Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man is a classic of science fiction, and is also cited as one of the forerunners of the cyberpunk genre, due to the role corporate intrigue plays in the exposition, as well as one setting (a labyrinth of a brothel, built on a post-nuclear site). It's an engaging, entertaining novel, that holds true to many fifties-era sci-fi conventions. Whether that adds to its charm, or hurts suspension of disbelief is an exercise for the reader.
Despite the fact that the novel is set in the early 24th century, in a world where telepaths are commonplace, it's unmistakably a product of the fifties -- much of the dialogue has a "gee whiz" feel. So while this may be a forerunner or anticipator of cyberpunk, it's certainly not a cyberpunk novel -- both the pro- and antagonist are initially likable characters, and the plot is relatively straightforward.
Bester's treatment of the emergence of telepaths is slightly more imaginative than most sci-fi or fantasy -- he organizes them into levels (for whether they can read thoughts, or delve into the unconscious mind), and has them formed into a guild. Said guild is the center of life for the telepaths -- one who has been sanctioned by the guild is exiled, and no other telepath will communicate with them. This is maddening, and many go crazy with loneliness -- the analogy is made to deaf-mutes. (One thing that bothers me about novels in the future, that The Demolished Man is particularly guilty of, is that many analogies are made to the mid-late 20th century, but few, if any, are made to the intervening period between then and the present of the novel)
While The Demolished Man is not perfect, it's still one of the best science fiction novels produced in the 1950s. Bester is able to create a compelling, mostly believable world, and a hell of a detective story. Absolutely up there with anything by Arthur C. Clarke, and I'd prefer him to Heinlein or Asimov.
Chet Baker's As Though I Had Wings is billed as "the lost memoir", and is excerpts from his diaries covering from 1945-46, when he had joined the Army at age 16, up through 1963 when he was living and performing in Europe. Baker relates the events in a matter-of-fact, almost disinterested manner. This works well when dealing with the mundane, but when dealing with more exceptional circumstances (soldiers drinking Screwdrivers made with Aqua Velva rather than vodka, his drug use, gigs), it's very odd, and understated.
A second area where Baker's writing tends to the oblique is his drug use. His explanations as to why he was attracted to it are vague, other than "[he] was also the first person to turn me onto grass, bless him; I loved it, and continued to smoke grass for the next eight years, until I began chipping . . ." Throughout, Baker is unrepentant, as he never mentions a desire to stop, nor does he hit rock bottom, although he is often arrested, harassed by authorities, and pressured by parents of a girlfriend to stop using. He never mentions a struggle with the addiction, although he doesn't sing its praises, either -- it's just something he does.
One area where Baker's writing almost picks up is his travails with women. His first encounter is with a girl in the German countryside while he was stationed overseas, and he later meets his three wives. These are recounted in little detail (his first wife introduced with "she loved to be screwed, and I loved screwing her") and big events (marriages, births of children) are barely noted.
Overall, this is an interesting look at an icon in his own words, and it's inspired me to seek out a more comprehensive biography, but it's short and light on detail. Worth picking up solely to get a first person perspective, and because it's such an easy read.
Paul Fussell lays out his reasons for writing Wartime in the first sentences of his brief introduction:
This book is about the psychological and emotional culture of Americans and Britons during the Second World War. It is about the rationalizations and euphemisms people needed to deal with an unacceptable actuality from 1939 to 1945.
He then proceeds to not necessarily puncture the myths of the Second World War, but to sweep away any romance associated with it -- from how "Precision Bombing Will Win the War" (title of Chapter 2), to chronicling new soldiers' harsh reaction to the new military discipline, (with one saying "I thought the caste system was restricted to India,") to the bullshit spewed by the propaganda apparatus, with all its rhyming, simplistic poster slogans. Fussell then moves on to the war's effect on English and American letters, (as one may expect from a professor of English), and despite being an unrepentant Anglophile there's a lot of insight here.
Wartime has a blurb from Joseph Heller on the back cover on the insanity of war, and honestly, this is the closest to a non-fictional version of Catch 22 that I've seen. In fact the chapter on "chickenshit" certainly reads like something out of Catch 22. Absolutely worth picking up -- shows the lack of glory and the horrors of war without becoming a polemic.
Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley is a snapshot of a neighborhood stuck in the past -- but what past is uncertain. In the first paragraph, the author describes the alley as "a gem . . . a flashing star in the history of Cairo", but says that only "God and the archaeologists" know when that was the case. Clearly, by the time of our story (late 1944, early 1945), the alley is a relic, populated by the lower middle class. However, with a few exceptions, the diverse cast of characters is content to remain in the alley, with little ambition to improve their station.
Midaq Alley features a diverse cast of characters with sundry motivations, and Mahfouz's third person narration gives us a good look inside each character's head. This gives the novel a very expansive feel, since each of the first fifteen or so chapters is devoted to a different character's issues, although the transitions are relatively standard, rather than abrupt -- everything flows smoothly. Each character is fleshed out well, although some of them (such as Hamida) seem repetitive. Of course, real people are like that, so it's tough to accuse Mahfouz of being tone deaf.
As the plot of the novel (the doomed romance of Abbas and Hamida) doesn't come to prominence until halfway through the novel, it's clear that Mahfouz isn't necessarily writing about characters, but capturing the alley at a point in time, and showing the daily lives of the alley's inhabitants. While the narrative voice doesn't typically poke fun, there's some irony at work here -- witness the dialogue between the baker's wife and Zaita, the creator of beggars, as well as the situation of Radwan Husseiny -- the alley's most respected resident, despite not completing his formal schooling, being so pious as to show no sorrow at the death of his children, and consistently beating his wife loudly enough that the other residents can hear her screams. Some of the other characters feature motivations so thin as to nearly be caricatures, although they're typically presented without a wink or a smile.
I'd purchased this novel without knowing much more about Mahfouz than what's present on his Wikipedia page (the picture there resembles Ray Charles), and I was not disappointed. This novel is subtle, funny, profound, horrifying, and revealing. Would recommend.
I've heard Roberto Bolaño'sThe Savage Detectives described as "the kind of novel Borges could have written." I'm not sure I agree, but it's not an entirely far-fetched comparison -- the two protagonists (based on Bolaño and a friend of his) are on a quest to find a respected member of an obscure avant-garde group, and their meanderings after the meeting (or after their attempt at the meeting) are told through a series of anecdotes, related by persons of varying degrees of intimacy and familiarity -- we have former lovers, traveling companions, members of antipodal literary movements, minor functionaries, neighbors, drinking buddies, etc. Each anecdote (vignette) is well crafted, and as such, this could be a work of Borges'. However, if this were a Borges novel (or the Borges novel, since there are none), I doubt that there would be as much sex, booze, or weed involved. Additionally, the vignettes would take place during the search for Cesarea Tinajero, rather than afterwards. They also might be a bit less mundane -- while the vignettes aren't from bland people, it seems every narrator is slowly losing their mind in a different way. While we occasionally (often?) encounter such narrators in Borges' work, the worlds he creates are slightly more fantastic (in the most literal sense) than what is in The Savage Detectives.
Regardless of my quibbling, this is a hell of a novel. The initial structure was a bit odd (now there's a complaint, especially considering the previous novel reviewed here is Nabokov's Pale Fire) in that the first section is a series of diary entries from a bookish young poet who is introduced to our future protagonists, drops out of law school, and becomes a member of their movement. This section is much devoted to his coming of age -- his first experiences with sex, with cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana. In contrast, the second section is the aforementioned vignettes, spanning twenty years (1976-1996), in which our diarist is mentioned once -- when a scholar denies that he (the diarist, not the scholar) had been a member of the "gang". (In fact, this reference to the diarist comes in the second-to-last vignette, as if to remind the reader how the novel began. The last vignette is a continuation of the first -- an old poet that the two protagonists had visited in 1976, before setting off on their journey. His story is broken up throughout the novel, but stitched together, his (half dozen? dozen?) mini-chapters form one complete narrative of an evening he had spent drinking with the two protagonists). The vignettes almost take the form of interviews: as if the person being questioned had been asked "Tell me about your experiences with Arturo Belano and/or Ulises Lima", or "Tell me about your experiences in [time and place] and how they relate to Belano and Lima," and then was given free reign to ramble onwards. The final section is a resumption of the initial diary, concerning the continuation of the protagonists' search for the vanished poetess.
Despite The Savage Detectives being a novel about poets and poetry, the only poem written by a character in the novel that we as readers are shown is Cesarea Tinajero's sole published poem, which, other than its title, is wordless. I find this to be a good joke, as well as a good contrast to Pale Fire, which featured almost a thousand lines of subpar poetry. (Additionally, the protagonists are described as "more drug dealers than poets", which may or may not be a fair characterization -- their stories are only told secondhand.)
Beyond crediting Bolaño, I must credit the translator, Natasha Wimmer, who certainly had a difficult task, as this novel is clearly filled with slang in the original. (More or less difficult than translating Juvenal? Probably less, since at least Wimmer has contemporaries who have lived immersed in whatever vernacular this is written in).
With June ending, it's the perfect time for one of my favorite passages from Ray Bradbury:
It was June and long past time for buying the special shoes that were quiet as a summer rain falling on the walks. June and the earth full of raw power and everything everywhere in motion. The grass was still pouring in from the country, surrounding the sidewalks, stranding the houses. Any moment the town would capsize, go down and leave not a stir in the clover and weeds. And here Douglas stood, trapped on the dead cement and the red-brick streets, hardly able to move.
From Dandelion Wine, the re-reading of which should be a summer ritual.
Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is a triumph, and proof that science fiction can be much more than just description of gadgetry. It features cynical interplay of terrestrial religions on an alien planet after colonization by a space ark. The first colonists to awaken subdue the world, and after a period of time, set themselves up as members of the Hindu Pantheon, through both technological and supernatural means. The other passengers on the ark are awakened more gradually, and are placed in a rigid caste system (are there any flexible caste systems?). With reincarnation (through technology) a reality, the populace is held in check with a form of Hinduism that is literally true -- their station upon rebirth is determined by the deeds and thoughts of their past life, and the gods are manifest in the world.
Kurt Vonnegut opens Cat's Cradle with "Anybody unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either. So be it." Regardless of the original veracity of Hinduism, Lord of Light is set in a world where much of it is literally true -- so when a member of the First chooses to oppose the system, what better path than to sow the seeds of Buddhism, especially given how the two religions have intersected in India in the past? (Later in the book, the would-be Buddha concedes that he had considered Christianity and Islam, but "crucifixion hurts!", and Islam and Hinduism didn't mesh all that well in the original India) Sam, as he prefers to be called, takes Vonnegut to heart -- "He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god."
Lord of Light has an odd narrative structure -- the novel opens in its present day, then tells the back story in a flashback, which lasts more than half of the novel, and from which we emerge mid-paragraph. While jarring, it's quite effective, as it gives the sensation of being woken from a dream, which is appropriate, given the experience of one of the characters at the beginning of the novel.
One of the characteristics of Zelazny's work that I enjoy the most is his use of humor. Early in the novel, there's one of my favorite descriptions of life native to an alien planet in all of sci-fi:
"Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak. "Yes, and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape, then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect." "Oh? And what may that be?" "It is not a supernatural creature." "But it is all those other things?" "Yes."
Not that the focus of Lord of Light is wordplay, but it features such dialogue throughout the text, which helps make the characters more believable -- they're literally trying to overthrow Heaven, which in the hands of a less capable author, could lend itself to a heavy gravity. Zelazny is comparable to Bradbury in this respect -- he's descriptive (this novel contains one of the most well choreographed fight scenes I've ever read) without being overbearing. Essentially the only complaint I can make is the ending, which, given the material, is oddly appropriate.
Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man is a classic of science fiction, and is also cited as one of the forerunners of the cyberpunk genre, due to the role corporate intrigue plays in the exposition, as well as one setting (a labyrinth of a brothel, built on a post-nuclear site). It's an engaging, entertaining novel, that holds true to many fifties-era sci-fi conventions. Whether that adds to its charm, or hurts suspension of disbelief is an exercise for the reader.
