My favorite books (some of them)
Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon (1999)
Neal Stephenson started with the idea of a novel set during World War Two about a fictional Allied military unit traveling around, planting fake intelligence operations so that the Nazis could believe these fake ops were the sources of Allied intelligence about German plans. Why? Because the truth was that the Allies had broken the elaborate and seemingly unbreakable Enigma Code used widely by the German military. The Allies were reading the Nazis' secret messages every day, and were anxious to keep the Germans thinking that their secret code was still secret. So they pretended that they were finding out the Germans' plans by other means. That much was true, and Stephenson's conceit became part of the novel Cryptonomicon, but there was more. Stephenson also wanted to write about the code breakers back at headquarters, and for this subplot, which happily takes over much of the novel, he created my favorite modern fictional character, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse.
L.P. Waterhouse probably suffers from Asperger Syndrome (now clinically subsumed under "Autism Spectrum Disorder"), but Stephenson never uses clinical language. Rather, he describes the eccentric, circumscribed way that Waterhouse sees the world. Waterhouse is brilliant but his attention is too easily absorbed by minutiae. At one point, he takes a written test and fails it because he became stuck on answering the first question in unnecessary detail. The U.S. Navy classifies him as not very bright and puts him in a military musical band. Eventually, though, Waterhouse is assigned to a basic cryptography class, and his instructor quickly realizes that this peculiar man is a genius. Before long, Waterhouse is in charge of directing, at a distance, the unit that is building the cover stories for how the Allies are cracking German military secrets. Part of the fun is that the reader can see what is going on, but the members of the unit do not understand why they are doing things like building non-functioning listening posts. They just follow orders and it works out.
Stephenson also jumps between the 1940s and 1990s. this is not my favorite aspect of this book. Not to say that nothing that happens in the latter period is interesting, just that I am more interested in what is going on in the 1940s. This has a lot to do with the fact that L.P. Waterhouse exists in the earlier era but is an increasingly dim memory in the 1990s. There is also a subplot about buried treasure that becomes the main focus at the end of the book. I am least interested in the gold.
The Diamond Age, or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995)
Also by Stephenson, this is a quirky story set in a nanotechnologically advanced world that is nevertheless a political dystopia (a favorite theme of Stephenson). A group of people who are embedded in a neo-Victorian culture are nevertheless advanced in their ability to create nanotechnology. They can build islands to live on in practically no time using nanites. One of them creates a nano-book for his daughter. It is an example of A.I. that not only produces text but also has voice capability. This "primer" is stolen from the owner, but the thief does not know the value of it, so he gives it to an impoverished little girl. As soon as she starts playing with it, the nano-book's A.I. activates, adapts to her and begins teaching her everything she needs to know. Eventually she becomes the most educated young lady in any room she enters. Plenty of other amazing devices are described in this novel (chopsticks with nanite messages running up and down their lengths, for example, and mechanical elephants that serve as armored vehicles). This book inspired the developers of Kindle.
Snow Crash (1992)
Stephenson's third published book is a wild ride through the metaverse (a word that Stephenson coined in this book). It begins with a car chase led by a cyberpunk pizza deliveryman, trying to deliver a pizza in less than thirty minutes because, otherwise, the pizza is free, and the pizza company is owned by a mafia don who does not appreciate having to give away free pizza pies. It continues with many scenes that are as funny as they are prescient about the future direction of the worldwide web and the possibilities for interface between technology and humans. In my favorite scene, a young female character hitches a ride with a man who, through a headset, is locked into a virtual reality in which his avatar is seated at a desk and is watching the road on a monitor and driving the car remotely. (Can you say "taking distracted driving to a new level"? I have enough trouble telling which way is which when I look in the mirror.) Again, Stephenson sets a story in a crazily dystopian world where there are no more nations as we now know them, which is one of the few Stephenson obsessions that has not come true—at least, not yet.
Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon (1930)
OK, I saw the movie by John Huston about a dozen times before I ever read the book, but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. It made me appreciate the movie, but also could not but make the movie lose a bit of luster. There are a couple of scenes and characters who appear in the book, but Huston eliminated them. Huston gets away with this, but much that is good about the movie is lifted right from the book. When it comes to details, Huston should have lifted those from the book instead of assuming that he knew better than the master. For example, it turns out that Hammett's description of the murder weapon is accurate. Huston's attempt to improve upon Hammett's description is erroneous.
André Gide aptly said that "Dashiell Hammett's dialogues, in which every character is trying to deceive all the others and in which the truth slowly becomes visible through a fog of deception, can be compared only with the best in Hemingway."
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment (1866)
A young man named Rodion Raskolnikov, in desperate financial straights, plans and executes the murder of a pawnbroker in nineteenth century St. Petersburg, Russia. A certain behind-the-scenes factoid about this book reminds me of the TV series "Breaking Bad" because Dostoevsky suffered blowback from publishers who complained that the story is immoral. No, it is a highly moral story about a character who deceives himself into thinking that there are no moral values. He finds out that the moral sensibility that he denies nevertheless resides inside of him, and the guilt begins to eat him alive. Justly regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Four brothers with four different outlooks on life—and enough resentment for their ne'er-do-well father for six brothers—alternately serve as lead characters in a tale of rivalry and murder, sublimity and venality. Set in a small Russian town where a monastery has a prominent influence but cannot keep hatred and jealousy from running wild among townspeople (or people affiliated with the Church).
The courtroom scenes at the end skewer both "new" ideologies (such as moral relativism) as well as the preening self-serving-ness of some in the legal profession (then and now?).
Carlos Castaneda
Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972)
Carlos Castaneda wrote a series of books about native Mexican
sorcery, which remains controversial because some think that Castaneda made it
all up. He maintained until his death that it is a true account of his
experiences as an apprentice – and later a practitioner – of an ancient and
secretive tradition of sorcery. “Journey to Ixtlan” is the third book, and for
me the most poignant, of the series that began with “The Teachings of Don Juan:
A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” and continued with “A Separate Reality: Further
Conversations with Don Juan.” The first book describes Castaneda’s attempt in
the early 1960s to study Native American use of psychotropic plants through a
Yaqui tribe member named don Juan Matus. The premise of “Journey” is that, by
the early 1970s, Castaneda realized that he left out of the earlier books too
much of what don Juan taught him, so he decided to set the record straight.
Castaneda’s critics had pointed out that nothing in don Juan’s teachings fit with what is generally known about Yaqui culture. Castaneda answers them in this book by claiming that he never said that Juan Matus’ system of magic was linked to the traditions of the Yaqui tribe, and it turns out to be a shared system that transcends tribal affiliation. But Castaneda’s rejoinder belies the fact that he did subtitle his first book “A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,” which implies – erroneously – that don Juan’s teachings belong to that tribe. (He should have admitted that he made an honest if embarrassing mistake and been done with it.)
The whole book is a revision of Castaneda’s apprenticeship, during which he thought that he was an anthropologist dealing with an uncooperative informant, who refused to answer basic questions that might have cleared up the misunderstandings that bedevil Castaneda’s scholarship. Don Juan and Carlos (Castaneda is conventionally referred to by his first name when he becomes a character in his own books) are comically at cross purposes from the start. While the anthropologist is trying to recruit don Juan as his informant, the sorcerer is trying to recruit Carlos as his apprentice. The unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question is whether all of this misunderstanding is a real characteristic of Castaneda’s scholarship or part of the plot of a work of fiction.
In Don Juan’s world, people not only must defend themselves from the familiar physical dangers—natural disasters, accidents, dangerous animals and bad people—but also from dangerous spirits and other unseen, malevolent forces. It turns out that there are no safe spaces in eternity (or “infinity” as Castaneda and don Juan call it). Interestingly, don Juan tames and uses “allies” or spirits similarly to the way that ancient Greek and Persian magicians I have read about did. Rituals and spells are means to gain control over spirits which are then used to enhance the magician’s power.
The sorcerer does not attain immortality by leading a good life but by leading an “impeccable” one, seeking knowledge and power, putting aside all considerations that are extraneous to that goal. Though there does seem to be some sort of karmic justice, and it is better to be good than evil (For example, the sorcerer is said to be harmed by his own hatreds.), ultimately, being careless with the supernatural is worse than being a bad person.
“Journey” is about the preparations one must take on in order to leave the mundane world behind. To expose oneself to supernatural power, which can be invigorating and terrifying all at once, the would-be sorcerer must learn to focus only on what matters, facing one's mortality as well as responsibility for one's own actions. Each chapter introduces a different component of this task. In exercising these disciplines, the line between the social, natural, and supernatural is blurred; the sorcerer must be just as inaccessible to people who would sap his vitality as to supernatural forces that would do the same or worse.
The concept of “seeing” in the special sense in which a “man of knowledge” such as don Juan “sees” was introduced in “A Separate Reality” where don Juan taught Carlos that “seeing” is more than merely looking. In order “to see,” one must "not-do" or “stop the world,” that is, end our routine mental habits of perception. This is Carlos’ quest in this book as his incredulity is eroded by experiences with the supernatural.
Don Juan then turns Carlos over to don Genaro Flores, who was introduced in, “A Separate Reality.” Under don Genaro’s tutelage Carlos begins to let go of his doubts. When Carlos is ready, don Juan sends him into the hills, telling him not to come back until his new frame of mind catches up with his body. Carlos goes, despite having no idea what to do. On his second day in the wilderness, he has three strange experiences: 1) he communicates telepathically with a friendly coyote; 2) he sees a phantom man out of the corner of his eye; and 3) he has a vision of the landscape covered with glowing lines.
Don Juan later tells him that the coyote is now Carlos’ special companion (like a spirit guide?), which, he adds, is unfortunate because coyotes are tricksters and liars. Carlos is told that his vision of the glowing filaments was a kind of "seeing." The “man” that he almost saw was an ally or spirit. Carlos next has to tackle the ally and acquire power from him. At the end of the book, Carlos must decide whether he is ready to attempt this. Before he decides, don Genaro tells him the story of the first time he overpowered an ally. After his success, Genaro felt imbued with magical power, but the price he paid was never being able to find his way back to the town of Ixtlan, and that is the meaning of the title of this book. As Thomas Wolf might say, once you have changed, you can’t go home again. Therein, I suppose, lies the poignance of the book.
Vardis Fisher
Children of God (1939)
Not the only book by Fisher I have enjoyed. Fisher is generally consigned to being a "regional" American writer as if the themes of his novels could only apply to the American West where much of his fiction is set, but he exemplified Steinbeck's dictum that any worthwhile fiction must have universal appeal or else it won't last. This book is a novelization of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a., Mormons). It mixes historical and fictional characters, and takes both a skeptical and sympathetic view of the Mormon experience. Fisher, who was an atheist, nevertheless favored the underdog and decried the persecution that drove the Mormons from New York to Ohio to Missouri and finally to Utah.
Joseph Roth
Radetzky March (1932)
A saga of three generations affected by the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Cynical and yet nostalgic, it shows the futility of human dreams and realities. The Emperor Franz Joseph very effectively becomes a character—though not the main character—throughout the novel, at a time when making a famous person into a fictional character was a novel idea.
The Tale of the 1002nd Night (1939)
Roth's bittersweet fable of life in Vienna in the late 1870s on the occasion of a visit form the Sultan of Arabia. The character Mitzi Shenagl is my favorite character (and character name) from this novel.
The Best of C.L. Moore (1976)
Catherine L. Moore was one of the great science fiction writers of the early and mid twentieth century. This anthology is a great introduction to her short stories and novellas. My favorites include "Shambleau," "Vintage Season," and "Daemon," but the others are pretty good, too. She had a very bizarre, not to say spooky, sensibility. After she married fellow sci-fi writer Henry Kuttner, the two of them wrote together and their work became so intertwined that it is difficult to determine what part was hers and what his, but her work is often credited with influencing other science fiction stories—including my own unpublished project "Crime of the Centuries."
Up the Line (1967)
Robert Silverberg's time travel novel that was influenced by C.L. Moore's novella "Vintage Season." This novel was the handbook used by Robert Zemeckis in making the film "Back to the Future." Everybody important both behind and in front of the camera was strongly encouraged to read it. This work, along with C.L. Moore's "Vintage Season," is a big influence on my unpublished project "Crime of the Centuries."
Comments
Post a Comment