Inky Horizons

I met my writing buddy mjryan today and started the edit for "Alpenglow". So far I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out. I've expanded the story a bit, fleshed it out, and I'm also seeing some fantasy elements I didn't really know were there the first time. Nice.

I got twelve pages in before I had to leave. Time pressure is limiting any further work on the story today, but maybe if I'm lucky I can do some tomorrow. If not I'm meeting my writing buddy Thursday anyway so I'll get more done then for sure.

I knew this would happen, though. Private life stuff interfering with my writing this month. Maybe it's good I didn't start a new story after all. I would be feeling some stress not being able to work on it and give it the time that is necessary. Editing a story is much easier in that regard. Even working at half speed my brain can accomplish that task. But I really wanted to start a new story and now I'm afraid when I do get the change I won't have the drive I have now.

Writers are such a flighty bunch. I'm not immune in this regard.

Last week I read To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer. This was one of those books that was always on my To Be Read list, I just never got around to it. It's a Hugo Award Winner. Unfortunately that doesn't always translate to Good Read. 

I know a lot of people like this book and the entire Riverworld Series. But I won't be reading beyond this, myself. It wasn't very well done. The writing was fine -- it is Farmer after all -- but the overall story, the general worldbuilding, and the literary structure of the story combined to lessen my enjoyment of the book. I could see this being a rolicking novelette, though, or at the most a novella.

And, I'm sorry, but I don't find Riverworld a very interesting setting anyway. Farmer side-steps some crucial philosophical arguments he could have presented, thus making the book more powerful.  He alludes to them, yes, but then moves on as if they're not that important.  I think that was a mistake. He's a better writer than that.

Even so I'm glad I read this book because I had to read this book. It's one of those books you gotta read (in my case eventually) if you write SF and even fantasy.  Some books are like that. But I'm not going to read any more of the series.

Unfortunately, most of what the public knows about Tarzan comes from the Johnny Weissmuller movies: a grunting caveman who has to be taught his own name. Okay, I'm not saying the movies don't have some things going for them. Maureen O'Sullivan is hot.  And there's...well, Maureen O'Sullivan is hot.  But there's so much else that's downright stupid about these movies: Boy, Cheetah, that crazy tree house.  That's not Tarzan, that's a cartoon.

So here are some little known facts about Tarzan you might not know. I admit I'm picky about Tarzan. (And physics.) I think this stems from being a writer and feeling irked when I see someone's creation warped and twisted into caricature. Anyhoo, here are some facts about Tarzan you can bring out and amaze your friends with the next time you're sitting around knocking back a few cold ones....

The word "Tarzan" means white skin in the language of the Great Apes, and the accent is on the second syllable, not the first.

Tarzan has a scar on his forehead  from when he fought Bolgani the gorilla as a boy. When he's angry, it flames red. He used his knife for the first time to kill Bolgani. If you confront Tarzan and you see his scar turn red -- you're screwed.

Tarzan doesn't laugh.  He rarely smiles. A wry grin is about all you ever get out of him.

While Tarzan likes the knife (a hunting knife from his dead father) he always admits his most deadly weapon is his grass rope.  I know, hard to believe because we're brought up with the iconic imagery of Tarzan and his knife. 

Tarzan knows he is the child of Lord and Lady Greystoke, but as far as he's concerned the only mother he ever had is Kala. "I don't remember my father," he admits. Jane gives him hell all the time for this.  He just stand there stoically.  Tarzan isn't pussy-whipped.

Tarzan prefers raw, bloody meat. He likes it better when it's been buried in the ground for a while to tenderize it.

Tarzan can communicate (after a fashion) with any animal that has some limited intelligence -- except predators.

His favorite animal to hang around with is Tantor the elephant.  He also has a little monkey called Manu which hangs around with him sometimes. The animal he despises the most is Dango, the Hyena.

Tarzan LOVES Jane Porter. Half-naked women are always throwing themselves at him in the novels, but he is loyal to Jane. I guess this isn't surprising, or news, but it's a good character description.

Tarzan LIKES to kill. He isn't one of these morose people who kill only because they have to and then obsesses about it afterward. He actually enjoys killing. Man or animal, he doesn't really care. You cross him -- you're dead. His idea of  a joke is to slip his grass rope around your neck, pull you up into the trees out of the safari, then throw your body down through the branches upon the horrified people below. He thinks this is funny and he does it all the time in the novels.  He feels he's making a point.

Tarzan's English speech has a French accent. Few people know this, but it's because he learned his English from D'Arnot.

Tarzan was a spy for a while, working for D'Arnot. He was also a soldier.  He, Jane, Korak (their son), and little Manu the monkey are immortal because Tarzan found a potion that would keep them forever young.  He likes to drink absinthe because it's the only drink that can impact his superior senses.

Tarzan's favorite way to defeat someone in a fight is grab them and shake them back and forth like a rag doll until they're about to faint and puke.  He doesn't thrown haymakers or jabs or anything like that. He just shakes you until you're about to fall to pieces.

Tarzan likes the Gomangani (black people) more than he likes the Tarmangani (white people.)  But he prefers the company of the Mangani -- the Great Apes, to either.

And finally....

Tarzan is a lousy businessman. (Edgar Rice Burroughs was a lousy businessman, too.)  He's always losing his fortune and has to return to Opar to steal more jewels when he's out of money. And since La the half-naked Priestess is always there waiting....

I'm not one for nostalgia. I prefer looking ahead to looking backward.  But lately I've been listening to these old radio programs provided on the Internet for free. And one of the programs I've been listening to is Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

When the movie with Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Sullivan came out it was a huge success.  Radio was the obvious next step. These programs are pretty good, too. They are an accurate reproduction of the original story with Joan Burroughs, ERB's own daughter, as Jane Porter, and her husband, Jim Pierce, in the role as the Lord of the Jungle.

These radio programs weren't recorded live, but on phonograph in a studio so jungle sounds could be incorporated into the story. I admit it  starts off a little slow, and sometimes there are some uncomfortable racial comments that clank in our modern ears. I'm not going to lie. Some of it is racist and ignorant.  But if you stick with it, remember the context and the era in which it was written and created, and give it a chance as story, then it starts to rock.

Tarzan is good and so is Jane. They have to be or the story fails completely.  This Jane is a good screamer, too.  It heightens the atavism.  And all kinds of little stuff from the original novel that give the story depth and meaning are included: The Locket.  The Little Bugs. S-H-E. The baby ape skeleton in the crib. The Dum-Dum. All the classic ERB touches. 

One thing: Tarzan's victory cry of the bull ape takes getting used to. But to be fair it's hard to translate something like this from the books. The cry of the bull ape is supposed to freeze your blood, make the jungle silent for miles around. This doesn't do that. But at least it's not a Swiss yodel, which is what most people are used to from the Weismuller films.  This Tarzan is what ERB envisioned: he's smart and not an ignorant caveman who communicates with monosyllabic grunts and needs to be taught his own name.   This Tarzan isn't a cartoonish creation; it's living, breathing reality.

These radio stories are tightly written, have good hooks and develop the characters with realistic emotion and broad intelligence.  And it's violent. When Terkoz the Ape decides he wants Jane -- and it's not to play tiddly-winks  -- Tarzan flies through the jungle in a rage. In a word: he fucks that ape up. (Episode 21, 1932 if you want to hear it.) And the later interaction between Tarzan and Jane is sexy, too. The gentle moments between Tarzan and Jane are authentic, probably because they are played by husband and wife in real life. Either way it's great.  And once everyone settles into their roles, well, like I said, it rocks.

Check it out. If you like Tarzan, the real Tarzan and not a washed out Hollywood version, you'll like this a lot.

TARZAN OF THE APES ON RADIO

And if you want to check out the other programs, then follow this next link. There's a ton of stuff here from comedies to mysteries to science fiction. Lot's of  MP3 fun.

Radiolovers.com

And another good site with even more shows:

Old Time Radio Network

Here are my top first lines from books I've read. At a glance it's very different from the American Book Review list. These books have had an impact on my maturity and growth as a writer.  But they aren't arranged in any particular order.  I've tried to include  lines that weren't selected by American Book Review, though there are one or two I couldn't help but pick. There are also lines I've liked over the years but didn't include them because I don't have the book here with me and I can't remember the line exactly. One is the opening from Of Mice and Men which reads something like "A few miles south of Soledad they threw me off the truck."  But since I don't have the actual quote, I didn't include it in this list.  It's a great first line, though, especially when you know "Soledad" means loneliness in Spanish.

An other fun first line that got some play in the SF community is from John Varley's novel Steel Beach, which reads something like "In twenty years the male penis will be extinct."  Funny and novel, worth a grin and definitely memorable, but pretty shallow otherwise. I include mention of it only if you run across this book you can look up the line as it was actually written.

So here are some of my personal favorites:


1. Call me Ishmael.    --Herman Melville, Moby Dick

It's really hard to ignore this opening line. Aside from the fact it's world famous, I argue the line itself, from a lot of different perspectives, is not only well written, it's a super grab-you line. Three words, but weighty with significance before and after you read the novel.  Absolutely perfect in every sense of the word.

2.  You don't know me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter.  --Mark Twain,  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Another perfect first line. Evokes character, gives setting and hooks you hard all because of the dialect and the tease "You don't know me...."  A great first line from one of the greatest books ever written.

3. They're out there.  --Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I like this a lot. Total paranoia that hits you between the eyes like a two-by-four.  At first blush you might think it's a short and pithy line. Look deeper.

4. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.  --Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

I think this is a great first line. Gives place, some depth of characterization and emotional content. You can't wait to see what is going to happen next....

5.  It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  --George Orwell, 1984

Wow. There's a lot going on in this first line, isn't there? Where to begin? You know you're in a very different world after you read this line, and you can't wait to find out what it's like. Also, you know it's not a world you would probably want to live in...if this society has clocks that strike thirteen....

6. The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.  --Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

I love this line. I think it's great. It gives you everything and is a strong hook for the reader. A great first line. Fleming had many of these; he was good at first lines.

7. He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.   --Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

I really like this one. You can feel the pine needles and hear the wind blowing through the tops of the trees. You know right away this is a character and a scene worth reading about.  Really well done...but then again we're talking about Hemingway. Sadly, as good as the book is, it doesn't live up to this opening line. However, this is what we writers call a circular line because the book ends with him lying on the pine needles, his heart thumping....so this first line provides an entrance to the book and also closure.

8.  It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed.  --Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Typical Bradbury, both poetic and romantic at the same time.  Maybe a funny pick, but I like this one, too. Though, I admit, the first line from Fahrenheit 451 gets more play, and perhaps deservedly so.

9. "Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man."  Joe Haldeman, The Forever War

Another winner. Gets you into the action right away and keeps you reading. Sadly, most science fiction writers don't write great first lines. Asimov never did, Heinlein wrote a couple of memorable ones. It's as if the focus of the genre is not on hooking the reader -- SF readers don't have to be talked into reading a novel, they're usually happy to do it anyway, especially if they already know the writer's work -- but on the world building. But when a killer first line does come across, like this one, the book finds popularity outside the SF audience.

10. I am living at the Villa Borghese.    --Henry Miller,  Tropic of Cancer

This one is a bit of a cheat. The line itself isn't high-powered, but that's because it leads naturally into the next line, and that into the following. So it's the first paragraph that is really killer. Here is the entire paragraph:

I am living at the Villa Borghese.  There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.   --Henry Miller

Now that's a great opening. You're totally hooked. The writing is terse and novel and Miller has put words together in a new way to make you think like "crumb of dirt...." and the shock of  "we are dead" that brings the reader up short. So in that context it's a fantastic opening line, imo.

I would be interested to see lists of your favorite opening lines.  :)

Here are my top ten lines from the Top 100 link I posted a while back. I'll play fair and only use the lines included in the 100 that were originally presented.

1. Call me Ishmael.  -- Moby Dick

2.  It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  --1984

3. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.  --A Tale of Two Cities

4. I am an invisible man.  --Invisible Man
 
5. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.  --Neuromancer

6.  It was a pleasure to burn.  --Fahrenheit 451

7. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  --Pride and Prejudice

8. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.  --Lolita

9.Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.  --The Sound and the Fury

10. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.  --Ulysses

Runner up:  It was the day my grandmother exploded.  --The Crow Road


Remember, these aren't necessarily my favorite first lines, but my favorite from that list of 100. I also limited this list to books I have read, though I included the runner up because it's pretty damn good, haha.

 Having thought about this some I'll post my very own personal favorite ten opening lines later this weekend....

I came across this site which purports to list the 100 best first lines of novels as judged by the American Book Review.  Mm, okay. I certainly agree with #1; its the hands down George Tennant slam dunk winner, Mr. President, no holds barred plain and simple read it and weep. And anyone who disagrees pretty much doesn't understand beans about 1.) writing 2.) art 3.) fiction 4.) reality.  Okay, cool. We agree.

But No. 2? ARE YOU FRAKKING KIDDING ME? How did this get in there, and who in their right mind would think, or by any multi-dimensional fiction metric calculate, it is the second best first line in the history of best first lines? Methinks there are games afoot here with sleight of hand being played. Yes, it's a GREAT first line. Super. But the second best in the history of all novels everywhere since the Dawn of Man? No. I agree it's good, but it's not that good.

And Number Three is suspect as well. Eye-rollingly so. Doubtless this list was arranged by the same Ivory Tower Durgs who think Brave New World is still the best science fiction novel ever written. Shows how much they know.  I agree with Mike Resnick -- Brave New World blows buffalo chunks and has done more to damage the reputation of SF with the general public than any other novel I can think of. And anytime you're in agreement with Resnick you're in pretty damn good company, as far as I'm concerned. So there.

Where was me? Oh, yes.

The balance of the ten I pretty much agree with. And I've read most of 'em, too, with many of these books being my all time faves, so that shows you how much of a geek I am. But after the first ten this list kind of falls apart.  It's as if the editors run out of steam and are scrambling to find good first lines to round out their list. They want 100, so they're going to have to turn over some rocks. There are good offerings here, like the line from The Sound and Fury and The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451 and many others, but I suspect they tacked on The Red Badge of Courage at #100 because they wanted to include the book, not so much the first line, and were scrambling to find a way to include it. Others are just stupefying beyond belief. I, Claudius?  Lord Jim?  Double or Nothing?  Again, Ivory Tower myopia at work here. Great books, don't get me wrong, but not great first lines.

So after the first ten the list has serious believability problems. But that first ten is very instructional to anyone who wants to write fiction. All ten are superb first lines. Yes, even Pride and Prejudice -- I question it's placement, not its inherent worth. It belongs in the Top Ten.

All Top Ten lines make you do one thing. They make you want to keep reading. That's what a first line is supposed to do. It doesn't matter if it sets tone, shows character, engages in word play...it's all good as long as it makes the reader want to keep reading.

Check out the list. I'd be interested to know what you think.

James Fenimore Cooper wrote his Leatherstocking tales out of chronological order.  The Deerslayer or The First Warpath was the last of the Natty Bumppo novels and because Cooper had matured both in age and artistic ability it is perhaps the best.

From the beginning we know this is a darker novel than the preceding tales.  In the first few pages Deerslayer's companion,  Hurry Harry, asks the young man,  "...Did you ever hit any thing human, or intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on an inimy that was capable of pulling one upon you?"

Bumppo's answer is, of course, no.  He is at the beginning of his career.  He is known as Deerslayer by the Delawares because that's what he does.  He has yet to take a human life.  As soon as we read this we know this novel, above all else, is a coming-of-age story and someone's life is ticking away....

In the interim Deerslayer meets Tom Hutter and his two daughters, the dark-haired Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty.  The family lives on a castle-on-piers in the middle of Lake Glimmerglass, a secluded spot akin to the Garden of Eden -- the perfect setting for a coming-of-age story.   Except things are not what they seem. This area is actually more of a haunt of savagery, with not a little of it supplied by both Hurry Harry and Tom Hutter against the local Native American tribe, the Hurons.

 Judith Hutter, however, is the engine that drives this story.  She's a woman with questionable morals, and though she's somewhat older than Deerslayer she falls in love with his open honesty and his natural way of looking at the world.  In a telling exchange she asks him if he has a sweetheart.  He answers:

"She's in the forest, Judith--hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft rain--in the dew on the open grass--the clouds that float about in the blue heavens--the birds that sing in the woods--the sweet springs where I slake my thirst...."

Judith perseveres.  Has he never heard the laugh of a girl he loves?  Deerslayer remains true to form:

"...To me there's no music so sweet as the sighing of the wind in the treetops, and the rippling of a stream from a full, sparkling, natyve fountain of fresh water, unless...it be the open mouth of a sartain hound, when I'm on the track of a fat buck."

In the pages that follow Deerslayer kills a man, a Native American attempting to take his life by deceit.  He earns the reputation as "Hawkeye" for his deft shooting and helps Chingachgook secure the safety of his future wife, Hist.  (She will be mother to the Last of the Mohicans, Uncas.)  Further violence and treachery abound as Deerslayer is captured by the Hurons and tortured.  Tom Hutter dies in an extremely gruesome manner and there's the mystery of Judith's past --even down to her parentage-- to be solved.  But her love for Deerslayer is true and in the end she gives him her father's gun, a weapon of exquisite manufacture and excellent bore, which he will make famous--the long rifle, Killdeer.

In the end Deerslayer leaves Judith after yet more tragedy ensues.  The novel ends fifteen years later with Hawkeye returning with Chingachgook and a stripling Uncas to Lake Glimmerglass.  Everything has changed.  The castle is abandoned and in disrepair, and the graves can no longer be found.  Hawkeye tries to find out what happened to Judith, and we are awarded a glimpse of her fate, but no more.

As I said earlier this is a fairly dark book in the Leatherstocking Tales, but well-written.  It's a good story and the characters really do come to life.  There are the usual elements of humor and long-winded conversations but they don't detract too much from the overall enjoyment of this tale.  Cooper also doesn't hold back in showing that violence, both necessary and ignoble, can come from anyone for any reason...at anytime. 

This is one great book and I highly recommend it.

It is impossible to review Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged without critiquing the underlying philosophical principle of Objectivism.  Now, before you misunderstand me, there are some principles of Objectivism I believe strongly in.  Some people can be and are heroic figures.  Facts do outweigh fantasy.  Reason does trump faith and religion.  I also agree with some of the sexual tenets of Objectivism.  (As an aside, and to give her credit, Rand often gets a bad rap on homosexuality.  Though she found their behavior personally disgusting she supported their ineluctable right to practice their lifestyle.)  But even as far as the sexual elements go Rand is far too timid to bring the male-female dynamic to its inevitable conclusion re: Objectivism in Atlas Shrugged.  She stands on the edge of the chasm, but she never has the courage to leap.

But the novel really begins with Rand's mistaken conceit.  She writes in the forward she believes she is doing something new, in a new way, through the publication of this novel.  Uh, no.  You see, Rand knows fuck-all about science fiction, and there are a lot of SFnal elements in Atlas Shrugged from the super-strong lightweight Rearden Metal to the eponymous science fiction motor that draws static electricity from the atmosphere and converts it to kinetic energy.  She's not doing anything new here, trust me.  No matter how she tries to spin it, presenting sharply drawn philosophical concepts in literary form is not "ground-breaking."  Ask Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley if you doubt my word.

Atlas Shrugged is filled with heroic men, and women, who are always described as "severe," "austere," "hard," or "lonely."  But what kind of people are they, really?  Well, she says, they are human beings with free will.  Rand believes every man has the potential to be good or evil.  He must decide which he shall be and the decision will affect only him. 

This is where Rand shows the depth of her naivete.    It is, in essence, a total repudiation not only of human history but of human emotion.  Astonishing.

But what kind of people are these heroic figures?  They are by and large powerful industrialists who don't give a fuck about the public.  Rand believed people like this were the pinnacle of humanity.  But her slavish devotion to their unchecked power, her unabashed admiration of their "greed is good" philosophy does cause her to kneel (whether she wants to admit it or not, and despite the anti-spiritual principles of Objectivism) before an altar.  The altar of the Dollar Sign.

There's a lot of trickle-down theory in Atlas Shrugged.  While that shit didn't work in the Reagan Years, it has smooth sailing in the pages of this over-written novel.  But surely I'm exaggerating, you say.  Um, in a word, no.  Rand believed that altruism in all its forms was a sin.  She would not have supported nor understood on any human fundamental level why Milton Hershey provided his employees with free medical care and paid off the mortgage of every church in town during the Depression.  But is she aware that altruism also manifests itself in the action of a mother throwing her body in front of a bus to save her child?  Rand does not think on this intimately human level.  As one of her characters remarks in the novel, "The public be damned!"

That means you and me. And whether Rand realizes it or not, it means her, too.

There are other, more stupefying passages that in today's world seem not just old-fashioned but dangerously simplistic.  In one passage the two lovers, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggert, are driving through unblemished, untouched Nature.  Rearden remarks, "What I'd like to see is a billboard."

In another passage Dagny is talking to a scientist about the motor:

"So you're doing research work on your own?"
"That's right."
"For what purpose?"
"My own pleasure."
"What do you intend to do, if you discover something of scientific importance or commercial value?  Do you intend to put it to some public use?"
"I don't know.  I don't think so."
"Haven't you any desire to be of service to humanity?"
"I don't talk that kind of language, Miss Taggert.  I don't think you do, either."

Finally, on the last page of this 1200+ page novel, her eponymous hero, John Galt, draws a dollar sign in the air.

Now, okay.  There's nothing inherently wrong with any of this.  I mean, if I can read Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil then I can read damn near anything without choking up bile.  But it goes on, like I said, for 1200 pages!  People sit around and tell each other what they already know, what they already believe, what they've already done and why they did it. Rand sets up strawmen so her heroes can knock them down.  Again, nothing wrong.  That's what these kind of novels do and if you approach it from that viewpoint then Atlas Shrugged works admirably.

So how is the writing?  Well, it's clunky at times, and at other times it's awkward. There's a lot of empty spaces being described and little humans who are dwarfed by towering skyscrapers or standing around in awe of huge roaring machines.  But there's other things, too, that should be mentioned.  Rand is a marvel when it comes to delineating human gesture and movement.  Her metier, despite the grand philosophical themes she plays with here, are the descriptive passages that hang with you.  She paints with pinpoint precision, using words to emote truth and power about people, and that's a beauty -- and a pleasure -- to read.

However, aside from all that?  Well, aside from the preachiness and the naive (I would argue dangerously simplistic)  way Rand views the world, the biggest flaw of the novel is its inability to uphold the suspension of disbelief.  --And, no, I'm not talking about her motor that defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics, either.

Remember, the CEOs and industrialists and powerful businessmen who look only upon profit as the single necessary human motive, these are her heroes.  When laws and other governmental obstacles get in their way of making a profit they go into hiding to teach the world a lesson.  To teach humanity that we can't get along without them.

You've got to be kidding me.  All right.  To be fair to Rand this was written pre-Enron and pre-multi-million dollar gold parachute and 300-million dollar severance packages for CEOs.  But, c'mon, get real.  Do you really want to argue the world wouldn't have stood up and cheered if Ken Lay was taken out in shackles, made to kneel on a sidewalk while lots were drawn by the people he duped so they could press a small-caliber pistol to his skull?  Is Rand so jaw-dropping naive she thinks the world would really stop spinning on its axis if every fat pigfucking executive who lives for nothing but profit were to go into hiding?  To teach us a lesson?  They'd be doing the world, and the people in it, a goddamn favor.  And trust me, the world wouldn't stop spinning on its axis.  These Atlases can shrug all they want.  Those human beings currently being ground into dust via the modern CEOs maniacal blood-grab for profit would be far better off without their putrefying existence.  Yes, please.  Do us all a favor and go on strike.  Feel free.

Again, I must stress this, Rand sets up her heroes to be a different kind of man than the money-grubbing soul-destroying monster we suffer from today. Except, when everything is all said and done, they're really not.  One of her Oil Executives sets fire to his wells before going into hiding, leaving behind a note saying the public can have them back the way he found them.  But he didn't find these oil wells on fire.  He did that out of a sense of pique, like a spoiled brat.  And it's really difficult, no matter what your political or social demographic, to get past the "fuck the public, masturbate with the dollar" philosophy that runs rampant throughout this novel.

So.  Having said all that.  Should you read Atlas Shrugged?

Yes.  Absolutely.  And here's why.  Despite being flawed this is an important novel.  There are themes which do resonate, like the theme of standing up for yourself and for what you believe in.  Like the fact reason is more important than the unsupportable nonsense of religion.  Like the fact science is more grounded in reality than faith.

Atlas Shrugged is a strange, at times unbelievable, novel.  It's one of those books I'm not necessarily happy to have read, but it was necessary for me to read.  I guess it's hard to explain. I can neither recommend nor dismiss this work of art (and it is art, no question) created by Ayn Rand.

You, like everyone else, will simply have to read the novel and make your own judgment.  In the end, that's what Rand want us to do anyway with every aspect of our life.  And within that very narrow framework she succeeds admirably in getting that sense of dignity across in Atlas Shrugged.

I finished reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo for the second time.  The first time I read it was in high school.  I liked it then, I love it now.

I guess everyone knows about Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread and being pursued by Javert.  But, my God, does this book ever deserve its title. Everyone is wretched, in one way or another, in this novel.  How can we ever forget the grinding poverty and dehumanization of Fantine?  And how Cosette, her little girl, must live as a slave under the monstrous Thenardier family? 

There are enduring images which have survived over the centuries.  Fantine selling her front teeth so Cosette has enough to eat,  the fight on the barricade, the flight through the sewers.  This is a huge book in more ways than one.  The writing is fantastic and there are little "Hugoisms" sprinkled throughout that make you put the book down and marvel either at the turn of phrase or the beauty of the writing itself.  Like these:

"Gravediggers die.  By dint of digging graves for others, they open their own."

"There is a moment when girls bloom out in a twinkling and become roses all at once.  Yesterday we left them children, to-day we find them dangerous."

"Hunger comes with love."

"Humanity is identity.  All men are the same clay."

"Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives.  They wound themselves with it."

"When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die."

"Then he heard his soul, again become terrible, give a sullen roar in the darkness."

"Certain flames can only come from certain souls; the eye, that window of the thought, blazes with it; spectacles hide nothing; you might as well put a glass over hell."

"Robber, assassin....these words fell upon him like  a shower of ice."

One of the main ingredients of this novel is the depth of human emotion.  It's never overdone, which is an easy thing to do.  We are often moved, such as the scene when Cosette marries and Jean Valjean must disappear from her life to protect her from his past.  He goes home, takes out the little dress she used to wear as a child, and pressing it against his face sobs uncontrollably.  And I challenge anyone to read Valjean's monologue at the end of the novel and not get a little weepy.  Strong stuff.  Memorable.

This is a great book.  I'm glad I reread it.  It might be one of those books I read again in twenty years or so, we'll see.  But I'm a better person for reading it, that's for sure.

If you haven't read this novel, you should.  If you have, do so again.  It's great.

Nathanial Bumppo, otherwise known as Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, and Long Rifle, is without a doubt the quintessential American version of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan.  To be sure, James Fenimore Cooper's frontier character saw print long before Burroughs's creation did in 1912.  This in no way invalidates the creation of ERB, but it does give more literary impact to a wholly American character who appears in what can only be defined, if one is truthful, as wholly flawed novels.

The five novels which feature Bumppo were written by Cooper out of sequence.  This doesn't necessarily impair the fictive underpinnings of the stories themselves, but it does give rise to certain elements which writhe like a murky thread throughout the main arc. 

We will, as expected, consider the best known, at least as far as the general public goes, work of Cooper, that being The Last of the Mohicans and examine just what makes this novel tick, and why you should read it.

Cooper believed that Indian culture must needs be crushed by the Anglo Saxon wheels of religion and technology.  He saw no other way around this inevitability.  Though he wasn't himself racist by the definitions which we adhere to today, he did have certain beliefs of superiority of his own culture which "dark-skinned" individuals had to bow down to.  Mohicans, with its poignant idea that there will come a time the "last" of this noble race will pass from the ken of men (that is to say the ken of White Men), has through this very self-same literary device carved for itself a spot of prominence within American literature.

Not everyone liked Cooper's work.  He was always viewed much more favorably in Europe than by home-grown American authors.  Mark Twain famously savaged Cooper's novels and the savagery resonates even to this day.  Yet, something about the novels, especially Mohicans, endures.  Perhaps it is the idea of a race of men passing, the wide landscape of virgin forests and pure lakes blessed by God, the savagery and brutality of life on the frontier, the fog of war, the blood-curdling violence.  Whatever the reason for its longevity, and Twain notwithstanding, this book endures...and thank God for that.

As one might expect there is very little of this book that is recognizable in the 1992 film remake of the same name. In fact, the film stole much of the story line which was rewritten in the 1920 silent film.  In the modern film Hawk-eye, at the height of his powers, is taciturn to a fault but still capable of a normal sexual relationship. In the novel, Natty Bumppo is not only naive sexually, he won't shut up, period.  He discourses on everything, even to the halt of the action being described around him. Leaning on his rifle he has no problem detailing, to infinite exhaustion, his opinion on events around him.

Another big difference, aside from the often awkward descriptions, stereotypes of women and just plain ignorance of Native American ethnicities, is the fact a major character dies in the novel yet is allowed to survive in film.  I suppose this would come as a shock to someone who saw the movie first, but there it is.  Cooper has no problem dispatching that which, if allowed to live, would intercede in the future life of Hawk-eye.  Natty Bumppo, in Cooper's estimation, must remain pure. He must be allowed to view and accept nature as a powerful motivation than the intimate love of another human being.  This loneliness is his past, it is his destiny.  He is akin to the figure of Greek tragedy in this way.  He has a duty to perform and he will accomplish it, but he himself cannot lose the connection he has to the pristine land he loves and calls home.

I highly recommend this book, though the new reader must approach it with a few caveats and not a little caution.  Cooper is simply not that great a writer.  I am not the first to say that nor will I be the last.  Many of the passages go on far too long and the long-winded philosophies of Bumppo grate, not to mention the embarrassing stereotypes.  Nevertheless, there is power here, grounded with pathos, grandeur, and yes, love -- though it's love on Bumppo's, and Cooper's, own terms.

Despite its many flaws this is a major American novel by any definition.  If you like adventure, and don't mind a little (okay, a lot) lagging, I think you will enjoy reading The Last of the Mohicans.

WWII gets all the good ink.  I suppose it's not surprising.  You have a lot to work with there.  Pure evil.  Genocide.  A world at war.  Man and machine working together for the total eradication of other nations.  The final cataclysm that ushered in a new age.

Pretty cool stuff from a writer's viewpoint.  Lots to work with and you don't have to dig too hard.

But I've always been more enamored with WWI than its younger, and more violent, brother.  I know the War to End All Wars (that's a selling point right there) isn't as well known or as well documented...but I think pound for pound it's the better war to write about.

Everything was so new to the people involved.  Airplanes.  Submarines.  Better artillery.  Machine-guns.  Land mines. Tanks. Poison gas. The bombing of cities.  Zeppelins. (Zeppelins for God's sake!)  Trench warfare.  Revolutions.  Dreadnoughts.  The first Aces.  The collapse and utter annihilation of mounted cavalry. The profligate waste of life.  Historically, this war is relegated to a dress rehearsal for the Second World War...but what a dress rehearsal!

The events even shocked H. G. Wells, and he predicted something like this would happen.

I had been meaning to read Barbara W. Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Guns of August for many, many years.  I'm glad I finally got around to it.  Although Tuchman concentrates on the first month of the war which began in 1914, the writing, the exquisite detail, the beautifully constructed characterizations, all make this one memorable read.   And the first line of the book is one that from the day of publication made history both for its inherent word beauty and ability to evoke strong emotion.

Even if you're not big on reading about war, if you're just a writer, especially a writer with an eye towards working in the non-fiction field, this is a must-read.  Give it a peek.

I've just finished reading L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

And I didn't like it.

As a writer I thought it was dry, devoid of humor and little more than a patchwork of poorly executed ideas.  As a reader I liked it ...and I didn't like it at the same time.  I suppose part of the problem stems from the fact Oz tries to be the quintessential American fairy tale.  America is good at a lot of things, but our culture isn't geared for generating fairy tales along the quality of Arabian Nights, Grimm's or Wonderland and Looking Glass. (Though, to be fair, Carroll was a certified genius, so it's not fair to Baum to compare the adventures his Dorothy to Carroll's Alice.)

I'm certain I didn't let my knowledge (and love) of the 1939 movie version influence my critique of Baum's novel.  There were some elements of the novel I liked, like how science and scientific concepts played a (small!) part in the plot, and his repeated use of color. Baum did a good job with that, seeing as how he wrote Oz in 1900 and was tapping into the deep-rooted American philosophies of pragmatism.  Apparently a whole slew of sequels followed, but I won't be reading them, thank you.  Overall this just wasn't very good (poorly written and poor characterization) and I don't recommend it--unless you want to write fairy tales in which case Oz is still considered a benchmark...of sorts .

Otherwise, forget this book.  Watch the film instead. 

Finished Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein yesterday.  Not bad, but you could tell it was the end of Heinlein's juvenile run and the beginning of his fascination with gravid women and the resulting by-product.  He was also forced to change the ending and you could tell it was a half-hearted attempt on his part.  Not only does it not ring true (Podkayne Fries died in the original manuscript) but it doesn't make sense given the rest of the book and Podkayne's rosey outlook on life.  Finally, when we see how asocial her brother Clark really is, we're not convinced because the change in tone comes with little or no previous explanation.  It's jarring, yes, but since most of the book is written from Pod's perspective and she thinks her brother is a terror, she doesn't recognize him for the psychopath he truly is.  The result is a somewhat disjointed story that leaves the reader unsatisfied.

Podkayne herself is extremely likeable and arguably a major fictional character in the genre.  But the book as a whole doesn't hang together as well as it might.  This one's for fans only.

..................

The Ryder Cup has started.  The Americans have already gotten off to a shaky start.  (Tiger cranked one into the water!) But maybe they can sack it up and not let the Europeans beat them like a red-headed stepchild ... again.   Two years is a long time to wait just to see Monty grind his heel in our face.  I hope our boys can do better this time.

Go Tiger!