Fountains of Paradise

Arthur C. Clarke is known for his dedicated research and devout worship of all things science in his books as much as he is known for eventful, mind-boggling “getaway” endings that attempt to lose the reader. I made the second half of that sentence up but most people I know of who watch his movies/read his books agree with it, so let us move forward.

I love this guy. And I am very glad one of my friends recommended him for this month’s (January, actually) book club item; whereby “recommend” I mean I berated him for not having enough recommendations to bring to the party and promptly told him I’d have no more input into his career, education or personal life unless he toss in the fifth of my four recommended books into the list (I’m exaggerating, I will freely admit. It was the 7^th of four books I was allowed to add to the list of our Book Club. Bratty much?) and we all agree to read it.

That being said, everyone in the group seems rather thankful it made its way into the list. It was recommended as a book for “people who like Arthur C. Clarke before he got weird” and I interpret that as “before his writing got real shitty,” which some of his later books definitely are. It represents the last of an era of greatness for Clarke (again, according to people whose opinions on which I rely), and was written in 1979. Keep that year in mind if you pick up any other books of his. Think of it as Pre-Sequels-to-Space-Odyssey-and-Other-Crap.

This one is really great though, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main character is an engineer, so BOOM, it is a favourite of mine already. Not merely an engineer but a damn experienced one, and Clarke knows much about the field, more than people who work alongside engineers, I might add (for those of you who don’t know me on a personal level, I am an engineer. A shit one, granted, but one that understands, however poorly, the requirements of the field).

Clarke absolutely nails the thought process of the engineer and his attitude toward others. Ambitious, always hoping the next project is bigger than the one before, doing more to ensure it is well funded, innovative, safe, aggressive and unique, and best of all, well-funded. He even goes so far as to pointing out, upon hearing about the economic implications/impacts of his greatest project: “You don’t need to explain economics to me, I’m an engineer.” I believe it is a conversation with an accountant. Which is exactly right, for most us in the engineering field. Not that there is any hard feeling between us and accountants (which, of course, there are), but that we are scolded/praised so much by the powers that be on the value of all of our innovations, that by now we are experts on the economics of each solution to each problem. Granted, we still miss a few things, but in the big scope, we have all had enough feeback and criticism by upper-management to cover our collective asses.

Other things I loved about this book: Starglider. A supermassive, hyper-intelligent data gathering satellite that comes through to make contact with any and all life forms/life sustaining planets! Could you just imagine the possibilities? It can learn new languages rapidly and thereby easily communicate with us. Oh the things we’d tell it! Turns out we send it, straight away, the Encyclopedia Britannica and a few other bits. Then we let philosophers talk to it and it promptly talks down to us on the basis of religion, which made me re-think my Amazon.com Wishlist queue of “The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas”. I mean read the damn book because I can’t sum it up in a funny way for you, but trust me, aliens arguing our “God” with us is funny. Funny is capped off by hilarious when the humans realize their religious views make them look like violent cukes, potentially, and then further come to the realization that, “SHIT! It’s too late to ask for the Encyclopedia Britannica we sent up back!”

What I like about this book is that is has a great pace, almost like a good movie, but ties in science, engineering, made-up history and religion in all the ways I appreciate in a good book. Religion, especially that of “this is sacred ground” all too often impedes the progression of important scientific research. I see it often with the monumentally large binocular telescope atop the mountain in my backyard (Google Mt. Graham Large Binocular Telescope and I bet half the articles of the first few pages are dedicated to Anti-Observationalists’ propaganda). But there are ways to defeat religion with logic, and this one happens in such a way that you do not have to feel the dirty capitalist project engineers unfairly exploited the environment. Things just needed to move on, and they happened from the inside out for the pilgrims. Plus some needling from aliens.

My favourite quote of all during the book, however, was when the engineer is trying desperately to reach a crew of scientists working from space back down towards Earth on the tower as it descends through space to reach the atmosphere:

                “If Morgan had been able to pray, he would have done so.”

That sentence said so much to me about hope, hard work, science, logic and reason, and religion.

All in all, an absolutely wonderful and fun book. Its non-linear fashion of writing is a reminder to me of what makes a great author. The immense amount of science and research put into it also reminds me of how some Sci-Fi authors refuse to half-ass their fantasy worlds. And lastly, the imagery in this book during all the activity, when described rather in-depth by Clarke, is beautiful and makes me proud of our accomplishments and knowledge gained in the time since its writing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - My intro to Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a book I hear about and know a lot about without actually reading until just very recently. People love it, and it isn’t surprising to see why. It was very outside the box, very much taboo and spoke out loudly – flamboyantly? – against the social/societal norms of Elizabethan British Propriety.

I feel so improper writing that sentence, but it feels good. The book is about much of what I like to tease people about, the idea that you can screw social norms and live your life by the simple rule: Do what feels good. 

I have a feeling that most noble men and women who live by similar standards, like Lord Henry (Dorian Gray’s friend and sort of mentor figure), can do this responsibly and without hurting anyone. But Dorian is immature and very, very vain. Not to mention he misinterprets what his mentors are trying to pass down to him and applies their lessons to become more cunning, more conniving and cleverly use his good looks for intentions that are not only selfish, but actually harmful to others.

Vanity is one of the themes here, especially that annoying British vanity – the focus on appearance and etiquette, manner of speech and coming off to people as noble rather than intelligent – but Dorian seems to take his vanity too far. The painting that is so goddamn exquisitely described and miserably, painfully created over the course of our introduction to Dorian that it represents an image that is not, in fact, a portrait of the young man, but instead an image of his person. It changes as he maintains his beauty and celebrates it.

He is basically indestructible in high British society because of his beauty, and goes on doing whatever the hell he wants even though his close friend, Lord Henry, has a very similar approach to life and is still a responsible, quite likeable human. But only likeable to us, as his behavior is extremely taboo and scandalous for the time it was written. He talks about marrying a woman he does not love, about art as a career, and even jokes about divorce; in the U.K. in the 20^th Century, ‘divorce’ was still treated like a swear word by people who wished to always be polite and proper.

Dorian, on the other hand, takes it all to a totally new level and is a quite despicable creature because of it. From breaking women’s hearts and being a complete ass about it to irritate behavior towards his peers, opium den visits, malice, scorn, and even murder. He is a truly awful subject but is celebrated by proper British upper class folk because they are all just as vain as he is. His hateful, ugly inner self is reflected only in the changes that keep happening to his portrait. It is a very good parallel but had to be very difficult for British noblemen and women – in their 80 pounds of clothes, pantaloons, annoyingly overdone white make-up, wigs and fancy parties – to swallow back in 1870.

Speaking of swallowing, I feel like there may have been a reference to a bit of homosexuality in the book, but I cannot quite put my fingers on it. Or in it, whatever. Lots of scenes really get into depth in describing the immediate surroundings of the characters and offer up pastel descriptions of butterflies and flowers whilst talking about how beautiful the young man is and how his friends much prefer his company over the company of their own wives. It really only adds to the beauty that this dreamy Dorian Gray figure puts out but I cannot help but think that Oscar Wilde may be hinting at something.

Anyway, considering how proper people were at this time, and the class that Wilde chooses as his subjects, it is no wonder it was such a controversial book. Several chapters in this version were not originally published; and this from a society that truly loves good literature. He was really ahead of his time, and his works (this being the only one of his I have read) stand the test of time because of it. Unlike Dickens, who is also awesome, do not misunderstand me, The Picture of Dorian Gray is still a good read in my opinion and has humour we can laugh at even now and points out a tremendous amount of horrible flaws in a superficial society that even people today can appreciate.