This week's book:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Grade: A+
Well... this one will make you think. That's a good thing.
First
off, this book is over 100 years old. I had no idea. It was first
published in 1899. Which means it has the kind of sensibility, format,
and style that you would expect from a 19th Century novel. Which is not
to say it's bad, it's just dated. Vintage, if you were to think of it
as clothes.
The framing device is the narrator, Marlow,
telling his sailing companions on the Thames River of the adventure he
had when he took a job on the Dark Continent - Africa - as Captain of a
riverboat for The Company.
Seems simple enough, right?
Marlow, who has always wanted to travel and explore and accomplish
great things, gets the chance to do so. Remember this was written
during the waning years of global imperialism, when there were still
small pockets of the globe available for Western powers to claim. It
was before World War I, when the old national paradigms came crashing
down into the fog of mustard gas. It was when the promise of
imperialism still seemed benign. The author puts the lie to that
notion.
Reading it now, Marlow's voyage up the river,
searching for Mr. Kurtz, a Company man more accomplished than all the
other Company men, is an allegory for corporate America. Yes, at the
time it was an indictment of the imperial system, as Marlow is
confronted with the awful reality of colonial life under imperial rule.
But the malaise of incompetent Company men, each out for only
themselves but not up to the task of doing it well, combined with the
hopelessness of the natives who can only suffer and die, sounds an awful
lot to me like the way public companies are run today. The fatalistic,
morally resigned underlings led by horrible human beings who aren't
worthy of the positions they hold.
No, I do not think I'm reading too much into it.
Marlow
does find Kurtz, of course, who has made himself into a god (maybe,
maybe not) for the local people. Kurtz is clearly insane, and even
though he's a Company man, insists that what he's done he's accomplished
on his own, even though he's done it for the Company and with Company
resources, with the hope - as all Company men have - of rising higher
and higher in the Company hierarchy.
Yee-ow. It's like Mr. Conrad was peering through a crystal ball across 100 years. Spooky.
I
loved reading this book. Makes me kind of wish I'd read it when I was
supposed to, back in High School. Of course I wouldn't have appreciated
it then.
As I mentioned, the execution is dated. The
narrative is one man telling the others what happened to him through
extended dialogue, which is something that would never fly today.
But the language is evocative, if at times a little florid. Marlow as
narrator veers into introspection a lot, as books of the time did, but
it never seems gratuitous, it never seems like the author filling a page
count.
And the themes... the themes... When I can read a
book and recognize the indictment of the political structure of the
author's times, and at the same time find an indictment of my own time
and the prevailing political structure now, I know I've found something
special.
You have to read this book, not only because
you should have years ago and never did, but because it will make you
think about how you live your life right now.
Next week:
A Modern Family by Socrates Adams
New fiction from a small press. I've had luck so far, this could turn out pretty good.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Bothered By Bitcoin
Bitcoin has been in the news recently, especially as the Federal Election Commission considers allowing Bitcoin donations to political campaigns. Which is, of course, a colossally stupid idea, but almost anything dealing with US election funding these days is a colossally stupid idea, so they’re not really treading new ground. But this prompts the question: what is Bitcoin and why should I care about it?
Bitcoin is a virtual currency. What’s that? It’s online money. That is, money not backed by the full faith and credit of any government. Bitcoin was made up by an anonymous developer and only has value in so much as people are willing to accept it as currency.
Which, at first glance, is not so different from any modern currency. Since the US went completely off the gold standard in the early 70’s, the Dollar is representative of the idea of money, rather than money itself. It’s the same thing for any modern currency, the Euro, the Yen, the Yuan, none of them backed by anything other than their respective governments claiming they’re worth something.
Bitcoin is kind of the same thing. Each Bitcoin only has as much value as two sides of a business transaction place on it. If I think one Bitcoin can buy an apple and you think one Bitcoin can buy an apple there’s no problem. If I think one Bitcoin can buy an apple and you think one Bitcoin can buy a Ferrari there’s a huge problem. This mismatch is what governments who centrally control currency manage. In the US, the Federal Reserve sets that value, saying (in essence) that one dollar can buy an apple but it takes half a million dollars to buy a Ferrari. Uncle Sam steps in to resolve what is, at its heart, a barter dispute.
The problem with Bitcoin is it has no Federal Reserve. It’s a peer-to-peer system, designed from the beginning to be decentralized. There is no Bitcoin monetary policy, the number of Bitcoins doesn’t come from anything other than the one guy who created it deciding there should be more or less Bitcoins in circulation. Seriously. That’s how it works. One dude.*
That’s what Bitcoin is, but the other question remains: why should I care about it?
You should care because the media is increasingly taking Bitcoin seriously. Which, in turn, means consumers will take it seriously, which, in turn, means they will pressure their legislators to take it seriously. This is a huge problem because no one – not even the drug dealers who have been the major source of Bitcoin transactions to date – should take it seriously. It’s a fraud, a sham, and a huge problem waiting to happen.
The issue is the word ‘coin’ in Bitcoin. Makes it sound legit. Plus, anything online makes the media's shriveled black hearts flutter, even if they don't understand it. Or maybe especially if they don't understand it. But let’s un-abstract this, and see if any of it makes sense.
Let’s assume that instead of being nothing but lines of code and electrons, Bitcoins were something real that you could touch. Say, special orchid petals. Rare ones. Only 21 million orchid petals like this exist in the world, and the orchid seeds are owned and controlled by one guy. The only way there are going to be more special orchid petals is if that one guy decides there should be more; he’s the only one who can grow them.
You own a coffee shop. One of your customers orders a latte, and wants to pay you in special orchid petals. They do this with a straight face, they’re completely serious. They tell you that if you accept the special orchid petals, even if you might not be able to spend them everywhere like you could real money, there are other places in the world you can use those orchid petals to buy stuff you’d need as a business.
Would you take this random, anonymous person’s special orchid petals as payment?
Absolutely not, orchid petals aren't real currency, they're intrinsically worthless and represent nothing of value. If Bitcoins were a tangible thing like special orchid petals there is no way anyone anywhere would accept them as currency, and you’d be a laughingstock if you did.
So why should it be different just because Bitcoin exists only online?
Yes, modern currency is an illusion. It’s a game of smoke and mirrors, shared assumptions and shared delusions. But while modern currencies are no longer backed by precious metals, they are backed by the full faith and credit of their respective governments, which means they’re backed by their citizens’ labor and efforts. Bitcoin is backed by nothing. And is worth exactly the same. If you get involved in it you deserve what you get.
* Everyone assumes it’s a dude, but it could just as well be a woman.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency. What’s that? It’s online money. That is, money not backed by the full faith and credit of any government. Bitcoin was made up by an anonymous developer and only has value in so much as people are willing to accept it as currency.
Which, at first glance, is not so different from any modern currency. Since the US went completely off the gold standard in the early 70’s, the Dollar is representative of the idea of money, rather than money itself. It’s the same thing for any modern currency, the Euro, the Yen, the Yuan, none of them backed by anything other than their respective governments claiming they’re worth something.
Bitcoin is kind of the same thing. Each Bitcoin only has as much value as two sides of a business transaction place on it. If I think one Bitcoin can buy an apple and you think one Bitcoin can buy an apple there’s no problem. If I think one Bitcoin can buy an apple and you think one Bitcoin can buy a Ferrari there’s a huge problem. This mismatch is what governments who centrally control currency manage. In the US, the Federal Reserve sets that value, saying (in essence) that one dollar can buy an apple but it takes half a million dollars to buy a Ferrari. Uncle Sam steps in to resolve what is, at its heart, a barter dispute.
The problem with Bitcoin is it has no Federal Reserve. It’s a peer-to-peer system, designed from the beginning to be decentralized. There is no Bitcoin monetary policy, the number of Bitcoins doesn’t come from anything other than the one guy who created it deciding there should be more or less Bitcoins in circulation. Seriously. That’s how it works. One dude.*
That’s what Bitcoin is, but the other question remains: why should I care about it?
You should care because the media is increasingly taking Bitcoin seriously. Which, in turn, means consumers will take it seriously, which, in turn, means they will pressure their legislators to take it seriously. This is a huge problem because no one – not even the drug dealers who have been the major source of Bitcoin transactions to date – should take it seriously. It’s a fraud, a sham, and a huge problem waiting to happen.
The issue is the word ‘coin’ in Bitcoin. Makes it sound legit. Plus, anything online makes the media's shriveled black hearts flutter, even if they don't understand it. Or maybe especially if they don't understand it. But let’s un-abstract this, and see if any of it makes sense.
Let’s assume that instead of being nothing but lines of code and electrons, Bitcoins were something real that you could touch. Say, special orchid petals. Rare ones. Only 21 million orchid petals like this exist in the world, and the orchid seeds are owned and controlled by one guy. The only way there are going to be more special orchid petals is if that one guy decides there should be more; he’s the only one who can grow them.
You own a coffee shop. One of your customers orders a latte, and wants to pay you in special orchid petals. They do this with a straight face, they’re completely serious. They tell you that if you accept the special orchid petals, even if you might not be able to spend them everywhere like you could real money, there are other places in the world you can use those orchid petals to buy stuff you’d need as a business.
Would you take this random, anonymous person’s special orchid petals as payment?
Absolutely not, orchid petals aren't real currency, they're intrinsically worthless and represent nothing of value. If Bitcoins were a tangible thing like special orchid petals there is no way anyone anywhere would accept them as currency, and you’d be a laughingstock if you did.
So why should it be different just because Bitcoin exists only online?
Yes, modern currency is an illusion. It’s a game of smoke and mirrors, shared assumptions and shared delusions. But while modern currencies are no longer backed by precious metals, they are backed by the full faith and credit of their respective governments, which means they’re backed by their citizens’ labor and efforts. Bitcoin is backed by nothing. And is worth exactly the same. If you get involved in it you deserve what you get.
* Everyone assumes it’s a dude, but it could just as well be a woman.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 46: Undisputed Truth
This week's book:
Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson with Larry Sloman
Grade: A-
This one is two days late, but not because I couldn't make up my mind. I just started two days later than usual.
I don't think the final chapter on Mike Tyson has been written. Not even with this book. He is still a troubled mix of contradictions, but come to find out, he realizes this. He's even cool with it. Mostly.
This book is written with a ghost writer. I say 'with' a ghost writer instead of 'by' because it reads to me like a very long, extended interview. These are indeed Mike Tyson's words, just organized and edited.
The book begins with a prologue explaining how he did not rape the woman he was convicted of raping, and how even though he hated the process and the judicial system and the boxing organizations that put him in the position to stand accused of rape, he thinks the judge who put him away probably saved his life.
Then, in the very next chapter he outlines how horrific, abusive, and neglected his childhood was. How he didn't learn right from wrong, how he idolized criminals because those were the people who were making it in his neighborhood. How he became a criminal himself to escape bullying at school, and how he grew bolder and bolder with every criminal exploit he got away with. The bullied kid became the bully.
He doesn't see the contradiction. Or the irony. He outlines how he was - his words - 'an animal' and yet claims to have risen above that animal nature, at least in the one instance he was caught and convicted of a crime. Not only does he not see the contradiction, it's not a contradiction in his mind. He didn't rape that woman. He did lie and cheat and steal and do drugs and conceive illegitimate children. But the one crime he was convicted for he did not do.
This was a fascinating read. Not the least reason of which is the sociological study of the effect of inner city destitution on children. Mike Tyson's mother was a prostitute. And he shared her bed until he was fifteen. He grew up around thieves and pimps and drug dealers, only to become a thief and drug dealer himself, who victimized women. In the question of nature vs. nurture, nurture won out. At least early on.
Mike Tyson was a victim for much of his life, even well after his boxing career was over. He knows this, he says as much. But he has in recent years risen above it. Or gone beyond it, perhaps, he does take care to note his constant struggle not to revert to the insecure egomaniac he once was.
This isn't really a feel-good book. You come away from it realizing that Mike Tyson is much more than his public persona once might have led you to believe. But you also realize that he was, at one time, much less than that too. And he's still teetering in between. Could go either way. He says in the book he's such an egomaniac he'd need to die in front of a crowd. That still might happen. But I hope it doesn't.
Read this book. It is a genuine glimpse into the mind of a man more fascinating than you might think.
Next week:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Yeah, I should have read this in high school. I may have given it a try, but 'Apocalypse Now' was on VHS, why would I have wanted to read a book? Plus, it's short, I can get it in by Sunday and get back on track.
Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson with Larry Sloman
Grade: A-
This one is two days late, but not because I couldn't make up my mind. I just started two days later than usual.
I don't think the final chapter on Mike Tyson has been written. Not even with this book. He is still a troubled mix of contradictions, but come to find out, he realizes this. He's even cool with it. Mostly.
This book is written with a ghost writer. I say 'with' a ghost writer instead of 'by' because it reads to me like a very long, extended interview. These are indeed Mike Tyson's words, just organized and edited.
The book begins with a prologue explaining how he did not rape the woman he was convicted of raping, and how even though he hated the process and the judicial system and the boxing organizations that put him in the position to stand accused of rape, he thinks the judge who put him away probably saved his life.
Then, in the very next chapter he outlines how horrific, abusive, and neglected his childhood was. How he didn't learn right from wrong, how he idolized criminals because those were the people who were making it in his neighborhood. How he became a criminal himself to escape bullying at school, and how he grew bolder and bolder with every criminal exploit he got away with. The bullied kid became the bully.
He doesn't see the contradiction. Or the irony. He outlines how he was - his words - 'an animal' and yet claims to have risen above that animal nature, at least in the one instance he was caught and convicted of a crime. Not only does he not see the contradiction, it's not a contradiction in his mind. He didn't rape that woman. He did lie and cheat and steal and do drugs and conceive illegitimate children. But the one crime he was convicted for he did not do.
This was a fascinating read. Not the least reason of which is the sociological study of the effect of inner city destitution on children. Mike Tyson's mother was a prostitute. And he shared her bed until he was fifteen. He grew up around thieves and pimps and drug dealers, only to become a thief and drug dealer himself, who victimized women. In the question of nature vs. nurture, nurture won out. At least early on.
Mike Tyson was a victim for much of his life, even well after his boxing career was over. He knows this, he says as much. But he has in recent years risen above it. Or gone beyond it, perhaps, he does take care to note his constant struggle not to revert to the insecure egomaniac he once was.
This isn't really a feel-good book. You come away from it realizing that Mike Tyson is much more than his public persona once might have led you to believe. But you also realize that he was, at one time, much less than that too. And he's still teetering in between. Could go either way. He says in the book he's such an egomaniac he'd need to die in front of a crowd. That still might happen. But I hope it doesn't.
Read this book. It is a genuine glimpse into the mind of a man more fascinating than you might think.
Next week:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Yeah, I should have read this in high school. I may have given it a try, but 'Apocalypse Now' was on VHS, why would I have wanted to read a book? Plus, it's short, I can get it in by Sunday and get back on track.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 45: The Wolves of Midwinter
This week's book:
The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice
Grade: B
Maybe you can tell because this review is two days late, but, man, I could not get into this book.
Once again I picked up the second novel in a series without reading the first one, but that's not it. Or not just it. I think it was the premise that did me in.
The story is that werewolves are real. No big deal, it's a novel by Anne Rice, so it's not going to be like 'Grapes of Wrath.' The hero, Rueben, has just been changed into a werewolf in the previous novel, and as this one opens he's been welcomed into the family, so to speak, and begins to learn about his new powers. But it's Christmas, which werewolves also celebrate, natch, and Rueben's education is interrupted by a ghost. There are secrets deeper than the werewolves, spirits and ancient things in the deep forest in Northern California.
Seems kind of overwrought, doesn't it? It was.
Anne Rice has been writing for quite a while, so the prose was very good, with tight descriptions and good pacing. But the dialogue... there was a lot of it. A lot. Conversations that were mostly exposition pretending to be revelations of inner life. It's a delicate balance, I know, between writing good dialogue for a book and realistic dialogue. You can't write dialogue the way real people speak, it's unreadable. But you can't have your characters speak like they're reading from the Encyclopedia Britannica either. There was lot of Britannica here. Pages and pages and pages of it. Back and forth, agonized discussion after agonized discussion. Just not for me.
One a more technical note, I noticed the narrative broke point of view many, many times. Rueben is the main character, but over and over again we'd get a paragraph from another character's perspective, right in the middle. Or, even better, Rueben providing another character's inner motivation. I didn't care for that either.
Overall it wasn't bad. Leaps and bounds better than Twilight, thank God. And I can see where someone else might like the dialogues and personal interplay, but it left me flat. It felt like a Bronte sister novel, but with werewolves. Maybe that was her intention all along, to make a Gothic horror out of Romanticism, to put werewolves and ghosts and spirits into Wuthering Heights. If so, she succeeded admirably, because that's precisely what I found. It was just not to my tastes.
Next week:
Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson with Larry Sloman
I've been fascinated with Mike Tyson since the first time I saw him box. He's a troubled mix of contradictions trying to resolve themselves, and as he gets older I don't know if he's finding a way to get beyond his past or is in danger of being overwhelmed by it. I'll read his book to find out.
The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice
Grade: B
Maybe you can tell because this review is two days late, but, man, I could not get into this book.
Once again I picked up the second novel in a series without reading the first one, but that's not it. Or not just it. I think it was the premise that did me in.
The story is that werewolves are real. No big deal, it's a novel by Anne Rice, so it's not going to be like 'Grapes of Wrath.' The hero, Rueben, has just been changed into a werewolf in the previous novel, and as this one opens he's been welcomed into the family, so to speak, and begins to learn about his new powers. But it's Christmas, which werewolves also celebrate, natch, and Rueben's education is interrupted by a ghost. There are secrets deeper than the werewolves, spirits and ancient things in the deep forest in Northern California.
Seems kind of overwrought, doesn't it? It was.
Anne Rice has been writing for quite a while, so the prose was very good, with tight descriptions and good pacing. But the dialogue... there was a lot of it. A lot. Conversations that were mostly exposition pretending to be revelations of inner life. It's a delicate balance, I know, between writing good dialogue for a book and realistic dialogue. You can't write dialogue the way real people speak, it's unreadable. But you can't have your characters speak like they're reading from the Encyclopedia Britannica either. There was lot of Britannica here. Pages and pages and pages of it. Back and forth, agonized discussion after agonized discussion. Just not for me.
One a more technical note, I noticed the narrative broke point of view many, many times. Rueben is the main character, but over and over again we'd get a paragraph from another character's perspective, right in the middle. Or, even better, Rueben providing another character's inner motivation. I didn't care for that either.
Overall it wasn't bad. Leaps and bounds better than Twilight, thank God. And I can see where someone else might like the dialogues and personal interplay, but it left me flat. It felt like a Bronte sister novel, but with werewolves. Maybe that was her intention all along, to make a Gothic horror out of Romanticism, to put werewolves and ghosts and spirits into Wuthering Heights. If so, she succeeded admirably, because that's precisely what I found. It was just not to my tastes.
Next week:
Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson with Larry Sloman
I've been fascinated with Mike Tyson since the first time I saw him box. He's a troubled mix of contradictions trying to resolve themselves, and as he gets older I don't know if he's finding a way to get beyond his past or is in danger of being overwhelmed by it. I'll read his book to find out.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
What Time Is It?
I've been thinking about time again. Yeah, I know there are theoretical physicists getting paid to ponder the same thing - what is time? - but that shouldn't keep me from thinking about it any more than the existence of NASCAR drivers should keep me from getting behind the wheel of my truck. They're professionals, and they run their race very well, but they can't get me where I need to go, that's my job.
As Einstein demonstrated, space and time are connected, the same fabric. It's where we get the concept of spacetime. And we are embedded in spacetime, all four dimensions of it. Which is why, I think, we experience time as a one-way arrow. In order to step outside of time, we'd have to be able to experience a fifth dimension which would allow us a separate perspective on our original four.
Think of it in terms of Flatland, a hypothetical two-dimensional world. The Flatlanders have forward and back, and left and right, but they do not have up and down. They can't even conceive of up and down, since that's a third dimension and they have only two. Everything they do is constrained to those two dimensions, and even if they were somehow transported through a third dimension they'd never know it, since they can't perceive it.
Same thing with us and time. It's a fourth dimension, but we're stuck in it like it's 4-D flypaper, nothing we can do to get out of it. It's not only all we know, it's all we can know.
There's a very good question about time travel: If time travel is possible, where are all the time travelers? Once time travel is invented, no matter how far in the future, every era would be lousy with time tourists, because every moment in time would essentially be 'now.' Since we don't see any time travelers, ipso facto, time travel must not be possible.
But I put this to you: if time travel is possible, it's only possible through a fifth dimension. And since we can't perceive that fifth dimension, we can't perceive any time travelers, who must, of necessity, be five-dimensional beings. So maybe there are time travelers all around us right now. We'd never know it, just like Flatlanders could never know us higher-dimensional beings.
Which brings us to another notion about time. We experience time as a linear flow, but if there is a fifth dimension outside of our four familiar dimensions of spacetime, wouldn't someone in that fifth dimension be able to see all of time? To them, wouldn't time be just another dimension they could move along, forward or backward or sideways or what have you? Furthermore, wouldn't that mean that time - though we experience it linearly - is actually all happening at once? Is every moment in time really lined up in order like a huge card catalog* we leaf through from front to back because we have to by virtue of our four-dimensionality?
I think the notion of there being no real 'now,' just a card-catalog moment we experience as now is both disturbing and poetic. It's like we live each moment like it's a frame of movie film, one at a time, one after the other.
Which has all sorts of implications for the notion of free will. But that's another sleepless night lying in bed.
* kids, a card catalog is what libraries used to keep track of their books in the days before computers did everything for us.
As Einstein demonstrated, space and time are connected, the same fabric. It's where we get the concept of spacetime. And we are embedded in spacetime, all four dimensions of it. Which is why, I think, we experience time as a one-way arrow. In order to step outside of time, we'd have to be able to experience a fifth dimension which would allow us a separate perspective on our original four.
Think of it in terms of Flatland, a hypothetical two-dimensional world. The Flatlanders have forward and back, and left and right, but they do not have up and down. They can't even conceive of up and down, since that's a third dimension and they have only two. Everything they do is constrained to those two dimensions, and even if they were somehow transported through a third dimension they'd never know it, since they can't perceive it.
Same thing with us and time. It's a fourth dimension, but we're stuck in it like it's 4-D flypaper, nothing we can do to get out of it. It's not only all we know, it's all we can know.
There's a very good question about time travel: If time travel is possible, where are all the time travelers? Once time travel is invented, no matter how far in the future, every era would be lousy with time tourists, because every moment in time would essentially be 'now.' Since we don't see any time travelers, ipso facto, time travel must not be possible.
But I put this to you: if time travel is possible, it's only possible through a fifth dimension. And since we can't perceive that fifth dimension, we can't perceive any time travelers, who must, of necessity, be five-dimensional beings. So maybe there are time travelers all around us right now. We'd never know it, just like Flatlanders could never know us higher-dimensional beings.
Which brings us to another notion about time. We experience time as a linear flow, but if there is a fifth dimension outside of our four familiar dimensions of spacetime, wouldn't someone in that fifth dimension be able to see all of time? To them, wouldn't time be just another dimension they could move along, forward or backward or sideways or what have you? Furthermore, wouldn't that mean that time - though we experience it linearly - is actually all happening at once? Is every moment in time really lined up in order like a huge card catalog* we leaf through from front to back because we have to by virtue of our four-dimensionality?
I think the notion of there being no real 'now,' just a card-catalog moment we experience as now is both disturbing and poetic. It's like we live each moment like it's a frame of movie film, one at a time, one after the other.
Which has all sorts of implications for the notion of free will. But that's another sleepless night lying in bed.
* kids, a card catalog is what libraries used to keep track of their books in the days before computers did everything for us.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 44: Damned
This week's book:
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
Grade: ... I don't really know...
Well, at least it's short.
I'm stumped. Honestly stumped. I have no idea if this is a work of towering genius I just can't see, or the worst piece of crap pastiche I have ever read.
One thing I know for sure, it's either one or the other, and nothing in between.
This is the story of Madison, who is dead and in Hell. She writes to Satan - somehow, maybe in a journal we never see? - at the start of each chapter like the just-teen protagonist of a Judy Blume novel. She's newly arrived in Hell, stuck in a filth-smeared cage out on an infinite plain, near four other Breakfast Club members. They break out and go for walkabout in Hell, as the facts of their damnations are slowly made plain.
Yeah... it is definitely a pastiche, call it 'homage' to make it polite, of a Judy Blume novel. Thirteen-year-old Madison goes on a voyage of self-discovery that is thinly-disguised as a travelogue of Hell, and then later is not even thinly-disguised when she discovers that, as a dead person, she can reinvent herself into whatever she wants. You know you're in trouble when the author abandons the metaphor and just states things plainly.
There are parts, little passages and entire themes, that are really, really good. But but those tiny bits and brief moments are surrounded by half-assed writing compounded by half-assed editing. Reading Damned was like sifting through all the gunk in a drain pipe to find the tiny diamond engagement ring your sweetie dropped. Sure, you get the diamond, but was the kitchen smeared with sewer juice really worth the effort?
This is the problem as I see it: Chuck Pahlaniuk the Best Selling Author doesn't get edited nearly as rigorously or as thoroughly as Chuck Pahlaniuk the Relative Unknown. In actuality, as we see with many authors over and over and over again, the Best Selling Author needs a great editor even more than the Relative Unknown does. The Relative Unknown has had years of obscurity to hone his craft, and to nurture his manuscript through the stage of outline to terrible first draft to slightly less-terrible second draft and so on to something worthy of publishing. The Best Selling Author has to work under time constraint, he has to produce according to his contract, and the editor has to edit to a release date and printer schedule. Things the Relative Unknown could never get away with are the things the Best Selling Author gets a free pass on.
And that's how you get something like Damned.
Like I said, there are themes that merit exploration, existential stuff that we're all interested in like free will and how our earthly lives affect those around us. But... the whole just doesn't hang together. It reads to me like what I strongly suspect it was, the author noodling at the typewriter coming up with pages without a clear road map or plan where to go with the story. Just a dude gettin' a little finger exercise. Then, when he had to put it into a complete - though mercifully short - novel, the author tacked on bits and pieces to try to make a coherent story, without smoothing the rough edges and making everything neat and tidy. You can see where he had to add a few lines or pages to something he wrote earlier. His writing style from later in the book matches those patches, which do not match to the style he had earlier in the book.
Same thing with the characters, they're established as contemporaries of Madison - they appear in the same plain of infinite cages - and they behave as her contemporaries. Until the author decides it would be cooler if they weren't. Character details don't match from the beginning of the book to the end, their behavior isn't consistent, and their demeanor doesn't match what the author has told us of souls who have been in Hell for a long time. Sloppy.
Who should read this book? Well, if you read and liked 'Fight Club,' first let me offer condolences, then let me tell you that you will not like this book at all. If you liked Judy Blume books you might like Damned, as long as you go into it with the proper expectations. This is not Judy Blume, there is no truth here, even though the author kind-of tried to put some in.
Read it or don't. I don't know. Whatever.
Next week:
The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice
I think this is my second Anne Rice novel. My first in a very long time. This is about werewolves, I'm guessing. I hope it's not werewolves who put on way too much Axe body spray.
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
Grade: ... I don't really know...
Well, at least it's short.
I'm stumped. Honestly stumped. I have no idea if this is a work of towering genius I just can't see, or the worst piece of crap pastiche I have ever read.
One thing I know for sure, it's either one or the other, and nothing in between.
This is the story of Madison, who is dead and in Hell. She writes to Satan - somehow, maybe in a journal we never see? - at the start of each chapter like the just-teen protagonist of a Judy Blume novel. She's newly arrived in Hell, stuck in a filth-smeared cage out on an infinite plain, near four other Breakfast Club members. They break out and go for walkabout in Hell, as the facts of their damnations are slowly made plain.
Yeah... it is definitely a pastiche, call it 'homage' to make it polite, of a Judy Blume novel. Thirteen-year-old Madison goes on a voyage of self-discovery that is thinly-disguised as a travelogue of Hell, and then later is not even thinly-disguised when she discovers that, as a dead person, she can reinvent herself into whatever she wants. You know you're in trouble when the author abandons the metaphor and just states things plainly.
There are parts, little passages and entire themes, that are really, really good. But but those tiny bits and brief moments are surrounded by half-assed writing compounded by half-assed editing. Reading Damned was like sifting through all the gunk in a drain pipe to find the tiny diamond engagement ring your sweetie dropped. Sure, you get the diamond, but was the kitchen smeared with sewer juice really worth the effort?
This is the problem as I see it: Chuck Pahlaniuk the Best Selling Author doesn't get edited nearly as rigorously or as thoroughly as Chuck Pahlaniuk the Relative Unknown. In actuality, as we see with many authors over and over and over again, the Best Selling Author needs a great editor even more than the Relative Unknown does. The Relative Unknown has had years of obscurity to hone his craft, and to nurture his manuscript through the stage of outline to terrible first draft to slightly less-terrible second draft and so on to something worthy of publishing. The Best Selling Author has to work under time constraint, he has to produce according to his contract, and the editor has to edit to a release date and printer schedule. Things the Relative Unknown could never get away with are the things the Best Selling Author gets a free pass on.
And that's how you get something like Damned.
Like I said, there are themes that merit exploration, existential stuff that we're all interested in like free will and how our earthly lives affect those around us. But... the whole just doesn't hang together. It reads to me like what I strongly suspect it was, the author noodling at the typewriter coming up with pages without a clear road map or plan where to go with the story. Just a dude gettin' a little finger exercise. Then, when he had to put it into a complete - though mercifully short - novel, the author tacked on bits and pieces to try to make a coherent story, without smoothing the rough edges and making everything neat and tidy. You can see where he had to add a few lines or pages to something he wrote earlier. His writing style from later in the book matches those patches, which do not match to the style he had earlier in the book.
Same thing with the characters, they're established as contemporaries of Madison - they appear in the same plain of infinite cages - and they behave as her contemporaries. Until the author decides it would be cooler if they weren't. Character details don't match from the beginning of the book to the end, their behavior isn't consistent, and their demeanor doesn't match what the author has told us of souls who have been in Hell for a long time. Sloppy.
Who should read this book? Well, if you read and liked 'Fight Club,' first let me offer condolences, then let me tell you that you will not like this book at all. If you liked Judy Blume books you might like Damned, as long as you go into it with the proper expectations. This is not Judy Blume, there is no truth here, even though the author kind-of tried to put some in.
Read it or don't. I don't know. Whatever.
Next week:
The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice
I think this is my second Anne Rice novel. My first in a very long time. This is about werewolves, I'm guessing. I hope it's not werewolves who put on way too much Axe body spray.
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