The Illustrated Man – Ray Bradbury

Another short story compilation, but tweaked slightly to present a set of stories told by a drifter that all relate to his unfortunate condition. Aside from the massive Everyman’s Library omnibus of short stories, this is the third novel-length and novel-published book of Bradbury’s I have read that is actually more of a collection of short stories: The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine being the other two.

The other two are also much stronger. This one has some great stuff, I enjoyed quite a few of the stories, but for the most part the book seemed to drag on and on without actually providing much suspense or any reason to keep reading more. So it took me a long time to finish. Some of the stories had suspense – like the one about the astronauts in the explosion who are all drifting through space alone until they crash into something or are taking out by something (speaking of which, isn’t that the plot for the new George Clooney/Sandra Bullock movie?) – but they were all over so quickly.  

Nothing felt really gripping, or profound. Just a bunch of stories that all featured a rocket in some way or another. The one about the Rocketman who does not want his son to grow up to be one like him was probably the closest thing to the profound story that I have come to associate with Bradbury. Either that or the final story about the Illustrated Man himself. They were both kind of fucked up. But for the most part, everything felt kind of meh. Sort of feel indifferently about this one, but I am glad I am at least tearing through the Bradbury section of my library.

Also of note, just after I finished this book, the Simpsons released their latest Halloween special “Treehouse of Horrors” episode, which featured an opening sequence directed by legendary horror/thriller filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. Why is this of significance? See if you can spot why:

A Million Little Pieces – James Frey

If you're Oprah, don't read this. I have had this book targeted on my shelf for ages and have long been debating my near-term To Read List so that it may be included. I do not know why I kept pushing it off, but I have finally come around to read the biggest story of the year 2007!

I enjoyed it, it had some great stuff to offer. It also had some stuff that buggered me. In all, though, I am glad I finally took the time.

It starts out without giving the reader any sort of back story. Just a drunk/drugged out junkie going through a bit of withdrawals maybe that force his breakfast, lunch, and dinner to be poured out all over his clothes, sopping them no matter where he may find himself. Turns out his parents picked him up at the airport and are delivering him to a rehab facility, the best in the country.

He is inexplicably shitty. Not just covered in vomit, and later his own poo, but because he has no interest in getting better. He is shit, just totally burned out from crack and alcohol and glue and gas and anything else. I was almost disappointed at the things he has left out that could have also worked to get him high. Like Pledge. Or fingernail polish.

He is also told that he is in such horrible shape, and his body is rejecting sobriety through withdrawals so vehemently, that he will literally die the next time he hits the crackpipe. Pretty damn sure, at least. Sure enough to say that if he goes out into the world he will be dead within days. And as if this weren't shit enough, he has to get a couple fillings and root canals because he has not exactly taken care of his Chiclets during his stint as a Whitney Houston impersonator. The catch here is that because he is undergoing treatment for substance abuse, he has to do it without any help from anesthetics or pain killers. Having your ass-rapist shout “I'm going in dry!” behind your back comes to mind.

So that's him. But to counter all of this, he has a heroically awful, anti-hero personality. He is unequivocally fierce, with a stubbornness and temper that set up incomprehensible violence and cataclysmic meltdowns. His stubbornness is also so deeply rooted that he absolutely refuses, at all levels, anything to do with the Twelve Steps. “They won't work on me,” his mantra reminds his captors throughout. We need no reminding, because we get it the first fucking time he says it.

That is really one of the very few things I disliked about the book. The repetition. The repeating of word or words. Mostly word. Repetition. Repeating. Repetition. Repeating.

Repeating.

Repeating.

…

…

Repeating.

Repeating.

Repeating.

See how annoying that is? It happens, and happens often in this book. But I gritted past it. It wasn't “I'm going in dry!” level of unbearable.

The other thing I disliked was the bit about the Catholic Priest in the end. Seemed unnecessary. We get it, dude. You are a badass and no one messes with you. Especially when you were high. Got it. You don't have to lay down how tough you are or slip one in at the end about how nobody crosses you.

I really do feel like it completely matters not – as in zero part of me cares – whether this book is factual or a fictional biography. I do not think it affects the reader's experience of it one bit. I went in not caring and came out not caring, with no opinion on how much I would be affected if it is 99% true or 1% true. Point being, Oprah is a twat. I believe she believed everything she was reading was factual, then berated James Frey simply because its not being completely factual made her out to look a fool. Don't she know?

Ocean at the End of the Lane

So Neil Gaiman went and wrote another story for children! Then another one, about a child, that I sort of had the impression might be a children’s book in the same light as His Dark Materials are children’s books.

It is about a man who is attending a funeral and makes a stop at the house on the end of the lane where he grew up, remembering his friend Lettie who had an ocean in her small pond. He then flashes back, and the story takes away to the time when he was seven, remembered by referencing his seventh birthday party – a party in which nobody showed up and he took his books and his Batman figurine upstairs to his room. He then learned that he was to be moved from his room to make way for a new tenant, as money was tight, and a South African opal miner shows up, runs over his cat, gives him a stray to make up for it, then steals his father’s Mini and kills himself in it. This event brings about a creature from another dimension, and she throws money at people and tries to hurt them whilst giving them things they desire. Lettie and the young man venture into the other realm to make sure the creature no longer throws money at people, and it uses the young boy as a door to cross into our realm. The monster shows up as an attractive young nanny to take care of the boy and his older sister, very much in a creepy Merry Poppins sort of way, if Merry Poppins were a babe, and named Ursula Monkton. Ursula puts everyone else into some sort of trance, becomes vindictive and nasty towards the boy, then gets his non-violent father to try and kill him by drowning him in the tub, then has sex in the study with the boy’s father as he escapes, then gets eaten by ravenous shadow-figures that are sort of like birds.

Pretty cool children’s book, if you ask me. I would let my kids read it. But not before they finished His Dark Materials.

I liked it, not just for all the reasons I mentioned, but because the story telling was so good. Gaiman really never ceases to surprise me with his quickness in taking a story from one direction and turning it on its head. This one had a lot of elements from others, namely Neverwhere, Graveyard Book, and Stardust, for me. Neverwhere, in the sense that a person visible and knowable in our world can become a door to the other world, which is not just a cliché fantasy but some sort of fucked up imagination I probably would not voluntarily visit that exists in Gaiman’s mind. And Graveyard Book because of the way the Hemstock family are all liminal figures who understand and can determine who and what goes in and out of each realm and orchestrate maneuvers that keep everything in their proper place within the two. But, because they are liminal figures (which many of my favourite characters throughout literature often are), they share nothing about how they are able to do these things.

Also similar to Stardust is that misdirection, where Gaiman builds an air of children’s fantasy story-telling, letting you think that you may be reading a bit of a kids’ book, then presents fucking. And not “proper British sex,” either, but babes fucking dudes. It always gets me!

 Another, this time unfortunate, thing I realized when I read this book, is that Gaiman drew many of the background events to set up the plot from his own life. Which tend to be pretty fucked up. I say this is unfortunate, because the story-telling is so good that I finally came to the realization that all great authors pour into their works some elements of their own background, and the darker their past, the better the book. So events such as him climbing his drain pipe growing up, having a tenant who killed his kitten, stole his dad’s Mini and killed himself in it, being the only one present at his seventh birthday party, and still being excited to go read books and play with Batman toys, these things all make for a dark past and a great story. I was pretty regular, and pretty damned spoiled as well. I am therefore incapable of entertaining you all with something so inspiring.

Wizard and Glass - The Dark Tower: Book Four (Part II)

The second half of the book is where things pick up and the plot really develops. For Roland and his love affair with Susan, things get passionate until they reach a hot, sweaty climax typical of western romance stories. For him and his ka-tet, however, things get super badass as they morph into gunslinger mode. And for the town of Hambry and indeed all of Mejis, things twist themselves into a murderous, maddening rage similar to what we saw in Book I with the town of Tull going nuts and Roland having to go full Cormac McCarthy on each and every man, woman, and child in that town.

No one is safe. The sound of the thinny is a constant reminder of the serious peril that lies just outside of town, and the witch that Roland deals with in order to protect his lover becomes obsessed with avenging the death of her snake/toy. People are going to get hurt; it is just a matter of when and where.

What I admire most about this book is how it is done, not so much what happens. King’s take on the game Castles, wherein you keep yourself disguised until you are ready to attack and come over the hillock, thus exposing yourself yet hoping you have enough momentum to impose an unbending will on the opponent, is a fictional game that is a perfect metaphor for what the ka-tet is doing with Jonas’s Coffin Hunters. After some minor peaks at each other’s offensive capabilities, Jonas makes a move and destroys the boys’ guest house. Roland isn’t biting. He feigns complete ignorance, a guise they work well under, until they are captured, arrested and jailed for the deaths of the mayor and his right hand man. Murders that were actually carried out by the Coffin Hunters. This is their “all in” and aggressive attack in the game of Castles. Too bad for them, Roland is game.

After Susan breaks them out of jail we get our first look at the real gunslingers. And my goodness is it awesome. The final 2 days of the season, the Reaping Festival under the Demon Moon, are the most significant, action packed, bloody and tragic. But it is not just what is going on, again, that is my favourite part. It is admiring the universe King has created, that I enjoy most. The seasons, the Demon Moon, its effect of putting people into a trance, bringing out their rage, all the while shining down on them like an evil, bloodthirsty god. It is so brilliant.

Many sci-fi and fantasy authors have created unique universes, sure. Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg’s Nightfall, for example, involves a planet with seven suns and a never-before-seen moon, and as people study the skies in constant daytime they contemplate the impact the sky has on them, and how terrible it could all be if their stars (suns in this case) were to align themselves in the ever-so-rare fashion that brings about an unrecognizable change. Meanwhile, fantasy books like The Kingkiller Chronicles or The Belgariad Series have fantasy worlds celebrating different seasons than ours but something we still recognize: growing seasons (summer); harvest (autumn); dark, cold dormant seasons (winter); and times of rebirth (spring).  But I don’t feel like anyone has captured it all, the ominous skies, the parallel seasons to ours, the wickedness you would expect from a demonic autumnal post-harvest celebration (Halloween, anyone?) quite like Stephen King has. Everything about it is worked out so well, so meaningful is each and every variant of the phases the Moon goes through. And I love how it crashes violently into the wild nature of people saying goodbye to the most lively, productive part of the year. Queue the insanity.

The Wizard’s Glass is another fine touch in this story, too. It is pretty much directly responsible for Roland’s threats to the witch, the capture of Susan, his loss of youth, the quest for the tower and several other horrible crimes he commits after he leaves Mejis. And it reappears, Wizard included, to issue more warnings to Roland and his new ka-tet of Susannah*, Eddie, Jake, and Oy. The Wizard is powerful, yes, but vulnerable, we see. After all the drama, Roland has apparently lost himself only to have the ka-tet bring him back to his senses. They are not breaking up, there is no going back, and they will all push on towards the Tower. A great continuation of the series, in my mind.

*Author’s Note: Can I just say (oh of fucking course I can! This is my blog, what am I drunk? Who prefaces statements with that other than drunks?), in a quick, unrelated, side-bit about Susannah, that as much as I absolutely despised her as a character when she was first introduced, mainly as Detta Walker, that I now enjoy her equally as much, if not more so? Not because of a monumental change in character, but because she remains an artistic rarity. Think about the character she represents: confused, multiple personality disordered, racist southern black lady who may be handicap yet is still as capable as a gunslinger. But in terms of modern pop-culture black protagonists, she is quite the opposite of what we’re used to. Django Unchained, a very unoriginal and uncomical take on comedy legend Blazing Saddles, tells a story of one African American’s revenge on a greedy, slave driving white frontiersman. Stephen King could have used Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker as his contemporary of the year-2013-cliché-racial-allegory-to-promote-white-hate-crime-comitting-awareness. Yet he did not. Instead, he uses her as an example of how horrible one person can be, driven by racism, and yet how they can overcome that, gain hold of their senses, and turn into a leader and key contributor to a small group on a very important mission. Almost making it as though whichever side of the 1960’s/1970’s race war she is on, completely irrelevant. And for that, I give Stephen King mad props. Because it seems it is just way too easy for people to in Hollywood and pop-culture these days to say “here’s a colored person who is showing outrage to illustrate how hateful/corrupt/racist white people are, let’s watch it happen and talk about how brave this person of color is, but only if the white people fail miserably and/or die.” Stephen King brings an element of not really giving a shit about colour, only pointing out that extremists lose sight of what is really at issue. But they can recover, and redeem themselves. For that, I tip my hat to you, Mr. King.

Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harvey Harrold-Harrison

“SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOP – “ wait no, that was just the movie. A movie which is, admittedly, loosely based on the book. So there are no dead bodies floating their way through a factory coming out as green crackers of protein. Though I must confess, I was constantly examining the pages left until the end as I approached the climax of the book thinking “when is he going to follow his dead friend to the Soylent factory?” 

Though Charlton Heston is once again wonderful, perhaps more so when written as a character, this book is very different from the movie.  And different in a way that can still truly be appreciated. It is a detective novel in a dystopian, poverty-ridden, overpopulated, hungry world. A much less technologically advanced and shittier-outlook-on-life futuristic detective novel than, say, The Blade Runner. The universe is constructed well, much better than the sort of abstract android-assisted future in Blade Runner and certainly a much more believable future than the universe in Suzanne Collins’ The Hungry Games series. Both of those dystopias are very different, I get it, but the United States and, specifically, New York City in Make Room! Make Room! is so well constructed, probably because it focuses on a much more near-term crisis, only a couple generations out from when it written.

Another element I enjoyed is how it is set essentially in one small area, in Manhattan, in a single precinct of Manhattan virtually the entire book. The weight of the problems shared by the famished of the entire world seem to bear down harshly on the citizens of New York, and as overpopulation, hunger, and violent crime are main elements, NYC makes the perfect setting and there really is no need to stray from it; the city is expanse and populated enough to house a complete murder mystery novel in one individual precinct.

The relationship between Sol and detective Andy Rusch is also interesting, as is pretty much each relationship Rusch has. The dynamic of the two is so polarizing that it is almost comical, and because there are similar relationships with friends and family of mine, I did find it rather entertaining. Sol seems to have a wise man’s approach to the world’s problems: is a very level headed, rational thinker and backs up his philosophies with sound reasoning or, at worst, relevant experiences. He is willing to sacrifice himself and his goals to see that the world becomes a better place. Yet he does nothing to change the direction his path is taking or make his voice heard, until it is too late.

Andy, by comparison as well as contrast, will put up with nearly any injustice as long as he has a place to call home and a job that can help support a recurring source of food and water. He is very career-oriented, puts his job and his income above his personal happiness, will sacrifice his relationships to follow orders, and even when shit hits the fan and all signs point to him needing a change of scenery, he cannot let go of that steady job in such a great depression.

His relationship with Shirl is even more dynamic. Those two have issues, people in poverty and trying to be happy whilst still making sacrifices type issues. And when the man works so doggedly, so exhaustingly, and the woman has nothing to do but lament her past life as a playgirl, she tends to seek escape and sleep with other people. Happens in mining towns all the time. This instance was really very believable to me. 

The end of the book features very nasty breaks of Andy’s relationships, pretty much every link to him in the story either fades, escapes, or dies. He is all alone, but cannot let go of his fear of losing what he has to stand up for himself. And if we do not recognise that is what drives people to sacrifice their personal freedoms and liberties for the sake of economic or social security, then we have learned nothing.

Good book.

Lastly, as I was finishing this book, THIS was being hotly debated in my office. Not just its existence, the background of the nature of the research, the funding, but the implications and corporate supply/demand/marketing capitalistic flaws inherent with new technologies. I was excited for it, but humanity's, specifically capitalism's, track record with stuff like this is very poor (*cough* MONSANTO *cough cough*). 

Darkness at Noon

I can’t, I mean I really cannot, believe how good some people are at writing sometimes. I know writing is a craft and I have mad respect for anyone who gets a non-Vlad-the-Impaler-loins-fucker book published, but every once in a while you come across authors who can just fucking write. And this is one of them. I have no way of telling you how much I abhor certain political beliefs. I am a Libertarian and Robert Anson Heinlein taught me at a young age that there is no such thing as a Libertarian who is not hard headed and devout in his/her philosophy.

The same appears to be true for Communism, I am learning. That is a political belief I abhor, also. But, I maintain, I can hear a political ideal without immediately having an opinion on it; I can hear someone out and then take time to reflect upon what they are saying. Even still, Communism is difficult for me to grasp. But Koestler’s book is all about presenting to the reader both sides of an extremely difficult political system. And not only does he tell you the sides that are in opposition of each other, he explains the context, to illustrate how a man of reason and logic may fall into a seemingly extreme and violent Party due to the nature of absolute truth and absolute rights and absolute wrongs.

For example, if someone is loyal to the party and works their whole life for improving the lives of everyone, which pure Communism is intended to do, sacrifice individuality for the greater good, but learns later that a (government provided) product is destructive to the greater good and an innovative new product would be better for everyone….that person, scientist, engineer, business owner, political figure, will be liquidated. That is the term used in this history. Liquidated. Probably because “murdered” sounds way too harsh and not quite as productive. Executed would work, but people didn’t have that joy of knowing how well “executable files” work so the word had a very murdery connotation to it. The reason for these happenings is that all majour products that serve the public, by definition of Communism, also serve the state due to the nationalizing of companies who provide majour services for the people (like auto industry, mining, and in the book’s example of this scenario, agriculture). So this person and 30 of his friends find that a product is better than the status quo, says so, and is shot along with all of his friends/coworkers because that technically counts as speaking out against the Government. Against the Party. Against that force that required desperation and extreme, indiscriminant summary justice in order to survive, to have a chance against the Imperialistic White Guard.

Again though, Koestler gives you context, not one-sided views on how great one system could be and how shitty the opposition can be. So there are bits that flash back, bits that involve reflection, and lay out some rather logical steps as to how a man can live with some of the Party’s ideals and even enforce them. Because it was so much better than what they had prior. Because it wasn’t about the ends will justify the means and it wasn’t about one person being in control and setting so firm of rules that one man is dictating the future course of an entire nation, single-iron-fist-handedly. I began to feel bad for Rubashov and everyone that bought into a system that improved upon what they had prior and then turned it into a totalitarian dictatorship, an oligarchy of extreme social equality, to the point of executing those that are different by saying they support inequality.

Is that common? Hunting people who step out of line and either executing them or imposing your will on them such that they have no choice but to conform. I know it happens, on occasion, in our human history. If I read this book in another time period, say, circa 1955, and felt bad for what Rubashov had to go through, I know doubt would have suffered a similar fate at the hands of the most extreme example in our nation’s history – a man with a similar illness with similar goals yet a different political background – Joseph McCarthy. His existence makes me sad for humanity. He makes me think that, due to the fact we as humans did not unite as one to murder his ass, like we would a Hitler or a Stalin, that we will take just about any amount of abuse as long as it is sold to us by a self-proclaimed God-fearing Patriot. Fuck, us. Fuck us. Fuck us all.

This also reminds me, totally book-review-unrelatedly, of a conversation I had with a fellow Libertarian. I am no longer one for labels, so Libertarian, in the sense that Robert Anson Heinlein tried to lead, means nothing more to me now than a lost dream. Like waking up and feeling you were just in possession of something you really desired only to realize the world around you still sucks. Yet a fellow “traveller” (which is much preferred to the oft hunted “fellow traveller”) asked me recently: “When do you think we, as a nation, will have enough? What do you think will be the last straw? What, in essence, will it take, to make the people revolt when it comes to the government overstepping its bounds and doing injustice to the people of this great nation?”

 Too late, I thought. Way, way too late. I paused, I thought further before speaking, would have already happened if we really valued our freedom. Finally, I spoke up: “McCarthy.”  “What?” he said. “McCarthy. McCarthyism, I mean. That whole thing.” He was curious, but as his father walked him to the pickup for their trip home after a hard day’s work, he explained the blemish of our nation’s history to him.

“And Kent State!” I shouted, louder than necessary, just to make sure they would hear me, to be sure there could be no doubt I felt our time has passed. What atrocities. And we just take it. Because getting fucked in the ass sort of kind of in a weird way is a bit cool, I guess. That must be it.

This book took a lot out of my human spirit, knowing how harsh some conditions are. But whatever I read of how horrible some situations are, I am more than plentifully reloaded by the fact that there will always be a survivor or friend of a victim who can write this fucking well. Spread the word. Spread the knowledge.