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1absurdeist
A look back at my most notable reads in 2012.
Battleborn ~ Claire Vaye Watkins
I've a strong affinity for stories set in deserts. Most collected here occupy Death Valley and Las Vegas. Watkins confronts the mythology surrounding her infamous father's past with most likely more mythology, but also autobiography, though they're so enmeshed it's not possible to untangle her crafty confabulations. Her debut is generally good and sometimes genuinely great, but falls flat a few times too. More here.
Black Light: A Novel ~ Galway Kinnell
Another story set in the desert, this time half a world away, in Iran. A man named after Persia's mythological king, Jamshid (of which mythology Kinnell mines in his anti-hero time and again), so fed up with his dissappointing life, lashes out in an impulsive instant -- a horrible mistake -- and flees his crime for the rest of his life, if a nomad existence on the run can still be called "life". The version I read was altered by Kinnell in 1980, following the Iranian revolution. Originally publication: 1966. Kinnell, being a poet, had a distinct advantage over Claire Vaye Watkins, in expressing physical as well as metaphysical realities existing in an arid wilderness. His book is richer than Watkins' (whom I nevertheless enjoyed) by far. More here.
Blue Nights ~ Joan Didion
The desert-like desolation of a mother's grief, having lost her only (adopted) child w/in eighteen months after losing her husband. Devastating. From the 60s - 90s, Didion made great understated art (Play it as it Lays) or artful understated outrage (Salvador) or understated artful disillusion (take your pick from any of her essay collections; I'd pick The White Album), but now for the last decade she's been making pure art, employing something from each of her singular oeuvres, out of her deeply personal pain. Not yet reviewed.
The Book of Fantasy ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo, Adolfo Bioy Casares, editors
Fabulous anthology. Fantastic. Three good friends, the Argentine luminaries listed above, debated what they thought were the best "fantastic" and ghost stories, and in 1940 the first version of their anthology was released. They'd revise it a couple more times in later editions over the ensuing thirty-six years, adding something here, removing something there, but through it all its remained a stellar anthology, with its idiosyncratic mix of literary heavyweights mingled prominently with scores of interesting Latin American unknowns. More here.
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why ~ Laurence Gonzales
Gonzales analyzes psychological and physiological factors in determining what the differences are for those who live and for those who die in extreme wilderness situations. It's a fascinating, though not solely scientific, study of survival. Not yet reviewed.
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
Prose that's probably too dense, science and speculation since proved fantasy, but some of its ideas (1965-66) either beat Kubrick's and Clarke's iconic collaboration (1964-1968) to the punch, or coincided with them. Herbert here certainly prefigures the images of the first Matrix. But I'm a biased Herbert fan since childhood, I'll confess. More here.
Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
Could just as easily been titled The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Empire, though its focus is mostly on its fall. Brief review here.
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace ~ D.T. Max
Spoken voluminously elsewhere on this bio; won't be redundant here.
Masks of the Illuminati ~ Robert Anton Wilson
Works as a nice introduction to thinly veiled fictionalized versions (RAWs visions) of freemasonry, secret societies and what "illumination" might mean in an esoteric context, mixing psychology, philsophy, literature, religions and mysticism into a whimsical stew of knowledge. It's basically a mystery or detective story, set on a sometimes-spoofish, sometimes-serious, always-elaborately gnostic stage. More here.
Outer Dark ~ Cormac McCarthy
The muted light not quite able to filter down to the floors of an Appalachian forest, it's overrall effect of eerie otherworldliness, reminded me a lot of Chateau 'd Argol. The uncertainty of the brother's and sisters circumstances -- and that of their child's -- whether they are being pursued or the one who pursues, or both, as much running from themselves as each other, journeying but never arriving, helps maintain that mysterious momentum, that dark air of confusion and intrigue I so enjoyed in Chateau 'd Argol as well. Not yet reviewed.
Place Last Seen ~ Charlotte McGuinn Freeman
A child w/Down syndrome gets lost in the vast Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. Will search-and-rescue teams locate her in time, before an early October snowstorm moves in? The novel was originally conceived as Charlotte Freeman's theological thesis. It's a non-didactic, excruciating study of human suffering, asking how much suffering can a person of faith withstand before their faith erodes? Is faith in God, next to the reality of evil and human suffering, mutually exclusive one to the other, or can they legitimately coexist? I'm thinking fans of Stewart O'Nan's, Songs for the Missing, would like this novel too. Not yet reviewed.
Rubicon Beach ~ Steve Erickson
As good a writer as Erickson is, he should be more widely read. In Rubicon Beach he's the best of Philip K. Dick and David Foster Wallace. Posted about it here.
So Far Gone: A Novel ~ Paul Cody
Mental illness and mass murder. The Death penalty for a perpetrator who was grotesquely victimized by those he murdered. Is it seriously possibly to ever empathize with a man who killed his grandmother and parents? Paul Cody gives a nod to Denis Johnson's first novel, Angels, and to Joan Didion, quoting both to begin his novel, and while he's not as good a writer as either, his novel is still great, if uncomfortable to contemplate. No review yet.
Quake ~ Rudolf Wurlitzer
L.A. gets pulverized in a the Big One. What fun!
Battleborn ~ Claire Vaye Watkins
I've a strong affinity for stories set in deserts. Most collected here occupy Death Valley and Las Vegas. Watkins confronts the mythology surrounding her infamous father's past with most likely more mythology, but also autobiography, though they're so enmeshed it's not possible to untangle her crafty confabulations. Her debut is generally good and sometimes genuinely great, but falls flat a few times too. More here.
Black Light: A Novel ~ Galway Kinnell
Another story set in the desert, this time half a world away, in Iran. A man named after Persia's mythological king, Jamshid (of which mythology Kinnell mines in his anti-hero time and again), so fed up with his dissappointing life, lashes out in an impulsive instant -- a horrible mistake -- and flees his crime for the rest of his life, if a nomad existence on the run can still be called "life". The version I read was altered by Kinnell in 1980, following the Iranian revolution. Originally publication: 1966. Kinnell, being a poet, had a distinct advantage over Claire Vaye Watkins, in expressing physical as well as metaphysical realities existing in an arid wilderness. His book is richer than Watkins' (whom I nevertheless enjoyed) by far. More here.
Blue Nights ~ Joan Didion
The desert-like desolation of a mother's grief, having lost her only (adopted) child w/in eighteen months after losing her husband. Devastating. From the 60s - 90s, Didion made great understated art (Play it as it Lays) or artful understated outrage (Salvador) or understated artful disillusion (take your pick from any of her essay collections; I'd pick The White Album), but now for the last decade she's been making pure art, employing something from each of her singular oeuvres, out of her deeply personal pain. Not yet reviewed.
The Book of Fantasy ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo, Adolfo Bioy Casares, editors
Fabulous anthology. Fantastic. Three good friends, the Argentine luminaries listed above, debated what they thought were the best "fantastic" and ghost stories, and in 1940 the first version of their anthology was released. They'd revise it a couple more times in later editions over the ensuing thirty-six years, adding something here, removing something there, but through it all its remained a stellar anthology, with its idiosyncratic mix of literary heavyweights mingled prominently with scores of interesting Latin American unknowns. More here.
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why ~ Laurence Gonzales
Gonzales analyzes psychological and physiological factors in determining what the differences are for those who live and for those who die in extreme wilderness situations. It's a fascinating, though not solely scientific, study of survival. Not yet reviewed.
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
Prose that's probably too dense, science and speculation since proved fantasy, but some of its ideas (1965-66) either beat Kubrick's and Clarke's iconic collaboration (1964-1968) to the punch, or coincided with them. Herbert here certainly prefigures the images of the first Matrix. But I'm a biased Herbert fan since childhood, I'll confess. More here.
Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
Could just as easily been titled The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Empire, though its focus is mostly on its fall. Brief review here.
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace ~ D.T. Max
Spoken voluminously elsewhere on this bio; won't be redundant here.
Masks of the Illuminati ~ Robert Anton Wilson
Works as a nice introduction to thinly veiled fictionalized versions (RAWs visions) of freemasonry, secret societies and what "illumination" might mean in an esoteric context, mixing psychology, philsophy, literature, religions and mysticism into a whimsical stew of knowledge. It's basically a mystery or detective story, set on a sometimes-spoofish, sometimes-serious, always-elaborately gnostic stage. More here.
Outer Dark ~ Cormac McCarthy
The muted light not quite able to filter down to the floors of an Appalachian forest, it's overrall effect of eerie otherworldliness, reminded me a lot of Chateau 'd Argol. The uncertainty of the brother's and sisters circumstances -- and that of their child's -- whether they are being pursued or the one who pursues, or both, as much running from themselves as each other, journeying but never arriving, helps maintain that mysterious momentum, that dark air of confusion and intrigue I so enjoyed in Chateau 'd Argol as well. Not yet reviewed.
Place Last Seen ~ Charlotte McGuinn Freeman
A child w/Down syndrome gets lost in the vast Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. Will search-and-rescue teams locate her in time, before an early October snowstorm moves in? The novel was originally conceived as Charlotte Freeman's theological thesis. It's a non-didactic, excruciating study of human suffering, asking how much suffering can a person of faith withstand before their faith erodes? Is faith in God, next to the reality of evil and human suffering, mutually exclusive one to the other, or can they legitimately coexist? I'm thinking fans of Stewart O'Nan's, Songs for the Missing, would like this novel too. Not yet reviewed.
Rubicon Beach ~ Steve Erickson
As good a writer as Erickson is, he should be more widely read. In Rubicon Beach he's the best of Philip K. Dick and David Foster Wallace. Posted about it here.
So Far Gone: A Novel ~ Paul Cody
Mental illness and mass murder. The Death penalty for a perpetrator who was grotesquely victimized by those he murdered. Is it seriously possibly to ever empathize with a man who killed his grandmother and parents? Paul Cody gives a nod to Denis Johnson's first novel, Angels, and to Joan Didion, quoting both to begin his novel, and while he's not as good a writer as either, his novel is still great, if uncomfortable to contemplate. No review yet.
Quake ~ Rudolf Wurlitzer
L.A. gets pulverized in a the Big One. What fun!
2fuzzy_patters
I too enjoyed Battleborn and Outer Dark. It sounds like we have some similar reading interests so I will make a point to read your reading thread this year. Happy reading!
3jdthloue
Irony, for sure..that i recently acquired a copy of So Far Gone: a Novel.....you scare me, Sir Freeque!
4absurdeist
Thanks, fuzzy. I'll keep tabs on your thread too.
Glad I was able to scare you, Jude!
For this thread I'll begin by putting two books under the microscope, The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard and the Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature (1955-2010) by Christopher Dominguez Michael, the Mexican critic and novelist.
My plan is to write a brief bit about most of Ballard's stories, a story per post, maybe one a week or so, and also to spotlight one of the many intriguing writers (most unknown to me) that Michaels critiques in Critical Dict. of Mexican Lit. once a week also.
Glad I was able to scare you, Jude!
For this thread I'll begin by putting two books under the microscope, The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard and the Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature (1955-2010) by Christopher Dominguez Michael, the Mexican critic and novelist.
My plan is to write a brief bit about most of Ballard's stories, a story per post, maybe one a week or so, and also to spotlight one of the many intriguing writers (most unknown to me) that Michaels critiques in Critical Dict. of Mexican Lit. once a week also.
5edwinbcn
I will be following with interest, as I recently purchased The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard and it is gathering dust on my bedside table.
6zenomax
Hey Brent, happy new year to you.
JG Ballard is an interesting character, I have read a biography which helps define him a little. He was very interested in the surrealists from an early age.
He exhibits most of the characteristics of an INTJ by the way.
DFW and Dick are proving to be really good at pulling me into the story. Dick especially, although DFW is showing real promise...but I suspect there is a lot more water to flow under the bridge before I get to a rounded view of IJ.
Edwin, hopefully you will read JGB and report back too.
JG Ballard is an interesting character, I have read a biography which helps define him a little. He was very interested in the surrealists from an early age.
He exhibits most of the characteristics of an INTJ by the way.
DFW and Dick are proving to be really good at pulling me into the story. Dick especially, although DFW is showing real promise...but I suspect there is a lot more water to flow under the bridge before I get to a rounded view of IJ.
Edwin, hopefully you will read JGB and report back too.
7baswood
The Complete stories of J G Ballard looks like a lot of fun. I had a peek at the books contents and there are some intriguing titles to the stories. I will see how you go with this Brent, but I could be tempted to get this one.
8arubabookwoman
I've been wanting to read Blue Nights, but also afraid to read it. Her The Year of Magical Thinking was so devastating.
I've put So Far Gone on my Wishlist, sounds like a book I'd like, and I'm a fan of Denis Johnson and Joan Didion.
I'm also looking forward to your take on The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard. I really like his earlier works, but have disliked some of his more recent fiction.
I've put So Far Gone on my Wishlist, sounds like a book I'd like, and I'm a fan of Denis Johnson and Joan Didion.
I'm also looking forward to your take on The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard. I really like his earlier works, but have disliked some of his more recent fiction.
9absurdeist
5-8> What strikes me the most after reading the first two stories in Ballard's Complete Stories, both published in 1956, is how undated they seem. They don't read like old classic SF stories from the Fifties, at least not like the handful of SF writers I've read from that era. When you read Arthur C. Clarke's stories from that era, they read like they originated from that time -- they're relics, though enjoyable relics to read -- but I don't get that dated sense at all with Ballard's. At least, granted, after only two stories. I'll dig deeper into the stories next post. Hope those of you w/the book will give him a go.
6> Sounds like you've got Ballard's personality pegged. What was the bio you read?
The first writer I'll mention from Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature (1955-2010) is ... Inés Arredondo (1928-1989).
Arredondo sounds very appealing as a short story writer of gothic fiction. Christopher Dominguez Michael says he "has no way of knowing what Arredondo thought of Carson McCullers or Flannery O'Connor" but that he couldn't help thinking of them whenever he thought of her. Michael relates how he couldn't recall a single instance of "nightfall in any of her stories. My memory must be failing me. But I say this to stress the fact that in all of Mexican literature, there has never been a more melancholy and yet less nocturnal writer."
Underground River and Other Stories looks like a good place to begin with her. More on it here.
6> Sounds like you've got Ballard's personality pegged. What was the bio you read?
The first writer I'll mention from Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature (1955-2010) is ... Inés Arredondo (1928-1989).
Arredondo sounds very appealing as a short story writer of gothic fiction. Christopher Dominguez Michael says he "has no way of knowing what Arredondo thought of Carson McCullers or Flannery O'Connor" but that he couldn't help thinking of them whenever he thought of her. Michael relates how he couldn't recall a single instance of "nightfall in any of her stories. My memory must be failing me. But I say this to stress the fact that in all of Mexican literature, there has never been a more melancholy and yet less nocturnal writer."
Underground River and Other Stories looks like a good place to begin with her. More on it here.
10zenomax
9 I think it must have been JG Ballard's Surrealist Imagination, although, confusingly, there is a less academic bio by another J Baxter floating around too.
11charbutton
>8 arubabookwoman:, The Year of Magical Thinking is on my shelf but I keep avoiding it because I know it's going to be so upsetting!
12detailmuse
EF, very happy to see your Club Read thread!
I liked The Year of Magical Thinking but loved Blue Nights. For those hesitant: it's as much about Didion's own aging as about the loss of her daughter. I read it right after my mother's death and found it very comforting.
I liked The Year of Magical Thinking but loved Blue Nights. For those hesitant: it's as much about Didion's own aging as about the loss of her daughter. I read it right after my mother's death and found it very comforting.
13RidgewayGirl
Good to see you here, Mr. Freeque!
14SassyLassy
Blue Nights, Dog Soldiers and Outer Dark: three of my favourite books and two of my favourite authors.
Clearly I'll have to follow along here and check out your other favourites!
I'd agree with detailmuse; Blue Nights is more about Didion and aging than about her daughter, although Quintana certainly does figure in.
Clearly I'll have to follow along here and check out your other favourites!
I'd agree with detailmuse; Blue Nights is more about Didion and aging than about her daughter, although Quintana certainly does figure in.
16avaland
>1 absurdeist: Galway Kinnell wrote a novel? I never knew that. I haven't read his poetry since the 90s, I'd guess. Enjoyed your comments on the book.
17janemarieprice
Good to have you here! I've been toying on and off with the IJ group read, but things are a little stressing for me so I'm trying to keep things light for a while.
18absurdeist
17> Thanks, Jane. It's great to be here. Thinking about keeping up with the vast volume of threads here is a tad intimidating, though! Save IJ for when things lighten up a little, you'll probably enjoy it more.
16> Thanks, avaland. Kinnell's short novel has long been out of print. I didn't know it existed until lucking into it at a favorite second-hand haunt. It's definitely for fans of The Sheltering Sky.
15> She really does, bas. If I wasn't so fully loaded with reading at the moment I'd order one of her books.
14, 13, 12> thanks for the encouragement! You're both right (SassyLassy & DetailMuse) about Blue Nights being as much about ageing as Quintana. The seasonal, blue light of New York that occurs near dusk -- I thought she used that image well. She was the most poetic, terse and aphoristic (is that a word?) in that book as she's ever been in any of her previous non-fiction. Beautiful little book.
11> I found it as equally comforting as upsetting. For me, the "upsetting" is more projecting myself into the future, should my spouse die. But even reading it after the death of a friend, as I did a little over a year ago, was identifiable, testament I think to Didion's talent as a writer and her grasp of her own grief, making it so relatable.
10> I'm seeing the surrealism in J.G. Ballard. In "Escapement," (1956) a man watching the tele w/his wife enters some weird snafu in the endless march of time during which he discovers himself reliving the same fifteen minute span from 9:00 - 9:15 over and over again. The show he watches keeps repeating itself, but his wife doesn't notice it. In fact it's almost 10:00 by now for her. He switches channels. Same thing. He calls a quiz show to tell them he knows the question they're going to ask in order to try and convince somebody that something strange is going on with the clocks, that they're resetting every fifteen minutes, but before he can ever convince anybody, 9:15 arrives and he's automatically boomeranged back to 9:00. Then the recursive time loop he's found himself ensnared in starts speeding up: 9:03 - 9:12; 9:07 - 9:09; until its 30 second loops, 10 second loops, and then
16> Thanks, avaland. Kinnell's short novel has long been out of print. I didn't know it existed until lucking into it at a favorite second-hand haunt. It's definitely for fans of The Sheltering Sky.
15> She really does, bas. If I wasn't so fully loaded with reading at the moment I'd order one of her books.
14, 13, 12> thanks for the encouragement! You're both right (SassyLassy & DetailMuse) about Blue Nights being as much about ageing as Quintana. The seasonal, blue light of New York that occurs near dusk -- I thought she used that image well. She was the most poetic, terse and aphoristic (is that a word?) in that book as she's ever been in any of her previous non-fiction. Beautiful little book.
11> I found it as equally comforting as upsetting. For me, the "upsetting" is more projecting myself into the future, should my spouse die. But even reading it after the death of a friend, as I did a little over a year ago, was identifiable, testament I think to Didion's talent as a writer and her grasp of her own grief, making it so relatable.
10> I'm seeing the surrealism in J.G. Ballard. In "Escapement," (1956) a man watching the tele w/his wife enters some weird snafu in the endless march of time during which he discovers himself reliving the same fifteen minute span from 9:00 - 9:15 over and over again. The show he watches keeps repeating itself, but his wife doesn't notice it. In fact it's almost 10:00 by now for her. He switches channels. Same thing. He calls a quiz show to tell them he knows the question they're going to ask in order to try and convince somebody that something strange is going on with the clocks, that they're resetting every fifteen minutes, but before he can ever convince anybody, 9:15 arrives and he's automatically boomeranged back to 9:00. Then the recursive time loop he's found himself ensnared in starts speeding up: 9:03 - 9:12; 9:07 - 9:09; until its 30 second loops, 10 second loops, and then
19zenomax
That reminds me of a review I read once (movie or book? Not sure which), where time travel had been invented, but the multifarious rules of the universe conspired such that one could travel no more than 2 seconds into the future.
What if one could not then travel back to 'standard time', but could only continue to jump ahead in increments of 1.75 seconds, gradually getting further and further ahead of ones old/true self? Or potentially, one could go back, but the time taken to reverse back was more than 1.75 seconds, so that you played around real time, always a little before or a little after it.
Or am I getting too far of topic?
What was the topic again?
Anyway it has given me a thought to post on my own thread...the reality behind reality. I guess that ties it back into Ballard (and PKD & DFW for that matter).
What if one could not then travel back to 'standard time', but could only continue to jump ahead in increments of 1.75 seconds, gradually getting further and further ahead of ones old/true self? Or potentially, one could go back, but the time taken to reverse back was more than 1.75 seconds, so that you played around real time, always a little before or a little after it.
Or am I getting too far of topic?
What was the topic again?
Anyway it has given me a thought to post on my own thread...the reality behind reality. I guess that ties it back into Ballard (and PKD & DFW for that matter).
20dchaikin
This thread was awesome after post 1. So much going on here, lots to think about even if I'm mostly thinking about the Joan Didion post (as I'm reading her now). Looking forward to following your projects.
21absurdeist
19> definitely not off topic. In fact Ballard plays with time much as you're relaying, but I'll be back later for Ballard, as Dan here, has gotten me into a ... Didion Digression.
20> Thanks, Dan. I've seen that you're reading Miami (just have yet to get to your thread -- I mean post there -- I'm following it), and it reminded me that I failed to mention in post #1 that I read Didion's first four non-fiction books early in 2012, including Miami, in her omnibus-tome I got for Christmas 2011, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: The Collected Non-Fiction. Miami was my least favorite of the four I read, which is not to say I didn't like it, but as the omnibus was arranged chronologically, 1987s Miami came right after 1983s Salvador, which is just a gripping gut check of a look at the early '80s genocide going on in the nation, and the USAs covert and icky involvement in that sociopolitical mess. Joan Didion (God I love her) spent two weeks in Salvador, visiting the body dumps, being summarily questioned and cornered by goons with submachine guns, gathering "research" at great personal risk and peril.
So, finishing Salvador, and then moving straight into the chic high rises and water politics problems of Miami was a bit anticlimactic. Though the introductory Bay of Pigs sections and the Miami memorial to those who lost their lives in the attempted overthrow of Castro sections, and the residual anger so many Floridians still felt at JFK for not following through with the coup, a quarter-century after the fact, was certainly as breathtaking as the most dramatic scenes in Salvador, I'll say that.
20> Thanks, Dan. I've seen that you're reading Miami (just have yet to get to your thread -- I mean post there -- I'm following it), and it reminded me that I failed to mention in post #1 that I read Didion's first four non-fiction books early in 2012, including Miami, in her omnibus-tome I got for Christmas 2011, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: The Collected Non-Fiction. Miami was my least favorite of the four I read, which is not to say I didn't like it, but as the omnibus was arranged chronologically, 1987s Miami came right after 1983s Salvador, which is just a gripping gut check of a look at the early '80s genocide going on in the nation, and the USAs covert and icky involvement in that sociopolitical mess. Joan Didion (God I love her) spent two weeks in Salvador, visiting the body dumps, being summarily questioned and cornered by goons with submachine guns, gathering "research" at great personal risk and peril.
So, finishing Salvador, and then moving straight into the chic high rises and water politics problems of Miami was a bit anticlimactic. Though the introductory Bay of Pigs sections and the Miami memorial to those who lost their lives in the attempted overthrow of Castro sections, and the residual anger so many Floridians still felt at JFK for not following through with the coup, a quarter-century after the fact, was certainly as breathtaking as the most dramatic scenes in Salvador, I'll say that.
22Cait86
>21 absurdeist: – Thanks for mentioning Didion's Salvador. I've spent some time there over the past two summers, and would love to read more about their civil war. I am going to track this down.
ETA: it is available for Kindles!
ETA: it is available for Kindles!
23dchaikin
#21 - noting. What has struck me about Miami (almost done) was how good a writer she is. It's structurally masterful, but also, from the little I know, she nails it - the Cuban-Anglo relationship, or the Anglo denial of the Cuban presence. Also, the book means a lot to me because I grew up in the Anglo part of that atmosphere. It was published when I was a 14 yr-old snotty brat in Broward county, one huge suburb distinctly removed from Miami.
24absurdeist
22> I hope you get a chance to read Salvador soon. Your personal experience in the country is sure to add a lot more ooomph to your read, and it's a good place to begin w/Didion.
24> Dan, I'm glad to hear you say how a great a writer she is. She eviscerates her subjects thoroughly in terse precision. Her understated style conveys volumes more than even David Foster Wallace's maximalist explanations of minutia.
"Sorry, Dave, Didion's a better essayist than you were, even as awesome as you were."
Didion nails just about everything she touches. I can't think of an essay of hers when I didn't walk away thinking exactly that. Those last lines of hers. Lines that wallop you with unspoken implications. That's why I called her "artful" up above in another post. I know what you mean, Dan, when you say about Miami, "the book means a lot to me because I grew up in the Anglo part of that atmosphere."
Didion wrote a piece about where I grew up too, an untitled essay that serves as chap. 2 in part II of Where I Was From, about the '93 "Spur Posse" case, that served in too many ways, it pains me to say, as a microcosm of the moral erosion of the Lakewood and Long Beach communities surrounding the now dismantled, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft plant -- a once overly-proud, living-too-large-outside-their-means, blue-collar, regional centerpiece of military and defense industry for almost half a century after WWII -- until Clinton killed it for them.
No doubt I'm being redundant, but I can't recommend enough taking a full season and reading We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Non-Fiction, which collects everything of Didion's except her last two non-fiction books, Blue Nights & The Year of Magical Thinking. She chronicles the moral, social and political ups-and-downs of the U.S.A., beginning in the mid-60s until 2003. She's as dynamic and wide-ranging a commentator I've encountered, though she uses California primarily -- Sacramento, her birthplace; Los Angeles and Hollywood, her livelihood in the '70s & '80s; even Santa Ana winds and Malibu wildfires -- as her metaphors for the nation's troubles.
24> Dan, I'm glad to hear you say how a great a writer she is. She eviscerates her subjects thoroughly in terse precision. Her understated style conveys volumes more than even David Foster Wallace's maximalist explanations of minutia.
"Sorry, Dave, Didion's a better essayist than you were, even as awesome as you were."
Didion nails just about everything she touches. I can't think of an essay of hers when I didn't walk away thinking exactly that. Those last lines of hers. Lines that wallop you with unspoken implications. That's why I called her "artful" up above in another post. I know what you mean, Dan, when you say about Miami, "the book means a lot to me because I grew up in the Anglo part of that atmosphere."
Didion wrote a piece about where I grew up too, an untitled essay that serves as chap. 2 in part II of Where I Was From, about the '93 "Spur Posse" case, that served in too many ways, it pains me to say, as a microcosm of the moral erosion of the Lakewood and Long Beach communities surrounding the now dismantled, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft plant -- a once overly-proud, living-too-large-outside-their-means, blue-collar, regional centerpiece of military and defense industry for almost half a century after WWII -- until Clinton killed it for them.
No doubt I'm being redundant, but I can't recommend enough taking a full season and reading We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Non-Fiction, which collects everything of Didion's except her last two non-fiction books, Blue Nights & The Year of Magical Thinking. She chronicles the moral, social and political ups-and-downs of the U.S.A., beginning in the mid-60s until 2003. She's as dynamic and wide-ranging a commentator I've encountered, though she uses California primarily -- Sacramento, her birthplace; Los Angeles and Hollywood, her livelihood in the '70s & '80s; even Santa Ana winds and Malibu wildfires -- as her metaphors for the nation's troubles.
25dchaikin
I'm going to consider that collection. I was trying to "review" Miami last night, in just a few quick lines...but it's more complex than I realized while reading it. I have a feeling that Her point, her meaning, isn't so clear, and also that she structures this book in such a way that the reader always thinks they know where she is going even as she changes focus. That she's not just reporting bad stuff, she's doing something more. But, then I think I'm being silly and making this more complex than it is...or I'm being silly and just missing the point. Anyway, thanks again.
ETA - I love the title of that collection. Fits her (apparent) points in Miami perfectly!
ETA - I love the title of that collection. Fits her (apparent) points in Miami perfectly!
26absurdeist
I think you're touching on why she's so good. She works a lot in social, moral and political ambiguities. You're not missing "Her" points at all. She's rarely direct to Her points, though she clearly has them. She's shadow and symbol. She implies prose as much as writes prose. And she is hard to review w/out at least acknowledging what you mention.
The title of her non-fiction omnibus comes from her iconic opening sentence to her essay "The White Album," later collected in The White Album.
(and notice that The White Album has over 1,000 owners here in LT, but only three reviews, and only one of them is longer than a single sentence!)
The title of her non-fiction omnibus comes from her iconic opening sentence to her essay "The White Album," later collected in The White Album.
(and notice that The White Album has over 1,000 owners here in LT, but only three reviews, and only one of them is longer than a single sentence!)
27SassyLassy
>24 absurdeist: Didion nails just about everything she touches.
For years I've been telling people to read Joan Didion and you've just perfectly summed up why. Now I can stop blathering on. I suspect her very succinctness induced some of my reaction.
For years I've been telling people to read Joan Didion and you've just perfectly summed up why. Now I can stop blathering on. I suspect her very succinctness induced some of my reaction.
28absurdeist
Thanks, SassyLassy, I've probably blathered on too long. Yes, her succinctness is like poetry that must be verbosely explicated.
And Dan, I just noticed that Miami has been reviewed by exactly ... zero LTers so far. No pressure, Man.
And Dan, I just noticed that Miami has been reviewed by exactly ... zero LTers so far. No pressure, Man.
29dchaikin
Oye - you are inspiring writers block. "Didion nails just about everything she touches.", citing you, may need to go in my review.
30absurdeist
... thinking aloud, connecting some dots ...
... as The Apes of God is to art poseurs, so The Recognitions is to art forgers ...
... as The Apes of God is to art poseurs, so The Recognitions is to art forgers ...
31absurdeist
Back to my slow go through Ballard. There's potential spoilers below.
"Prima Belladonna" (1956) is told by an unnamed narrator as a reminiscence. A recollection of a long-ago, idealized time known in his culture's history as "The Recess," that "world slump of boredom, lethargy and high summer..." that went on for a decade. People worked only a few hours per day during this era of ennui, assuming our unnamed leading man is any indicator of the cultural norm, spending their hours not in labor but instead on balconies with beer, playing i-Go, a game described as "decelerated chess". Ha! As if chess (for the lay person, not a pro) wasn't slow enough already.
Ballard's got that wry wit going on repeatedly; the story is constant creative smarts and clever fun. Ballard could also be mocking a particular strata in society with this sluggish setting, "The Recess". And that it lasted for ten years, much as recess at school -- or in the courts -- lasts oftentimes for ten minutes, points to parody. There may also be some possible "i-Go"/Iago wordplay connotations, but I'm not going to work that hard right now to highlight them.
The title is perfect for the content of this story. There's a diva, Jane Ciracylides, a "specialty singer" who may be a "mutant," performing in the casino lounge at Vermillion Sands. She has "insect eyes" and "patina-golden skin", a body of brilliant light -- "a walking galaxy of light" -- to die for. She is the "Prima Belladonna" of the story title, though the title refers specifically to the "Bayreuth Festival Prima Belladonna", an exotic spider used in the pollination of a rare, highly prized, plant.
Before our leading man meets Jane Ciracylides (his business is across the way from Vermillion Sands), we meet him working in his music shop. He doesn't sell ordinary instruments from any reality of ours. No tubas or flutes; no trombones. He sells plants: "Choro-flora". Stuff like "soprano mimosas, azalea trios" or "mixed coloratura herbaceous from the Santiago Garden Choir". Each plant's "audio" can be switched on, like a radio or an i-Pod, so customers can hear what the plant sounds like prior to purchase. You wouldn't download a song before first sampling it, would you?
The music store's -- and our story's -- centerpiece, is the "Khan-Arachnid orchid". A rare specimen capable of twenty-four octaves, and invaluable also for keeping the music shop, a veritable greenhouse of choro-flora, in tune. Plants, remember, like most musicians and especially prima donna opera singers, can be very temperamental at times, capable of "twelve-tone emotional storms", and need SO₂ or a "fluoraldehyde flush" to bring them back from potentially lethal precipices of "audio-vegetative armageddon".
Our narrator and Jane Ciracylides find an immediate attraction, that first afternoon she strolls into his store, eyeing his merchandise. She invites him to her concert that evening, and soon they're dating, and eventually move in together. But the relationship is doomed. For sweet Jane cheats at more than just i-Go. In retrospect, considering that explicit and shocking scene of what I suppose I can best describe as "cross pollination," witnessed by the dumbfounded narrator when he came home early to his music shop -- the story's climax you could say -- isn't it obvious that Jane Ciracylides from the time they first met in the store, was after something more than merely him?
~~~~~
Some favorite ideas not mentioned above from the story:
~ "Perhaps I'd listened to too many flowers".
~ Tchaikovsky section in store, popular with tourists.
~ The Khan-Arachnid orchid going "all ultra sonic," meaning the music shop owner would soon be getting complaints from all the dog owners in the area.
~ The concept that a plant's music could attract predators, whether "sonic, Emperor scorpions" or prima belladonnas w/insect eyes.
~~~~~
I don't know offhand if studies of the positive effect of classical music on plants had been conducted by 1956 (just haven't bothered to google it) but if they had, I wonder if the seed of the idea for "Prima Belladonna" came to Ballard as a means of turning such a study upside down, and his conceptualizing of what the negative effects of classical plants on human(oid)s might be. Conjecture.
And how prescient was Ballard's i-Go game, suggestive just in its very name, of our present day communicative and entertainment gadgets most of us now own and take for granted.
For more, here's A Jungian Take on Vermillion Sands, of which "Prima Belladonna" plays an important part.
"Prima Belladonna" (1956) is told by an unnamed narrator as a reminiscence. A recollection of a long-ago, idealized time known in his culture's history as "The Recess," that "world slump of boredom, lethargy and high summer..." that went on for a decade. People worked only a few hours per day during this era of ennui, assuming our unnamed leading man is any indicator of the cultural norm, spending their hours not in labor but instead on balconies with beer, playing i-Go, a game described as "decelerated chess". Ha! As if chess (for the lay person, not a pro) wasn't slow enough already.
Ballard's got that wry wit going on repeatedly; the story is constant creative smarts and clever fun. Ballard could also be mocking a particular strata in society with this sluggish setting, "The Recess". And that it lasted for ten years, much as recess at school -- or in the courts -- lasts oftentimes for ten minutes, points to parody. There may also be some possible "i-Go"/Iago wordplay connotations, but I'm not going to work that hard right now to highlight them.
The title is perfect for the content of this story. There's a diva, Jane Ciracylides, a "specialty singer" who may be a "mutant," performing in the casino lounge at Vermillion Sands. She has "insect eyes" and "patina-golden skin", a body of brilliant light -- "a walking galaxy of light" -- to die for. She is the "Prima Belladonna" of the story title, though the title refers specifically to the "Bayreuth Festival Prima Belladonna", an exotic spider used in the pollination of a rare, highly prized, plant.
Before our leading man meets Jane Ciracylides (his business is across the way from Vermillion Sands), we meet him working in his music shop. He doesn't sell ordinary instruments from any reality of ours. No tubas or flutes; no trombones. He sells plants: "Choro-flora". Stuff like "soprano mimosas, azalea trios" or "mixed coloratura herbaceous from the Santiago Garden Choir". Each plant's "audio" can be switched on, like a radio or an i-Pod, so customers can hear what the plant sounds like prior to purchase. You wouldn't download a song before first sampling it, would you?
The music store's -- and our story's -- centerpiece, is the "Khan-Arachnid orchid". A rare specimen capable of twenty-four octaves, and invaluable also for keeping the music shop, a veritable greenhouse of choro-flora, in tune. Plants, remember, like most musicians and especially prima donna opera singers, can be very temperamental at times, capable of "twelve-tone emotional storms", and need SO₂ or a "fluoraldehyde flush" to bring them back from potentially lethal precipices of "audio-vegetative armageddon".
Our narrator and Jane Ciracylides find an immediate attraction, that first afternoon she strolls into his store, eyeing his merchandise. She invites him to her concert that evening, and soon they're dating, and eventually move in together. But the relationship is doomed. For sweet Jane cheats at more than just i-Go. In retrospect, considering that explicit and shocking scene of what I suppose I can best describe as "cross pollination," witnessed by the dumbfounded narrator when he came home early to his music shop -- the story's climax you could say -- isn't it obvious that Jane Ciracylides from the time they first met in the store, was after something more than merely him?
~~~~~
Some favorite ideas not mentioned above from the story:
~ "Perhaps I'd listened to too many flowers".
~ Tchaikovsky section in store, popular with tourists.
~ The Khan-Arachnid orchid going "all ultra sonic," meaning the music shop owner would soon be getting complaints from all the dog owners in the area.
~ The concept that a plant's music could attract predators, whether "sonic, Emperor scorpions" or prima belladonnas w/insect eyes.
~~~~~
I don't know offhand if studies of the positive effect of classical music on plants had been conducted by 1956 (just haven't bothered to google it) but if they had, I wonder if the seed of the idea for "Prima Belladonna" came to Ballard as a means of turning such a study upside down, and his conceptualizing of what the negative effects of classical plants on human(oid)s might be. Conjecture.
And how prescient was Ballard's i-Go game, suggestive just in its very name, of our present day communicative and entertainment gadgets most of us now own and take for granted.
For more, here's A Jungian Take on Vermillion Sands, of which "Prima Belladonna" plays an important part.
32ChocolateMuse
Awesome, Rique! (I called you Sput there for a minute)
35ChocolateMuse
EF, like the Phantom, has many names.
37absurdeist
32> LOL. Nice catch
33> Ballard was a contemporary of PKD. They've much in common.
34> Glad you're following. I don't know.
35> Whatever ;-)
36> Ballard's evoluction from "wacky" Science Fictionist to the deeper, dynamic writer he became is pretty fascinating to watch unfold.
possible spoilers below
"The Concentration City" (1957) is one Hell of a story. That Ballard named his leads Franz and Gregson and set certain bureaucratic procedural crime dramas around them made me think immediately of The Metamorphosis, but I'm not positive that Ballard was intentionally riffing off of Kafka here. And regarding Concentration City's history there's multiple mentions to a time "before the Foundation" millions of years ago, which seems to be a gracious nod to Asimov.
Franz aims to fly in Concentration City (it was a dream he had) but there's really no room to fly in a city that has no open air space -- not even for a single bird. Any available space is already occupied with construction. So he hatches a plan w/Gregson not so much to escape Concentration City but to ride the commuter train, a "Supersleeper" that connects the various Sectors and Federations of the city, West for as long as necessary in order to find Free Space, as the going rate for space is a pricey $1/cubic ft. After days on the "sleeper" Franz pass slums where space is as low as five cents/cubic ft., but those neighborhoods have been walled off so that no one can enter and those unlucky inhabitants who live there cannot leave. No exit.
Franz discovers that streets and levels of Concentration City go up to the millions, another fascinating concept of Ballard's, and one he uses to great effect in conveying what is the most likely location of Concentration City. It's like New York, Mumbai, and Hong Kong all combined, to roughly the hundreth power; the Concentration City so built up and out that each floor of its buildings are now levels of the interconnected city, with perhaps only elevated alleyways separating the buildings, whose passageways through the floors of the buildings form what I gather is some semblance of a 3-D city, a matrix, built out in every conceivable direction infinitely. Ballard uses "infinitely" more than once. Franz passes his time on the train drawing dreams, but they're not his.
Anyway, after about ten days of nonstop riding on the train, Franz learns he is now heading East. WTF? he asks the crew, who then inform him that the train he's on has always been heading East. Huh? And when he returns to where hopped on, three weeks later, how is it possible that it is now the same day as when he first left? Either time folded or there is no time in Concentration City. Ballard is building on his theory of time he began in "Escapement": that the future is now and the past may be present, on, from what I've gathered in commentaries, is his "time's malleable continuum". Dreams and some unconscious element (collective memories?) backlight this story, and from what I've gathered will eventually be the main stage of several of his later stories.
Beware "The Pyros" of "The Concentration City" -- nice ironic twist of Ballard's -- of those who wish to set fire to Hell; but beware more the Fire Police, who'll send you to The Slums. Whispers, or maybe shouts, obviously, of Sartre, abound in this escapist -- but at times startlingly profound -- fun. Easily his best story so far.
short film of The Concentration City
~~~~~
Also pulled Julio Cortazar off the shelf and read "Axolotl", a bizarre and intriguing glimpse at how when we take an obsession to its extreme, we might literally become one w/our obsession.
33> Ballard was a contemporary of PKD. They've much in common.
34> Glad you're following. I don't know.
35> Whatever ;-)
36> Ballard's evoluction from "wacky" Science Fictionist to the deeper, dynamic writer he became is pretty fascinating to watch unfold.
possible spoilers below
"The Concentration City" (1957) is one Hell of a story. That Ballard named his leads Franz and Gregson and set certain bureaucratic procedural crime dramas around them made me think immediately of The Metamorphosis, but I'm not positive that Ballard was intentionally riffing off of Kafka here. And regarding Concentration City's history there's multiple mentions to a time "before the Foundation" millions of years ago, which seems to be a gracious nod to Asimov.
Franz aims to fly in Concentration City (it was a dream he had) but there's really no room to fly in a city that has no open air space -- not even for a single bird. Any available space is already occupied with construction. So he hatches a plan w/Gregson not so much to escape Concentration City but to ride the commuter train, a "Supersleeper" that connects the various Sectors and Federations of the city, West for as long as necessary in order to find Free Space, as the going rate for space is a pricey $1/cubic ft. After days on the "sleeper" Franz pass slums where space is as low as five cents/cubic ft., but those neighborhoods have been walled off so that no one can enter and those unlucky inhabitants who live there cannot leave. No exit.
Franz discovers that streets and levels of Concentration City go up to the millions, another fascinating concept of Ballard's, and one he uses to great effect in conveying what is the most likely location of Concentration City. It's like New York, Mumbai, and Hong Kong all combined, to roughly the hundreth power; the Concentration City so built up and out that each floor of its buildings are now levels of the interconnected city, with perhaps only elevated alleyways separating the buildings, whose passageways through the floors of the buildings form what I gather is some semblance of a 3-D city, a matrix, built out in every conceivable direction infinitely. Ballard uses "infinitely" more than once. Franz passes his time on the train drawing dreams, but they're not his.
Anyway, after about ten days of nonstop riding on the train, Franz learns he is now heading East. WTF? he asks the crew, who then inform him that the train he's on has always been heading East. Huh? And when he returns to where hopped on, three weeks later, how is it possible that it is now the same day as when he first left? Either time folded or there is no time in Concentration City. Ballard is building on his theory of time he began in "Escapement": that the future is now and the past may be present, on, from what I've gathered in commentaries, is his "time's malleable continuum". Dreams and some unconscious element (collective memories?) backlight this story, and from what I've gathered will eventually be the main stage of several of his later stories.
Beware "The Pyros" of "The Concentration City" -- nice ironic twist of Ballard's -- of those who wish to set fire to Hell; but beware more the Fire Police, who'll send you to The Slums. Whispers, or maybe shouts, obviously, of Sartre, abound in this escapist -- but at times startlingly profound -- fun. Easily his best story so far.
short film of The Concentration City
~~~~~
Also pulled Julio Cortazar off the shelf and read "Axolotl", a bizarre and intriguing glimpse at how when we take an obsession to its extreme, we might literally become one w/our obsession.
38RidgewayGirl
Whoa. Do you think the short film well represented the story? I've watched the film, and downloaded the story, but am now understanding why it will take a year to read IJ.
39letterpress
When I first read your review, I immediately pictured a sinister M. C. Escher construction, on a vast scale. I've just watched the film (those stills of birds in flight, the mechanics of movement, escape, but going nowhere) and will be reading the story this afternoon. I've only read one work of Ballard's, The Drowned World, which, though not my usual reading fare, I enjoyed very much. And yes, it does feature the idea of a collective memory, which I'm intrigued to learn is something that Ballard seems to have developed throughout his writing. I'm looking forward to your next installment.
40baswood
The Concentration city sounds very typical Ballard. The film captures some of what is in your description.
41absurdeist
38> I think the film did do a better than expected job of capturing the undercurrents of the story, though it seemed much darker to me than what I read. Ballard strikes me as a wisecracker, the little I've read so far, with his puns and double entendre and just general wit he brings to his stories. And his humour.
A year at IJ sounds about the right pace to me. The novel hasn't aged as well as I'd thought it would, though as I've shared elsewhere, that's probably because of D.T. Max's bio, that in painstaking detail relates how hyper-autobiographical the could be at times. It's one thing to read IJ not knowing anything about its author, and another reading it knowing. It was far more palatable a read when I didn't know Wallace like I know him now.
39> Escher! Of course. That's what I see in my mind's eye when I envision the architecture of Concentration City.
I'm mostly unread in Ballard myself. I'm afraid I picked the wrong one of his to begin with years ago, Crash, a novel that turned me off of him completely until now. And it bugged me then -- that I couldn't stomach it -- as the memory of it still does today, because I've always enjoyed really dark stories, but not that one, at least not then.
Crash's melding of violence with sexuality was a fetish I simply didn't expect nor enjoyed seeing depicted. In fairness, it wasn't pure violence for pure violence's sake, but rather either the aftermath of violence or consensual violence: car accident victims enjoying returning to the wreckage of their pileups, going so far as to recreate their car accidents, accidents that left some disfigured, in order to feed what has become for them the desired sadomasochism of the shared experience, their desired delight in collisions, that crunchety-crunchcrunch of a chassis crumpling into a Corvette-turned-accordion lightning quick, the crushed legs and abdominal impaling that results, and other so-called "pleasurable" sensations such injuries allegedly elicit in these characters, and some of which Ballard lets exploit in darkly imaginative ways I won't mention. No thanks, J.G.!
I'm aware I was in the minority who disliked Crash. I might think differently about it now. And perhaps if I'd read something earlier of his, as I'm doing now, I may have got what his artistic aims were, what his point was, beyond just trying to disgust the bejeezus out of me. I hope to get to the The Drowned World eventually. Thanks for recommendation!
40> if Concentration City is typical then the best of Ballard is yet to come. Better get reading.
A year at IJ sounds about the right pace to me. The novel hasn't aged as well as I'd thought it would, though as I've shared elsewhere, that's probably because of D.T. Max's bio, that in painstaking detail relates how hyper-autobiographical the could be at times. It's one thing to read IJ not knowing anything about its author, and another reading it knowing. It was far more palatable a read when I didn't know Wallace like I know him now.
39> Escher! Of course. That's what I see in my mind's eye when I envision the architecture of Concentration City.
I'm mostly unread in Ballard myself. I'm afraid I picked the wrong one of his to begin with years ago, Crash, a novel that turned me off of him completely until now. And it bugged me then -- that I couldn't stomach it -- as the memory of it still does today, because I've always enjoyed really dark stories, but not that one, at least not then.
Crash's melding of violence with sexuality was a fetish I simply didn't expect nor enjoyed seeing depicted. In fairness, it wasn't pure violence for pure violence's sake, but rather either the aftermath of violence or consensual violence: car accident victims enjoying returning to the wreckage of their pileups, going so far as to recreate their car accidents, accidents that left some disfigured, in order to feed what has become for them the desired sadomasochism of the shared experience, their desired delight in collisions, that crunchety-crunchcrunch of a chassis crumpling into a Corvette-turned-accordion lightning quick, the crushed legs and abdominal impaling that results, and other so-called "pleasurable" sensations such injuries allegedly elicit in these characters, and some of which Ballard lets exploit in darkly imaginative ways I won't mention. No thanks, J.G.!
I'm aware I was in the minority who disliked Crash. I might think differently about it now. And perhaps if I'd read something earlier of his, as I'm doing now, I may have got what his artistic aims were, what his point was, beyond just trying to disgust the bejeezus out of me. I hope to get to the The Drowned World eventually. Thanks for recommendation!
40> if Concentration City is typical then the best of Ballard is yet to come. Better get reading.
42dchaikin
Say it isn't so about IJ! I'm reading about IJ in the biography and it has me itching to read it again.
The only Ballard I've read is his fictionalized biography during WWII. I knew he wrote some funky scifi stuff, but I haven't read any. So, really enjoying following. Crash sounds messed up. But The Concentration City sounds terrific.
The only Ballard I've read is his fictionalized biography during WWII. I knew he wrote some funky scifi stuff, but I haven't read any. So, really enjoying following. Crash sounds messed up. But The Concentration City sounds terrific.
43Mr.Durick
Well, I'm reading Infinite Jest for the first time. I am enjoying it, but I've already decided that it doesn't hold up all that well in a second reading.
Robert
Robert
44absurdeist
Based on Wallace's multiple continuums of time in the novel, if ever there was a novel you could be reading a second time while reading it your first time (and that w/out rereading a single passage), IJ just might be such a book.
45absurdeist
Inspired by baswood's SF list (do love me some lists) and what Dan is doing on his thread in Infinite Jesters, itemizing the writings and influences and arcana of Wallace, I'm going to take a temporary break from Ballard and do something similar with Frank Herbert's non-Dune universe.
First up, a now hard-to-find anthology I lucked into secondhand at a now defunct bookshop called Pandora's, that Herbert coedited w/Bonnie L. Heintz, Donald A. Joos, & Jane Agorn Mcgee, in 1974, Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow ... Herbert wrote the introductory essay, "Science Fiction and You," in which he quotes Alexander Pope, Immanuel Kant, Kurt Vonnegut, and lesser known scientists in support of his overview on Time's Process and his essay's thesis regarding the relevant guts of SF: "Nothing Secret, Nothing Sacred". That he delved as deep into philosophy as he did in the essay (true, he had studied deeply in the field already), suggests he was aware of the criticism SF was receiving (I assume it still does today?) as being a poor man's, hackneyed philosophy. Whoever wrote the preface was certainly aware of the faux-philosophy criticism being levied at SF, when they quoted Isaac Asimov: "when Aristotle fails, try science fiction".
The anthology is divided up into nine thematic sections. I thought it might be interesting to list the table of contents, especially for lesser or forgotten writers of SF that were then, circa '74, considered either en vogue or classic.
Science
H.G. Wells ~ "The Star"
J.G. Ballard ~ "The Subliminal Man"
Frederic Brown ~ "The Waveries"
Isaac Asimov ~ "Nightfall"
Frank Herbert ~ "The Nothing"
Eric Frank Russell ~ "Bitter End"
Donald E. Westlake ~ "The Winner"
The Future
Keith Laumer ~ "The Lawgiver"
Mack Reynolds ~ "Utopian"
Arthur C. Clarke ~ "Rescue Party"
Suzette Haden Elgin ~ "For the Sake of Grace"
Ray Bradbury ~ "The Other Foot"
Theodore Sturgeon ~ "The Crate"
Colin Kapp ~ "The Cloudbuilders"
Forrest J. Ackerman ~ "The Shortest Science Fiction Story Ever Told"
Fantasy
Robert Sheckley ~ "Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay"
Ray Bradbury ~ "The Veldt"
Time Manipulation
Robert Silverberg ~ "After the Myths Went Home"
Frederic Brown ~ "Arena"
Humor
Harlan Ellison ~ "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman"
R.A. Lafferty ~ "The Hole on the Corner"
Albert Hernhuter ~ "Texas Week"
Robots
E.G. Von Wald ~ "HEMEAC"
R.A. Lafferty ~ "This Grand Carcass Yet"
Robert Sheckley ~ "The Perfect Woman"
Other Worlds
Clifford D. Simak ~ "Desertion"
Ray Bradbury ~ "Here There Be Tygers"
Walter M. Miller, Jr. ~ "Crucifixus Etiam"
Robert Silverberg ~ "Sunrise on Mercury"
H. Beam Piper ~ "Omnilingual"
Arthur C. Clarke ~ "The Sentinel"
Aliens
Raymond Z. Gallun ~ "Seeds of the Dark"
Robert Sheckley ~ "Specialist"
Isaac Asimov ~ "Half Breed"
Vernor Vinge ~ "Bomb Scare"
Murray Leinster ~ "Keyhole"
Robert Silverberg ~ "Sundance"
Robert Heinlein ~ "Goldfish Bowl"
Murder Mysteries
H.H. Hollis ~ "Sword Game"
Isaac Asimov ~ "The Singing Bell"
Lewis Padgett ~ "Private Eye"
First up, a now hard-to-find anthology I lucked into secondhand at a now defunct bookshop called Pandora's, that Herbert coedited w/Bonnie L. Heintz, Donald A. Joos, & Jane Agorn Mcgee, in 1974, Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow ... Herbert wrote the introductory essay, "Science Fiction and You," in which he quotes Alexander Pope, Immanuel Kant, Kurt Vonnegut, and lesser known scientists in support of his overview on Time's Process and his essay's thesis regarding the relevant guts of SF: "Nothing Secret, Nothing Sacred". That he delved as deep into philosophy as he did in the essay (true, he had studied deeply in the field already), suggests he was aware of the criticism SF was receiving (I assume it still does today?) as being a poor man's, hackneyed philosophy. Whoever wrote the preface was certainly aware of the faux-philosophy criticism being levied at SF, when they quoted Isaac Asimov: "when Aristotle fails, try science fiction".
The anthology is divided up into nine thematic sections. I thought it might be interesting to list the table of contents, especially for lesser or forgotten writers of SF that were then, circa '74, considered either en vogue or classic.
Science
H.G. Wells ~ "The Star"
J.G. Ballard ~ "The Subliminal Man"
Frederic Brown ~ "The Waveries"
Isaac Asimov ~ "Nightfall"
Frank Herbert ~ "The Nothing"
Eric Frank Russell ~ "Bitter End"
Donald E. Westlake ~ "The Winner"
The Future
Keith Laumer ~ "The Lawgiver"
Mack Reynolds ~ "Utopian"
Arthur C. Clarke ~ "Rescue Party"
Suzette Haden Elgin ~ "For the Sake of Grace"
Ray Bradbury ~ "The Other Foot"
Theodore Sturgeon ~ "The Crate"
Colin Kapp ~ "The Cloudbuilders"
Forrest J. Ackerman ~ "The Shortest Science Fiction Story Ever Told"
Fantasy
Robert Sheckley ~ "Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay"
Ray Bradbury ~ "The Veldt"
Time Manipulation
Robert Silverberg ~ "After the Myths Went Home"
Frederic Brown ~ "Arena"
Humor
Harlan Ellison ~ "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman"
R.A. Lafferty ~ "The Hole on the Corner"
Albert Hernhuter ~ "Texas Week"
Robots
E.G. Von Wald ~ "HEMEAC"
R.A. Lafferty ~ "This Grand Carcass Yet"
Robert Sheckley ~ "The Perfect Woman"
Other Worlds
Clifford D. Simak ~ "Desertion"
Ray Bradbury ~ "Here There Be Tygers"
Walter M. Miller, Jr. ~ "Crucifixus Etiam"
Robert Silverberg ~ "Sunrise on Mercury"
H. Beam Piper ~ "Omnilingual"
Arthur C. Clarke ~ "The Sentinel"
Aliens
Raymond Z. Gallun ~ "Seeds of the Dark"
Robert Sheckley ~ "Specialist"
Isaac Asimov ~ "Half Breed"
Vernor Vinge ~ "Bomb Scare"
Murray Leinster ~ "Keyhole"
Robert Silverberg ~ "Sundance"
Robert Heinlein ~ "Goldfish Bowl"
Murder Mysteries
H.H. Hollis ~ "Sword Game"
Isaac Asimov ~ "The Singing Bell"
Lewis Padgett ~ "Private Eye"
46zenomax
I think I have heard of around 40% of the authors. In my brief sojourn in this genre I read only ACC's Sentinel.
47baswood
Had fun clicking on those authors listed in post #45 . The most obscure are Albert Hernhunter, H H Hollis and E G Von Wald. Did these people really exist I wonder?
Should be some interesting reads from an sf anthology from 1974.
As you know Frank Herbert's Dune is included in the Abe list of 50 essential Sf books - I will probably end up reading the whole series, I think I have read the first three.
Should be some interesting reads from an sf anthology from 1974.
As you know Frank Herbert's Dune is included in the Abe list of 50 essential Sf books - I will probably end up reading the whole series, I think I have read the first three.
48absurdeist
46> Well as that's the short story that ultimately launched Clarke's & Kubrick's collaboration, I'd say that's a superb one to have read. I think the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey transcends the SF genre, but not the novel version of 2001 that Clarke wrote concurrently as the movie was being made. The Lost Worlds of 2001 is an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at that process, and includes chapters that neither made the movie or the book. My favorite novel of Clarke's was The Fountains of Paradise.
47> If LTer "blueyetson" had not cataloged and reviewed so many of these unknown authors whose sometimes sole existence here in LT originates from the cataloging of a single short story, I'd have doubts too!
Did Herbert ever transcend the SF genre? I'd argue yes, but only once, and of course w/Dune. I enjoyed the first original four, but began losing interest by the fifth one, Heretics of Dune. I've never lost interest in most of the non-Dune books.
Herbert published "Pack Rack Planet" in Astounding SF in 1954, and it became the germ for one of his few non-Dune novels that hasn't held my interest over the years, 1980s Direct Descent.
The Dragon in the Sea (1956) was Herbert's first novel, arriving nearly a decade prior to Dune's publication. Among its many merits, I remember it most for introducing me to "The Federal Bureau of Psychology".
The Dragon in the Sea was originally released in a three-part serial in 1955-56 as "Under Pressure," and when Herbert's publisher in 1974 cashed in on the Dune craze and re-released The Dragon in the Sea as Under Pressure -- a dubious tactic no doubt designed to generate more sales ("a new Frank Herbert novel!") -- there developed confusion as to the true title of his first novel. Adding to the confusion, Avon somehow got the rights to Herbert's first novel, the very year it was published, and released it's own version later that same year, in 1956, as 21st Century Sub. Although, if you get your magnifying glass out and examine the book cover carefully, you'll see some barely perceptible fine print beneath the red lettering of "SUB" that, in parentheses, reads, "The Dragon In The Sea".
I own all three variations of the title, of course, but I prefer The Dragon in the Sea. For more, here's an old review.
47> If LTer "blueyetson" had not cataloged and reviewed so many of these unknown authors whose sometimes sole existence here in LT originates from the cataloging of a single short story, I'd have doubts too!
Did Herbert ever transcend the SF genre? I'd argue yes, but only once, and of course w/Dune. I enjoyed the first original four, but began losing interest by the fifth one, Heretics of Dune. I've never lost interest in most of the non-Dune books.
Herbert published "Pack Rack Planet" in Astounding SF in 1954, and it became the germ for one of his few non-Dune novels that hasn't held my interest over the years, 1980s Direct Descent.
The Dragon in the Sea (1956) was Herbert's first novel, arriving nearly a decade prior to Dune's publication. Among its many merits, I remember it most for introducing me to "The Federal Bureau of Psychology".
The Dragon in the Sea was originally released in a three-part serial in 1955-56 as "Under Pressure," and when Herbert's publisher in 1974 cashed in on the Dune craze and re-released The Dragon in the Sea as Under Pressure -- a dubious tactic no doubt designed to generate more sales ("a new Frank Herbert novel!") -- there developed confusion as to the true title of his first novel. Adding to the confusion, Avon somehow got the rights to Herbert's first novel, the very year it was published, and released it's own version later that same year, in 1956, as 21st Century Sub. Although, if you get your magnifying glass out and examine the book cover carefully, you'll see some barely perceptible fine print beneath the red lettering of "SUB" that, in parentheses, reads, "The Dragon In The Sea".
I own all three variations of the title, of course, but I prefer The Dragon in the Sea. For more, here's an old review.
49dmsteyn
Interesting discussion of Herbert, of whom I've only read Dune, but am interested in reading more of. Have you read Hellstrom's Hive?
Of the short stories above, I've heard about some of them (Asimov's "Nightfall", for instance) but I've only read Bradbury's "The Veldt", a long, long time ago.
I share your enthusiasm for The Fountains of Paradise - hopefully, the space elevator will become a reality one day...
Of the short stories above, I've heard about some of them (Asimov's "Nightfall", for instance) but I've only read Bradbury's "The Veldt", a long, long time ago.
I share your enthusiasm for The Fountains of Paradise - hopefully, the space elevator will become a reality one day...
50absurdeist
49> Hellstrom's Hive is great. One word description for it: Vats! Hope you'll give it a try sometime. I yearn for space elevators. Or at least a seat on a commercial flight into space.
Below I've listed what I think are the best starting points for readers looking to explore Frank Herbert's universe beyond Dune.
GOOD to GREAT non-Dune books by Frank Herbert (Recommended whether you're a fan of Dune or not)
~ The Dragon in the Sea (1956). Nuclear sub w/a saboteur on board, but who, among the four man crew? Prescient in its prediction of the violent extremes nations would one day resort to for oil reserves.
~ The Santaroga Barrier (1968). A closed, seemingly idyllic community has a secret. Jaspers. Outsiders who pry too much in to the nocturnal activities of the residents, do not leave. A ton of social critiquing in this one: Cults, LSD, TV automatons.
~ The Heaven Makers (1968). The Eternals are bored, toying as they do all eternity long with human beings. Are they aware that some attuned human beings can see them? Who's toying w/whom?
~ Soul Catcher (1972). Herbert's only non-SF novel. A Native American young man, perhaps too in tune with his tribe's ancient ways, abducts the young son of a senator in political protest, and takes his captive into the rugged heart of Olympic National Park. What dreams and visions they experience together in the wilderness, as a strange bond between them, not quite friendship, but something more, blooms. By the end, both have attained their personal freedom, but only one will walk out of the rainforest alive.
~ Hellstrom's Hive (1973). Project 40. Vats. Mad scientist wanted by the feds. But whenever the feds show up on his ranch, they never make it back. What the hell is going on out there?! A "hive" portends insects, right?
~ The Dosadi Experiment (1977). Billions of a species are housed on the planet Dosadi in an overpopulation experiment. A dome encloses the planet preventing escape. Goes on for lifetimes, a longitudinal "study". Woe to that tactful saboteur sent inside to observe the subjects of Dosadi up close and personal. Because these citizens, inmates of an inhumane psychological test, have developed heightened senses the result of their captivity, senses that just might overtake their captors. This novel works as a stand alone, but was a continuation of Whipping Star (1970), also recommended, but not nearly as great a novel as its follow up. Whipping Star was a continuation of Herbert's short stories A Matter of Traces and The Tactful Saboteur.
Next post I'll list Herbert's Okay to Good non-Dune novels.
Below I've listed what I think are the best starting points for readers looking to explore Frank Herbert's universe beyond Dune.
GOOD to GREAT non-Dune books by Frank Herbert (Recommended whether you're a fan of Dune or not)
~ The Dragon in the Sea (1956). Nuclear sub w/a saboteur on board, but who, among the four man crew? Prescient in its prediction of the violent extremes nations would one day resort to for oil reserves.
~ The Santaroga Barrier (1968). A closed, seemingly idyllic community has a secret. Jaspers. Outsiders who pry too much in to the nocturnal activities of the residents, do not leave. A ton of social critiquing in this one: Cults, LSD, TV automatons.
~ The Heaven Makers (1968). The Eternals are bored, toying as they do all eternity long with human beings. Are they aware that some attuned human beings can see them? Who's toying w/whom?
~ Soul Catcher (1972). Herbert's only non-SF novel. A Native American young man, perhaps too in tune with his tribe's ancient ways, abducts the young son of a senator in political protest, and takes his captive into the rugged heart of Olympic National Park. What dreams and visions they experience together in the wilderness, as a strange bond between them, not quite friendship, but something more, blooms. By the end, both have attained their personal freedom, but only one will walk out of the rainforest alive.
~ Hellstrom's Hive (1973). Project 40. Vats. Mad scientist wanted by the feds. But whenever the feds show up on his ranch, they never make it back. What the hell is going on out there?! A "hive" portends insects, right?
~ The Dosadi Experiment (1977). Billions of a species are housed on the planet Dosadi in an overpopulation experiment. A dome encloses the planet preventing escape. Goes on for lifetimes, a longitudinal "study". Woe to that tactful saboteur sent inside to observe the subjects of Dosadi up close and personal. Because these citizens, inmates of an inhumane psychological test, have developed heightened senses the result of their captivity, senses that just might overtake their captors. This novel works as a stand alone, but was a continuation of Whipping Star (1970), also recommended, but not nearly as great a novel as its follow up. Whipping Star was a continuation of Herbert's short stories A Matter of Traces and The Tactful Saboteur.
Next post I'll list Herbert's Okay to Good non-Dune novels.
52LisaMorr
Great posts and info on J. G. Ballard. I've only read Hello America, which was a bit uneven, but I need to try more.
Also enjoyed your sci-fi listings and Herbert info. I've only read the Dune books (well, I think I made it through part of God Emperor of Dune), but I also noticed on my shelves The White Plague, which looks read, but I don't remember reading it. It will be interesting to see where it ranks in your other lists of Herbert's non-Dune novels.
Also enjoyed your sci-fi listings and Herbert info. I've only read the Dune books (well, I think I made it through part of God Emperor of Dune), but I also noticed on my shelves The White Plague, which looks read, but I don't remember reading it. It will be interesting to see where it ranks in your other lists of Herbert's non-Dune novels.
53absurdeist
51> You bet.
52> Thanks. I'm limited to Crash in my novel experience of Ballard, mentioned above, and wish I'd begun w/him where I began this year, in his stories, though I'm afraid I've fallen off the Ballard wagon of late. I'll probably return to his stories later in the year.
I'd rank The White Plague ('82) in Herbert's Okay to Good non-Dune novels. I read that in '86, on a camping trip w/my father at the S. Rim of the Grand Canyon, so the unforgettable setting has helped keep that book fresh in my memory over the years. A remember a reviewer calling it "surly". What I remember was a mad and unfortunately genius scientist, enraged and seeking vengeance for the murder of his wife, unleashing a gender-specific plague in Ireland that only men are immune to. It threatens to spread around the world. But I don't recall any other details, or how and if the planet was saved. Herbert enjoyed unhappy endings (i.e., Destination: Void & Soul Catcher especially), so it may have ended badly for Ireland & the rest of earth.
No time to blurb Herbert's other Okay to Goods -- though I'm happy to stir my memory banks if a title jumps out at anybody -- but I'd include the following:
Destination: Void ('66, revised '78)
The Eyes of Heisenberg ('67)
Whipping Star ('70)
The Godmakers ('72)
The Jesus Incident (w/Bill Ransom '79)
The Lazarus Effect (ditto, '83)
Next post I'll list those only Herbert completists would likely have interest in.
Right now I'm reading what has to be considered one of the most articulate and cerebral novels of the 20th century, The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle.
52> Thanks. I'm limited to Crash in my novel experience of Ballard, mentioned above, and wish I'd begun w/him where I began this year, in his stories, though I'm afraid I've fallen off the Ballard wagon of late. I'll probably return to his stories later in the year.
I'd rank The White Plague ('82) in Herbert's Okay to Good non-Dune novels. I read that in '86, on a camping trip w/my father at the S. Rim of the Grand Canyon, so the unforgettable setting has helped keep that book fresh in my memory over the years. A remember a reviewer calling it "surly". What I remember was a mad and unfortunately genius scientist, enraged and seeking vengeance for the murder of his wife, unleashing a gender-specific plague in Ireland that only men are immune to. It threatens to spread around the world. But I don't recall any other details, or how and if the planet was saved. Herbert enjoyed unhappy endings (i.e., Destination: Void & Soul Catcher especially), so it may have ended badly for Ireland & the rest of earth.
No time to blurb Herbert's other Okay to Goods -- though I'm happy to stir my memory banks if a title jumps out at anybody -- but I'd include the following:
Destination: Void ('66, revised '78)
The Eyes of Heisenberg ('67)
Whipping Star ('70)
The Godmakers ('72)
The Jesus Incident (w/Bill Ransom '79)
The Lazarus Effect (ditto, '83)
Next post I'll list those only Herbert completists would likely have interest in.
Right now I'm reading what has to be considered one of the most articulate and cerebral novels of the 20th century, The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle.
55mkboylan
Well I'm a very latecomer, but I have not read Didion and have been wanting to, so Salvador will be coming my way soon. I know it is not based on the book, but Salvador was an excellent movie and James Woods at his best. I still remember the impact it had on my when I first saw it years ago. Thanks for the reviews.
Merrikay
Merrikay
57absurdeist
56> At one point I certainly was. Though, alas, I left SF for literature, before I had located many of his more obscure works, like The Priests of Psi ('80, released only in the UK, a short story collection), as well as Threshold: The Blue Angels Experience ('73, the movie-tie in edition he authored), and other stuff, the Nebula Award Winners Fifteen, he edited, and many more probably not worth mentioning -- as if what I just mentioned was worth mentioning in the first place.
55> I remember that movie Salvador very well too, and James Wood's harrowing performance. Reminds me that Didion's third novel, A Book of Common Prayer is slated to start filming, if it hasn't already, very soon, directed by an actor who's face I see but name escapes me. A Book of Common Prayer takes place in the fictional nation of Boca Grande, and while I don't know if she had the nations of Salvador or Cuba in mind when she wrote it, its tropical locale is at least suggestive of them, and being that within ten years after Common Prayer she'd author two stirring critiques related to both countries, maybe her novel is tied in to her later reportage. I need to read it before the movie comes out.
54> extra copy for you if you want it.
55> I remember that movie Salvador very well too, and James Wood's harrowing performance. Reminds me that Didion's third novel, A Book of Common Prayer is slated to start filming, if it hasn't already, very soon, directed by an actor who's face I see but name escapes me. A Book of Common Prayer takes place in the fictional nation of Boca Grande, and while I don't know if she had the nations of Salvador or Cuba in mind when she wrote it, its tropical locale is at least suggestive of them, and being that within ten years after Common Prayer she'd author two stirring critiques related to both countries, maybe her novel is tied in to her later reportage. I need to read it before the movie comes out.
54> extra copy for you if you want it.
58absurdeist
Been a while. Some thoughts on a decent enough recent find, Life at Happy Knoll by John P. Marquand.
Life at Happy Knoll (1957) is an understated satire by a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist I suspect few readers bother reading today. Though in his day, around the time he won the 1938 Pulitzer for The Late George Apley, he was commercially successful and critically well received. So it's a minor shame that, not dusting off the cobwebs of a forgotten novel by John P. Marquand every now and then, in order to enjoy his mid-century skewering of double-talking high society WASPs. Of folks fixated on protecting their precious domestic insularity and supremely shallow social values -- common themes in Marquand's novels and especially Life at Happy Knoll -- that made his primarily WASP audience perhaps chuckle and gasp simultaneously in discomfiting recognition of itself.
Happy Knoll and Hard Hollow country clubs are in a constant letter writing battle (that's all the novel is -- the correspondence of rival boards of governors pandering to potential new members to join their country club instead of that other one) as they compete for new residents recently relocated into their Revolutionary Road-like community. Where Richard Yates rarely strayed in his strict adherence to bleak realism, Marquand routinely ventured mildly over the top in his less stringent realism. Cadillac owners, for instance, are de rigueur in Happy Knoll and Hard Hollow, though less prestigious car owners are tolerated even as they're privately derided to whatever degree their set of wheels happens to correspond to whatever lower notch on some agreed upon and yet arbitrary country club-continuum that measures such a social group's most important virtue -- status.
Marquand gleefully showed us how his country-clubbers would, of course, and regardless of a member's real or, more importantly, perceived status, never think of bad-mouthing a member for owning a lower class of automobile than their Daddy's Caddy, because that's just not -- obviously meaning it most assuredly is -- how Happy Knoll or Hard Hollowites behave socially. Right! Marquand mocked them, gifted and deft as he was conveying their subtle double-speak, double standards and general snootiness. Marquand's country club masses are too deluded by their own hypocrisy and masks to remember they're all merely average achievers at best, and in no position whatsoever to be judging anybody within or without the narrow-minded strictures of what amounts to their stunted development, these supposed adults stuck in their extended adolescences decades removed from their proms, rehashing the petty jealousies and insecurities of their high school cliques.
Life at Happy Knoll was Mad Men-hooks-up-with-Desperate Housewives half-a-century before either iconic Stateside television show aired, only the novel's not as serious as the former or as funny as the latter. Mildly amusing, never savage or too outrageous, this semi-serious, mostly lightweight (but not inane) satire of Marquand's, remains a relevant class commentary of 1950s Americana. And while Marquand's novels have fallen out of fashion, the contemptible country club hubris he chronicled has endured. Or rather it has, in fact, become more pervasive in this now mediocre yet entitled "culture" of ours that's become as much the United Happy Knolls or United Hard Hollows as the 21st century United States....
Marquand first published Life at Happy Knoll near the end of his career in recurring installments (1955-1957) for Sports Illustrated. The magazine's golf aficionados made the series a success, and soon Marquand's publisher cashed in on the country club craze, releasing the complete series as a short epistolary novel the summer of 1957.
(Good intro to the novels of John P. Marquand)
Life at Happy Knoll (1957) is an understated satire by a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist I suspect few readers bother reading today. Though in his day, around the time he won the 1938 Pulitzer for The Late George Apley, he was commercially successful and critically well received. So it's a minor shame that, not dusting off the cobwebs of a forgotten novel by John P. Marquand every now and then, in order to enjoy his mid-century skewering of double-talking high society WASPs. Of folks fixated on protecting their precious domestic insularity and supremely shallow social values -- common themes in Marquand's novels and especially Life at Happy Knoll -- that made his primarily WASP audience perhaps chuckle and gasp simultaneously in discomfiting recognition of itself.
Happy Knoll and Hard Hollow country clubs are in a constant letter writing battle (that's all the novel is -- the correspondence of rival boards of governors pandering to potential new members to join their country club instead of that other one) as they compete for new residents recently relocated into their Revolutionary Road-like community. Where Richard Yates rarely strayed in his strict adherence to bleak realism, Marquand routinely ventured mildly over the top in his less stringent realism. Cadillac owners, for instance, are de rigueur in Happy Knoll and Hard Hollow, though less prestigious car owners are tolerated even as they're privately derided to whatever degree their set of wheels happens to correspond to whatever lower notch on some agreed upon and yet arbitrary country club-continuum that measures such a social group's most important virtue -- status.
Marquand gleefully showed us how his country-clubbers would, of course, and regardless of a member's real or, more importantly, perceived status, never think of bad-mouthing a member for owning a lower class of automobile than their Daddy's Caddy, because that's just not -- obviously meaning it most assuredly is -- how Happy Knoll or Hard Hollowites behave socially. Right! Marquand mocked them, gifted and deft as he was conveying their subtle double-speak, double standards and general snootiness. Marquand's country club masses are too deluded by their own hypocrisy and masks to remember they're all merely average achievers at best, and in no position whatsoever to be judging anybody within or without the narrow-minded strictures of what amounts to their stunted development, these supposed adults stuck in their extended adolescences decades removed from their proms, rehashing the petty jealousies and insecurities of their high school cliques.
Life at Happy Knoll was Mad Men-hooks-up-with-Desperate Housewives half-a-century before either iconic Stateside television show aired, only the novel's not as serious as the former or as funny as the latter. Mildly amusing, never savage or too outrageous, this semi-serious, mostly lightweight (but not inane) satire of Marquand's, remains a relevant class commentary of 1950s Americana. And while Marquand's novels have fallen out of fashion, the contemptible country club hubris he chronicled has endured. Or rather it has, in fact, become more pervasive in this now mediocre yet entitled "culture" of ours that's become as much the United Happy Knolls or United Hard Hollows as the 21st century United States....
Marquand first published Life at Happy Knoll near the end of his career in recurring installments (1955-1957) for Sports Illustrated. The magazine's golf aficionados made the series a success, and soon Marquand's publisher cashed in on the country club craze, releasing the complete series as a short epistolary novel the summer of 1957.
(Good intro to the novels of John P. Marquand)
59baswood
How did you stumble upon Life at Happy Knoll? Some second hand bookstore perhaps.
60RidgewayGirl
So, I'm not going to read Life at Happy Knoll, but your review was fantastic.
61absurdeist
59> Exactly. Though not just any 'ol second hand shop, but The Prison Library Project/Thoreau Bookstore, I think it's doubly called, in Claremont CA.
60> Gracias, Niña de las crestas. Though what a pathetic sales job I did for the novel, as you're still not going to read it!
60> Gracias, Niña de las crestas. Though what a pathetic sales job I did for the novel, as you're still not going to read it!
64rebeccanyc
Just discovered your thread, and going all the way back to the beginning I was interested in your enthusiasm for Battleborn as I had much more mixed feelings about it. Your review did make me think about some of the stories differently.
Life at Happy Knoll sounds like fun, but I think reading your review is probably as far as I'll get.
Life at Happy Knoll sounds like fun, but I think reading your review is probably as far as I'll get.
