Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls is the latest collection of essays and short stories by humorist David Sedaris. If you're not familiar with him, he grew up in an eccentric but close family with five kids, a chain-smoking mom with a wry sense of humor, and a no-nonsense but over-matched father. Many of his stories revolve around childhood incidents--I generally find these the funniest of the bunch. Others deal with his career as a pretentious but not-especially-talented artist when he was in his twenties, when he worked a series of minimum-wage jobs to pay the bills and lived in Raleigh's rougher neighborhoods. Still others mine the humor in his current situation as a middle-aged gay American living in London and Paris.
I was once friends with a guy who was always encountering ridiculous situations and acted like a magnet on strange people. Every time I saw him something odd would happen: a pair of very nice but persistent Buddhist monks trying to convince us to give up meat, or a search for a bathroom in a hospital leading us unexpectedly to an operating room where an operation was underway (shouldn't there be a sign on the door or something?), or a high school runaway teaching us relaxation techniques. Hanging out with him had the same general tone as reading David Sedaris.
A couple stories in this book are especially funny. There's one about a trip to Australia where an overly friendly waiter lets him hold a kookaburra (a type of bird), and another about a night spent with the drunks in the bar car on a train trip from Chicago to New York. My favorite, though, was the story of the day a kid named Tommy in the neighborhood called his mother a curse word, and his dad dragged Tommy home to put the fear of God in him, only it turned out to be another kid in the neighborhood with the same name. Sometimes the premises alone are funny, but generally the humor is in his observations of absurdist details--the way his dad removes his pants for comfort as soon as he comes home from work and does not put them on again in the evening for any reason, or the restaurant patron carrying around a doll as if it were a real baby. Another frequent source of humor is in the overreactions of the people around him to everyday annoyances.
The book was enjoyable, but I think his earlier books were sharper--especially Me Talk Pretty One Day. I don't know if he's actually getting less funny--maybe he used all his best material in the earlier volumes?-- or if it's just because his style is no longer a novelty to me. In his past couple books, I've also noticed politics creeping in. In the chapters where this occurs, Sedaris betrays no great understanding of the political scene, and they very much have the feel of an old man grouching about the world going to hell in a handbasket. The man's entitled to his opinions, of course, but that doesn't mean they make his books better.
If you're a David Sedaris fan, you probably already have this--his following is devoted and fairly large, I believe. If not, this isn't a bad one to start with, but it would probably be worth seeking out Me Talk Pretty One Day or Holidays on Ice, which I think are his best.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Nick's annual reading goals
Over the years I've established a set of goals, or at least traditions, for my reading. I try to read a selection from each of the following categories every year:
1) Bible. During Lent, I try to read daily from the Bible or a book on a religious topic. Each year I try to read a Bible book I haven't read before, although as I get older there are far fewer that I haven't read and that strike me as something I'd like to read. (The Psalms or Proverbs, for instance, may be great individually but would be a little tedious to read straight through; Leviticus and Deuteronomy are basically unreadable for a casual reader.) I also revisit a few particular favorites every so often--the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of John, and Ruth are at the top of my list.
2) Baseball. Sometime during baseball season, I try to read a book on baseball. Most years, I get to it during or April or May when my interest in the subject is at its height (and the Nationals are still in contention). This year, for whatever reason, I didn't get to it until the World Series was almost over. I'm no Yankees fan, but I think the best baseball book I've ever read was a couple years ago when I hit Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. Great book on a man with an almost wholly admirable life, cut tragically short, but with that beautiful "Luckiest Man" speech at Yankee Stadium the summer before he died, when he showed he had no bitterness in his heart for anything that had happened to him.
3) History. Every year I try to read a popular history book. For some reason, I like to read these in late summer while I'm at the beach. This year's book was fun, if not fully satisfying. The best history books I've read, at least in the past five or six years, are Gotham: A History of New York City, a monumental undertaking but endlessly fascinating, and Last Call: A History of Prohibition.
4) YA. My wife says I should read more YA, since I'm trying to write in the genre. She's not wrong! Still, since I write almost every evening, and read a wide variety of books, I really only have time to get to four or five YA books in any given year. The best YA book I read in the past year was John Green's Looking for Alaska. I'm not going to praise it anymore here. In fact, I'm angry at John Green for writing so well and making me realize I'll never live up to the standard he sets for the genre. If you must read a YA novel but don't know what to get, pick one by John Green, doesn't even matter which one. They're funny and heartbreaking and stay with you long after you've finished.
5) Literature. With a capital L. At least once a year I try to read a book that an English major would love. Sometimes I really enjoy them, other times it's more of a trophy to put on the shelf. Earlier this year I finished Boswell's Life of Johnson. It's the second time in my life I've read it and it's well worth revisiting. The one I'm working on now is Moby Dick. I like it so far, but, umm, I'm taking a little break from it. I'm about halfway through. I'll pick it up again in a couple weeks and finish it.
What about my readers? Do you just read whatever catches your attention, or do you have goals in mind and try to stick to them? Or do you have an actual plan? I think the most ambitious reading goal I've ever heard was one that of the husband of one of the librarians at my wife's library, who was trying to read a biography of every American president, in order. He was up to Thomas Jefferson at the time, a couple years ago. I wonder if he ever finished, or where he is now?
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
What I'm Reading: The Wrong Stuff
Bill Lee was a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos in the 1970s and early 1980s. He was well-known for his outspoken views, free-spirited approach to life, and (controversially at the time) unabashed drug use. Oh, and he was a pretty good pitcher as well.
The Wrong Stuff is an autobiography he wrote with ghostwriter Dick Lally. I'm not sure how much of this Bill wrote himself, but he seems pretty intellectual for a ballplayer, and his voice comes through very strongly, so I assume he contributed a lot more than in most of these celebrity ghostwritten books. The book was published in 1985, and I wonder whether it made a splash when it was printed. Bill certainly doesn't hold back in expressing his opinion or in naming names, so I have to think it must have raised quite a few eyebrows.
It's also hilarious, full of anecdotes about baseball life and especially the nightlife after the game is over. He has a skewed view of the universe that imparts a stand-up comic's wit to his observations, sort of a baseball version of George Carlin. Despite the fact that he holds a lot of new-agey beliefs--karma, and Eastern medical practices, and that sort of thing--he nevertheless comes off as saner and more down-to-Earth than most of his teammates and managers, competing hard when the game is on but not worrying too much afterwards if was a win or a loss, nor obsessed with the money, fame, or groupies that so preoccupy those around him.
I checked Amazon and this book recently became available again after years of being out of print (I found my copy on a giveaway table at work). I would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in baseball, especially the Red Sox or baseball in the 70s. But I think it would entertain a far broader readership than that, as Bill also peppers his book with his unique views of inter-gender relations, politics, the merits of various US cities, and anything else his curious mind happens to land on.
The Wrong Stuff is an autobiography he wrote with ghostwriter Dick Lally. I'm not sure how much of this Bill wrote himself, but he seems pretty intellectual for a ballplayer, and his voice comes through very strongly, so I assume he contributed a lot more than in most of these celebrity ghostwritten books. The book was published in 1985, and I wonder whether it made a splash when it was printed. Bill certainly doesn't hold back in expressing his opinion or in naming names, so I have to think it must have raised quite a few eyebrows.
It's also hilarious, full of anecdotes about baseball life and especially the nightlife after the game is over. He has a skewed view of the universe that imparts a stand-up comic's wit to his observations, sort of a baseball version of George Carlin. Despite the fact that he holds a lot of new-agey beliefs--karma, and Eastern medical practices, and that sort of thing--he nevertheless comes off as saner and more down-to-Earth than most of his teammates and managers, competing hard when the game is on but not worrying too much afterwards if was a win or a loss, nor obsessed with the money, fame, or groupies that so preoccupy those around him.
I checked Amazon and this book recently became available again after years of being out of print (I found my copy on a giveaway table at work). I would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in baseball, especially the Red Sox or baseball in the 70s. But I think it would entertain a far broader readership than that, as Bill also peppers his book with his unique views of inter-gender relations, politics, the merits of various US cities, and anything else his curious mind happens to land on.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
What Is Lost
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
-- from Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen
***
Man, do writers have it easy. Set your own hours. Doodle away on the keyboard for half a day, waiting for the mailman to arrive with your big check from the publisher. Don't forget to set aside some time for all the magazine interviews. Oh, and you have that cushy book tour coming up, too, with all those reservations for five-star hotels and fine restaurants in glamorous cities.
Okay, maybe you don't think of the writing life that way. You're realistic. You know it's hard work. But you're ready for it. After all, nobody ever achieved success without putting the old nose to the grindstone, right?
But I bet you still haven't thought of everything. You haven't considered what you have to lose.
Lose? What's to lose? Sure, you'll have to sacrifice some evenings to get the manuscript done, but who cares about missing a little TV? What else is there to lose?
Your career, for one. After all, you just have your day job to pay the bills until you finish your novel. So when your boss asks if you can work late, you turn him down. Who has time for that? You have something more important waiting for you at home--your writing. Your colleagues think you're unambitious. But who cares what they think? They'll realize why you were so uninvolved with your work when they see your name on the New York Times bestseller list.
Except that first novel doesn't sell. Nor does the second. And now five years have passed, and you're working on that third novel, and the boss has passed you over for promotion, and your colleagues whisper behind your back. Hey, if things aren't working out here, maybe you could move to a different job. Except, who's going to write the recommendation for the distant employee who was never really interested in being in the office?
Except that first novel doesn't sell. Nor does the second. And now five years have passed, and you're working on that third novel, and the boss has passed you over for promotion, and your colleagues whisper behind your back. Hey, if things aren't working out here, maybe you could move to a different job. Except, who's going to write the recommendation for the distant employee who was never really interested in being in the office?
But not everyone is cut out for a career, right? You still have your family. Sure, you spend a lot of time locked away in the computer room, night after night, pecking away at those keys, and when the kids interrupt your writing time, you get so grumpy. Not that they bother, after awhile. They find somebody else to read them their bedtime story. It's okay, though, once the money starts coming in, you'll make it up to them. And after writing for six months, that might be possible. But after writing for years? When you've been holed away long enough, they forget all about you, the family troll in its cave. Don't disturb it, it's been known to bite. And the odor! When was the last time that thing bathed?
You know, never mind the kids, your spouse will always have faith in you. Your spouse, who was so loving, so supportive when you started this project. Except, by the third novel, the fourth, the fifth--well, that's a lot of lonely nights. And if your spouse finally has enough and walks out the door, who's really to blame? The wedding vows speak of sticking together through sickness and health, good times and bad, but they don't have anything to say about disappearing from the real people in your family so you can spend time with the fictional ones on the page.
OK, sad to say, relationships aren't you're strong suit. No matter. You're an idea person, a word person. That's why you got into writing in the first place, isn't it? Because you love to read. Books were always there for you when people weren't, and nothing is better than curling up with a good one. Are you a mystery fan? Or do you prefer science fiction? Maybe you like to read the great novels, really getting into the deep questions about life and love and the beautiful language. What could be a better complement to your reading than writing? Yeah, you'll get to that stack of books later tonight. Right after you get this paragraph perfect. Shouldn't take too long.... Okay, it took two hours, and now it's late. Well, there's always tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or perhaps next week....
You know, never mind the kids, your spouse will always have faith in you. Your spouse, who was so loving, so supportive when you started this project. Except, by the third novel, the fourth, the fifth--well, that's a lot of lonely nights. And if your spouse finally has enough and walks out the door, who's really to blame? The wedding vows speak of sticking together through sickness and health, good times and bad, but they don't have anything to say about disappearing from the real people in your family so you can spend time with the fictional ones on the page.
OK, sad to say, relationships aren't you're strong suit. No matter. You're an idea person, a word person. That's why you got into writing in the first place, isn't it? Because you love to read. Books were always there for you when people weren't, and nothing is better than curling up with a good one. Are you a mystery fan? Or do you prefer science fiction? Maybe you like to read the great novels, really getting into the deep questions about life and love and the beautiful language. What could be a better complement to your reading than writing? Yeah, you'll get to that stack of books later tonight. Right after you get this paragraph perfect. Shouldn't take too long.... Okay, it took two hours, and now it's late. Well, there's always tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or perhaps next week....
So you've lost your job, your family, your personal time. You still have one, very important thing: your self-confidence. Nothing's going to stop you from achieving your goal. Except those pesky agents and publishers, that is. Rejection after rejection. They do pile up, don't they? And your optimism drains away with each plot hole you can't fill. Why is it no matter how long and hard you work, how many metaphors you formulate, how many scenes you nail, your writing never seems to achieve its potential? You know it can be better, but you can just never reach it. Stupid! How much of an idiot do you have to be not to get it right after three novels?
Eventually your dreams die. A tree that's never watered doesn't bear fruit. You didn't ask for much, really. At first, fame and fortune seemed within reach, but later, all you wanted was to see one of your books on the shelf. But that victory never comes and never comes and never comes, and the dream withers, and finally you reach a point where even if the success did come, it wouldn't mean anything after all the failures.
***
We know from the Bible Jesus was a carpenter. He found men rough, unfinished, and sanded and sawed and fitted them together, until he built chairs and tables. And with those chairs and tables, he had a supper, and though it was his last one, the things he had built lasted.
But Jesus must have been something of a fisherman too. He certainly knew quite a few, to whom he said, "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men." And with him they went. He pulled men in by the thousands and landed them on his craft, the Good Ship Salvation.
As for me, I believe God is a writer. After all, when he saw how his first draft turned out, he tore it up, sending a great flood to destroy it. I know the urge.
He certainly has a way with his characters. He creates them, breathes life into them, sends them forth onto the paths he has planned for him. As characters tend to do, they don't always go the way he intended. My characters surprise me all the time. How is that possible, if they're only fiction? Sometimes I gnash my teeth at how my characters refuse to behave. Of course, you have the power to make them do as you wish, but a good writer honors their integrity. And you know, in the end, sometimes their unexpected choices have made the story stronger.
We were made in God's image, and when we write, we're coming as close to God as we'll ever get. He's the author of all Creation, and we're the author of our creations. We establish our little world, populate it, people it, allow our creations the freedom to bite the apple, if they dare. We provide the challenges that will let our heroes shine, and throw in a little romance, villains, and adventure. We work in some themes and pack the pages with imagery. And when we get to the end, we provide justice: in a satisfying story, the good are rewarded, the evil punished, and all have a chance to redeem themselves.
And so it is with the book God is writing, the story of Everything. After all, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Amen.
But Jesus must have been something of a fisherman too. He certainly knew quite a few, to whom he said, "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men." And with him they went. He pulled men in by the thousands and landed them on his craft, the Good Ship Salvation.
As for me, I believe God is a writer. After all, when he saw how his first draft turned out, he tore it up, sending a great flood to destroy it. I know the urge.
He certainly has a way with his characters. He creates them, breathes life into them, sends them forth onto the paths he has planned for him. As characters tend to do, they don't always go the way he intended. My characters surprise me all the time. How is that possible, if they're only fiction? Sometimes I gnash my teeth at how my characters refuse to behave. Of course, you have the power to make them do as you wish, but a good writer honors their integrity. And you know, in the end, sometimes their unexpected choices have made the story stronger.
We were made in God's image, and when we write, we're coming as close to God as we'll ever get. He's the author of all Creation, and we're the author of our creations. We establish our little world, populate it, people it, allow our creations the freedom to bite the apple, if they dare. We provide the challenges that will let our heroes shine, and throw in a little romance, villains, and adventure. We work in some themes and pack the pages with imagery. And when we get to the end, we provide justice: in a satisfying story, the good are rewarded, the evil punished, and all have a chance to redeem themselves.
And so it is with the book God is writing, the story of Everything. After all, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Amen.
Cross-posted on the Writers of Chantilly blog.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
What I'm Reading: Roundup
Sorry it's been so long since I've posted! I've been reading a number of things, most notably Moby Dick, which explains why I haven't been posting. Still working on it, I'm about halfway through. When I'm finished, I'll put up a lengthy post on what I think about it, but so far, I love it. Hugely epic in scope, language that if maybe not quite biblical is only one step from the King James Bible, characters that are fully rounded and motivated yet archetypal. And of course, this is where Khan in Star Trek II got all his quotes!
Here are some other things I've been reading:
Prophet: Remission: A 2013 reimagining of the 1990s comic series by Rob Liefeld, a terrible artist who was inexplicably popular for a few years. I think that's why I overlooked this series when it came out earlier this year--I just saw the name "Liefeld" and my brain shut down. What a mistake that was! I'm lucky somebody loaned this to me with a strong recommendation because this is awesome.
Writer Brandon Graham places John Prophet, a genetically-engineered human with a rather taciturn, Conan-like attitude towards violence and morality (i.e., he has a moral code, but doesn't let it get in the way too much when action is necessary), in the very distant future, when humanity has died out and Earth has been colonized by various alien species. Prophet awakens and embarks on a mission to restart the once-mighty human empire, which requires visiting certain key sites, if they are still around, to send out signals across the galaxy that will wake frozen humans from their eons-long sleep.
The real attraction in this book is the huge variety of extremely weird creatures, aliens or bizarrely-evolved earth creatures. I especially liked the Jell City, a living ship that has landed on earth and which gradually decomposes while its inhabitants eat it until they're ready to emerge on their new planet. The desert caravan of massive elephant like-creatures who sell their dung as architectural materials are a nice touch, and the continent-wide once-living giant floating in space whose innards provide a living space for species not even around when he died is impressive. If you are at all interested in science fiction with a heavy dose of weird, this is a good bet.
The Wake: A horror series by DC's hottest writer of the moment, Scott Snyder. I just finished the fourth of ten issues, which I'm sure will be collected in a graphic novel once the whole series is out. Its set on a deep-sea research station run by an oil company. The company has brought together a band of scientists to address a problem: the crew has come across a murderous creature that's a...mermaid. Or rather, a merman. But it's not beautiful, it's hideous, and it has to be confined in chains so it doesn't get loose and rip the station's crew apart.
We learn where mermaid myths come from when the merman sprays a fast-acting neurological venom in a crew member's face. After recovering, he reports it causes euphoric hallucinations, meaning, for instance, the creature's hideous form appears as beautiful and its awful shrieking as an angelic song, rather like the mermaids and sirens from stories in human history. In the latest issue, has call has attracted others of its kind from the deep sea, who are attacking the station.
There's not really a lot in it that's original, but it's very well executed and truly scary. I get a strong John Carpenter's Thing-vibe from it, something about highly-competent individuals trapped in an isolated area with an alien killing machine. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Here are some other things I've been reading:
Prophet: Remission: A 2013 reimagining of the 1990s comic series by Rob Liefeld, a terrible artist who was inexplicably popular for a few years. I think that's why I overlooked this series when it came out earlier this year--I just saw the name "Liefeld" and my brain shut down. What a mistake that was! I'm lucky somebody loaned this to me with a strong recommendation because this is awesome.
Writer Brandon Graham places John Prophet, a genetically-engineered human with a rather taciturn, Conan-like attitude towards violence and morality (i.e., he has a moral code, but doesn't let it get in the way too much when action is necessary), in the very distant future, when humanity has died out and Earth has been colonized by various alien species. Prophet awakens and embarks on a mission to restart the once-mighty human empire, which requires visiting certain key sites, if they are still around, to send out signals across the galaxy that will wake frozen humans from their eons-long sleep.
The real attraction in this book is the huge variety of extremely weird creatures, aliens or bizarrely-evolved earth creatures. I especially liked the Jell City, a living ship that has landed on earth and which gradually decomposes while its inhabitants eat it until they're ready to emerge on their new planet. The desert caravan of massive elephant like-creatures who sell their dung as architectural materials are a nice touch, and the continent-wide once-living giant floating in space whose innards provide a living space for species not even around when he died is impressive. If you are at all interested in science fiction with a heavy dose of weird, this is a good bet.
The Wake: A horror series by DC's hottest writer of the moment, Scott Snyder. I just finished the fourth of ten issues, which I'm sure will be collected in a graphic novel once the whole series is out. Its set on a deep-sea research station run by an oil company. The company has brought together a band of scientists to address a problem: the crew has come across a murderous creature that's a...mermaid. Or rather, a merman. But it's not beautiful, it's hideous, and it has to be confined in chains so it doesn't get loose and rip the station's crew apart.
We learn where mermaid myths come from when the merman sprays a fast-acting neurological venom in a crew member's face. After recovering, he reports it causes euphoric hallucinations, meaning, for instance, the creature's hideous form appears as beautiful and its awful shrieking as an angelic song, rather like the mermaids and sirens from stories in human history. In the latest issue, has call has attracted others of its kind from the deep sea, who are attacking the station.
There's not really a lot in it that's original, but it's very well executed and truly scary. I get a strong John Carpenter's Thing-vibe from it, something about highly-competent individuals trapped in an isolated area with an alien killing machine. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
What I'm Reading: The Hive
The Hive is the sequel to X-ed Out, which I wrote on about a month ago (click here to see that review). Again, this graphic novel was loaned to me by a friend. This one had pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses as the first volume.
Again, we join Doug, a troubled art student who can't seem to find meaning in life, but who comes alive in a bizarre nightmare world he enters when he sleeps. In this volume, he's found a job in the hive where female breeders live, though we don't see what it is they're breeding. He's even located the woman he had seen earlier and knew he had to follow. She stays in something like a hospital bed all the time, and speaks of her fears that soon she's be like the women she hears in the other rooms, screaming all through the night. He brings her a series of romance comics she enjoys, and we even get to read a couple pages from one. As you might expect, it's as surreal and sinister as the rest of his nightmare world.
Meanwhile, in his waking life, Doug is now dating the girl he liked in the first volume, so he's progressed a little. Also, his haranguing father has passed away, which seems to free him a little psychologically. But the girlfriend has an ex-boyfriend who leaves them threatening phone messages, and his discovery of a box of photos of his father's life before he has born, when his father seemed happy and not to have entered the unemployed-depressive period Doug remembers, does little for his self-esteem.
As before, the dream sequences were the best. The hive world is cool and creepy. This time around, we've already seen its bizarre lizard and feral pig inhabitants, but we're starting to get a better sense of how things work, in a dream-logic sort of way. I really like the art in these sections: the forbidding mix of industrial landscape and east Asian village, the toxic caves that make up the interiors of buildings, the sushi made of fish you really, really don't want to eat.
And still, Doug's waking world is less interesting. Doug himself is still passive-aggressive, and not a very likable person. He lacks the energy and drive to really improve his situation, and wants everyone to think well of him without being willing to actually be a good person. There are signs he's starting to break out of his deep-freeze, but if I were his frustrated girlfriend, I wouldn't bother waiting around for him. Indeed, it seems to me she's with him less because he's interesting and more because he might offer some sort of protection against her ex.
I feel like we're about halfway through or so, and I expect Charles Burns's next volume will finish up the story. I'm interested enough in seeing how the nightmares work out that I might accept a loan of the third volume, whenever it comes out, but I probably won't seek it out on my own.
Again, we join Doug, a troubled art student who can't seem to find meaning in life, but who comes alive in a bizarre nightmare world he enters when he sleeps. In this volume, he's found a job in the hive where female breeders live, though we don't see what it is they're breeding. He's even located the woman he had seen earlier and knew he had to follow. She stays in something like a hospital bed all the time, and speaks of her fears that soon she's be like the women she hears in the other rooms, screaming all through the night. He brings her a series of romance comics she enjoys, and we even get to read a couple pages from one. As you might expect, it's as surreal and sinister as the rest of his nightmare world.
Meanwhile, in his waking life, Doug is now dating the girl he liked in the first volume, so he's progressed a little. Also, his haranguing father has passed away, which seems to free him a little psychologically. But the girlfriend has an ex-boyfriend who leaves them threatening phone messages, and his discovery of a box of photos of his father's life before he has born, when his father seemed happy and not to have entered the unemployed-depressive period Doug remembers, does little for his self-esteem.
As before, the dream sequences were the best. The hive world is cool and creepy. This time around, we've already seen its bizarre lizard and feral pig inhabitants, but we're starting to get a better sense of how things work, in a dream-logic sort of way. I really like the art in these sections: the forbidding mix of industrial landscape and east Asian village, the toxic caves that make up the interiors of buildings, the sushi made of fish you really, really don't want to eat.
And still, Doug's waking world is less interesting. Doug himself is still passive-aggressive, and not a very likable person. He lacks the energy and drive to really improve his situation, and wants everyone to think well of him without being willing to actually be a good person. There are signs he's starting to break out of his deep-freeze, but if I were his frustrated girlfriend, I wouldn't bother waiting around for him. Indeed, it seems to me she's with him less because he's interesting and more because he might offer some sort of protection against her ex.
I feel like we're about halfway through or so, and I expect Charles Burns's next volume will finish up the story. I'm interested enough in seeing how the nightmares work out that I might accept a loan of the third volume, whenever it comes out, but I probably won't seek it out on my own.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Remembering Frederick Pohl
According to an obituary a few days ago in the Washington Post, science fiction author Frederick Pohl died on 2 September, aged 93.
In junior high and high school, I read science fiction voraciously, and Frederick Pohl was one of my favorite authors (another was Frank Herbert, whom I have previously written about). The Post obituary describes his works as "sociological science fiction," and that seems right. Although his books were what I would call "hard" SF, meaning they were real science-based rather than space opera, they were more concerned with the effects of space travel and future technology on human society and individuals than on the gee-whiz aspects of the technology itself.
His most famous books, which I read multiple times, were the Heechee saga. In these books, humans discover a hollowed-out asteroid where thousands of spaceships belonging to a long-dead alien race have been stored. After some tinkering, humans figure out how to make the ships fly, but are unable to interpret the controls to allow them to control the destinations. A few of the ships fly to resource-rich planets, but most end up at useless or dangerous spots. The adventurers who take these ships stand to earn vast fortunes, but only at the risk of death.
The first book in the saga, Gateway, concerns Robbie, a man who earned a great deal of money on a voyage on a Heechee ship, but at the cost of the life of his girlfriend, who was the love of his life. He escaped the ship only barely as it approached a black hole, while the other crew members didn't make it. What makes it even more difficult is that he knows the other crew members aren't dead yet--thanks to the odd (but true!) nature of extreme-gravity physics, time is ever-slowing for them as they approach the black hole, so while a decade has passed for him, only a few seconds have gone by for them. He worries that his girlfriend believes he betrayed them to escape, and the guilt from this haunts him. The book alternates chapters between his visits to a computer psychiatrist named Siegfrid and the action as it took place in the past. Over time, his psychiatric sessions help him come to terms with the tragedy.
As mind-blowing as his books were, the real reason I am writing about Frederick Pohl is that he once helped me with a school project! In the ninth grade (this would have been 1990), we had to write a long report on America. I forget the exact parameters of the report, but it was open-ended enough that for my topic I chose "America in the Year 2020." As part of my research, I wrote to a number of people about what they thought America would be like in 30 years.
One of the people to whom I sent a letter was Frederick Pohl, who wrote back with a well-thought out response. His view was that the main challenge facing Americans in the future was the environment, and the stress the American way of life placed on the natural ecology. What a thrill it was to hear from a man I much admired! I still have the letter to this day. I might also add, I received an "A" on the paper.
Good-bye to a fine author, and one who was admirably generous with his time for a fan who asked for his help. Though it's been twenty years since I've read a book by Frederick Pohl, his works have been a huge influence on me. I can only hope some bit of his classiness has rubbed off on me as well.
In junior high and high school, I read science fiction voraciously, and Frederick Pohl was one of my favorite authors (another was Frank Herbert, whom I have previously written about). The Post obituary describes his works as "sociological science fiction," and that seems right. Although his books were what I would call "hard" SF, meaning they were real science-based rather than space opera, they were more concerned with the effects of space travel and future technology on human society and individuals than on the gee-whiz aspects of the technology itself.
His most famous books, which I read multiple times, were the Heechee saga. In these books, humans discover a hollowed-out asteroid where thousands of spaceships belonging to a long-dead alien race have been stored. After some tinkering, humans figure out how to make the ships fly, but are unable to interpret the controls to allow them to control the destinations. A few of the ships fly to resource-rich planets, but most end up at useless or dangerous spots. The adventurers who take these ships stand to earn vast fortunes, but only at the risk of death.
The first book in the saga, Gateway, concerns Robbie, a man who earned a great deal of money on a voyage on a Heechee ship, but at the cost of the life of his girlfriend, who was the love of his life. He escaped the ship only barely as it approached a black hole, while the other crew members didn't make it. What makes it even more difficult is that he knows the other crew members aren't dead yet--thanks to the odd (but true!) nature of extreme-gravity physics, time is ever-slowing for them as they approach the black hole, so while a decade has passed for him, only a few seconds have gone by for them. He worries that his girlfriend believes he betrayed them to escape, and the guilt from this haunts him. The book alternates chapters between his visits to a computer psychiatrist named Siegfrid and the action as it took place in the past. Over time, his psychiatric sessions help him come to terms with the tragedy.
As mind-blowing as his books were, the real reason I am writing about Frederick Pohl is that he once helped me with a school project! In the ninth grade (this would have been 1990), we had to write a long report on America. I forget the exact parameters of the report, but it was open-ended enough that for my topic I chose "America in the Year 2020." As part of my research, I wrote to a number of people about what they thought America would be like in 30 years.
One of the people to whom I sent a letter was Frederick Pohl, who wrote back with a well-thought out response. His view was that the main challenge facing Americans in the future was the environment, and the stress the American way of life placed on the natural ecology. What a thrill it was to hear from a man I much admired! I still have the letter to this day. I might also add, I received an "A" on the paper.
Good-bye to a fine author, and one who was admirably generous with his time for a fan who asked for his help. Though it's been twenty years since I've read a book by Frederick Pohl, his works have been a huge influence on me. I can only hope some bit of his classiness has rubbed off on me as well.
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