IN CRED - Debut Novel by RXTT

IN CRED

A mystical experience or a death-time delusion. A journey to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, or a trip into the inner recesses of the mind.

Cred's day is not going well. Collapsing at the record store and finding himself face to face with the god he accidentally created unhinged him somewhat.

This new problem, however, completely terrifies him.
With the help of some friends, a desperate ploy to save our universe is put in motion.

If only Cred can figure out how.

♦

NOW AVAILABLE!

IN CRED

The debut novel by RXTT.

IN CRED - Kindle Edition

IN CRED - Paperback

IN Cred - Hardcover

IN CRED

 

After a decade of writing this blog I am at a loss for words.

I drafted four versions of this announcement only to find them inadequate, so I kept it simple.

I have written my first novel.

It is VERY good.

I am looking for a publisher from within my worldwide readership. 

Please reach out to me at rxtt.art@gmail.com  Subject Line "IN CRED"

Thank you for loving and reading books

Sincerely Yours,

RXTT

Robert Crumb illustrates the Book of Genesis, and It Rules

 

The Book of Genesis Illustrated – R. Crumb (2010)

 

            I was gifted this amazing book by my brother.  As a life-long fan of Robert Crumb and the big-butt, thick-legged femeninas he obsessively drew and lusted over, I wondered how his obsessive drawing style would lend itself to the stories contained within the Bible’s Book of Genesis.  As with any genius artist, the results are more enjoyable than the actual source material.

            The Book of Genesis is, like the rest of the Bible, a composite.  The stories told within it are drawn from so many ancient sources that the words of Genesis constantly contradict or negate each other.  For example, Genesis tells two different stories about the origin of the world.  In one, god created everything all at once, and seeing it good, created man to rule it all.  In the other version, told right after, god creates the universe bit by bit, day by day, until finally creating man on the 6^th day, and resting on the 7^th.  This contradiction is never explained by the devout, who parrot the Bible as a holy book directly transcribed from the mind of god, infallible in all ways.  These people are idiots, seeking to turn everyone else into the mindless drones they themselves have become. (To read a review of Isaac Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, where he discusses the many source materials for the sections of the Bible, click here: https://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/isaac-asimov-tackles-biggest-book-there.html )

            Robert Crumb is a very interesting person to undertake this difficult task.  He was born to a Catholic household, but never sought religion or spirituality after his youth.  In fact, as a devout teenager, his father admitted that the Catholicism he raised the Crumb family under was a lie, and that he was an atheist all along, just pretending at religion.  Robert Crumb’s involvement in the underground comic books of the 1960’s helped make him a seminal figure in the alternative media world.  Nothing in his work of that period showed a predilection toward Bible subjects.

            One of Crumb’s collaborations, the many issues of American Splendor he drew for Harvey Pekar, pointed the way to how his art could serve the needs of a narrative structure.  Harvey Pekar’s work consisted of vignettes, detached scenes of his everyday life.  Crumb drew these scenes in his inimitable crosshatch, but without any of the sensational or outrageous imagery commonly associated with ZAP or WEIRDO comics.  It is this method he employs for the book of Genesis.

            What a beautiful book it is.  Each page, each panel, is carefully structured and drawn, allowing for maximum storytelling.  Crumb draws everything, even the preternaturally dull sections of Genesis listing endless “begets.”  His art does not editorialize.  It does not seek to magnify or diminish the words of Genesis, merely to portray them in a straight-forward manner.  As a life-long fan of the Illustrated Classics comic book series, I felt right at home ingesting the first chapter of the Bible in comic book format.  Those Illustrated Classics were my first exposure to Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, and many other works of literature.  I can imagine this great book serving the same purpose for anyone interested in actually reading the Bible, instead of analyzing it for divine proclamations.  I also see it as a great stepping stone for other comic book artists to explore the canon of classic literature.  Robert Crumb has always kept himself at the leading edge of sequential storytelling art.  We are better off for it.

(The Book of Genesis Illustrated can be purchased here: https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Book-of-Genesis-Illustrated-by-R-Crumb/ )

 

Italo Calvino Uses Words to Help Us Travel Through Deep Time

 

Cosmicomics – Italo Calvino (1965)

 

            I have read so many science fiction books and stories.  Many of their authors use specific scientific data or details to build stories around.  A few actually try to create stories that help the reader understand the scientific concepts discussed in the works.  Even fewer of those manage to create gripping, inventive stories.  Italo Calvino managed all of this and more.  What an amazing collection of short stories!

            I have been fortunate to discover many classic authors as part of my reading on this Book Journey.  From OG sci-fi writer Henry Kuttner, to modern author Cory Doctorow, I treasure finding their work and feeding my brain with their stories.  The one book I have read which most closely resembles Cosmicomics, however, is Clifton Fadiman’s Fantasia Mathematica, a collection of short stories from the 1950’s dealing with purely mathematical subjects.

            Italo Calvino takes the same approach with cosmology, specifically an exploration of the basic concepts used to describe the development of our Universe, from the Big Bang to the farthest reaches of deep time. His main narrator, inscrutably named Qfwfq, regales the reader with stories of his past, describing in beautiful allusions and metaphors, what the universe was like in the very first instances of existence.  In one story, he describes how the Moon used to be so close to the Earth that at certain points in the year, people would climb long ladders to reach the Moon, and harvest essential nutrition from it.  This is based on the knowledge that our Moon, Luna, is slowly moving away from the Earth.  In a million years, the Moon will be far smaller in our sky, and will not completely cover the Sun during eclipses.  In the far past, the Moon was much, much bigger than the Sun in our sky.

            In another great story, Italo’s narrator describes what it was like for him to exist as a creature who once lived in water, but is now on land, and all the accompanying weirdness!  One tale describes what the inner thoughts of fundamental particles must be like, while another shares the story of three entities forever falling through space and time.  Each tale is self-contained, but the whole collection truly helps expand the mind.  I found much wisdom in these stories.  The ancient poets created stories such as these to use as learning tools, handing them down orally to the next generation.  Mr. Calvino wanted to do the same with the often-misunderstood knowledge of Deep Time brought forth by Relativity and 20^th century cosmology.

            Ancient scribes did likewise. These old stories were often misinterpreted or misunderstood by people of later generations.  Instead of seeking intellectual and informational wisdom in them, people started to see them as “divine” messages, or as dogmatic truth.  The very same thing could happen to Italo Calvino’s stories, should someone read them in two or three centuries, well after the average human forgets or is no longer taught basic scientific truths.  We seem to be headed in that direction now, sadly, and this blog, RXTT’s Book Journey, is my small attempt to forestall the stupidization of humanity.

            I must commend a Mr. William Weaver, who translated these stories into English around 1968.  The world owes so much to good translators.  It is almost as important a job as actually writing the books themselves!  Translation is how we can share ideas across cultures, continents, and centuries.

            I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science fiction, mind expansion, originality, and creativity in storytelling.  It feels like something of a miracle that stories like this are available for us to read.  We are very fortunate indeed!

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://www.are.na/block/11318370 )

My first visit to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast will not be the last

 

Titus Groan: Vol. 1 of Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake (1946)

           

            After almost 400 pages, and two years in the life of the title character, I have completed my first foray into the weird, wild, and oppressive world of Gormenghast.  This nearly 80-year old epic begins with the birth of Titus Groan, the heir to the current Earl of Gormenghast, a man whose family line has ruled this walled city-state for millennia.

            What let me know I was in for an unusual story was the initial section of this novel, as Mervyn Peake takes several pages to describe the walled city of Gormenghast, introducing us to the real main character of this tale, the city itself.  Mountains on one side and a forest lake on the other surround the ancient sprawling castle, if it can be rightly called a castle.  Inside the walls of the massive city, its denizens spend their every waking hour in the pursuit of their labors, dictated purely by ritual and birth.  Those born to kitchen workers will be kitchen workers.  Those born to the unfortunate people that live outside the castle, the mud dwellers, are destined to remain outsiders.  The individual duties and positions within the castle being determined not by human decisions but by the countless precedents set by previous Gormenghast Earls and their families.  Every single action is either part of a daily ritual, or mirrors some ancient rite, the reasons for it obscured by time and generations.  No one asks questions.  No one seeks to change his or her position in this world.

            Nowhere in this work does Mervyn Peake specify how many people live within the confines of Gormenghast.  It could be tens of thousands, or just a few hundred.  Either way, the vast expanse of this sprawling city-state lays mostly deserted, with rooms, towers, dungeons, and hallways remaining unused for decades at a time, until some event or dictated ritual requires it.  The people we are introduced to come mostly from the retinue of the Earl himself, Lord Sepulchrave (the characters all have such evocative names!).  There is the Head Cook, Mr. Swelter, a fat, slovenly man that runs a small army of servants and kitchen workers whose task is to prepare meals for the citizens as well as the various cyclical feasts and formal events in the castle.  There is Lord Sepulchrave himself, who spends most of his time away from his family, absorbed in books found within an ancient, massive library, of which only the Earl seems to frequent.  There is the Earl’s wife, Countess Gertrude, a very large woman whose sole interests lay in the cats and birds of Gormenghast.  There is the daughter and eldest child of the Earl, Fuschia Groan, a young woman with little purpose in life, and her nanny, Mrs. Slagg, an old, tiny woman who has essentially raised the Earl’s daughter, and will be tasked with the care of the infant Titus. 

Another critical character is introduced, a young man by the name of Steerpike who, after manipulating his way out of what would have been life-long servitude in the Gormenghast kitchens, begins to worm himself into the world of the top servants and the rulers of the castle.  This Steerpike will drive the plot forward as his ever more grand plans start to take shape.

Most novels introduce the characters and dive right into plot.  Not these Gormenghast books.  I venture that around 70% of the novel consists of detailed, meaningful descriptions of the castle buildings, walls, towers, plazas, hallways, rooms, and the surrounding countryside.  Initially this distracted me, as I am so used to the standard plot formats of 20^th century fantasy fiction.  However, once my mind adapted to Mervyn Peake’s prose, it all made much more narrative sense.  The castle is eternal, or may as well be, having seen the rise and fall of dozens and dozens of generations, each one living and dying within the city walls, each one just a small blip in the lengthy life of Gormenghast castle itself. 

The lives of the Gormenghast residents mirror the lives of every heir to any throne in human history.  Their entire existence dictated by ritual, and formal decrees, forcing them to live by codes of honor, with no individuality allowed for it would disturb propriety.  If they are fortunate they end up handing the throne down to their children, who hand it to their children, etc.  There is always someone trying to take what is yours.  There is always some conniving relative attempting to either discredit or outright murder someone in order for his or her progeny to take the throne.  How many members of the British Royal family, for example, count as their only confidants and friends those who serve them?  This is the way of royalty, of entrenched ritual for ritual’s sake.  It is everything I despise in human governance.  Mervyn Peake seems to despise it as well, for the manner in which he details the people of Gormenghast is far less respectful than the way he describes the castle itself.  The castle has dignity, wisdom, and must be respected, whereas those who live within its walls are buffoons, dullards, and inbred.

The book ends with the title character, Titus Groan, reaching his 2^nd birthday, and the formal celebrations that will mark him as the new Earl of Gormenghast.  Those most sensitive and perceptive can sense a great change coming.  Change is the ultimate evil in Gormenghast.  Change effects everyone, seen as unnecessary and unwanted.  The next book in this trilogy is titled Gormenghast.  I fully expect to immerse myself once more within the dark, sullen masonry and the weird, desperate characters that make it their home.  I already feel as if I will walk the halls and rooms of Gormenghast for the rest of my life.

Rudy Rucker Shares His Life Story

 

Nested Scrolls – Rudy Rucker (2011)

            I feel like I just had a long, thoughtful conversation with one of my favorite authors.  Not only was it engrossing and entertaining, but it made me appreciate the man himself more than ever.  Rudy Rucker has long been someone whose books shape my mind.  He easily describes the most complex of ideas all the while making me crack up.  I find him to be one of the few authors, similar to Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut, who makes the reader laugh as much as he makes them think, sometimes in the same sentence!  This is how my mind works, and reading Rucker’s life story, I can see so many similarities to myself.  Life can be quite tough for people who choose to explore and think about topics normally avoided by the public, especially those who create something for others to absorb, whether it be literature, paintings, or music.

            Rudy Rucker begins his tale with a description of the brain hemorrhage he experienced in the summer of 2008, aged 62, and his brush with mortality. One of the realizations he describes really hit home, as it is a truth that I have come to understand.  Rucker states, “The richest and most interesting parts of my life are the sensations that come in from the outside.”  Our thoughts and ideas are merely reflections of the beauty and grandeur of the world around us, if we only take the time to actually look and listen, without judgement.  We all proceed through our lives as if we are the protagonist in a grandiose and important tale that matters to all.  Our self-importance seems to dictate the world around us.  However, the truth is that we are but reflectors of the world at large, and our self-importance blinds us to how fortunate we are to just breathe, eat, sleep, and love, existing in the amazing and infinite world that surrounds each of us.  This experience drove Rudy Rucker to write his autobiography, but without any of the self-promotional aspects of such writing.

            Reading about Rudy’s childhood and family was a joy.  Rucker’s writing style is so deceptively casual that his story flows smoothly, and I found myself as engrossed in his life as if it was one of his works of fiction.  Many of his childhood experiences mirror my own, and many of the questions he asked about the world around him I asked in my youth.  Rudy Rucker had to wait until he was much older to find people whose curiosity and genius matched his own.  It is a lonely thing to grow up understanding that most around you either do not ask, or simply do not care to know, about difficult ideas and concepts.  Expanding one’s mind, something that comes ridiculously easy to most toddlers and children, is beaten out of us by life, society, parents that do not care, and other such brutalities.  It creates a nation of adults who do not seek to understand, or to explore, but who want safety and certainty above all else.  Certainty is the absolute bane of wisdom.  Throughout Nested Scrolls, Rucker describes the many times he dealt with such inanity, from school to church to workplaces.  A freethinker will always threaten the status quo.  These moments truly resonated with me.

            Apart from learning about Rudy Rucker’s life and experiences, I enjoyed the sections in which he describes his state of mind as he wrote his various literary works.  Writers write.  It is their way of existing.  I have always enjoyed reading about the creative process of the people I admire.  I was reminded that while Rudy Rucker has written some of the most mind-expanding and hilarious science fiction literature I have ever read, he also wrote one of the most beautiful books, a historical fiction novel detailing the life and times of Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder titled As Above, So Below.  It is a triumph.

            One of the themes I found in Nested Scrolls is that of the “fringe” individual, and how to best exist as one.  Rudy Rucker studied and taught mathematics, but was seen as too weird and “out there” to belong with the mathematicians.  He studied computer science, but his metaphysical ideas about computing and the mind were too much for his fellow computer scientists.  Rucker wrote many amazing books, yet was pigeonholed as a science fiction author.  Far too many writers demean science fiction as if it was trash writing, not worthy of the high and mighty term “Literature.”  Not only that, many established science fiction authors isolate and demean writers like Rucker whose work is too transgressive, funny, or caustic for what they have determined is actual, hard science fiction.  The ego on these people!  If only they would see how blind they are, and that they have chosen to blind themselves with their intellectual bigotry. 

I relate to this aspect of Rudy Rucker’s life so much.   The Art Crowd found me too intellectual, too into sports, too into science, and too aware of the lies Art tells itself.  The jock crowd found me to artsy-fartsy, too mocking of the sacred ideas of sport competition, even though I love sports greatly.  The punk/underground music types found me too square, too “normal,” to truly accept me as part of that scene.  The “norms” found me too weird and uncaring about bullshit such as cars, money, or the latest useless status symbol.  It has been this way my whole life, and I feel it is that way for anyone whose mind and interests go too far beyond one or two self-defining characteristics.  The Public wants everyone to be easily defined, the faster the better, but people like Rucker and myself understand that the world does not work that way.  In fact, everything is far too complex for such simple-minded labels.  Much of Rudy Rucker’s work explores this idea.  As he states, and it is something I have myself claimed, there is no such thing as a “normal” person.  If you bother to scratch just below the surface, you will find that every single human you have ever met is a deeply weird individual creation.  The worst thing you could do for yourself is to force your life into the very narrow definitions that the people around you expect you to be.  They are the ignorant ones.  They are the ones whose minds are atrophied and scared of difference. 

Often Rudy Rucker describes how much of a grind it is to promote your work, to seek publishers, and to expand your readership.  Rucker has never had a “best seller” yet his works sell well and he is always able to publish his material.  His books are too weird for Hollywood, and none of them have yet been made into a feature film.  He taught at various Universities to make a living, but it took him over 35 years to get tenure.  All the while, he shared his life with his lovely wife and their three children, and as he describes their lives, I can see how much their love and stability aided him in his dream of writing science fiction.  Perhaps he is the most fortunate of all, experiencing a full life, while living out his childhood dreams.  Too many people consider you a failure if you do not become “the BEST,” or “the RICHEST,” or “the MOST FAMOUS!”  These are all meaningless labels.  Rudy Rucker grew up, married, started a family, taught countless students, created dozens of original works of literature, shared his ideas with readers worldwide, and even took up oil painting at a late age!  He is a success by any true measure, and I am so glad to have read his autobiography.  Rudy Rucker may not know me, but I count him as my lifelong friend.  Thanks for sharing the Gnarl, Rudy!

(This book may be read here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/nestedscrolls/ )

Pascal Garnier's Novel Brings the NOIR!

 

The Panda Theory – Pascal Garnier (2008)

            Previously on this blog, I mentioned how I love randomly running across new books to read.  I especially love when someone sets up a shelf or box full of free books for whoever wishes to read them.  My workplace, the Baylor College of Medicine on Houston, Texas, has such a shelf near the cafeteria.  I have culled several great medical texts from it.  Normally I stay away from the novels placed on that shelf, as they tend to be entertainments like Patricia Cornwall or some other such author, but this small grey book caught my eye.  I was unfamiliar with the author, Pascal Garnier, but after reading the front and back cover, I was intrigued.  On the inside, I noted that the book was a translation from the original French.  I always enjoy finding a new author, especially one from a non-English speaking country, so I grabbed it and dove right in.

            The very first paragraph on Page 1 sucked me in.  A man, disembarking off a train in Breton, finds himself in a nearly deserted train station, hands filthy after travelling, and heads out into the quiet “nondescript town” whose air smells faintly of manure.  He finds a room, and proceeds to look for a place to have dinner.  The woman running the desk at the Hotel, and the man running the local pub, offer welcome at the same time they bemoan the lack of anything to do in the small town. 

            Gabriel, the protagonist, quickly enmeshes himself with the locals he meets.  He is an exceedingly good cook, which comes in handy several times, but he has something disquieting deep inside him of which we are barely aware.  As the story progresses, we sometimes go back in time to experience Gabriel’s life before he arrived in this small town.  In this manner, Pascal Garnier slowly unfolds Gabriel’s past.  With each passage, we start to understand that for all the peace and calm shown by Gabriel with his new friends, there is a deep disquiet contained in the man. 

            Gabriel ingratiates himself with the various locals he has gotten to know.  We learn of their lives, as they explain to Gabriel the reason for their current states.  Gabriel listens, and seems to relate.  However, as we soon learn, Gabriel’s past has changed him deeply, leaving him almost emotionless.  The way he describes the world around him informs the reader of the true state of Gabriel’s mind.  His internal dialogue is cynical, detached, joyless, yet deeply observant.

            As with all the novels I review on the Intellectual Journey, I will not go into further detail concerning the plot of The Panda Theory.  Novels are unfolding mysteries and to give anything away is anathema to me.  However, I will say that it has been a long while since I found an author that spoke so clearly, yet so descriptively.  Pascal Garnier’s writing is lucid, clear, simple, and constantly surprising.  I give great credit to the translator!  I am so excited to have discovered a new author.  That is one of my favorite things in reading. I will definitely hunt for more Pascal Garnier novels!  I highly recommend this book, a quick read whose story will stick with me for a long time.

(This book can be purchased here: https://belgraviabooks.com/product/the-panda-theory )

Alan Moore Took Swamp Thing Where It Needed To Go

 

Swamp Thing: Issues #21-64 – Alan Moore, writer (1982-1987)

            In my youth, I was always on the hunt for new and interesting comic books.  I was very fortunate, as the 1980’s were a great time for innovative storytelling and many comic book creators took the art form to new heights of intensity, storytelling, and beauty.  One of the premier writers in comic books at the time was Alan Moore.  His epic story, The Watchmen, is one of my all-time favorites.  An early work that Alan Moore devoted years to in the 1980’s was the comic book Swamp Thing.  After decades, I was finally able to sit and absorb the full run of Alan Moore penned Swamp Thing stories.  They were even better than I expected.

            Swamp Thing has always been a “horror” comic book.  It sprung forth as a monster feature, and was not too popular with readers.  Headed for cancellation, Alan Moore was brought in to breathe new life into the book, and he did so full bore!  Alan Moore retconned the origin story of Swamp Thing.  Originally, Swamp Thing was a man who, after being doused with experimental fertilizer of some sort, found his way to a nearby swamp where he was turned into the Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore changed that up.  Instead of a man becoming Swamp Thing, an earth elemental spirit took on the human shape of the scientist.  Swamp Thing is tasked with protecting the Green, which is in fact, all plant life on the planet.  The horror comes in the many ways humans treat nature and the revenge that Swamp Thing enacts in the name of The Green.

            Alan Moore never shied away from showing the ugly, evil sides of human nature in his work.  With Swamp Thing he was able to explore ideas and topics that in other mainstream or superhero comics of the time would have been taboo.  Alan Moore shows us true evil, true monsters who look human and nice and normal, but who are ugly and sick inside, as opposed to the Swamp Thing, who is a monstrosity that has a hero’s soul inside.  Seeing as how good “spirits” like Swamp Thing exist in this comic book world, it is evident that a lot of evil would exist for Swamp Thing to fight.

            The horrors and monsters that Swamp Thing battles are just one aspect of the comic book.  Just as important is the internal life of Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore’s genius lies in exploring the true self of his characters.  Swamp Thing is conflicted.  He falls in love.  He feels deep sorrow and pain at the way humans treat Mother Nature.  He seeks to understand his place in the cosmos and why he’s tasked with protecting the Green.  The humans and monsters he fights are the opposite, seeking to either destroy nature or to corral it and wield it like a weapon.  I can see why many superhero comic fans did not appreciate this series.  It is too complex and disturbing for someone that just wishes to see didactic good and evil fighting.  What was more surprising to me was how sad, how deeply mournful Swamp Thing is as a book.  Alan Moore’s fears for what the modern world has done to our Mother Nature are evident.

            While much of the Swamp Thing saga is grim and monumental, Alan Moore also finds joy and humor in Swamp Thing and his life.  One of the most interesting issues is a one-off that explores what happens when a tiny ship filled with cute alien beings lands in the Swamp.  They have travelled for centuries seeking a new, lush, green home after their home was destroyed.  Told in a light-hearted and humorous manner, this story nevertheless becomes one of deep sadness and pathos as the small aliens discover the damage that humans have done to the Earth, and decide to leave in search of another home, one that will not soon be damaged irreparably by its inhabitants.  Heavy stuff for a “comic book.”

            I must mention the artwork of Stephen Bissette and John Totleben.  For a horror comic book, the artwork must not only be appropriately scary, but it should lend a specific visual language to the book.  The naturalistic drawing and minimal inking of the artwork used in these comics speak to the content within.  It is a perfect match.  The visuals of Swamp Thing are some of the best of the era, able to portray not only the physical battles that Swamp Thing engages in, but also the psychic and ethereal battles fought on the Astral Plane.  Comic Books are, when done right, a perfect combination of story, words, and images.  This is one of those successes.

            I highly recommend finding and reading the run of Swamp Thing issues that Alan Moore wrote.  If you are already a fan of his, you will get to experience his early work.  If you are not yet a fan of Alan Moore then this is a good place to start as nearly all of the work he has produced since the 80’s contains many of the elements he first explored in Swamp Thing.  From explorations on the metaphysical and mythic nature of existence, to the re-introduction of nearly-forgotten characters from the history of comic books and much more, Swamp Thing is definitely an early Alan Moore triumph.

Joan Didion captures the rage felt by those who mourn

 

Blue Nights – Joan Didion (2011)

            About two and a half years ago, thanks to the repeated insistence of my beautiful wife Elizabeth, I absorbed Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” in which she explored the state of her mind reeling from the sudden passing of her husband.  It was as honest and profound an examination of the experience of Loss as I have ever come across.  About seven months after I completed that book, my own mother passed away, over a quarter century after my father left us.  She never stopped mourning my father’s death in her heart, and she remained devoted to him through all things. 

The loss of a partner, which both Joan Didion and my mother experienced, is more of a shock than the loss of one’s parent.  We are supposed to outlive our mom and dad, but our life-partner is supposed to be there with us forever.  The idea of losing a child? Incomprehensible to most parents.  My mother’s mom saw three of her children pass away before her.  Joan Didion lost her adopted daughter soon after losing her husband.  While “The Year of Magical Thinking” details the loss of mental focus and the intensity of memory and grief, “Blue Nights” rages at the loss of her daughter.  My mother once said the worst thing in the world is for a parent to lose a child.  Her own mother, herself a widow, told her this.  I cannot imagine a more true statement.

This is not a grief-stricken book.  It is an anger-filled self-examination.  Joan Didion may be a petite, refined woman, but her heart and mind are of a different type.  She uses her mind as if her life depended on unflinching honesty and truth, which is similar to the many of us who live in mourning or grief every day.  She asks herself questions which, I would imagine, almost all mothers ask themselves but which most mothers would never admit publicly.  Joan does not always have answers.  That is a truth of life.  We all have more questions than we can answer.

Early on in the book, Ms. Didion describes the process by which her and her husband adopted their daughter Quintana.  To them, it was magic.  After communicating their desire to adopt to friends and family, they received a phone call from a Doctor acquaintance stating that there was a beautiful baby girl needing a home.  Joan describes the joy they felt answering the call, shouting in glee, heading over to the hospital to meet their new daughter, waiting to take her home, and then, 6 months later, officially adopting her.  Joan then tells of how this dream of a story was taken by their adoptive daughter. She would ask her parents to please retell the story, the wonderful story of her adoption.  However, for Quintana, this story brought forth questions her mom found unsettling in hindsight.  Quintana would listen to the story.  She would then ask her parents questions such as, “What if you had not been home when the Doctor called?”, “What if you had a car accident on the way to the Hospital?”, or “What if you had seen me and not loved me?”  These questions, which can break a parent’s heart, shed light on an issue many adoptive children have, which can be framed thus, “If my birth parents abandoned me, then how do I know my adoptive parents will not do the same?”  Brutal.  Some questions and ideas are too much for a young developing mind.

As she writes, Joan Didion examines what she felt were the blind spots in her caring for her daughter, for all parents of sick children ask themselves such questions.  What did I miss?  What was my child trying to tell me?  Did my actions make her life worse?  Was she happy?  For Joan Didion, these are not easy questions to ask nor answer.  Quintana had many health issues in life, but she was a strong soul, eventually marrying the love of her life.  The anger Joan Didion feels, which is reflected in her writing, is the rage all those of us who experience profound loss and feel helpless inside.   

People assume grief is about sadness.  It can equally be about rage.  Pure, unadulterated rage at the world, its inhabitants, its rules, and whoever the hell created it all.  Joan mentioned a comment directed at her by caring friends and family in the weeks following her daughter’s death.  “At least you have your memories.”  It sounds nice enough, but only someone who has never experienced true loss and grief would imagine it to be so.  I, like Joan, know the actual truth.  The memories are what HURTS.  The memories are what bring back the loss and the pain and the sorrow like it was yesterday, for in our minds and hearts, it was just yesterday.  The memories are what stops you from living your day-to-day life.  It can be something as inconsequential as a whiff of perfume, or the sight of a specific flower, or running across an item loved by those you lost.  Joan describes this and it is just so very true.  There are no “happy” memories.  There are just memories, reminders that someone who once existed, and who once meant everything to you, is now gone, and we are left behind to pick up the pieces and move on. 

Joan details how, having lost her husband and daughter, her deepest remaining fear is not the end of her own life, but the knowledge that when she dies her memories of Quintana will die with her.  As she states at the end of this book, “The fear is for what is still to be lost / you may see nothing still to be lost / yet, there is no day in her life in which I do not see her.” Some say that we are not truly dead until the last person that remembers us has passed.  Joan Didion understands that burden completely.

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.thejoandidion.com/blue-nights )

Céline Blows My Mind, Which is Awesome

Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1932)

            One of the greatest sources of information about books and writers that I am not aware of comes from the authors I read.  Charles Bukowski, and his raw, unvarnished views on the world around him, always fascinated me, and when I read a quote stating that Bukowski considered Louis-Ferdinand Céline “…the greatest writer of 2,000 years” I was intrigued, having heard mention of this French author whose style and mind helped set the stage for the modernist works of the 20^th century.  As I always like to note any synchronicities around me, soon after reading that quote by Bukowski I was listening to the Doors, specifically the song “End of the Night.”  Looking up the song I found that it was a reference to a Céline novel titled “Journey to the End of the Night.”  I had to go and find this novel, and see what all the fuss was about!

            We jump right into the story of Ferdinand Bardamu, a veiled double for our author, and his cynicism about the world he inhabits, France during The Great War.  While talking about the terrible state he and his companions find themselves in, with the war getting closer and closer to them, our protagonist rashly jokes he will join the army, as he has no other prospects.  The crowd’s patriotic fervor eggs him on.  He proceeds to fool around, joining a column of marching soldiers.  By the time he realizes that the cheering crowds have thinned out, he was inside the army compound and in the military.

            The novel jumps from there right to Bardamu in the middle of a predictably chaotic and pointless skirmish, and his cynical view of things stands in sharp contrast with the patriots and flag-wavers he encounters.  His superior officers are brain-dead nitwits, some seeking glory, and others seeking power, with no concern for the safety and well-being of the men they lead.  This is a point that Céline/Bardamu reiterates constantly.  He finds the war to be as stupid and vapid as the cheering morons who support the war from the safety of their cafes and parlors.

            We follow Bardamu as he proceeds to go AWOL, get discovered by another patrol, gets sent to a far-flung outpost in Africa, manages to find his way out of that, get “Shanghaied” on a steam-ship, and then make his way to the United States.  In New York, he sees the glittering lights, absorbs countless films at the air-conditioned movie house, and is overwhelmed by the massive amount of beautiful, young, energetic, hopeful women he sees.  Compared to the lifeless women he knew in France it was a big change. 

            From the moment he entered the military, Bardamu’s tale coincides with a fellow Frenchman named Robinson. They run into each other in the Army, again in NYC, and then again in France once Bardamu returns home.  Bardamu eventually ends up in Medical school, and becomes a doctor for hire in one of the poorest parts of the poor parts of Paris.

            Throughout these adventures, Bardamu lets fly with some of the wittiest and most caustic analysis of the world around him that I have ever read.  I can see why Bukowski, Heller, Beckett, and others were such big fans.  Céline lays bare every bit of corruption, chicanery, and falsehood that we all live under.  These lies and obfuscations help make our society function as a whole but they destroy the individual mind and will.  I would love to re-read this novel with a highlighter in my hand so I can mark every amazing sentence and truth.

            Céline was one of the first authors to make use of ellipses, jumping forward in time with no connective exposition.  Kurt Vonnegut makes use of this method in his novels, and I first found it in Slaughterhouse 5, thinking it was a very cool way to tell a story.  This is Céline’s first novel, and it was a sensation in Paris, with people discussing the crudeness, pain, and horrors that Céline describes casually.  In the Europe before WWI, the aristocracy and well-off lived their lives ignorant of the common masses and their troubles.  This book must have been one bitter pill for them to swallow, as Céline excoriates the people in power, showing their stupidity, greed, and self-delusion.  Not many novels before this one delved into such ugly things.  It really is a great piece of writing.  I am very glad the synchronicities lined up to introduce me to this book.

(This book can be downloaded and read in PDF format here: https://neoalchemist.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/louis-ferdinand-celine-journey-to-the-end-of-the-night.pdf

Gene Wolfe Ends the Book of the New Sun

The Book of the New Sun, Vol. 4: The Citadel of the Autarch – Gene Wolfe (1982)

            It is complete.  My tour through the mind of Gene Wolfe, and Urth, the world his protagonist Severian inhabits, has run its course.  I am not the same person that began this journey.  Neither is Severian.  In fact, neither is anyone or anything.  Permanence is an illusion.  Change is the only true constant of our existence.  Change is so constant and so pervasive that we flow through countless cycles unnoticed as we toil in our second-to-second existence.  The theme of change, or wholesale and wide-ranging change, and the ways that change can actually bring about order and stability, are at the core of the Book of the New Sun.

            The genius of Gene Wolfe helps facilitate this through his use of a narrator whose memory, he claims, is eidetic.  This narrator, Severian, is the writer of the tale, and also the hero.  Through the course of 4 novels, he tells his own story as he progresses from a know-nothing young apprentice, to a full Master Torturer, then into a world-weary traveler, and finally to his ultimate destiny as a leader of men.  While Severian may indeed possess an eidetic memory he does make mistakes and omissions in the telling of his tale, and later admits them to us, the reader.  If this did not complicate the story somewhat, the fact that Severian ends up absorbing the consciousness of various people throughout the tale increases his inner confusion, for he cannot tell whether the memory he experiences is his own, or one of the people whose memories he carries within him. 

            This is a neat literary trick to show how humans actually think.  We assume we are ONE BEING, but we have two brains.  We have multiple personas.  We all have multiple “selves” we carry within us.  The 6 year old me is still in there somewhere, as is the angry 19 year old me, and the depressed 30 year old me.  Not only that, but by virtue of their constant presence and nurturing, I carry my father and my mother and their voices within me as well.  Change does not erase.  It aggregates.  The same is true of our narrator, Severian, and every one of us.

            (I began this journey through Urth at the behest of a pal from the Sonic Youth Gossip Forum.  His screen name is Severian, and he has championed these books to me for EVER.  I first posted my review of Volume 1, The Shadow of the Torturer, on April 4, 2016.  It took me a couple of years to get back to the Book of the New Sun, and Severian let me know of his displeasure.  Now I have read the final three volumes, one a month, for the past three months and I am all Wolfe’d out!  What a story!  WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!! )

            When I last visited Urth, Severian had become embroiled with people who showed him the true age and mystery of his world.  Urth is very very old.  So very old.  Not only is Urth old, but the universe itself is exceedingly ancient.  The mores and dogmas that hold this society together are a bizarre combination of their access to high technology with no awareness of the science that makes the tech function, and of the descent of humanity into a strict feudal system, similar in rigidity to the old Hindu caste system.  In a world like this, the powerful are like gods, like magicians, and the regular people are solely there to feed the mill of life.  No questions are asked, and everyone knows their place.  Into this world, a young torturer’s apprentice is thrust, forcing him to question everything he has been learned, and yet reinforcing everything he has been taught.  It is as complex as real life.  Each human is doing their best to survive with what means they have at hand.  Life is too hard to worry about the big picture, or the bigger issues.

            In this type of world, war is constant.  Pain is constant.  Death is so pervasive that an entire Guild of Torturers exists to dole out punishments and executions.  Everywhere Severian travels death shadows him, or has been there before.  What is shown in this last volume is that Severian, a personification of death, grows to understand that absolute rule means that everyone is short-changed.  As he progresses through his final understanding, Severian realizes that the biggest change he will bring about will be to re-craft the rules of the world that made him who he is, to create a better world for all. 

            As with all fiction I review here at RXTT’s Intellectual Journey, I do not want to give away too much of the story.  That is the single greatest joy of fiction, the way the story is revealed to the reader, and I hope you get to experience the sublime literary and imaginative joys that gene Wolfe has crafted into The Book of The New Sun for yourself.