Review: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (1987)

Look! It's a novel that's not speculative fiction! And more weirdly, it's a Kurt Vonnegut book that's not speculative fiction. Bluebeard is the "autobiography" of Rabo Karabekian, an Armenian painter who fights for the U.S. in World War Two, and later, by complete accident, becomes one of the richest artists in the world. He retires to a life of relative solitude and zany contemplations in the Hamptons of Long Island until a nosy widow named Circe invites herself over to his house, where she sets about discovering all of his secrets and helping him to wake up as a person.

On the surface, Vonnegut is just about the opposite of most of my favorite authors. His narrative flow is sporadic beyond belief, his characters are often clueless jackasses, and his language is coarse and irreverent. He breaks just about every rule I try to follow in my own writing.

And with this he makes masterpieces.

I've been told I've been lucky in my pick of Vonnegut novels so far. Four out of the first five I read were Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and The Sirens of Titan. He's not a man who can write consistently great books, or so they say. However, his inconsistency is a treat when he writes un-formulaic greats. More than anything, he knows he's telling a story, and every story he tells is bizarre and laughable in its own way.

I admit that Bluebeard exceeded my expectations mostly because my roommate Aaron told me it's one of Vonnegut's worse books. It really doesn't have the same punch as the books I mentioned above, but this doesn't make it too weak to read. Compared only to itself, it's worth the time.

To begin, Rabo is a rather strange narrator. He's looking back on his life, and his headstrong youth clashes with his style and outlook, which are overtly Vonnegut's. Rabo's parents are both survivors of the Turkish Armenian genocide, escaped to America by a series of accidents. His father makes cowboy boots, and I seem to remember his mother is a teacher, while young Rabo aspires to "higher art." He snags an apprenticeship with Dan Gregory, a world-famous artist in New York, and is later sent to war as a camouflage expert. After the war, he experiences an unhappy marriage and becomes a world-famous abstract artist. His career falls apart when his masterpieces literally fall apart due to a defect in the "miracle paint" he used, but he uses money he inherits from his second wife to become a hermit until the time of the story's outset.

I'm not spoiling a thing: Vonnegut announces all this within the first few pages. It's typical of him to spell out the entire frame of the plot, and then to carry the reader onward with the exciting details of how the protagonist got to each place. Accidents and coincidences far more common than logical conclusions.

There's another important thing that any Vonnegut reader knows: the book rides on its humor. Most important events are punctuated with remarks to the reader, like "What a haul!" and "Cancel my subscription!" Such gags are never lacking in Bluebeard. If anything, they're the most successful part of the book.

Aaron and I noticed another thing. I have a tendency to be hugely confused by any kind of social politics, cultural pride, stereotyping, and the like. This is probably a symptom of reading far too much Vonnegut. As unique as each of his books is, every one contains the message: "Why are we so caught up with forming teams against one another? Can't a person try to do good for everybody?" In my opinion, it's not a bad cry to rally around.

High Winds

They flap like geese and through geese

They flap, into trees, and these

Need be the breezes that flee

Through the holes in Swiss cheeses

With no one to show where they

Blow, nor to flow ever slower

And slower, not knowing

We go where they go, that we

Do what they do not in lieu

Of the clouds that surround their

High site with that blinding rich

White that their blinds never quite

Want to rain, want to paint all

In vain, ‘til it drains them of

Rue that they knew whence they blew.

Review: Thinner by Richard Bachman a.k.a. Stephen King (1984)

Thinner is about an overweight New England lawyer named Billy Halleck who accidentally kills a Gypsy woman with his car. The judge, a buddy of his, lets him off the hook, so the Gypsy's ancient father takes justice into his own hands and lays a curse that causes Billy to lose weight continually, no matter what he does or eats. Once he realizes what's happening, Billy has only a matter of time to catch up with the Gypsy caravan before he fades away to nothing...

So. I've only read one other Stephen King book: The Tommyknockers, written in 1987. There are some obvious similarities in plot structure. I can only suspect that King is a relatively formulaic writer. Something spooky happens to the protagonist, who takes a while to realize it. When the effects begin to show, King zooms out to explore the history of the story's quiet New England town, which reveals that while the town has deep roots, the curse/monster/alien/demon is older than the white Americans who live there. The spooky something happens to a few of the protagonist's friends, or perhaps many of them, and it affects them more quickly than it affects the protagonist. Emboldened by the possibility of stopping the horror, the protagonist departs on a quest to destroy the evil at its source.

My favorite part in the whole book was a giant lampshade was placed over the entire plot. Billy explains what he thinks is happening to his friend, who replies, "That sounds like the plot of a bad Stephen King book!" (Remember, the book was originally published under Richard Bachman.) Then Billy uses his knowledge of Stephen King trends to figure out who has been cursed and who hasn't.

King's idea to write as Bachman was an interesting one. He's always been an insecure person, and he wanted to know whether he had become a bestselling author by accident, or whether people were just publishing and reading his books because of his famous name. So he took up a pen name and continued writing. After a few books some fan connected the common parallels and figured it out, which probably doesn't say much for King's talent for variety. But I suppose the novelist who is the best at writing one way will sell more than the one who can write well in many genres.

The best thing I can say for Thinner is that it held my attention the whole time and even had me thinking about it at odd times after I had put it down. Its racial messages are rather weak and messy; I don't know that people treat Gyspies the way the townsfolk of Fairview do, and I'd be surprised if Gypsy curses are the root of all evil. But its discussion of blame and retribution is pretty good, and redeems most of the flaws.

One final note that struck me personally: when Billy begins to reach the range of 130 pounds or so (he starts at 249), the people he meets are appalled by his appearance and refuse to associate with him, treating him like a monster. Well, that's about my weight. I guess it's about time I went out looking for the Romani cult-master who did this to me for running over his dog with my bike.

Mirror Imagination: Yes, You

[This is an essay I did for Opus magazine in 2011. Hooray!]

            “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.”

–Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)

            Hark! Have you noticed that there are only two kinds of people who read fantasy? It’s a social mandate. No matter what you do, you’ll be ungraciously smushed into one mold or the other and, like it or not, you’ll come out the other end, stuck in the prescribed shape.

            The first of these literary cookie cutters takes the form of the “chill”, cultured guy who reads the occasional sword-and-sorcery saga in spite of the fact that it’s a community no-no. His friends admire his grace as he lowers himself to their level while enjoying The Lord of the Rings – or maybe something else.

            The other is a rock-bottom nerd with a neck-beard to rival that of Thoreau and whose facebook “friends” barely exceed his roommate, his dad, his roommate’s dad, and his youth minister’s dog. Neither of his actual friends (nor, in most cases, his imaginary dragon) has a facebook account.

            Of course none of this is true. Written history has beaten people over the head with evidence that distinguishes individuals from the mass of faces who believe they’re not unique. But it’s so easy to lump people together, even if it’s only to obtain a larger perspective. It’s what allows great thoughts to come through now and then. Philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, politics and statistics would be marooned in the ether without this practice, and each of these has provided definite benefits to humankind. So what’s a little stereotype among geeks, then?

            We all have a little something in common, at least in the form of language, culture and species genetics. If we didn’t, you might find this little harangue indistinguishable from the nutrition facts on your can of club soda. However, there’s no solid way to extend that to say what kind of person can or cannot appreciate fantasy literature.

            Take a look at all the pronouns in use so far. Women, this example shouldn’t surprise you. All right, men: try to picture a woman who’s enthusiastic about LeGuin, Pullman, or Lewis (or almost any fantasy author you know, but try not to use J.K. Rowling for this one). Got the image? Now visualize her wearing a sweater instead of that bikini or breastplate you just imagined. I hope it’s not too difficult. Instead of at a sci-fi convention or in a picture on the Internet, she’s at a coffee shop or beside her living room fireplace as she reads, her bookmark long forgotten. She’s just decided the bard is the most relatable character so far, but she thinks he’s up to something. After all, people like that exist in reality.

            No, it’s not only the white male who reads this stuff. Nor is it just the scrawny middle-schooler whose only social scene is the Scrabble club. In fact, with the right variety of culture that went into the books you choose, this genre is perfect for opening the mind and learning to relate to nearly anyone you meet. Fantasy was originally derived from mythology, and this doesn’t mean just Greek. Work your way up in a culture by enthralling yourself with its Buddha or its Osiris and see what came next and who reads it today. Simply point to any corner of the globe and you can dig up some speculative fiction that takes its roots from there. I promise it exists.

            At its heart, fantasy is about escaping reality for a little bit, but it doesn’t require real life to be all that bad. Anybody can appreciate it, given the right author. It’s a way to find a fresh change of scenery, to explore make-believe and real-world cultures, zany or terrifying characters, and hypothetical laws of physics that are downright incorrect and just as downright fun to imagine. After all, without an imagination, how can you decide what kind of person to be?

Chowder

[I wrote a sonnet! What's it about?]

A ruddy afternoon, dribbling post-vernal

Perspiration supersedes a whooping

Tempest some cerulean Mænads churned

To boil of reefy depths, a mollusk soup.

The leaping foam, fervent, discovers me,

All bundled up in sunscreen, trunks and skin.

Without a “do you mind,” the surly sea

Begins to serve up leftovers wherein

The guts of clams and other mollusks, nude,

Bombard me, a frenetic festival

The ocean musseled muscular construed

To drive me from its grumbles aestival.

Betimes when bored, and boogieing near the coast,

Eschew the waves; the deep’s a grouchy host.

Review: Daughter of Regals & Other Tales by Stephen R. Donaldson (1984)

This will be the first in what will probably become the most common feature of this blog: my opinion of anything and everything I happen to read. I must first point out that my very favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, are written by this same Stephen R. Donaldson. Although my opinion of Daughter of Regals stands on its own, the context can’t be ignored.

All this is a way to say that Daughter of Regals didn’t thrill me. 

The book is a collection of eight short stories, and so my opinion of it must be more complicated than “aye” or “nay.” The first two were actually quite good. “Daughter of Regals” is a political fantasy that’s both exciting and as intricate as a same-sized chunk of any of the Covenant books, meaning that every single detail is ultimately relevant to the story’s outcome. Other than a couple of ridiculous characters, it kept me interested for the whole ride. I couldn’t find any significant moral depth, but it was a good story.

“Gilden-Fire,” the second piece in the book, is an excerpt from The Illearth War, one of the Covenant books. Needless to say, it hooked me, but I can’t imagine approaching it without having read the First Chronicles. So I wouldn’t recommend it.

And the rest of the pieces were uninspired by comparison. To get an idea, they are as follows:

-"Mythological Beast" is set in a dystopian future where everyone has a job but nobody does any work. Every person is equipped with a "biomitter," a device built into the wrist that reads "You are OK" as long as he or she is "healthy." If you fall ill, the biomitter calls the hospital workers, who come and take you away. This doesn't work out very well when our main character begins to transform into a unicorn.

-"The Lady in White" is about an enchantress who captures, one by one, the men of a small village. This story's narrative style was uniquely obnoxious and difficult to read. I'll call it the worst of the set.

-"Animal Lover" is a pretty neat sci-fi story that involves cyborgs and genetic engineering. My favorite part is the fact that it's set in... well: "Here we were in the year 2011–men had walked on Mars, microwave stations were being built to transmit solar power, marijuana and car racing were so important they were subsidized by the government." All this is narrated by a gritty government agent with a laser cannon in his hand. I've been waiting for the day I could compare the present day to a sci-fi prediction (other than Nineteen Eighty-Four). In all honesty, the story succeeds in spite of this disconnection, making it one of my favorites. It's careful, complex, and energetic.

-"Unworthy of the Angel" has a story that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Donaldson, most of whose writing is rather atheistic, is attempting what he calls "religious fantasy," and it's apparent that he's outside of his comfort zone. However, he gets a lot of things right about the characterization of a guardian angel, and he hits many of the important points about the relationship between an artist and his work. I think the fantasy failed here but the philosophy held the story intact.

-"The Conqueror Worm" is a strange little horror story about what happens to a failing marriage when a large centipede attacks. I don't think I have to say any more.

-"Ser Visal's Tale" is about a fellow who becomes mixed up in the troubles of a witch who is abused by "The Temple." I tend to hate these kinds of stories for their obviousness and their attempts to be relevant and political. Of course we sympathize with the witch, because none of the other characters, especially the Templemen, are at all realistic as people. I'm also a little sour because the back cover told me this one "ends with a surprising twist." Surprise: it doesn't.

I suppose my lesson from this book is that mediocre fantasy is all over the place, and even the best writers can fall into it. A story, no matter what the genre, is made up of something to be said and a way of saying it. If these elements aren’t synchronized, the results are messy. If they are, then it’s a success. Genre isn’t something to be transcended; it’s always a means of reaching something that can’t be reached any other way.

Looking over my thoughts about this book, I've realized that it reflects, in a way, what I plan to do with this blog. It's a collection of short stories, not necessarily the author's best, all in one volume. The diversity makes it enjoyable, but there's also the reminder that even the cleverest writer has bad days. Years of constant practice are necessary just to produce one great book. When that happens, it shouldn't kill the writing spirit–as Donaldson explores early in Thomas Covenant's experience with leprosy–but it should be the peak in a process that is contained not only in the surviving text, but along the river of the author's life.

Heliotrope

[This is a poem I wrote for the 2012 edition of SUNY Geneseo's Opus magazine.]

Lowered these two trembling fingers

To a rippling slab of shale

And, at once in reckoning her,

Felt her pulse begin to fail.

Wept pollutant hued of bloodstone.

In her glad freshwater spring,

Tears of salt relinquished unknown

Shudders never more could sing.

Wanted only in that second

Opiate to numb her pain.

All her poppy buds unfecund

Wilt, aborted, scarlet stained.

Surged upright within that valley,

Vowing there to save her life.

Up her august breast did sally,

Limbs with verdant vigor rife.

Towered tall atop the apex,

Hurling prayers into the sun,

Helpless, supplicating ibex

Bled his brothers’ sins undone.

Fused intents with ultraviolet

Spurts to iron heart. Unwed

Flesh on rock became the pilot,

Witness to her aspen bed.

Could not countermand infections

Paved by asphalt knife, betrayed.

She was skinned of snow protection,

Salt in every lesion made.

Broke two fingers where she trembled,

Flailing thighs in final throes,

Capillaries disassembled,

Tributaries overflowed.

Watch headstone of chalcedony

Switched for stark cement and glass.

This too-mortal alimony

Never should have come to pass.

Welcome!

Like anything else, this blog is the result of a few accidents of technology and someone with too much time on his hands. After several misadventures involving self-publishing and college literary magazines, I approached one of my professors and asked him how to go about publishing in a more efficient way. He looked me in the eye and uttered two sage words: "Start bloggin'."

 Blogging as a whole was probably inevitable, because everyone has a certain amount of pent-up energy burning to be shared with anyone who will listen. This blog will be semi-organized and will have a strong literary theme. The word “blog” is a natural abbreviation of “web log,” but that doesn’t make it any less hilarious.

Here I’ll be writing short reviews of books I read, as well as some of my own original writing. I have a strong affinity toward fantasy. I think it’s less of an escapism complex than a general disregard for the difference between realism and speculation.

The title is ripped off of something G. K. Chesterton once said: “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” That is, there are no rules here. It could become anything!

If you want a practical reason for reading this blog, use it to flatter me so you can then steal my wallet. Tell all your friends!