I'm sure I've written about Beloved before. I'm reading it to finish it now, and it's gotten great. All these books do, or should, at some point, and Beloved just has. From the middle of the book we get a juicy section and I've just kept reading it.
It's made me think of two things. The use of language, new or redefined, and my initial impressions of the books on the list, based on just their names. I'll write about the latter first.
"Beloved" sounds like a love story, or certainly one about family, where I imagined some poor white woman has lost a child, and spent days moping about it, and eventually turned over a new leaf and got on with life. Then again, that's a boring and generic story, and would it really be allowed on the List if that was true? Nah, Beloved is quite the opposite, much more real, relevant (Historically and story writing wise) and certainly not generic.
I don't think I could be further from the truth when it's about a slave who's killed her own child, and a full and proper explanation of the reasons why, how it came about, and how it's effected all the people around her, black and white. It really doesn't tell you a gimpy little story, but rather looks at everything possibly relevant, including language.
The book has quite a few different points of view. There is the normal narrative voice, which is closed but omniscient. We know what's happening, but every odd chapter we're given just one characters point of view, and it's not a story. Then it becomes a retelling. It's in the characters words and thought, and in their mind, and very much like they're creating a mental diary for themselves to read over later.
This works quite well at creating a language all for the book itself. We're reading written words, but within the story we're just fortunate enough to hear a characters oral passing on of their story, their events, their experience. In this way we're given many characters different points of view, all of whom contribute to the story being told in the book, but none of which are giving the full and complete and utter story.
Once I get to the end I can see I'm going to have many different threads of experience, and retroactively I'll be able to tie them back together and see the full and splendid tapestry of the story for what it is. I haven't been told The Story, so much as Everyone has contributed their Part to the Event. Capital letters help so much, don't they?
So I'm liking Beloved a great deal more than when I just started it, and I really didn't get what I was expecting. That's a great thing!
I also turned 30 lately and my brother bought me both Gravity's Rainbow and Margaret Atwoods novel, The Blind Assassin.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Ubik? No, me bik.
Hello readers! As I write this, I have sat the final exam for Narrative Fiction A, and assuming I didn't completely screw it up I can apply for a Masters of Teaching next year. Didn't I catch you up on everything I've been doing lately? Alright, skip that, onto Ubik.
First and foremost, science fiction as a genre. It's a very good overlay for whatever story you want to write, and can accommodate everything else. There's dystopian future's like 1984, or there's clever horror sci-fi, like aliens. Well, I say clever, but I really just mean "they got it right, I was so scared by the idea of this monster looking this way and being THIS lethal." Regardless, you grow up on the stuff if you like it, and eventually it feels as if you have read everything, or know very well the kind of troupes to expect, from all the shows out there. To name a 'few':
Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Wars/Trek, Futurama, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest, The Stainless Steel Rat, 2001: a Space Oddysey, Barbarella, etc etc.
After you consider how long some of them have been going (Doctor Who famously turned 50 in 2013, Star Trek soon to join it) you can get an overload of scifi from which you take enjoyment just out of experiencing it At All, rather than new sci-fi. SO, with that established image of me having had my fill of sci-fi, and still being a great big fan, I was only too glad to have no idea what was going to happen in Ubik.
Not a thing. The story begins with a team of electro punk psychics, who're sent on a dangerous mission. Immediately the smart boss, Runciter, feels out that it's a possible trap, set up by their biggest counter company, and sure enough some trap is sprung.
But that's where it stops being guessable. I had no idea what was going on, and when I thought I'd just gotten to grips with things, it adds more on top, so you have to readjust, then integrate, then realise it was a waste of time because it's just going to happen again one page over, or next chapter, or even next sentence.
I'd never read any Philip K Dick recently either, my only real exposure being hollywood's recent bought of movies (A scanner Darkly and Minority report come to mind, movies I didn't realise were Dick's at the time) and I'd always heard the name when people spoke about sci-fi. Not wanting to jump on a band wagon I brushed most of it off, assuming if I ever read the stuff I'd make up my mind about it then.
My room mate had Do androids dream of electric sheep, and Blade runner, so it was exciting to have both texts handy and to compare the two. As great as a world that was built for Blade runner, it's not as great as the story that's in the book. Regardless reading 'Android' got me interested in more of Philip K Dicks writing, and Ubik happened to be on the list, and at my local library, so why not?
The truly amazing thing about Ubik was the total and utter misdirection, without being lack of direction or random craziness. This is a thick, triple layer sludge chocolate cake of a book, and simply for being sci-fi plenty of people would excuse it as 'nonsense/for kids/for geeky men', and fair enough, but here at this blog we strive to bring you the experience I had when I read the book, and I myself assumed it'd be like that.
I was only too glad to be proven wrong. A similar book on the list, Neuromancer, doesn't seem to have the same sway or strength of "bloody character" that Ubik does. For starters, what is Ubik? Sci-fi loves to ask questions and not answer them, or if it does, it makes the answer so significant that no one of our specie is a high enough lifeform to appreciate it (42, anyone?). There is an answer though, both bookwise and factually, which is surprising and fun.
This comparison is also an interesting opposite to a previous discussion I had with a mate, regarding 1984 and Brave New World. 1984 was published in 1949, 16 years after Brave New World in 1932. !984 is clearly the better book, building greatly upon the world of the dystopian future, and giving us such a personal experience through Winston Smith. I know, I know, I love that book to pieces and I can never skip an opportunity to mention it, but it's that good. Regardless, despite being the later book 1984 was great, almost making it feel as though Brave New World was made redundant. Perhaps as a sign, Brave New World isn't on the Time 100 Novels. Conversely, we see Neuromancer coming after Ubik, and not being as great a novel, and building up a different world, really. There are differences and similarities enough to say you couldn't compare the two, but in the scheme of 'sci-fi' in general they contrast quite a lot.
Back to my point. We have Chip, main character and cool guy extraordinare, who must figure out what exactly is going on. He's perhaps like Rorschach from The Watchmen, the cool, independent, smart thinker who's capable without a team but works just as well in one. There's Runciter, the boss (and I believe the name is a play on "site runner", someone who scopes out a place before a production team goes in to record in it), and Pat, who is a sexy psychic, who appears topless briefly but early, almost in a "can we get this out of the way" style. We're given some world building at the start, but if you read Do androids dream of electric sheep, then Ubik, I believe you've got the same and correct world in mind anyway.
So who is Pat, and why is she such a strong psychic, and why are things going crazy, and is Runciter really in trouble, or is Joe Chip just batty?
The fun of the book was also in it's size. A LOT goes into Dick's books, and it really benefits from being short. He doesn't have to describe anything beyond giving the reader an image, and from there they can stylise the characters how they like. Once we're in a satisfyingly futuristic setting, how much detail is actually needed? I'd argue it's just enough to help differentiate the world from all the other ones out there, then let the readers brain do the rest.
Back yes, the length. It's short so it doesn't drag on, but it's so quick you'll find yourself pulling towards the end before you've got a good mind about what's what yourself.
I had fun, I was greatly entertained, and I now have a puzzle that's a damn devil to figure out. It's almost ironic that in today's short-attention-spanned-idiot online reader's world the shorter length of the book will keep people reading that otherwise wouldn't. I mean, I've heard of so many people who feel they have to dedicate themselves to reading through epics like Lord of the Rings, and while it's long it doesn't require dedication at all. It's a huge leap for a non-reader to feel like reading the novel of the movie, sure, but it's nothing you can't do if you just keep reading, even a page a night, etc.
Easily 9/10. If I had to choose between Ubik and 1984, it wouldn't be an easy choice, but I'd probably end up very sorely missing Ubik, and wondering why I had to answer these silly hypotheticals I keep asking myself.
First and foremost, science fiction as a genre. It's a very good overlay for whatever story you want to write, and can accommodate everything else. There's dystopian future's like 1984, or there's clever horror sci-fi, like aliens. Well, I say clever, but I really just mean "they got it right, I was so scared by the idea of this monster looking this way and being THIS lethal." Regardless, you grow up on the stuff if you like it, and eventually it feels as if you have read everything, or know very well the kind of troupes to expect, from all the shows out there. To name a 'few':
Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Wars/Trek, Futurama, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest, The Stainless Steel Rat, 2001: a Space Oddysey, Barbarella, etc etc.
After you consider how long some of them have been going (Doctor Who famously turned 50 in 2013, Star Trek soon to join it) you can get an overload of scifi from which you take enjoyment just out of experiencing it At All, rather than new sci-fi. SO, with that established image of me having had my fill of sci-fi, and still being a great big fan, I was only too glad to have no idea what was going to happen in Ubik.
Not a thing. The story begins with a team of electro punk psychics, who're sent on a dangerous mission. Immediately the smart boss, Runciter, feels out that it's a possible trap, set up by their biggest counter company, and sure enough some trap is sprung.
But that's where it stops being guessable. I had no idea what was going on, and when I thought I'd just gotten to grips with things, it adds more on top, so you have to readjust, then integrate, then realise it was a waste of time because it's just going to happen again one page over, or next chapter, or even next sentence.
I'd never read any Philip K Dick recently either, my only real exposure being hollywood's recent bought of movies (A scanner Darkly and Minority report come to mind, movies I didn't realise were Dick's at the time) and I'd always heard the name when people spoke about sci-fi. Not wanting to jump on a band wagon I brushed most of it off, assuming if I ever read the stuff I'd make up my mind about it then.
My room mate had Do androids dream of electric sheep, and Blade runner, so it was exciting to have both texts handy and to compare the two. As great as a world that was built for Blade runner, it's not as great as the story that's in the book. Regardless reading 'Android' got me interested in more of Philip K Dicks writing, and Ubik happened to be on the list, and at my local library, so why not?
The truly amazing thing about Ubik was the total and utter misdirection, without being lack of direction or random craziness. This is a thick, triple layer sludge chocolate cake of a book, and simply for being sci-fi plenty of people would excuse it as 'nonsense/for kids/for geeky men', and fair enough, but here at this blog we strive to bring you the experience I had when I read the book, and I myself assumed it'd be like that.
I was only too glad to be proven wrong. A similar book on the list, Neuromancer, doesn't seem to have the same sway or strength of "bloody character" that Ubik does. For starters, what is Ubik? Sci-fi loves to ask questions and not answer them, or if it does, it makes the answer so significant that no one of our specie is a high enough lifeform to appreciate it (42, anyone?). There is an answer though, both bookwise and factually, which is surprising and fun.
This comparison is also an interesting opposite to a previous discussion I had with a mate, regarding 1984 and Brave New World. 1984 was published in 1949, 16 years after Brave New World in 1932. !984 is clearly the better book, building greatly upon the world of the dystopian future, and giving us such a personal experience through Winston Smith. I know, I know, I love that book to pieces and I can never skip an opportunity to mention it, but it's that good. Regardless, despite being the later book 1984 was great, almost making it feel as though Brave New World was made redundant. Perhaps as a sign, Brave New World isn't on the Time 100 Novels. Conversely, we see Neuromancer coming after Ubik, and not being as great a novel, and building up a different world, really. There are differences and similarities enough to say you couldn't compare the two, but in the scheme of 'sci-fi' in general they contrast quite a lot.
Back to my point. We have Chip, main character and cool guy extraordinare, who must figure out what exactly is going on. He's perhaps like Rorschach from The Watchmen, the cool, independent, smart thinker who's capable without a team but works just as well in one. There's Runciter, the boss (and I believe the name is a play on "site runner", someone who scopes out a place before a production team goes in to record in it), and Pat, who is a sexy psychic, who appears topless briefly but early, almost in a "can we get this out of the way" style. We're given some world building at the start, but if you read Do androids dream of electric sheep, then Ubik, I believe you've got the same and correct world in mind anyway.
So who is Pat, and why is she such a strong psychic, and why are things going crazy, and is Runciter really in trouble, or is Joe Chip just batty?
The fun of the book was also in it's size. A LOT goes into Dick's books, and it really benefits from being short. He doesn't have to describe anything beyond giving the reader an image, and from there they can stylise the characters how they like. Once we're in a satisfyingly futuristic setting, how much detail is actually needed? I'd argue it's just enough to help differentiate the world from all the other ones out there, then let the readers brain do the rest.
Back yes, the length. It's short so it doesn't drag on, but it's so quick you'll find yourself pulling towards the end before you've got a good mind about what's what yourself.
I had fun, I was greatly entertained, and I now have a puzzle that's a damn devil to figure out. It's almost ironic that in today's short-attention-spanned-idiot online reader's world the shorter length of the book will keep people reading that otherwise wouldn't. I mean, I've heard of so many people who feel they have to dedicate themselves to reading through epics like Lord of the Rings, and while it's long it doesn't require dedication at all. It's a huge leap for a non-reader to feel like reading the novel of the movie, sure, but it's nothing you can't do if you just keep reading, even a page a night, etc.
Easily 9/10. If I had to choose between Ubik and 1984, it wouldn't be an easy choice, but I'd probably end up very sorely missing Ubik, and wondering why I had to answer these silly hypotheticals I keep asking myself.
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