I always forget just how frightening Wells is. And depressing. I tend to go in to his books thinking I'm about to read something quaint and slightly cI always forget just how frightening Wells is. And depressing. I tend to go in to his books thinking I'm about to read something quaint and slightly corny like Jules Verne, but he was not just a "proto-sci-fi writer"—his stories have just as much depth and gravity as any subsequent sci-fi tale, and sometimes more. This is not light entertainment but horror. Though I can't get on board with his bleak materialist outlook, this is a brilliant tale that is well nigh impossible to put down and must count among the most gripping, suspenseful stories ever crafted. It reads much like McCarthy's The Road or Crane's The Red Badge of Courage; the effortless, matter-of-fact sketching of horrific events and the rapid decline of the sanity of man in the face of mindless destruction. I can only imagine how its grisly, vivid images would have affected the initial Victorian readers. And, in fact, when read as a wake-up call to the Victorian world, it becomes something like a real literary masterpiece. ...more
By a completely unplanned coincidence, my readings of Tolkien's three major works took place almost exactly five years apart from each other. That meaBy a completely unplanned coincidence, my readings of Tolkien's three major works took place almost exactly five years apart from each other. That means it's now been a decade since I wrote an enraptured review of The Hobbit as a hyperbolic 13-year-old, and the present moment, wherein I now have a fairly significant stock of literary experience through which to refract my admittedly rather cursory and intermittent encounter with the history of Middle-Earth*. Surely the experience of growing up with Tolkien must be one of the finest of all long-term literary gifts. The Hobbit is entirely suitable for a read-aloud to young children, and an independent read a little later on. The Lord of the Rings is bound to be read at least twice in its entirety through the adolescent years; its high epic tone and sprawling vistas of wonder ever irresistible. And then, in young adulthood, one may reach this Parnassus of Tolkieniana, where the full magic of Deep Myth can now strike you at its zenith. And then the cycle begins all over again when you read The Hobbit aloud to your children.
Full disclosure: I'm not a tremendous Tolkien fan as so many are. I like his work. A lot (though I'm even more fascinated by his thought processes, literary philosophy, and scholarly work than I am by his famous stories). But I do think it possible to overdose on it, and I do think that his dazzling feats of imagination can overshadow the real faults and inconsistencies in his work: repetitive, somewhat stodgy prose, meandering structure, tropes that today come across as rather clichéd. But because The Silmarillion is an anthology rather than a novel (I wonder if it inspired all those sci-fi "fixup novels" that sacrifice unity of plot for "world-building"), it can afford some of its faults, and it is often nothing less than breathtaking. I find it helpful to think of Tolkien's work as a sort of incredibly brilliant conglomerate pastiche or gloss on the great mythical archetypes of the world (including what he believed to be the One True Myth of Christianity). The genre of "fantasy" was furthest from his mind: he saw himself as a student and imitator of folklore, legends, sagas, romances, and fairy stories rather than an inventor. That's why the blatantly Biblical prose and archaic vocabulary shouldn't bother you: Tolkien is doing his best to write a Summa Mythologiae which demonstrates the elusive quality of timelessness that unites all great myth. He's not so much trying to add to a conversation but to capture the nature of that conversation.
So don't worry about keeping track of the overwhelming avalanche of names (I thought Russian novels were exasperating in this regard!) or trying to understand exactly what is going on in every episode. After all, Tolkien wrote a lengthy letter-preface that pretty much explains everything going on in the whole book. Rather than getting bogged down in the proliferation of detail and frequently frustrating gaps and ambiguities, savor the beauty of the proper nouns and the soothing cadences of the narrative. Ponder the heady mixture of tragedy and comedy that populates these sui generis stories. Let your mind be stoked by the meadows of metaphor, and your heart be drawn toward eucatastrophe.
*Another thing with which I am now more "stocked" is knowledge of languages. And if you're even a little bit versed in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and/or German, you'll be very intrigued and perhaps driven a bit mad trying to figure if or where Tolkien drew his influences for all of his names. The mythical language is really a little bit of all the old tongues....more
This was really quite something. Just like Fahrenheit 451, the reading experience is utterly hypnotic and hieratic—one is sucked into a near fever dreThis was really quite something. Just like Fahrenheit 451, the reading experience is utterly hypnotic and hieratic—one is sucked into a near fever dream of surrealism that is just real enough to be legitimately creepy—but whenever one's mind kicks in, it's difficult to decide whether the book is brilliant or cheesy. But despite some of the typical faults of sci-fi—wooden dialogue, stock characters, etc.—ultimately, I think this is about as good as speculative fiction can get. It's certainly the best-written sci-fi I've read. Bradbury's prose can get a bit purple and sacrifices story development for narrative atmosphere, but there's a constant intrigue of suspense in his tone and many of his poetic descriptions are so extraordinary that I'd be remiss to criticize him for this. On the whole, the stories were darker than I expected. It was almost like reading Poe or Kafka, as most of the tales relate ordinary situations (within Bradbury's world, at least) that balloon into psychological nightmares. There's even a really nice piece of overt Poe homage in "Usher II." But unlike the nearly psychotic emotional detachment of those writers, there is an almost elegiac pathos here that had me deeply moved by the time the last story rolled around. This is a "fixup novel" that reads like a "real" one—the stories may be disjointed from each other, but the whole comes across as a single postmodern narrative rather than an anthology. Sure, there are a few stories that are a bit trite and didn't work for me, and it's hard to get past the hokey 1950s envisioning of the future (A Canticle for Leibowitz, for example, does a better job with the nuclear scare scenario). But overall, color me impressed. This is serious fiction jam-packed with literary material (including several trenchant satirical critiques of American culture), even though it be marketed to the popular crowd.
Favorite stories:
The Taxpayer And the Moon Be Still as Bright The Martian The Off Season There Will Come Soft Rains The Million-Year Picnic...more
If you look at Lewis's fiction through the lens of conventional literary analysis, you are likely to be disappointed. That's what I did for years, andIf you look at Lewis's fiction through the lens of conventional literary analysis, you are likely to be disappointed. That's what I did for years, and all I was able to see were overly preachy allegories with no real character or plot development. Indeed, one must accept these faults and not pretend as if the great man were a flawless fictioneer. It is certainly the genre in which he was the weakest along with poetry, and one can tell that he struggles with achieving the naturalness, fluidity, and ease of MacDonald, Chesterton, and Tolkien (I sympathize with him because I too have an indelible passion for fiction and poetry, but just don't have the talent to pull it off organically). But if you see the novels as imaginative retellings of the core of Christian truth, your eyes will be opened to stunning beauties. To encounter this book in this fashion is to feast on joy. Your appetite for the marvelous and the miraculous will be schooled and satiated. It contains shades of the best writing in the Narnia series (i.e. Dawn Treader, Magician's Nephew, the last part of The Last Battle), but without the obvious limit of an age-restricted audience. There are descriptions and metaphors in the second half of this book that will probably stick with you for the rest of your life. Yes, once more it's painfully unsubtle. Yes, I remain concerned with the persistent Platonism. Yes, there are times where it threatens to plunge into a mere sermon. But oh, so many yummy ideas to explore—felix culpa! Free will! Incarnational theology! The verities of mythology! Eschatology! Why does Weston change from espousing a pragmatist view to Schopenhauerian nihilism? Look at it as an imaginative treatise and you are unlikely to be disappointed. For me, this is in a totally different league from the good but rather leaden Out of the Silent Planet, and the deeply unsatisfactory That Hideous Strength: a triumph of theological fantasy. ...more
In one sense, this can be seen as the finest imaginative apology for Platonism since the man himself. In another sense, it's a Pilgrim's Progress-typeIn one sense, this can be seen as the finest imaginative apology for Platonism since the man himself. In another sense, it's a Pilgrim's Progress-type allegory transplanted to the parallel realm of Fairie (I highly recommend MacDonald's short essay "The Fantastic Imagination" before you begin reading his fiction). In yet another, it's an unsettling hallucinatory voyage that I'm sure has provided at least a few overeager and undernourished contemporary scholars an opportunity to "psychoanalyze the erotic repression of the Victorian imagination" or some similar nonsense. Whatever it is, I can admire the wonder and beauty of MacDonald's vision and the many moments that filled me with the joy of eucatastrophe. Just like how reading Poe and Kafka is like immersing oneself in nightmare logic, this book reads much like one of those completely silly yet somehow fascinating dreams that drags on forever and from which you awake wishing you were able to extend it a bit longer. The direction of the "story"—and I use that term very loosely—swerves off in a new trajectory every couple of pages. It reads much like a musical improvisation or fantasia. On the whole, I'm sorry to say that I had a hard time sympathizing with Lewis's admiration for it. MacDonald doesn't strike me as a particularly gifted prose narrator. The narrative is so oddly matter-of-fact and events are related in such clunky language in long, rambling descriptive passages that I frequently wandered off into daydreams of my own. Certainly there is much here to celebrate, if only for inspiring such great allegorical novels as Till We Have Faces and Descent Into Hell. The ending is lovely, even if shot through with MacDonald's trademark heterodox universalism. I just wish that the whole product was more coherent and executed in more satisfactory fashion. I shall certainly return to it, along with MacDonald's other work (I already love the Penguin collection of short tales).
"Self will come to life even in the slaying of the self; but there is ever something deeper and stronger than it; which will emerge at last from the unknown abysses of the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning with eyes? Or a clear morning after the rain? Or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, and everywhere?"...more
I would probably never have chosen to explore sci-fi on my own prerogative if I hadn't been inspired by a blend of real-life and Goodreads friends to I would probably never have chosen to explore sci-fi on my own prerogative if I hadn't been inspired by a blend of real-life and Goodreads friends to take the plunge into a genre that I have historically considered to be essentially un-literary. Not knowing at all what to expect, I decided to start with sci-fi's version of "Pamela" or "The Birth of a Nation": a bedrock work that, apparently, few people actually read. In retrospect, this probably wasn't the best choice to persuade me that the genre can approach the imaginative and stylistic heights of the greats: the execution is simply bad. Asimov's prose and dialogue are theoretically admirable in the same way that Hemingway is—that is, he almost manages to make his stripping and whitewashing of the English language convincing due to the sheer skill and audacity it must take to drown the infinitely rich palette that is our language in the equivalent of gray paint. Further, his plot structure is terribly confusing and shockingly haphazard. There didn't seem to be any sort of real attempt to unify the stories into a proper novel (I guess that's why Asimov is generally considered the pioneer of the "fixup novel," but it comes across as more of a "breakup" to me). And then there is the baffling amount of material that isn't on the pages. I certainly don't demand complete explanation of every detail of an imaginative world—this, after all, would defeat the point of writing speculative fiction in the first place—but Asimov never develops the really juicy and intriguing ideas inherent to this world. What is it, exactly, about the old Empire that the Foundation wants to preserve? How does psychohistory even work, and why is only Seldon able to practice it? What is the philosophical milieu of the Foundation and its mission? But this book is the logical brainchild of an author who adheres to a cold, calculating materialism. The modernist faith in sociology, positivism, and pragmatism sap the life out of a great deal of potential—thematically and formally—and we are left with the aesthetic equivalent of a factory rather than a cathedral.
Still, the book exerted a sort of inexplicable fascination upon me—enough for a stingy 2.5 stars. Asimov is an astute observer of human nature even if he is far from possessing the whole picture of it, and the novel reads in many ways like a sharply-documented nonfiction chronicle of political depravity. I enjoyed the little that he did offer concerning the worldview and mechanics of his world, and the action is usually legitimately interesting, well-paced, and unfolded. He also does a good job making sure the reader is never confused by terminology, unlike Heinlein, for example. But it certainly is a very different kind of read that you have to be in the mood for, and I glad I didn't purchase it for this reason. I'm fully aware that it doesn't represent a common denominator for sci-fi, so I will keep trying until I hit something with the wide-eyed wonder and beauty that I look for in such works. I will try Asimov again, but I just need to sprinkle him amidst generous portions of my favorite writers so I don't overdose on his soulless, cardboard-bland secularism. It's an ideal example of how an author's beliefs indelibly tint the very complexion, not only the content, of his writing.
P.S. Both this and Starship Troopers (pretty much the only other hard sci-fi book that I've read) reserve women for extremely minor and frankly derogatory roles. Is there something about the genre that inherently caters to chauvinism? It's a bit disconcerting.
P.S.S. The book posits a far future where a caricatured system of fear-based religion is created to keep ordinary people scared of science. During the COVID lockdowns, it could be argued that we experienced a caricatured system of fear-based science that had the (most likely unintentional) result of keeping ordinary people scared of religion and many other human things. There's no agenda behind this comment (I believe the general response was terribly misguided and incompetent though well-intentioned), but it's interesting to point out. ...more
I'm not sure how I feel about Wells. He can be a surprisingly effective writer, but more so in terms of erudition and intellectual acumen than aesthetI'm not sure how I feel about Wells. He can be a surprisingly effective writer, but more so in terms of erudition and intellectual acumen than aesthetic qualities. Clearly he was one of the most prescient of all writers—most of this really could have been written yesterday. Yet it is that very same prescience that can repel me from him—his Darwinian nihilism and Sagan/Tyson-esque scientism leaves me with no edification whatsoever, encapsulating the analytic vacuity of modernity. Of course, this is still an extremely fascinating and engaging story that is so quick and easy to read I'd recommend it to everyone. But I certainly wouldn't recommend it for truth, beauty, and goodness; and it certainly won't tell you anything else that you don't already know from what you hear and see from "science news" every day. I much prefer Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds. ...more
I've concluded that I'm just not a sci-fi guy. This and Foundation are strikingly similar in that they are supposedly novels of ideas that don't spendI've concluded that I'm just not a sci-fi guy. This and Foundation are strikingly similar in that they are supposedly novels of ideas that don't spend nearly enough time actually focusing on those ideas, focusing on cardboard characters instead. Le Guin is certainly a better writer than Asimov, but this stuff just doesn't really interest me. To be fair, the anniversary edition has a terrible afterword that permanently tainted how I look at the novel, so I regret reading that; but there's still not much here to sustain intrigue for me, not to mention that it's a very stagnantly-paced story that is definitely a "mood" read. Anyone have recommendations for sci-fi that isn't dominated by sterile, utilitarian materialism? I crave authentic spiritual exploration and discussion of "higher" themes in fiction, not such temporal topics as gender and politics. Can sci-fi offer that outside of Lewis's Space Trilogy? (which I plan on completing soon.)...more
The acclaim is worth it for this one. What a book. Dark, daring, well-paced, rich with intrigue, sprinkled with just the right amount of biblical, culThe acclaim is worth it for this one. What a book. Dark, daring, well-paced, rich with intrigue, sprinkled with just the right amount of biblical, cultural, and archetypal illusions without being overdone. Miller masterfully balances a lot of disparate narrative tones into a coherent whole—there are lots of comic moments, interspersed with passages of high theological insight that could only have flowed from the pen of one steeped in devotion to the church, punctuated at the end of each act with stunning, almost McCarthy-esque violence. This book perhaps deals more honestly and profoundly with the problem of evil than no other fictional treatment I've read besides Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and there is a litany of talking points that make it endlessly applicable for 21st century discussion. Miller envisioned a highly realistic post-apocalyptic future, but the doctrine of the Church and its primary hopes and virtues changes not one bit—though no doubt informed by his Catholic convictions about the perpetuity of the Church Militant through constant divine intervention, I would have been interested to read more about the challenges posed to the faith itself in addition to how the faith is uniquely equipped to deal with challenges. It's really 4 1/2 stars for me because I didn't get into Part II very much—I think I can tell what Miller is trying to do in it, but it comes across more loose and contrived than the rest of the novel. I still rounded up for my rating because I do think this book is special. Part III is the most "science-fictiony" part of a story that mostly doesn't read that way at all, and though I've concluded that I just don't care for most of the conventional tropes and discourse of sci-fi, Miller utilizes them beautifully for a sacred cause. I can't help but be deeply moved by the author's purported inspiration for the novel, as he was traumatized by his participation in one of the most senseless acts of cultural destruction of all time (you should look into it if you haven't already). Ultimately, this is really one of those books that is much better dealt with in conversation and contemplation rather than through writing. It has a special wisdom and magnetism to it, laced with eucatastrophe, that is very hard to put into words, and which earns it an upper-echelon position among the finest spiritually-charged fiction of the latter half of the century....more
Imaginative and entertaining, as Lewis's fiction always is. But, also as always, rather dull and heavy-handed. As a more learned reader this time arouImaginative and entertaining, as Lewis's fiction always is. But, also as always, rather dull and heavy-handed. As a more learned reader this time around I enjoyed the allusions to medieval cosmology (it's helpful to read The Discarded Image alongside this) and the wise mythologizing. I agree with others that the story moves too slowly, but I do think Ransom is one of Lewis's better characters, as he clearly served as a mouthpiece for the author and the "baptism of his imagination" instigated by both MacDonald and his conversion. Lewis is clearly on a screed against progressive materialism, but Chesterton demolished Wells and Shaw in much less blunt and didactic than the frankly dull climactic scene with the caricatured Weston. A fairly distant second in the trilogy after Perelandra....more
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