Farewell Brian Aldiss, RIP

It is with a heavy heart that I bid farewell to Brian W Aldiss, a stalwart writer and scholar who passed away on the weekend aged 92.

I think the first book of his that I read was Billion Year  Spree, his history of science fiction. It's a fascinating read and influenced me greatly. I was doing my Honours at the time and his definition of science fiction, particularly that it is set in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould, shaped my thinking at the time and infiltrated my whole thesis, even if it was off topic. My ideas on genre have shifted in the last couple of years, and I do not hold so closely to Aldiss' own, but they're still influential, and I wouldn't be where I am without them.

I haven't read his most famous fictional works, the Supertoys stories that Spielberg's movie AI was based on, or the Helliconia series, but I have read a couple of others. The first was Frankenstein Unbound. It took me a bit to accept what was going on and for a while I probably would have said it wasn't that good. But, it stayed with me, I read it almost two decades ago but have clear memories of scenes within it. It wasn't what I expected, but it was good enough to get past my initial reaction and hook me.

Sadly, my memory of Moreau's Other Island is vague and of disappointment. The other book of Aldiss' that I've read is Nathaniel and Other Stories, an anthology of his early short stories. Off the top of my head I can only recall one. It was about a sentient bomb, sent across space. There was an alien world at war with Earth, and they sent a series of such bombs at a speed sufficiently faster than that of light to arrive on Earth before humans evolved, thus preventing their enemy from ever existing. Only, it turned out humans worked it out and the bomb wiped out its originating planet instead. That was just the meat of the story, the real flavour came from the bomb itself, its excitement and relief that its journey was coming to an end, its sense of purpose. And then it finds it's been tricked, and its whole reason for being flipped on its head. I'm not surprised it stays with me.

So Mr Aldiss, I say farewell and thank you. Stories and ideas are the most precious of gifts, and yours have proven very valuable already, and I can truly say they have changed my life. The good news is, though you may no longer be with us, your gifts are and there are more treasures for us all to unearth.

Keep dreaming my friends.

A Literary Ramble on Literature

In preparation for the next semester (or trimester as DU calls them), I read two introductions to books introducing the various voices within literary theory, both of which asked that essential question, what is literature? Of course, the answer is vague, partly because it's a debatable point and partly because they were introductions and they can't give it all away. But it made me think about what literature is or has been to me, which is something I probably should think about if I'm studying Literature.

The first thought I have is remembering the many times I rearranged my books in my teens. It was something I did at least once a year I think. I would take every book off the shelf and put them into piles according to how I wanted to organise them, then work out the best way to arrange them all on the shelves. I could make a joke here about how much of a nerd I was/am, but, as I think about it, I'm not going to wear that label over this - I love books, I always have and always will, that doesn't mean I have to wear some societal label.

I digress, the point is, and there is one, I typically sorted them back into 'genre'. Fantasy always had the largest piles, with science fiction next and horror a small pile that grew steadily, especially if you include the Gothic Romances. There were plenty of problems and 'ums' and 'errs' deciding which pile to put some books on. Star Wars novels got their own pile and took up a shelf of their own, so that avoided that one, but other books raised questions - which could be the origins of my thesis, but that's a topic for another blog. The point, is where Literature stood, and in terms of sorting - and cataloging - my books it meant, books that don't fit any genre I'm aware of. Mostly it contained books I'd read for English at school like Dickens' Oliver Twist.

Later, when I was doing some post-grad study in writing, I was talking to someone who'd finished her Masters at the same uni, and I mentioned I had contemplated doing the Novel Writing Workshop. She asked what my novel would be about and as soon as I described some vague notion I had she replied 'There's a Genre Writing Workshop too'. I was floored, poor naive fool that I was, it had not occurred to me that a fantasy novel was not really a novel, but a piece of genre fiction. To her defence, she meant no offence and didn't intend any disdain towards genre, and I wasn't put off by her attitude, merely that the distinction between 'literature' and 'genre fiction' was so well established as to be taken as part of the structure of writing and teaching writing.

These days I'm aware of the existence of such distinctions to some people, and of the mirrored snobbery within genre fiction itself, however it is eroding I'm happy to say. Which leaves the question - what is literature to me now? And the answer is ... I'm not entirely sure. In the end, I think it's any creative work which uses language and is approached by a reader as such - that is a creative work using words. So, a play is literature when approached as a script for reading and digesting, and a performance text when approached for mounting a production. A performed play is literature when approached by a reader/audience member from the point of view of the words being uttered and the context they are in (so scene/characterisation etc is part of it not just the words). So literature, I realise as I write this, is a relationship between the reader/watcher and the text.

That was a journey for me, I didn't expect that outcome. I hope, if you've stuck with it this long, that your relationship with this text has been enjoyable.

Keep dreaming!

Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I just spent the better part of two days reading this so I figure I should write something about it. I'd like to say I did that because it captured me completely, but the truth is I powered through it because of an assignment and because I'm not at work this week. Not that it didn't capture me and I'm glad I read it in such a consolidated period.

It's a very well written and quite sumptuous story cycle, the interconnections are laced through ever-so neatly down to a pair of pants I presume one character bought second-hand after another had given them to charity. Numerous lives are wound as threads through this tapestry, covering a good fifty or so years. It could be argued the last story ties up too many of those threads, but the resolution is still ambiguous and the way the characters come together is not convenient plot wrangling like a melodrama but a clever device, itself a metaphor for the interconnections and networks we create every day on social media.

I would have liked a little more playing with modality, not just the PowerPoint presentation and the blog-style interview piece. And it might have been nice if there were fewer doomed relationships and drug-ruined lives. Somehow the whole cycle became quite morose despite its more optimistic ending (in a ruined world where everything is still ruined). But that's part of the point too. The characters are cogs as much as individuals and the machine wears them out eventually.

Of course, as is plain in the book, the titular Goon Squad is time itself and its relentless march. Perhaps that makes the moroseness of the overall cycle inevitable too. But there are the pauses, the moments within the song that is an individual's life that we can grab, and there's always a chance for repeat refrain before the end.



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Keep Dreaming!

The Invisible Author - An Overblown and Somewhat Pompous Rant

I had some time to kill while near my local bookshop, so, like any sane person, I went in. I wasn't after anything but thought I'd see what H.G Wells they had. I didn't expect much, just the latest Penguin or Wordsworth edition of The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds tucked away in the Classics section, but there was always a chance of The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, which I'm considering buying in physical form. There was no trace of any mention of his name whatsoever. It had never occurred to me that there would be a bookshop without at least one title of his in stock.

This disappointment I could have borne if not for the second shock I received today. I went to the local library to pick up some reserved items, including two books on Mr Wells' life and work. The librarian, as she waited for the computer to catch up, looked over the covers then asked, in all seriousness, 'Who's he?' She had to repeat the question, I couldn't comprehend it. Who is H.G. Wells? You work among books every day and you ask who H.G. Wells is? I mentioned The Time Machine and got an 'Oh' of recognition, but nothing could erase the horror I felt inside.

I console myself that I now have the two books I sought, and, as a bonus, I picked up Terry Pratchett's The Illustrated Eric, (illustrated by Josh Kirby of course) in a good quality ex-libris hardcover for 20c.

On a side note, this year I'll be writing a thesis on H.G. Wells.

Thanks for letting me share my overreaction, I'll let you decide how far my tongue is planted in my cheek.

Keep dreaming!