected, like a martial arts kata or a well-debugged program...I felt as if I'd come in on a private process, something that he had worked out all on his own and which, in some weird expression of trust, he had decided to show me. I should have felt dissatisfied. I should have called it off. But again, I betrayed myself: I gave in to curiosity and tenderness. He has been with himself too long, I thought." This is not everyday good writing, it's a little better than that. But there is also plenty of stuff on computers, both low- and high-level. This is the woman who observed in 1997 that "the Net represents the ultimate dumbing-down of the computer". A decade and a half have given her plenty of confirmation of that claim.