Lilacs Out of the Dead Land, What Are You Reading? Spring 2022

Will Sergeant Bunnyman
Just read the first couple of chapters so he's still a young child i think. He's gone to school and things but not got much further than that.
I just listened to his appearance on Curious Creatures the podcast done by Lol Tolhurst and Budgie which seems to be a good one.

The music of Africa J. H. Kwabena Nketia,
not really started this yet but got it from the library yesterday. 1974 book on African music and its history. Should be good, I think i had it recommended or at least cited by Paul Gilroy.

Soldaten Sonke Neitzeld and harald Welzer
Just been reading some tales told by captured Luftwaffe pilots about how they enjoyed shooting bullets at people . & targeting ships and things. The writers/editors have compared their descriptions as analogous to video game players. With a similar level of dismissal of collateral damage, like it has no effect on them and is actually something they enjoy doing. I think this book probably gets a lot more scary, examples given in the introduction would certainly suggest so.

I finished FOUNDATION & EMPIRE. I don't like the turn that this book takes c. halfway through, and don't feel greatly encouraged about reading Vol 3, but have started that already and will get through it.

Part of my reason for dislike is something that will sound deeply old-fashioned or unsophisticated, at best, to most. That is, I felt that this SF novel veered off track through factors that weren't really 'SF' or 'scientific' enough. A 'mutant' takes over the galaxy due to his unique powers of mind control. But there is no explanation of who 'mutants' are, why they arise, or why this particular mental capacity would emerge (in just one being in the galaxy?). We're in superhero territory at best. The effect is somewhat like 'magic', and thus, to me, a somewhat unhappy blend of 'SF' and 'fantasy'.

This view, I again realise, will not be respected by many readers, including SF experts, but it is part of my intuitive response to this book. I think this response is actually analogous to the old Detection Club rule that mysteries should never have supernatural solutions. This demonstrates the tendency of SF and detection to share 'cognitive' (Suvin) bases, though in reality I am aware that large amounts of SF do not, and most of the science in SF is, almost by definition, speculative or imaginary.

One more notable feature: after all my complaints about the extreme lack of women in these books, the one I mentioned, Bayta, actually turned out to be a heroine who was the strongest, most independent figure and took the final decisive action. A considerable turnaround by Asimov's standards.

Pinefox, I'm slightly surprised you haven't really said anything about Asimov's actual prose style ...

so bad it's not even prose iirc

Heh. Lots of dull exposition and drab dialogue punctured by plenty of sf-style minced oaths iirc. I believe Martin had something to say about this on more than one occasion.

Think I meant to say punctuated by but punctured kind of works too I guess.

Destroy Asimov (worst prose in SF, which is going some), Doc Smith (unless you are under 14).

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (nineteen years ago) link

You don’t need to read this whole thing, since I excepted this best part for you.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/244773/why-does-the-protagonist-of-asimovs-caves-of-steel-exclaim-jehoshaphat-inste

You might wish to note that this is a technique frequently used by Asimov. Specific examples include;

The Foundation Trilogy:- "Space!", "By Space!" "Great Space!", "Good Galaxy!", "By the Galaxy!", "He went space knows where" in place of "God"
End of Eternity: "Time!" or "By Time!" in place of "God"
Reason (Robot Short Story) - "“Oh, Jupiter, a robot Descartes." in place of "Jesus",
etc

The 'Galaxy!' stuff doesn't work well for me, but I love the way that the two astronauts in I, ROBOT say 'Sizzling Saturn !!'.

A character in FOUNDATION & EMPIRE repeatedly uses the word 'unprintable' in place of an expletive.

I would say that the FOUNDATION books are workmanlike as narrative, sometimes clumsy or awkward, very occasionally and tenuously reaching for something more lyrical (about space). But I, ROBOT is better: clear, crisp, functional, rational, getting complex ethical dilemmas and the like across.

Also true that in FOUNDATION there is much bad expository dialogue ie: a character summarises something and the other character says "This is well understood. What of it? Go on!"

im also going to start saying that

great space! this is well understood. what of it? go on!

almost like it's well understood but go on king I guess

By Hammer Time!

By Space Ghost!

By Spacely’s Sprocket!

The effect is somewhat like 'magic'

any sufficiently advanced technology etc etc, which iirc was pointed out in the first book

i agree that the mule’s advent doesn’t bear too much scrutiny, but of course the story is much less about him than how The Plan will respond to him. (that doesn’t bear much scrutiny either tbh, but disbelief has to be suspended somewhere)

Thought that saying was attributed to ACC, iirc.

Anyone read Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor? Just picked it up for my wife and I'm wondering if it's too bleak for her

xp it is

Prose Stylist

Some famous terrible prose writers: Isaac Asimov is unspeakably bad, tin-eared and clumsy and ugly. I love Dick (haha yes okay), but he's sometimes bad. Sinclair Lewis was stiff and dull, but not as rotten as Dreiser. Barbara Cartland is much worse than you even imagine she would be.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 8 September 2002 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

Whole posts is worth reading though, since he also says who he thinks is good.

posts

Any discussion of Bad Writing increases the already high incidence of typos for some unknownobvious reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzlK0OGpIRs

I would say that the FOUNDATION books are workmanlike as narrative, sometimes clumsy or awkward, very occasionally and tenuously reaching for something more lyrical (about space). But I, ROBOT is better: clear, crisp, functional, rational, getting complex ethical dilemmas and the like across.

No prob w Dreiser's prose in the Library of America omnibus of Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and 12 Men. Haven't read any more of him, and maybe I hit it lucky/am too permissive. No problem with PKD either, though I've read a lot more of his.

Think I pretty much enjoyed the trilogy when I was 10, incl. not feeling in awe of/intimidated by the grown-up's prose. Pretty sure he was trying to please my demographic (I was mostly reading comics at the time), and all that "By the Galaxy!"" was part of it, even though I could read "son of a bitch!" and "Tell him to get his ass down here" in Galaxy magazine, in gen. audience contexts usually not too hard for 10-year-old mind to grok.

The Golden Age of By Galaxy Time is ten.

pinefox: i was happy to read your thoughts on the foundation series -- i'm still a great fan of the original three books, despite their flaws. i don't mind the clunky dialogue (someone on ilx once suggested that all the characters talked a little bit like mr burns), and i honestly don't remember the descriptive writing being too bad (plain and non-flashy, certainly).

iirc, asimov wrote the later novels at his publisher's urging, and i struggle to remember much about them. he seems to have lost interest in fiction in the mid-50s and spent most of the rest of his career writing, well, every other type of book: limerick collections, autobiographies (at least three of these), an annotated gilbert and sullivan. if halley's comet was due to return, you could bet there would be a book out that year called "ASIMOV'S GUIDE TO HALLEY'S COMET." (that very book has been at the used bookstore down the street for years, but i've resisted the urge to buy it so far.) apparently one of his goals was to get at least one book in every category of the dewey decimal system.

Whole posts is worth reading though, since he also says who he thinks is good.

I finished Prisoners of Geography, which had a few good points about it, but the less said about it the better.

I am now reading a pop history of the US Dust Bowl in the 1930s, The Worst Hard Times, Timothy Egan. As popular history it is exemplary. Egan finds and tells the stories of individuals, families and various small towns which lends human scale and emotional resonance to the history he wants to convey, then surrounds these small scale stories with the larger context of US homesteading, WWI, frontier capitalism, the mechanization of farming, and patterns of immigration. He also writes very 'punchy' prose without getting too gaudy to be readable. It works the way it is designed to work and delivers a large amount of information in a painless, engaging fashion.

this list he posts of good stylists is senior year of high school type stuff, not terribly interesting imho. also all men .

I don’t object to authors being problematic, I just object to a list of dead white dudes who are part of an English language canon (and have been for 50+ years in some cases) being construed as interesting when it comes to style. I agree with his choices, but just don’t think they’re very interesting ones! Not trying to pick on you, I am just a little confused by what you wrote.

tbh I really only care that the dead white dude, whose taste in sf was always interesting to me, posted about M. John Harrison, who is still around and still a dude but maybe can still write too. But yeah, looking at the list again, your point is fair enough.

I don’t object to authors being problematic, I just object to a list of dead white dudes who are part of an English language canon (and have been for 50+ years in some cases) being construed as interesting when it comes to style. I agree with his choices, but just don’t think they’re very interesting ones! Not trying to pick on you, I am just a little confused by what you wrote.

_I don’t object to authors being problematic, I just object to a list of dead white dudes who are part of an English language canon (and have been for 50+ years in some cases) being construed as interesting when it comes to style. I agree with his choices, but just don’t think they’re very interesting ones! Not trying to pick on you, I am just a little confused by what you wrote._


tbf this post from twenty years ago is more about addressing the topic of that thread than it is about coming up with an “interesting” list of names of authors

The post, not the list, was construed as “worth reading” because it mentioned good prose as well as bad

Citing Wodehouse as an example of good prose is no more interesting than citing Asimov as an example of bad, I agree, I just think you’ve focused on the wrong part unless you are just heavily invested in the interestingness of citations of authors

I finished Jenny Erpenbeck's 'Go, Went, Gone'. Really, depressingly good on the refugee situation in Europe, and as I said above good at making one feel guilty for one's comfortable life. Hugely and rightfully scornful of the enormous abrogation of responsibility that is the Dublin regulation. Very simple prose that occasionally startles you with an image e.g. 'For a moment, this thought opens its jaws wide, displaying its frightening teeth'.

Now started Lethem's 'Gun, with Occasional Music'. I wasn't expected such a brazen Chandler pastiche, will see if it overstays its welcome - it's fairly short at least.

It's still as good as almost any book he's written.

Finsihed Will Sargent's Bunnyman which has me hoping he gets the 2nd volume finished soon. He stops just after De Freitas has been recruited though not sure how taht works if he was still aschoolfriend of a friend in a Somerset boarding school. Though since everybody else is like 19 or 20 maybe this wasa couple of years after taht anyway.
Really enjoyed this. So do definitely want more.
I caught teh City Lights webinar book launch thing of this and Bobby Gillespie's memoir and wonder if that is remotely worth a look.
Like only reading about 15 books already.

Think I will have the combined bio of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and Miles Davis by the end of this week. Have already read a lot about Miles and far less about the other 2.

A combined bio of those three? What book is that?

Miles, Ornette, Cecil : how Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor revolutionized the world of jazz / Howard Mandel.
ISBN:
9780415967143 ((hbk.)(hbk.) :)0415967147 ((hbk.) :)

Forgot about that book.

Holy shit that Mandel book costs a fortune! Was hoping I could find a cheap copy somehow.

Can you really accept this guy as an authority on jazz?

https://e.snmc.io/i/600/s/12938adddf5d9510964c642ea31bece4/2115107/howie-mandel-fits-like-a-glove-Cover-Art.jpg

Lol. wrong thread maybe.

Stevo, have you read A.B. Spellman's Four Lives In The Be-Bop Business? Early scuffling years of Ornette, Jackie Maclean (still young, still in with the bop crowd, but emerging from long heroin detour), eternal outlier Herbie Nichols (already dead in'63, but with, to this day, still-underexposed, still striking music), Cecil Taylor, still scuffling as of this book's publication in 1966---from the NYTimes review then, not paywalled:

Spellman steers clear of the misty romanticism that often colors writing about the struggles of jazz musicians. He views these men with a perceptive and understanding eye, digging through the protective surfaces and telling much of their stories in skillfully edited direct quotations that have the ring and bite of reality.

His place on Taylor is a particularly provocative portrait of a thorny, adamant and penetrating individual with a delightfully mordant wit. It sums up much of the essence of the book. It is Taylor who provides Spellman with a microcosm of the endless, Job-like adversities that can follow an innovator through the contemporary jazz world. And it is Taylor's thoughtful analysis of the relation of European music to the cultural aspirations of the white American and the black American that clarifies not only for justification for "serious jazz" as opposed to jazz as entertainment but also the underlying reasons why he and other likeminded musicians persist in the face of alienation and frustration that are their steady lot.

30pp into Asimov's SECOND FOUNDATION (1953). Having been disillusioned with the tiresome Mule story in vol 2, and not keen on this character's domination at the start of vol 3, I'm nonetheless encouraged. Two space captains set off in search of the Second Foundation, in what feels rather like a malign and cold version of Lando & Chewbacca's search for Han Solo. Adventure and intrigue seem to await. The nature of the Second Foundation remains, at this stage, quite mysterious (no spoilers please).

Separately I've been been going back to Ted Hughes - not his own poetry, but critical work, notably Paul Bentley's socialist interpretation TED HUGHES, CLASS & VIOLENCE (2014), which can be compelling to read but which I also gradually realise is fanciful and strained. The CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO TED HUGHES (2011) is of some use. The LETTERS OF TED HUGHES (2007) seem more remarkable, in the way that only letters can be. Also dipped into Jonathan Bate's TED HUGHES: THE UNAUTHORISED LIFE (2015).

I was particularly seeking evidence of TH's political views in later years and these seem to be more interesting and mixed than I'd expected. He quite often fires off moments of disdain for the influence of Conservatism in Britain. On the other hand I suspect any sustained comment on the political Left would be equally negative.

I haven't read the Spellman no. Not sure what I've read on Taylor or Coleman outside of music press. Are they in As Serious As Your Life and the Freedom Principle? That may be it if so.

Rereading Franny and Zooey the first time since I was 16. Probably holds up better than any other loved object of teenagerdom that I’ve revisited.