Saturday Morning Thoughts on Two Novels

Last week I finished two novels of very different stripes. I'll give short reviews of both here as I enjoy some Saturday morning coffee. I'm up very early today (for me, for a Saturday) and not even hung over, which I think deserves a mention.

First is Aldous Huxley's first novel, Crome Yellow. Crome was an unexpected turn for me. The only other Huxley I had read was the classic Brave New World back in my college days, and a book of his mostly mediocre poems. Crome is quite dissimilar from that wonderful novel, but in some ways you can find early indicators of the direction Huxley is heading. The book doesn't have much a plot to speak of--a group of rich folks in England spend a few weeks lounging about their rural mansion, known as Chrome Yellow. It's very talky. Huxley in seems to simply find settings to pair his characters together so they can have a discussion and flesh out whatever philosophical ideas Huxley is kicking around at the moment. That sounds derisive, but I don't really mean it that way. The novel is not a mature work, but it has its moments of both hilarity (Huxley can be funny!) and of strange gravity.

My favorite moment comes toward the end, when the main character Denis finds a notebook that a minor character is often seem scribbling in. On the front of the notebook is printed "private" and there is some admonishment not to open it. Denis naturally opens it anyway and finds some drawn pictures and words written about himself that portray him in a deeply negative light. He is dumbfounded not because this character doesn't like him, but because he never imagined she was sophisticated enough to form any critical opinions whatsoever. He spends to remainder of the novel amazed that everyone in the world has an interior life, that they are a universe unto themselves. That synopsis really doesn't do it justice--it's both comic and moving in the book.

Chrome clocks in right around 140 pages and is a quick read. It's even still in print somehow, which I was shocked to discover.

The other, less satisfying book, was The Face of Fear by Dean Koontz. The sad fact is that I will be reviewing quite a bit of Koontz in this space because, even though I detest him, I still read him. I'm crazy like that. I'll be brief.

The Face of Fear is in all ways typical Koontz. The title is actually the best part of the novel, since it is not precisely what it seems. The face in question is not a human face, but face as in a side of a mountain or other object which a person may climb. The plot involves a psychic who foresees a murder. The murderer then comes to kill the psychic so he won't be identified. Murderer traps psychic in a building late at night and psychic has to try to climb down the outside of the building to escape. Oh yeah, and the psychic also used to be a professional mountain climber and had a terrible fall and now is utterly petrified of climbing. Do you suppose he will be able to overcome his fear and escape the murderous brute?

The novel is absolute trash. To boot, it is remarkably like Koontz's previous novel, The Vision, which also featured a psychic who foresees a killer in action and then must confront the killer. Neither is recommended. I hate stories or movies about psychics, since there are never any ground rules about how the psychic ability works and the author or screenwriter can use it in whatever ridiculous way the plot requires. I mean, vampires are silly, but at least we know what we're in for; daylight, a stake through the heart, and sometimes garlic or a cross can keep them at bay. Psychics have no rules attached to their power. I'm not sure I can think of a movie that I've ever enjoyed that featured psychics prominently. I guess The Gift was alright. I don't think Minority Report can truly be counted. Somebody help me out here.

Why Koontz persists in being a mega-seller despite his awful prose and plodding stories is one of the great mysteries of our time. But in my effort to read what the people read, I will be continuing in this long, hard slog through some of the most tedious novels known to man. And continuing to bitch about on this blog.

The Regime

I've already written a post on the dumbfounding "Left Behind" series a few months back, but I am going to take the opportunity to briefly return to the topic now, since it is something I have devoted a considerable amount of time to reading and trying to understand.

I have finished the 12 book series proper, but the authors have seen fit to write three prequels as well as one additional sequel. As any number of commentators on Amazon will tell you, this is a fairly transparent scheme to keep milking the cash cow they've created. Nonetheless, I've read the first of the two prequels, having recently finished The Regime. I think it's a curious title, considering that the first thing that comes to mind when I consider the phrase "the regime" is the current administration. I don't think I'm alone on that. Anyway, the regime in question is evidently not the Bush presidency, but the regime of Nicolae Carpathia, the anti-Christ of the later books. However, Nicolae has not yet risen to power, so I'm not sure where they get off with the title.

The book came out in 2006, a time when political conventional wisdom was quite different than when the bulk of the books were published (1996-2004). Part of Nicolae's schick is that he claims to stand for peace and hate violence and he calls for global cooperation and internationalism. Making this person the anti-Christ makes political sense (for right-wingers, I mean) in the 2001-2004 timeframe, because Bush was at that time saying pretty much the exact same thing: "those calling for global cooperation are working against the interests of the United States. Only I, the one who dares confront evil head on, can be trusted to protect you, not those weak ones who want non-violent solutions." Now of course, the field is reversed. Bush has been shown to be a power-mad, war mongering imperialist, while those of us who timidly suggested that unilateral invasion of other countries is not morally right look quite a lot better than a few years back. The point of this whole exercise is to say that the book immediately feels dated because of its allegiance to a Bush-like foreign policy, which only a troglodyte could now support.

The prequels seem to be a showcase mainly for the "true believer" sort of characters to try to convert those that are not strident enough or orthodox enough in their faith. There are some marvelous scenes, such as when true believer Irene goes to the nursing home to try to make her husband's senile parents give up their life-long faith in order to accept the born again creed that she promulgates. Or take the scene where Irene (before she becomes a born again Christian) has a series of religious conversations with some other mother at a park. This other mother gives Irene a gospel tract, which though Irene pretends she doesn't care, she is secretly thrilled and rushing to get home and read this awesome piece of life-changing literature. I gather it is supposed to be inspirational, encouraging believers to preach the word to all nations, as it were. However, I think you would have to be delusional in order to see it as anything other than comic.

I still hold out hope that one day I might be able to write a thesis on the politics of the books, which are truly unpleasant, but I won't delve further into the topic now. Suffice it to say that The Regime is just as odious, and in some ways more so, than any other novel in the series. The popularity of these books is a black mark on those who try to defend Christianity as an intellectually serious set of beliefs.

Dance of Death

One thing that is inevitable if I am going to post more book review-type items, is that I must reveal the truly terrible reading habits I have. Though I am a fairly prolific reader, much of the material I consume is not exactly of high literary value, or full of insightful wisdom. I won't go into all the details, but I employ an arcane and complex system of deciding which books to read, and in what order to read them. I have so much invested in this system that I feel I must continue down this path, even though it ultimately leads to madness, and on the way to madness, leads to me reading a lot of books that are frankly, a waste of time.

The above preface is going to be true for a lot of the books I will discuss in this space, but I now want to make an argument that it is not true for today's book. The book in question is Danse Macabre by Stephen King. King is an author that gets a lot of grief, unfairly in my opinion. Of course, he is enormously popular (I think probably the best selling author in the US, over the course of his career). You can buy his novels in supermarkets or in airport lounges. And almost everybody who reads recreationally has read something by him at some time. Even if I believed his books weren't very good, the fact that he gets people who are not normally readers to pick up a book would be plenty of defense by itself for King. Except that, in addition to that, I actually do think that King is pretty good.

King sometimes lacks discipline and has page count can soar well above what is strictly necessary. However, compared to other superstar authors, his books contain well-drawn characters and contain often exquisite wordplay. And as someone who is infatuated with the horror genre, his novels have the ability to give me goosebumps better than anyone else I've read. The Stand may well one day be regarded as a classic. Cujo is a model of lean efficiency without any resorting to supernatural events. And his stories excel in creating brightness and hidden horror of small towns; they burst with a blend of nostalgia and realism that I find winning.

But, to change directions again, Danse Macabre is a departure from any of King's other work. First, you will notice it is non-fiction. It is King's effort to evaluate the horror genre from 1950 to 1980 or so. He talks casually, but intelligently, about radio, television, films, and books. He talks about the archetypes of the genre, talks about how our fears are manifested in it, the roots of the horror story, and what some of his favorites are. It is not a book for the casual horror fan, since it delves at length into these topics, but I was enthralled. King has done his homework and produced a book that is essential for horror fans. The argument for how horror fiction can represent societal fears (be they political, cultural, economic, or something more primative yet) is of course not original to King, but he has layed it out more clearly than any other writer I've encountered.

The book is like an enjoyable, long talk with a knowledgable friend. Danse Macabre, the Dance of Death, has always occupied a place in human psyche. Here is a good primer for understanding the strange ways it has been expressed; here is a window into a part of ourselves we are afraid to see.

The GWB Center for Presidents Who Can't Read Good

I learned from this morning's Hotline that Karl Rove may be tasked with running President Bush's presidential library once it is completed. I ask you what kind of non-biased information is Karl Rove likely to include in his duty as library administrator? One can only imagine. Here's the link to the short and rather vague story:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2007/6/17/big-hitters-steer-bush-legacy-plan.html

("What is this...a center for ants!?!?" I like to imagine W saying that line.)

Homework Assignment

The invaluable Max Sawicky (he of Maxspeak! fame) has an insightful article posted at TPM Cafe about what goals the left should be pursuing electorally and practically, with an eye especially on ending the war, the sooner the better. Recommended reading:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/10/hows_your_romance

A Return at Long Last

Predictably, the posting schedule here has been, shall we say, erratic, at best. But I'm ready to make another go at semi-regular updates, provided I can think of things to mention or rip off from some other site.

Today I thought I would take the relatively easy route of talking about a book I recently read, something which maybe I'll do more frequently, because at least that's more interesting than what's on CNN. The potboiler I had in mind was Tom Daschle's book, Like No Other Time. I am one of the seven people who bothered to read this one. Normally I wouldn't pick up a book by a politician because, well come on. They're horrible; badly written, full of meaningless, non-offensive, uplifting rhetoric, and having little to no original insight into any problem facing the nation. Daschle's isn't appreciably different from a normal politician's book, but it is particularly interesting to me because of my interest in SD politics. So I bite the bullet on this one.

It came out in 2003, when Daschle was still in the Senate, a serious drawback. If it was written after his defeat, then maybe he could have afforded a few more risky remarks. The subtitle is something like "the 107th Congress and How it Changed America Forever." This is of course hyperbole, but it is true that the years 2000-2002 were politically turbulent. Among the events covered in the book are the 2000 election, Jim Jeffords switching of parties (and the change in control of the Senate that resulted), 9/11, the anthrax attacks on Daschle's office, the build up to the Iraq War, and the disasterous outcome of the 2002 elections for the Democrats. So there's plenty of material for the book to cover.

As I mentioned, Daschle isn't really free to talk about these subjects due to the fact that he's still in office and up for re-election the year after this book was published. The heat that the book generates comes simply from learning a bit more about his personal relations with other members of the Senate and from understanding what 9/11 and the anthrax attacks looked like from his POV while they were occurring. The 9/11 chapter is interesting, but doesn't really say anything new about the attacks. However, the anthrax chapter is easily the best part of the book. While I knew that anthrax had been sent to Daschle's office not long after 9/11, I hadn't realized how serious that event had really been. Reading the chapter made me understand how lucky his staff were that none of them were killed. There were postal service mail carriers who died from just handling similar anthrax letters; some Daschle staffers were exposed to amounts of anthrax that were hundreds of times larger than a potentially lethal dose, yet in the end there were no fatalities from his office. This chapter is riveting at times and enlarged my understanding and appreciation of the importance of this event.

The book is at its weakest in the closing chapters, when meakly defending the Democrats vote in favor of authorization of the war, yet trying to be critical of the handling. It is full of the sort of vacillation that I've come to expect from Democrats on this issue, and not convincing. I expect that if Daschle were writing this now, out of office and a few years removed from the decision to go to war, he would be much harsher on himself and others who made that terrible vote.

In the end the book was worthwhile to me only because of my particular interest in SD politics, and I can understand why it was never widely read nationwide. It is more or less what you would expect--overly cautious, in much the same way that Senator Daschle was too often overly cautious during his time as party leader.