War is not art

My copy of The Forever War is front-loaded with praise from literary figures. Pulitzer Prize winners Michael Chabon and Junot Díaz, literary light Jonathan Lethem, and two authors who have drifted back and forth between science fiction and contemporary fiction: William Gibson and Iain Banks. It’s an impressive list. They all say extremely nice and flattering things about a book published just before I was born. A book that at its core is more about the Vietnam War and American politics than accurate descriptions of gravitational effects on space battles and a war with a seemingly barbaric alien race.

It’s a damn good book, one that sucks you right in. Haldeman is adept at dropping in small concepts that give you a hint of how the “world of the future” is different than ours (or post-Vietnam U.S.): conscripted sex partners among the mixed gender combat troops, rations of marijuana for recreational use, and the encouragement of homosexuality as a form of population control. I think this adeptness, this ease of just inserting concepts and not really fussing over it, allows him to spend time describing the science behind what is happening. It’s done well, in a way that draws readers into it, even those who would initially balk at the fact that Haldeman is playing the science insanely straight—describing exactly what physical laws would govern a battle in space and what would happen to those troops we would send light years away to fight a battle we couldn’t see, whose outcome probably wouldn’t be known until after we’re dead.

It’s a damn good book, one that sucks you right in.

The Vietnam parallels seem almost (almost) heavy handed these days, but you do have to remember that the book was published in 1974 and there’s still a sense that in that year the public wasn’t ready for an examination of exactly what the fuck happened there for ten years or so. (Editor’s Note: Joe Haldeman was unable to find a book publisher for years. The argument, even in the 1970s was that no one wanted to read a book about the Vietnam War.) The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now didn’t come out until at least four years after The Forever War, and Robert Altman had to make a movie about the Korean War to make any sort of commentary. It always seemed the public had a hard time with those as well.

All of the above does make The Forever War a classic of science fiction. A book in space that is about something here on Earth, right now. In fact, the myriad social aspects in the book, not just the war but the culture behind war, make this book entirely valid today. 

But I have to pass it through what I said about American Gods, like I will every other book on the Courtney’s Year of Genre list (what I’m now thinking of as the Adams’ Test): does this finely crafted work of thrilling fiction elevate itself to art?

...does this finely crafted work of thrilling fiction elevate itself to art? I’m going to have to say no, it does not.

I’m going to have to say no, it does not. I am completely and thoroughly torn on this since it is a very good, entertaining book. It has subtext and deft writing, but possibly not as deft as it could be. Is that a side effect of being hard sci-fi, where descriptions of the relativistic effects of faster than light travel and the physics of space battles make it a little dry? Maybe. I could also chalk it up to the one section where it seemed like Haldeman could’ve slowed it down and just focused on the writing: the middle part where some of the first soldiers return to Earth after decades away. This more than any section seems heavy handed and not as well-written, andd it's frankly my least favorite part of the book. That doesn’t take anything away from the message, the power of that section—it just paled in comparison to the writing elsewhere.

So, The Forever War is a classic and a great piece of science fiction I think everyone should read, well deserving of all its awards, accolades and general praise over the years, but it is a fine piece of craftsmanship and not a piece of art. Haldeman should be proud it is his first novel, because it is that good. Considering all the awards he’s racked up since then and his position as a professor of writing at MIT, I’m thoroughly interested in seeing what else he has to offer, because this is one hell of a debut.

First trip to the Lighthouse

When I first decided to pick up To the Lighthouse, I admit that Virginia Woolf and I weren’t on the best of terms. Yes, everyone had been telling me that I couldn’t be a Serious Novelist until I had read it, and yes, word on the street was that it was her most successful book, but the last Woolf novel I had read was Jacob’s Room, a near-incomprehensible failure (in my humble opinion) and a big, fat, stream-of-consciousness F-YOU to her reader. I don’t mind working to read a good book, but I admit I’m far more interested in character-driven novels than idea-driven novels, and Woolf’s cerebral voice has put me on edge for years. Most of the time I just want to shake the characters in her books and tell them, “Talk more about your deep, empathy-inspiring feelings, dammit!”

However. Despite my reservations going into it, I loved To the Lighthouse—both for nerdy structural reasons and for the vulnerability and nostalgia (in a good way) of its prose. I don’t want to become one of those reviewers that ends up talking more about Woolf’s personal life than her writing, (SPOILER ALERT: SHE DROWNS HERSELF IN A RIVER OMG MAYBE SCHIZOPHRENIC WTF!!!!!!!!!! #TRAGEDY) but TTL is the most autobiographic of Woolf’s novels and also the most emotionally revealing. Coincidence? I think not. In her diary she wrote, “I used to think of [my father] and mother daily; but writing The Lighthouse, laid them in my mind.” The characters tap into a deeper well in TTL; Woolf reveals not only the workings of the mind but also the broken chambers of the heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My main tip o’the hat should be for Woolf’s use of time and the overall structure of the book. Written in three parts, TTL is shaped like two funnels stuck together: thick, full sections over a concentrated period of time (one day) bookend the novel, and the middle section is very short, spare, and detached while spanning a ten-year period. It’s kind of like those “Where Are They Now?” celebrity programs, except a bajillion times more poetic. The reader glimpses the Ramsay family and their houseguests at the family’s house in the Hebrides on one summer day; and then, ten years later, the reader returns with the Ramsays et al to that house and observes how both the place and the people have changed. Wordsworth was all about Spots of Time, and Woolf is all about Moments of Being: how one day is not just part of a life but in fact encapsulates the entire life. For Woolf, life is not a linear series of events but rather a few essential moments that we forever carry with us. Form and content merge beautifully here, and the middle section of TTL has earned a spot on the Best Shit Ever Written list, and rightfully so.

The other big plus about TTL is that unlike some of her later work (The Waves comes to mind—that book is my bane), there is a narrative here that propels the reader forward. One can expect beautiful prose and a good story—a rare treat! Yes, it takes some time to get used to Woolf’s writing style—and you can’t tear through the pages at the rate you read, say, a Franzen or Eugenides novel—but in this case, I think the effort put into reading is well worth it. I spent at least a week fantasizing about walking along the waves and painting beautiful canvases à la Lily Briscoe, and the descriptions of the lovely Mrs. Ramsay were enough to make me start using my anti-wrinkle cream again. 

Check out my Pinterest board for more Lighthouse-inspired goodies.

All rights reserved to Sally Franson.

Josh and The Outlander break up

I’ll admit that I have always thought of the romance genre as dirty books without all the good parts. And if there happened to be any good parts, there would be frequent use of side-splitting euphemisms like “purple-headed love warrior.” I can say that Outlander by Diana Gabaldon follows neither of these tropes. However, I have no idea if Outlander is truly representative of romance as a genre.

The book follows the adventures of a married World War II British nurse magically cast back into the 18th century Scottish highlands. As she plots a way to get back home, she finds herself forced to marry a Scottish lord (well, not really forced—more of a political arrangement) and the drama that ensues as various persons, Scottish and English, try to figure out who she is, all set against the backdrop of a potential Catholic uprising in Scotland.

And if there happened to be any good parts, there would be frequent use of side-splitting euphemisms like “purple-headed love warrior.”

In your local books store, Outlander can most likely be found in contemporary fiction. Not romance, but contemporary fiction. Barnes & Noble and Amazon cross-reference the book online as romance, contemporary fiction, and historical fiction. I suppose all of them could apply. Like many of the books on Courtney’s Year of Genre list, it is a work capable of transcending its genre, up to a point. But over other romance books, this one has a leg up on the bookshelf…just as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road has a leg up on any post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, or even a bigger leg up on the exquisitely written comic book Walking Dead.

And the book does transcend its genre as I see it, to a point. It’s also intriguing to me in the ways that it seems to rise above genre fiction. For example:

• It’s 100 pages before the main character ends up in the 1700s, and almost 100 pages more before there is any hint of romantic tension.
• There is frequent use of antiquated Scottish/English words that needed to be looked up every two pages.
• The repeated and nonchalant use of the term cock as a euphemism, and seemingly the only euphemism used in a way intended to be titillating.
• A couple of pivotal and fairly explicit sex scenes, one of which was so heavily Dominant/Submissive that it would not have been out of place in the Year of Genre: Erotica entry The Story of O.
• Allowing the main character to fall in love with her 18th century husband by including an identical ancestor of her 20th century husband who is evil, mostly gay, and 100% rapey.           

The sex scenes were sort of shocking. So was the use of cock, but makes sense if you use the common assumption that romance books are for women, so the author may have been looking for a durable word for male anatomy that allowed her to avoid referring to “purple-headed love warriors.” Overall the book was extremely well written, but not in a way that I would say elevated the book above fine craftsmanship, as there is also no real subtly or intended subtext to the work.

The sex scenes were sort of shocking.

The book was also amazingly frustrating for me. The amount of time devoted to 18th century Scottish life and politics, though seemingly well researched and full of 200-year-old knowledge, were excruciatingly boring. Having an identical ancestor of the main character’s 20th century husband—the aforementioned evil, rapey, gay man—who has the hots for her in the 18th century was highly offensive to me. It was used as a device to allow the main character to overcome her feelings of guilt by falling in love with another man. And all the men seem to have a touch of rapeyness to them, it’s just that they make this one evil, you know, because he likes men.

Overall the damn thing is 688 pages (my eBook was closer to 800) and there is too much distance between plot points to make this book a compelling read in any way. The only reason the book is a page-turner early on is to see if she’ll even get there.

In the end, I’ll admit, I did not finish. I reached a point where I was confident I knew how the author wrote (about 600 pages into my copy), and that though I did wish to know what happened to the characters, I wasn’t willing to slog through any more of it. Plus, it seemed all the really good sex scenes were already over. So, you know, if anyone knows about any good sex scenes after Claire and Jamie reach Jamie’s family home, let me know and I’ll take a gander.

So, I guess, if this is exemplary romance, I’ll have to say romance is not my personal taste. Even when it has all the dirty parts, as there just seems to be too many boring parts.

365 kittens a year 2010 calendar

I’m afraid that I may be a little of a Johnny-come-lately in a addressing this much talked about publication, but I also think that I would be remiss if I were to overlook it entirely.

My reluctance to review the 365 Kittens a Year 2010 Calendar until the summer of 2011 has a lot to do with my conflicted feelings on the book. But I will say straight out that there’s a lot to like here. Primarily, the cats. There are literally hundreds of them. Each one looks out at you as if to say, “I’m a cat!” or “We’re cats!” or “I’m tired!” or “I’m filthy!” and so forth. It’s all wonderful.

But you’ll notice that I wrote “cats,” and not “kittens.” I know that a very large portion of kittens eventually turns into cats, and that this is a necessity if we’re to maintain a functioning kitten industry, but the fact is plain that despite the title these are not all kittens. Many of them are cats. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle to enjoying the calendar in itself, but it’s perhaps indicative of contradictions yet to come.

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Old Man Bitches

 I find myself at work, constantly refreshing my Twitter page, waiting for you people to give me something worth the energy it takes for me to move my eyes four inches across the screen, and I realize that there needs to be some damn rules for Twitter. Let’s face it, if you’re not Renée Zellweger (why did I pick her? She is neither young, nor attractive, nor culturally relevant anymore, but I can’t turn back now), nobody needs to know that “OMG just fedd pupsy wupsy and went on a jogg and dropped the cutest little #2.” I want barf into my own eyes just reading that.

      So, without further ado, here are the however many number of rules for Twitter. Follow them and don’t ask any questions. Stupids.

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an intimate account of the twin cities first LDM

What’s it like to be in a Literary Death Match, Minneapolis/St. Paul Edition?

I suppose you wonder what it’s like to be in a Literary Deathmatch, Minneapolis/St. Paul Edition. No, sure, many of y’all have been to a Literary Deathmatch, Minneapolis/St. Paul Edition, and some of you have even skillfully written of what that’s like. But precious few have ever actually participated. To describe it … well, it would be like describing making love for the first time, or relating what it was like to kill a person or animal that you hated. You might say what it felt like, the anticipation, the nervousness, the fumbling, groping hands, the brief ecstasy, the embarrassed relief at it being over, and the sinking feeling that you now have more dead horse on your hands than you could possibly fit on your bike. You could say all that, and it would all be true, but something would still be missing in the retelling.

Still, what’s the use if we don’t try, right? I would hate for the next contestants of a Literary Deathmatch, Minneapolis/St. Paul Edition to step in front of the microphone and be totally, utterly unprepared. You shouldn’t be up there just wondering where to squeeze, you know?

The obvious analogy, of course, is to Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome. I’m assuming everyone has seen it, yes? Any one of the Paperdarts women could take the place of Aunty (Tina Turner, duh), Todd Zuniga would be the elfin Master, or maybe the ringleading Dr. Dealgood, and Brian Beatty, obviously, is the hulking Blaster. Seems pretty straightforward, right?

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Wood Speaks

Some say trees don’t talk.  We hear restless winds rustle their leaves, delight in songbirds they beckon, snap to attention at their groan-and-crack when lumberjacks bellow, “Tiiim-berrr!”  But the stoic tree itself seems stubbornly mum.  Woodturners know different.

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So you want to get paid to write...

In an era when English, Journalism, and Communications majors are grateful to snag a cushy cashier job at Whole Foods, what does it take to land a job where you actually use the skills you obtained via those crushing student loans? This writeup is one of several guest blog posts where Paper Darts sought out young professionals working creativly and asked them a simple question: What the hell are you suposed to do with a Liberal Arts degree?

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My Book Purgatory

I’m a recent convert from IRL reading to e-reading, and I’m already finding that my iPad replicates the original experience so closely that I’m starting to accumulate a digital book purgatory, just like my IRL book purgatory.

What’s a book purgatory? It’s the land of books that are waiting to ascend to the state of having been read. If you’re a regular reader, you have one—real, digital, or both.

My digital book purgatory only has a couple of inhabitants, and I’ve at least started both of them: David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, which demands the kind of tolerance for the detailed description of life’s minutae that I can only rarely summon; and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which reads like a children’s book where people get eaten by giant vaginas. American Gods will probably at some point get polished off—I mean, come on, giant man-eating vaginas!—but I’ve accepted the fact that I may go to my own grave without ever having finished The Pale King.

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11 points from the literary death match

First take away from this article that these are not the minutes of the Meeting of the Literary Death Match that took place at Aster Café last Sunday, June 5^th—that is, this is not a blow by blow, then-this-happened-then-she-said-then-this-poem-was-read-and-it-was-about-butterflies-but-it-totally-had-an-underlying-theme-of-the-economic-downturn-and-destruction-of-the-middle-class. No, my friends. This is not one of those.

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