Better than Troyat's diastrous bio of Dostoevsky, but nowhere near the brilliance of his bios of Flaubert and Chekhov and, to some extent, Turgenev. Pretty short and clearly pieced together from Gorky's own memoirs--i.e., not a whole lot of research--this bio leaves out a great deal of Gorky's literary life--doesn't even mention many of his works, if he struggled writing them, how his plays got produced, etc (all of a sudden we just read that he has another novel published, with virtually no word about its invention or process). Instead, most of the emphasis is one Gorky's politics and how his opposition to the tsar and then to the Revolution ultimately changed and how he became an ardent Bolshevik. In that sense, it's a decent history lesson, though many parts of the Revolution get left out as well. All in all, it's a so-so bio that doesn't succeed at doing any one thing particularly well. Frankly, you can almost feel like Troyat rushed through this just to say he wrote a bio of another Russian writer.
Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from the Old Norse Poems and Tales (Puffin Classics) by Roger Lancelyn Green
Kick-ass. Rich, fascinating, original myths that would be great to use in a comparative myth course. The description of Ragnarok is terrifically sad and hopeful.
There are plenty of problems that make Heinlein’s *Stranger in a Strange Land* an abysmally disappointing novel, but the worst of them may also be the least obvious. That is, it’s quite clear the dialogue is pretentious and stilted (and *endless*—the male characters, in particular, can spout second-rate philosophy for pages and pages), that its chauvinism is relentless and humorless, and that there isn’t a single original character in the entire 400+ pages, a marvel of probability unto itself—it seems astonishing that in all those pages Heinlein didn’t accidentally create *someone* worth following. But, alas, he does not. Yet what seems most unforgivable is that the novel’s premise had such possibility behind it, with Heinlein dropping hints here and there that we’re in for an engaging, alarming turn, something that will make the story worthy of the kudos the Ace paperback edition (1987) slaps on its cover: “The Most Famous Science Fiction Novel Ever Written.” Yet no such turns ever happen, the most intriguing details are never revisited, and in the end we’re left with what is at best a cheap gimmick, and at worst a story the author didn’t have the skill to truly write.
The plot is this: Michael Valentine Smith, a bastard child and the sole survivor of the first human colony on Mars, is found some twenty years later by the second manned mission to the Red Planet and brought back to Earth. Our world by then has become nation-less, ruled by a single, show more planet-wide “Federation,” whose military and political leaders are understandably a little unnerved when they learn that “Mike” was raised by Martians, that his education and powers may be significantly deeper and more potent than their own—thus making it unclear if he is actually a “man”—and who, through some convoluted legalese, is the sovereign owner of Mars even though it’s inhabited. This is interesting, yes? Questions of what makes us human, what makes identity, etc. But by page 7, Heinlein has already tipped his hand as to what his real obsession is, and what will become the obsession of most of the novel—sex. “He’s been brought up by a race that has nothing in common with us,” the captain of the mission exclaims, “they don’t even have *sex*.” (7) I don’t know—it seems like the other facts the second mission learned about Martians, like that Martian “[a]dults were huge, reminding the first humans to see them of ice boats under sail,” (91) or that Martians can control their circulatory and metabolic systems deliberately *with their minds*, seems somehow more interesting than that they don’t have sex. Of course, it’s fair to point out that Heinlein published this novel in 1961, a year either right at the beginning , or right on the cusp of, America’s sexual revolution, and maybe this is one reason for his fixation with the subject. But still, since Heinlein has gone to the trouble of richly imagining Martians and Martian life, it’s disappointing to discover eventually that the novel is really just a paean to free love—on Mars, we learn, “There was no possibility of ‘marriage.’” (91) What takes its place instead is something called “grokking”—truly one of the worst words a writer has ever invented for an imaginary language—which means to understand something or someone completely, to “possess” someone or something completely by understanding them completely (as marriage attempts to do?), to drink in, to comprehend, to know, or, of course, to screw.
Thus: Gillian Boardman (Her last name is innuendo!) is a nurse at the hospital where Mike is in recovery from the change in gravity between the planets. Jill has, of course, a nice rack and a nice backside and she’s friends with Ben Caxton, who is, of course, the witty, hard-boiled investigative reporter who thinks the government is hiding something about Mike. Ben likes Jill’s nice rack and backside and has even proposed marriage to her. So when Ben goes missing after asking too many questions, Jill follows through with his command that she save the Man from Mars herself, which she does by taking him into the Poconos, to the home of Ben’s friend, Jubal Harshaw. Harshaw is famous throughout the Federation not just because he’s a powerful doctor and lawyer, but also because he writes—curiously—bad pulp fiction. And even more curious is that he knows it’s bad. Curious. Harshaw lives on a little compound where he has three beautiful women who act as his secretaries, cooks, and pool-loungers. One is blonde, another brunette, the third a red-head, and they all have, of course, nice racks and backsides, which they flaunt most of the time in swimsuits. Like the women of *Mad Men*, they leave the room when the men gather to discuss serious things, they’re good cooks, they never get angry enough to challenge Harshaw (he’s always “Boss” to them), and they rarely speak without using the word “dear.” Yet, of course, Harshaw treats them gruffly but lovingly, as he’s pushing seventy and the novel needs the stock character of the eccentric, but wise—and even unorthodox—old man.
So it’s Harshaw, after pages and pages of monologues about government, leadership, sovereignty, the public good, etc., who decides to act as Mike’s attorney and make sure the Man from Mars gets what’s his and that the Federation government doesn’t swindle him of it. Flush with new-found money and power, Mike stays humble and innocent, which of course makes all the women he meets, including those at Harshaw’s compound, want to jump in bed with him. And once Gillian explains that homosexuality is wrong (Martians don’t have such a concept, since they don’t have sex), it’s game on, and Mike sleeps with Gillian, with Harshaw’s blonde, and then with many, many women after he starts a temple that teaches Martian tricks like hypnotic states and telekinesis—paired with lots of sex with different people—as a means of achieving happiness. You can guess how the story ends just by reading the Table of Contents: five parts, running from “His Maculate Origin” to “His Scandalous Career,” to “His Happy Destiny.” You’ve heard something like this before, perhaps in something called the Bible.
So what becomes of all the discussion of what makes someone human and what creates identity? What becomes of the information Heinlein drops about Mike being a spy for the Martians, that the Martians are considering wiping out Earth? Nothing. Nothing at all, and that’s what’s most maddening about the novel, that lost potential, a problem even more frustrating than Heinlein’s maddeningly formulaic dialogue: A woman says something. A man makes a witty comment and then answers with a long monologue about philosophy, economics, or government. The woman says, “Gee, dear,” or “Shucks, dear.” The man makes a witty comment to close the conversation. What’s ultimately frustrating about *Stranger* is that it doesn’t do any of the things good sci-fi works (or, really, any good work of fiction) should: namely, engaging the larger issues of what it means to be human (turns out it’s not just sex!), how we shape our identity or have it shaped for us, and how we resist or accept the social constructs around us. And most importantly is that they do so sincerely and thoughtfully, not formulaically. show less
The plot is this: Michael Valentine Smith, a bastard child and the sole survivor of the first human colony on Mars, is found some twenty years later by the second manned mission to the Red Planet and brought back to Earth. Our world by then has become nation-less, ruled by a single, show more planet-wide “Federation,” whose military and political leaders are understandably a little unnerved when they learn that “Mike” was raised by Martians, that his education and powers may be significantly deeper and more potent than their own—thus making it unclear if he is actually a “man”—and who, through some convoluted legalese, is the sovereign owner of Mars even though it’s inhabited. This is interesting, yes? Questions of what makes us human, what makes identity, etc. But by page 7, Heinlein has already tipped his hand as to what his real obsession is, and what will become the obsession of most of the novel—sex. “He’s been brought up by a race that has nothing in common with us,” the captain of the mission exclaims, “they don’t even have *sex*.” (7) I don’t know—it seems like the other facts the second mission learned about Martians, like that Martian “[a]dults were huge, reminding the first humans to see them of ice boats under sail,” (91) or that Martians can control their circulatory and metabolic systems deliberately *with their minds*, seems somehow more interesting than that they don’t have sex. Of course, it’s fair to point out that Heinlein published this novel in 1961, a year either right at the beginning , or right on the cusp of, America’s sexual revolution, and maybe this is one reason for his fixation with the subject. But still, since Heinlein has gone to the trouble of richly imagining Martians and Martian life, it’s disappointing to discover eventually that the novel is really just a paean to free love—on Mars, we learn, “There was no possibility of ‘marriage.’” (91) What takes its place instead is something called “grokking”—truly one of the worst words a writer has ever invented for an imaginary language—which means to understand something or someone completely, to “possess” someone or something completely by understanding them completely (as marriage attempts to do?), to drink in, to comprehend, to know, or, of course, to screw.
Thus: Gillian Boardman (Her last name is innuendo!) is a nurse at the hospital where Mike is in recovery from the change in gravity between the planets. Jill has, of course, a nice rack and a nice backside and she’s friends with Ben Caxton, who is, of course, the witty, hard-boiled investigative reporter who thinks the government is hiding something about Mike. Ben likes Jill’s nice rack and backside and has even proposed marriage to her. So when Ben goes missing after asking too many questions, Jill follows through with his command that she save the Man from Mars herself, which she does by taking him into the Poconos, to the home of Ben’s friend, Jubal Harshaw. Harshaw is famous throughout the Federation not just because he’s a powerful doctor and lawyer, but also because he writes—curiously—bad pulp fiction. And even more curious is that he knows it’s bad. Curious. Harshaw lives on a little compound where he has three beautiful women who act as his secretaries, cooks, and pool-loungers. One is blonde, another brunette, the third a red-head, and they all have, of course, nice racks and backsides, which they flaunt most of the time in swimsuits. Like the women of *Mad Men*, they leave the room when the men gather to discuss serious things, they’re good cooks, they never get angry enough to challenge Harshaw (he’s always “Boss” to them), and they rarely speak without using the word “dear.” Yet, of course, Harshaw treats them gruffly but lovingly, as he’s pushing seventy and the novel needs the stock character of the eccentric, but wise—and even unorthodox—old man.
So it’s Harshaw, after pages and pages of monologues about government, leadership, sovereignty, the public good, etc., who decides to act as Mike’s attorney and make sure the Man from Mars gets what’s his and that the Federation government doesn’t swindle him of it. Flush with new-found money and power, Mike stays humble and innocent, which of course makes all the women he meets, including those at Harshaw’s compound, want to jump in bed with him. And once Gillian explains that homosexuality is wrong (Martians don’t have such a concept, since they don’t have sex), it’s game on, and Mike sleeps with Gillian, with Harshaw’s blonde, and then with many, many women after he starts a temple that teaches Martian tricks like hypnotic states and telekinesis—paired with lots of sex with different people—as a means of achieving happiness. You can guess how the story ends just by reading the Table of Contents: five parts, running from “His Maculate Origin” to “His Scandalous Career,” to “His Happy Destiny.” You’ve heard something like this before, perhaps in something called the Bible.
So what becomes of all the discussion of what makes someone human and what creates identity? What becomes of the information Heinlein drops about Mike being a spy for the Martians, that the Martians are considering wiping out Earth? Nothing. Nothing at all, and that’s what’s most maddening about the novel, that lost potential, a problem even more frustrating than Heinlein’s maddeningly formulaic dialogue: A woman says something. A man makes a witty comment and then answers with a long monologue about philosophy, economics, or government. The woman says, “Gee, dear,” or “Shucks, dear.” The man makes a witty comment to close the conversation. What’s ultimately frustrating about *Stranger* is that it doesn’t do any of the things good sci-fi works (or, really, any good work of fiction) should: namely, engaging the larger issues of what it means to be human (turns out it’s not just sex!), how we shape our identity or have it shaped for us, and how we resist or accept the social constructs around us. And most importantly is that they do so sincerely and thoughtfully, not formulaically. show less