recommended reading

Last I checked, we were due for a full review of Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut; another full review of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which I've finally, finally finished; and first impressions of The Reivers by William Faulkner. So let's get to it, shall we?

I didn't like Slaughterhouse-Five. It was well-written, somewhat humorous, gorily real, and relentlessly bleak. It had all the elements of a truthful war novel. World War II and the fire-bombing of Dresden are central to the story, but the book itself concerns the life of one Billy Pilgrim, a hapless dentist, attempting to live his life and not being allowed to. But this is a science-fiction novel. Vonnegut being Vonnegut, there were some wild cards thrown in. Pilgrim lives his life: he's a child; begins going to dentistry school; enters the military in World War II; is captured by the Germans; is death-marched through snow and crammed into a cattle car with dozens of other P.O.W.s; is taken to Dresden, Germany; stuck in a disused (and titular) slaughterhouse; is therefore one of the few to survive the bombing; emerges into the ruined city a free man (the guards were killed); lives a dull-as-dishwater life in 1950s America; is kidnapped by an alien race from the planet Tralfamadore, which exhibits him in a zoo with another Earthling, a captured female porn star; and is finally assassinated by a laser blast in a balkanized 1976 America.

But he doesn't do it in that order.

Billy has become "unstuck in time," meaning that he flashes back and forth between moments of his life with no apparent rhyme or reason. One minute, he'll be making love to his porn-star mate in the zoo on Tralfamadore; the next, he'll be sitting in the snow in Germany in 1944, under the watchful eye of his captors; next, enthusiastically giving a speech on flying saucers moments before his death.

Needless to say, this made for a rather challenging read. Slaughterhouse-Five is the apotheosis of anti-war novels. Vonnegut pulls no punches in his portrayal of character, action, and thought in armed conflict. The cruelty, deprivation, brutality and insanity of warfare are put under halogen lamps and dissected in detail.

Vonnegut also eviscerates the jingoism he perceived behind the American war effort. He accomplishes this with a character called Roland Weary. Weary, a loud-mouthed and violent soldier, holds nothing but contempt for apathetic, timid Billy. He continuously chivvies and ridicules Billy, blaming him for their separation from the main force and their subsequent capture. He inflates himself, brags loudly of his war exploits, and is full of talk and bluster and false heroism. It does him no good. After his capture, the Germans confiscate Weary's boots and replace them with wooden clogs, which lacerate his feet over the course of many miles. Weary eventually dies from gangrene in the cattle car en route to Dresden, cursing Billy's name. With his last breath, he convinces another P.O.W., a short, skinny and profane man named Lazzaro, that he must kill Billy in retaliation.

The book contains a larger lesson about perspective and consequence, apart from its anti-war sentiments. The Tralfamadorians are a perceptive race. They can see in four dimensions: height, width, depth, and time. They can perceive past, future, and present as an uninterrupted continuum, and thus know the consequences and repercussions of all events. Vonnegut compares it to looking at a mountain range. Whereas a human might only see one mountain, the Tralfamadorians can see all the mountains in the range, stretching away to either horizon. Therefore, they are as fatalistic as fatalistic can be. There is no preventing or altering the course of events; one must simply accept them. The aliens have even foretold the annihilation of the universe (a result of a one of their own scientific experiments), but have made no effort to prevent it. The Tralfamadorians believe that, after death, beings continue to live in other times and places, and thus they are indifferent about death. Their stock answer to the phenomenon is "So it goes."

As you may imagine, the text of the novel is saturated with the phrase "So it goes."

Any morals or conclusions to be made at the end of Slaughterhouse-Five (or what we might reasonably call the end) are left to the reader. The anti-war message is clear, but we are never given the impression that Vonnegut is really trying to get us to stop killing each other. He was a satirist, after all. He had one goal, and it was the same as a court jester's: to show us our own folly by crafting some of his own. He was not out to proselytize; he instructed us by showing us what not to do. We could take it or leave it as we pleased. That was one of the (few) things I appreciated about the book: the rationale behind Vonnegut's stance. He was anti-war before it was cool. He was not a hippie, or anti-American, or a member of a subversive, idealistic, ignorant counterculture. He was anti-war because he'd actually been in a war. The book was based (however loosely) on his experiences as a soldier in World War II. He was actually captured. He was held in a slaughterhouse in Dresden. He did witness the firestorm that consumed the city. And he was soul-scarred by the loss of his friends and his exposure to death. That I can respect.

As for the matter of perspective...well, Billy's woefully blinkered lifestyle is as much a quiet warning as a half-fictitious tragicomic romp. Vonnegut's point, as near as I could make out, was that we must take extra care in making choices which direct our lives, for we are unable to see the consequences of those actions. Whoever signed the orders for the bombing of Dresden had little idea that he was consigning thousands of German civilians to a hellish death. (Or worse, perhaps he did.) On the other hand, thanks to his being "unstuck in time," Billy Pilgrim knew full well that lecturing on flying saucers in Chicago in 1976 would get him killed. And yet he went and lectured anyway. He felt people needed to know about the Tralfamadorians, and what they could see. Maybe Vonnegut felt the same way.

I've as much to say (if not more) about Little Women. I'd hate to bore you, though. The book bears out the impressions I spoke of before. At every turn, I was gobsmacked by how true-to-life Alcott's characters and situations are, even 142 years after the book was written. Her descriptions of young love are dead-on, down to the last flutter of the heart. The tragedies of losing a loved one seem distant at times, but only because of Alcott's proper and literate style—the emotion is there, and utterly real. The ups-and-downs of physical separation, unrequited love, leaving the nest, and ultimately finding one's way in the world are all luridly described. The novel is a paean to the half-painful, half-joyous transition from childhood to adulthood. A truthful paean, no less. That's where the eminence and success of this book lies (as Louisa would've been the first to tell you)—realism. Her characters seem real. The feelings are real. The happenings are real, no matter how trivial. From the tiniest vignette to the most earth-shaking revelation, there is never an instant when the reader sits back and thinks, "Nah, that'd never happen."

I finished the book with the impression that I'd just read an epic. I'd become immersed in the credible, whimsical, familiar world which Alcott had molded with such subtle mastery. I'd followed these characters—motherly Meg, flyaway Jo, gentle Beth, preening Amy, swashbuckling Laurie—through years of trials, hardship, suffering, triumph, achievement, realization, and maturation. I'd witnessed the four girls growing up, right before my eyes. Such a simple thing, and yet so truthfully depicted as to make a brave man weep. I was never sure where the story would go next, nor how it would end. But I knew everybody would keep on plugging away. Eventually, they'd win through—and learn something in the process.

And despite the complete lack of explosions, gunfire, evil wizards, time warps, black holes, airplanes, monsters, pirate ships, derring-do, or any other requisite normally needed to hold my attention...I was hooked from Chapter One. Alcott herself is an honorable blend of Mark Twain and Aesop. She appends each episode in the life of the March girls with a valuable lesson. Jo chooses quality over popularity in her novel-writing; Amy learns that true happiness comes from piety, humility, and service to others, not in mirrors and ribbons and furbelows; Meg discovers the timeless mystery of balancing children, husband and household; Laurie, with the girls' help, evolves from a rambunctious dilettante to a productive, upstanding, useful man. These transformations were a joy to witness—inspiring, vivifying, electrifying, as much for their believability (and the lessons taken from them) as the delightful way in which they were told.

In short, I really cannot praise this book highly enough. It is, to my mind, what a novel should be: an exploration of the human condition; a tale of realistic protagonists under challenging circumstances, learning and developing and changing as they go; a vivid world, depicted clearly and brightly, worth spending time in; a sentiment expressed, a belief expounded, food for thought; and a rollicking good story besides. Little Women fits the bill to a T.
And so we come to The Reivers, my first taste of Faulkner. It's 1905. Mississippi. A womanizing part-Indian, an under-scrupulous black retainer, and Huck-Finn-gone-bad are heading for a Memphis brothel. It's a trip, says the back cover, "that makes LSD seem tame." Now, this oughta be rather interesting, too.

recommended reading

Hadn't realized it, but I've gotten into a pattern here with these literature posts. I talk about one book that I've finished, another book that I'm in the middle of, and a third that I'm just beginning. This strikes me as a brilliant way of doing things. Not only do I get to stick three book reviews in one post, but after three posts I'll have deftly reviewed a single book in its entirety. I am the man. I wish I could say I'd planned to do things that way. I am the (accidental) man. Anyway, straight into it: I finished The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. You remember how I said this guy was supposedly a genius? Forget the "supposedly" part. I've never read a book like this. It was beyond excellent, beyond mind-blowing, a masterwork of social commentary, intricate plot-weaving, and jaw-dropping speculative science fiction. Gosh, where do I begin? I know, we'll start with the title. It's a quote from a dramatic play by German playwright and poet Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans: "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." One of the major themes of The Gods Themselves is stupidity, the selfish stubbornness of people who enjoy the status quo and would rather go on living their comfortable lives than face up to reality. What reality is that, you ask? A few years after our time, science made an accidental discovery. Some old cobalt shavings that had been left moldering in a test tube suddenly and mysteriously transformed themselves into tungsten. There was no logical reason why cobalt (in a sealed test tube) should transform into tungsten. Moreover, it was an isotope of tungsten that could not possibly exist in our universe: it had an unstable number of electrons that should have forced the tungsten atoms to explode in mere nanoseconds. But it didn't. This strange happenstance led humankind to a startling revelation: beings in a universe adjacent to our own, a para-universe, had somehow perfected a technique whereby the electrons from one universe could be transferred into another, and vice-versa. Not only that, but the scientific laws which govern the behavior of matter in the para-universe may also be transferred, and vice-versa. This not only allowed our cobalt to be turned into their (the para-men's) tungsten, but for that tungsten to remain viable in our universe instead of exploding. Thus the Electron Pump was born: a source of limitless free energy, whereby electrons were shuttled back and forth between universes, freeing humanity of fossil fuels and deprivation forever. The man on whose desk those old cobalt shavings had once sat (named Hallam) was elevated to godlike status, and the Pump enabled humans to drop their petty concerns about food and energy and instead focus on higher pursuits. But a dark shadow looms over this newborn utopia, a terrible truth: the strange natural laws seeping from the para-universe into our own will cause our sun to explode. What's worse, only three people have realized it: an outcast Earth scientist, an emotional alien on a dying planet, and a Moon-born intuitionist. And honestly, who is going to believe them? Who will be willing to set aside the benefits and bonuses of the Electron Pump and listen to their seemingly harebrained theorems? How will these three misfits ever overcome the complacent stupidity of the people around them? The trials, tribulations, and terrors of these three individuals as each tries to save Earth are worth reading about. This is an amazing book, as I've said before. Asimov was intimately familiar with the science of which he wrote, and he writes it with authority and straightforwardness, without over-simplification. What's more, he was a brilliant writer, able to interweave three delightfully unique and complex plots into one cohesive story. His writing is perhaps best, however, because it smacks so heavily of the truth: people really can be this stupid. People can and routinely do shut their eyes to unpleasant truths and insist on plowing straight ahead, even while the ship sinks beneath them. (There's a further bit of cleverness manifested in the way Asimov orders his book's chapters, but I won't mention that here. You'll just have to read and see.) The Gods Themselves has cemented my love of Isaac Asimov, and pushed me even further down the dark road to Golden Age science fiction. Even if you're not the biggest sci-fi fan, read this book. You won't soon regret it. It's a damn good read. Speaking of plowing straight ahead, I am continuing my slog through Little Women. I say "slog" not because it's an unpleasant read—far from it—but rather because the book itself is longer than any I've read in a while. It's taking me a long time to get through it, especially when I have things like The Gods Themselves lying around (sue me). I've progressed through four little vignettes, each concerning one of the March girls. I read with delight about Beth's battle with her fear of old Mr. Laurence, and her joy in playing the big piano in his conservatory, and the touching friendship that developed between the two. I read about poor little Amy's humiliating school day, regarding some contraband pickled limes and a stuffy schoolmaster. Heart pounding, I read about Jo's mean-spirited treatment of Amy, her immediate remorse when Amy fell through the ice (yikes!) and Mrs. March's tender and magnanimous bedtime advice. I read about Meg's trip to see friends, and the airs she put on, and the lessons she took from being a poor girl with a good family. I also read, chuckling, about the Pickwick Club and the joint March-Laurence post office. This book has ensnared me, mind and soul. It's enchanting, not only for the funny stories, the emotional warmth to the characters, their loving relationships with each other, and the age-old trials of adolescence...but also for its sheer simplicity. That's one of the greatest things about Alcott's writing, in fact. It's just so dang simple. She just tells the story. Her diction might be a bit erudite for children these days (which isn't a bad thing), but that's not important. The simple joke that Jo and Laurie play on the Pickwick Club (Laurie hiding in the closet, listening to the Club debate about his own membership); the description of the Moffets' dance (girls fluttering about like butterflies, boys making fools of themselves), the schoolmaster Mr. Davis "suppressing a private post-office" (stopping the students from passing notes)...all of it is so funny, so real, so true, so heartwarming, so familiar...and yet so simply described. It's a joy to read. I really can't wait to see where this goes. It's enrapturing already. And I imagine it's only going to get better. Just wait until that post office in between the Laurence and the March houses starts carrying love letters... So, we have science fiction, historical fiction...what's a good way to top that off? Well, how about some more historical fiction? I've begun reading The Epic of Gilgamesh. Not quite what you were expecting, right? I'm reading it for research purposes (my novel has a great deal to do with ancient Sumer and Akkad; it's historical science fiction, after all). But I'm also reading it for fun. I know next to nothing about Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, and the roots from which these first civilizations sprang. And I love mythology. So it seemed like the oldest mythological piece in recorded history (and one of the oldest surviving writings of any kind at 4,000 years old) seemed a good place to begin. First, some background. There's some debate about who this Gilgamesh dude really was. Some say he was a real historical figure, a Sumerian king. Others say he was a god. The Epic of Gilgamesh says (c) both. It claims Gilgamesh was two-thirds god, one third-man, and ruled over the Sumerian people with an almighty fist. But he wasn't an ideal king. In fact, he had some rather glaring personality flaws. He liked to sleep around, even with newlywed brides. He got so promiscuous that the Sumerians prayed to the gods for help. So the gods created a wild-man, Gilgamesh's equal in strength, named Enkidu. They set him to run with the wolves in the forests and share his life with beasts. One of Gilgamesh's distraught subjects, on advice from the gods, takes the prostitute Shamhat and brings her to Enkidu. She and Enkidu get it on, and then (lo and behold) Enkidu suddenly is civilized. He can talk, think, and reason. Shamhat brings him to a caravan and has the shepherds train him in the ways of men: how to wear clothes and work for a living. Then she, the townsman, and Enkidu travel back to Gilgamesh's capital, Uruk. I'm reading Andrew George's translation of the standard Akkadian version, which is made up of twelve tablets. The original Sumerian version and the later Akkadian version differ in few respects, one of which is the way they refer to Gilgamesh himself. The original begins with the words "Surpassing all other kings..." whereas later versions refer to Gilgamesh as "He who saw the deep." Now, isn't that something you'd like carved on your tombstone? I'm about one tablet in, just starting on the second. The book itself is in the library right now, because I had to return it, but I'll run down and get it later today. Later, Enkidu and Gilgamesh will have a big fight, and become friends, and go on all sorts of hair-raising quests and whatnot. Enkidu will teach Gilgamesh some worldly lessons, and both will become better men for it. Ultimately, Gilgamesh will stare death in the face, and the question of humans and immortality will be decided. I can't wait. I'm ever so glad I have the time now to read for pleasure. It's gotten me back in touch with my literary side, my wordsmith side, my inner bibliophile whose version of Heaven is a never-ending library. And it seems like everything I pick out to read these days is worth reading. I don't know if it's because I know what I like, or because I'm easy to please, or what. But whatever the reason, I'll take it. I'll read anything if I think I can learn from it. The Gods Themselves not only proposed that stupidly clinging to the status quo is bad, but it also imparted some good lessons about truth and reality in science fiction writing. It reassured me that, with the proper application of knowledge and literary skill, science fiction is a credible literary genre. Little Women has taught me so many good life-lessons that it'd be impossible to reprint them all here. On a larger scale, the work gently informed me that writing doesn't have to be grandiose, sublime, or complex in order to be good. And The Epic of Gilgamesh is teaching me that all fables are parables, and human myths tell us something about ourselves...even if we do not last forever, the wisdom we garner in a lifetime does. It also showed me that, right from the very start, people valued literary artistry and integrity (and sex). Judge for yourself whether that constitutes a "worthwhile" read.

recommended reading

I finally waded through the last few nebulous chapters of the Zen-heavy Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyū Munenori. Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings was thickly pocked enough with Shinto and Zen Buddhism; there were times when I could barely understand it. With Munenori, I felt like I understood practically zilch.

That's unsurprising, seeing as how Munenori wrote that "Those who have not studied Zen will find this difficult to understand" about five pages before the end of the book. Thanks, Yagyū. I'd pretty much figured that out already. I won't summarize the book here, nor opine about it. I did that the last time. However, I do wish to amend my previous views on Munenori himself. I said before that I found him to be a shadowy reflection of Musashi, a spoiled, privileged drone of the shogunate. I take it back. Munenori earned his wings in combat, and was no less deserving of them than Musashi. It just took me a while to figure that out from the somewhat stilted way Munenori wrote. For those who are unfamiliar with the topic of discussion, I've been reading a couple of books by medieval Japanese sword masters. These two works, The Book of Five Rings and The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War, are both heralded by competent authorities as quintessential works on the subject of Japanese swordsmanship. They blend practical advice and spiritual guidance seamlessly, in true Japanese style. Furthermore, the advice given is so straightforward and sensible that many today view these works as manuals on how to succeed in life and business, not merely martial arts. They are still read and reread all over the world, hundreds of years after they were written. To put it bluntly, anyone wishing to learn more about Japanese culture, martial arts, or spiritual beliefs should read these books. With a little imagination, you can take what's presented in them and construe it as some no-nonsense counsel on how to live. Do as you will. I've also finished Black Elk Speaks. Remember? It's an account of the multifaceted life of a holy man of the Oglala Sioux tribe, written by John G. Neihardt in 1932. I just used the word "of" three times in one sentence. I rock. I wrote before that this man, Black Elk, who grew up right in the middle of the Indian Wars, saw and did some amazing stuff. I was whistlin' Dixie. He fought in the Battle of the Little Bighorn as a teenager. (He and his tribe refer to it as "the rubbing-out of Long Hair," Long Hair being the Indian nickname for George Custer.) He resisted the attacks and lies of the white men and the U.S. Army until the very end, even after Sitting Bull had fled to Canada and Crazy Horse had given himself up. All the while, he was discovering his spiritual powers. Black Elk claims that he was visited with a vision when he was a very small boy, during which he fell into a twelve-day coma. (Worried his family sick, it did.) In this vision, he saw the Six Grandfathers which rule over the world, and all the animals and birds and people of the Indian nations. In him was placed messianic power: the Six Grandfathers told Black Elk that he would save his nation and lead them to peace and prosperity, free of white control. It was only several years later, after he finally vouchsafed this vision to others (he kept it under wraps for a long time, worrying that people would think he was crazy if he revealed what he saw) that he became a shaman. He claims to have cured hundreds of sickness and injury, and to have been visited with many more visions, which he and the village elders acted out in ghost dances to transfer the power of the visions to the Sioux nation. But, of course, you and I both know what happened. Despite Black Elk's appointment as the Messiah, despite the prophecy that was made, the Sioux nation was herded onto reservations and left to live in little square huts for the duration of their lives. When Neihardt found Black Elk, he was a withered, saddened, broken old man, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Black Elk had failed in his duties as a savior, and what's more, he knew it. Yet as he relates his life story (the book is written in first person, as translated by Black Elk's son and transcribed by Neihardt), Black Elk does not come across as misguided, pretentious, arrogant, flaky, or otherwise untrustworthy. He narrates simply and straightforwardly (rather like Miyamoto Musashi, only not so starkly forceful). He tells you what he saw, and what he believes it was. He makes no claims as to its truth or falsity. He does not try to convert the reader to his religion, nor convince him or her that his visions took place, and the power he was granted was real. He simply describes it. The book is tough to read. As time goes on, and it becomes less and less apparent that Black Elk will fulfill his destiny and bring victory and prosperity to a vanishing Indian nation, things just get sadder and sadder. Black Elk takes up arms again and fights during the massacre at Wounded Knee, but the memory of a frozen ditch lying full of the bodies of fleeing women and children scars him deeply. He eventually joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, travels to England, meets the Queen, and befriends a little French girl, who takes him home to show her family. That's quite some list of accomplishments for one old Indian. A titanic vision, shamanistic powers, journeys across the Western United States, Little Bighorn, Wounded Knee, England, the Queen...incredible. And a bit depressing, too. Though his time with Buffalo Bill abroad wasn't in itself unpleasant for Black Elk, watching this once-great shaman being reduced to an exhibit in a traveling circus was painful for me. In the end, as Black Elk says, the nation's sacred hoop lies irreparably broken. The people are scattered, decimated, hopeless. Black Elk himself is nothing but a feeble old man in a log cabin a few miles from a post office, telling his tale to a white man, who will preserve it with paper and ink. That's about all the man's life amounted to. But at least that's something. Black Elk was a good man. He never did a thing wrong in his life. Didn't have a mean bone in his body, either. If he killed our boys in the Indian Wars, it was only because he was trying to defend his people, his way of life, his home. He never wanted to kill the white men anyway, not until it became apparent that they couldn't be stopped otherwise. He just wanted his tribe to live like it always had, free, happy and unencumbered. I feel sorry for the guy. He told interesting stories, took his duty to nation and manhood seriously, and wasn't frivolous or stupid or greedy. Anyway, onto cheerier matters. I've read about five chapters of Little Women, and things are getting interesting. Jo has met and chummed up with the "Laurence Boy," for one thing. I can't wait to see where that goes. The Christmas holiday has ended and the two older girls have gone back to work, and in the process we've learned a little more about their characters, and their load. I say "load," because all four of the little women (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy), and their mother, Mrs. March, all have a heavy load to carry. The man of the house is off at war, so the mother and older sisters have had to find employment. The two younger girls must focus on their studies and assist with housework or other duties. All of them are hard-pressed not to think about how nice things were before Mr. March lost his fortune, and they had nice things, and never wanted anything, and didn't have to decide which of their dresses was the least shabby. I feel for the poor dears. That's about all I can say at the moment. I'm only a little ways in. I haven't bought any new books lately because my funds are becoming tight. Bartender's school, Christmas shopping and three flying lessons per week will do that to you. However, I did the stupid thing once again and picked up a seven-dollar paperback from Barnes & Noble. It's The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov.

Don't know who that is? Shame on you. Isaac Asimov is one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time, if not the greatest. He is renowned for his speculative works on artificial intelligence and automation. Robots, I mean. You know that awful Will Smith movie I, Robot that came out a while ago? Asimov wrote the book. The movie butchered the book, of course. Always happens. But the "Three Laws" mentioned in the film—the three cardinal rules that govern robot behavior absolutely—are Asimov's invention. My first soul-watering taste of Asimov's genius originated from an excellent science-fiction anthology called The World Turned Upside Down. Asimov's short story, The Last Question, is contained within it. That piece is also a mind-boggling, life-changing glimpse into the potential evolution of artificial intelligence. It's incredibly, sinfully good. It's as warped as 2001: A Space Odyssey, but worth the pondering headache. Read it. It'll completely blow your mind. That being said, however, The Last Question also made me realize that I am woefully behind on my Asimov. So I began to scout around for a convenient volume to obtain and digest. But I didn't know where to start. Asimov was a prolific writer. He wrote or edited hundreds of books, literally hundreds. Even Barnes & Noble, whose sci-fi selection is deplorable, has half a shelf devoted to his works. Given that Asimov wrote his stuff decades ago, that's saying something. My buddy John and I were walking through B & N the other day and, of course, our first stop was the sci-fi section. John was scoping out a book by Orson Scott Card (another well-known and prolific writer). I mentioned my Asimov dilemma to him. John took a look at the shelves, and then said emphatically, "You know, I've heard that The Gods Themselves is an incredible book." John has it on good authority. His father, an English teacher, has a massive book collection, which includes virtually every original printing of every novel by all of the great Golden Age science fiction writers: Heinlein, van Vogt, Campbell, and of course, Asimov. So there you go. I plucked the book off the shelf, bought it, and brought it home, where it is now sitting pertly and seductively on my nightstand.

Here is what the synopsis on the back cover says:

In the twenty-second century Earth obtains limitless, free energy from a source science little understands: an exchange between Earth and a parallel universe, using a process devised by the aliens. But even free energy has a price. The transference process itself will eventually lead to the destruction of Earth's sun—and of Earth itself.

Only a few know the terrifying truth—an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun. They know the truth—but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy—but who will believe? These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.

Try and resist that build-up, I dare you. Stay tuned...

recommended reading

Well, I figured it's about time to do this again, even if not much has changed since last we spoke. I'm still working my way through Yagyū Munenori's Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War, which is bound up in the same volume as The Book of Five Rings, remember? And when I say that I'm still working my way through it, I mean that it's sitting on my nightstand with a bookmark stuck in it, humming idly to itself. I've been doing other things, you see. Like flying. And editing. And...uh...well, flying and editing. And chores! Dad and I are in the midst of painting the garage. Half of it is now properly white instead of the sickening, jaundiced bone-white it used to be. Dad and I also painted the shed a while back. First I painted it by myself. A few years ago, we'd painted it a slightly pink, mostly orange color, but in those few years, the blasphemous desert sun bleached and cracked that paint into oblivion. So, at my parents' behest, I went out and repainted it last month. (I'm much too good a son to refuse a request like that, particularly since I'm living under their roof and snarfing all their food.) First I primed it, then painted it a darkish orangey-brown, but the desiccated wood was so thirsty that it sucked up two coats of paint, and I had to wait to be resupplied by my folks during one of their errand-runs into town. In the interim I painted a big frowny-face on the unpainted east side of the shed, where it would be visible from the road. (Our neighbors got a kick out of it.) That darkish orangey-brown color didn't sit too well with Mom, so she selected a new color, and Dad and I went out and repainted it again a couple of weeks ago (I just finished trimming it in white a week back). The color that Mom picked was called Sundance. What's Sundance, you ask? Good question. This is one of those things that irritates the hemorrhaging f___ out of me. The bloody paint companies all have to come up with these so-called "edgy, creative" names for paint hues now, don't they? So instead of "blue," "yellow," "green," and "brown," we get a bazillion different shades of each, all with names like "Saratoga Sand," "Paris Perfume," "River Road," "Sundance," "Firewood," "Gaucho," "Darby Creek," "Sphinx," "White Oak," "Saddlebury," "Ottertail," "Mushroom Taupe," "Nutmeg Frost," "Antique Lace," and "Horny Schoolgirl." Okay, yeah, I made that last one up. Wishful thinking. But still, all the rest of them are actual names of paint hues, taken from paint chips my mother has lying around. Does anybody out there have any clue about what color these monikers might represent without actually looking at the chips themselves? You might be able to figure out that Saratoga Sand is a soft sort of light yellow, and that Paris Perfume is slightly pink (mostly orange). You might even know that taupe is generally grayish. But what the hell is Mushroom Taupe?! Would that be different from Thunderhead Taupe, or Elephant Taupe, or Abortion Debate Taupe? Enough about paint, this is making me sick. Especially since I'm not finished painting the garage. Thank God the label on the paint can reads simply "WHITE." Anyway, the point is this: I've not progressed any farther in The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War. Took me a while to get that out, didn't it? I have, however, kicked in with a few other volumes. Let's start with Little Women. You would not believe how many queer looks and interrogatives I've been receiving from those to whom I've announced I am reading this book. (Boy, THAT was an awkward sentence. I think I'll leave it there just so people can trip over it.) They seem to think that my masculinity is in doubt, and merely touching this book has made me into some kind of metrosexual. Soon as I get those two title words out, I can see the "ohmigod COOTIES" look in people's eyes. I'm not sure what to make of this, really. Last I heard, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was a classic piece of literature: an uplifting, heartwarming glance into the lives of the four daughters of a U.S. Army chaplain during the Civil War. I've heard that the book is funny, cute, intelligent, wise, and has a plethora of profound insight to offer. Okay, yeah, sure, the protagonists are all girls. So what? If it's a good book, I'll read it. I'll read anything I think I can learn from or get something out of. Just because I'm a man and I'm reading what was once called a "girl's book" doesn't mean my sexual orientation should be questioned. Jeez, if I'd read Nancy Drew instead of The Hardy Boys when I was a kid, would you have played the cooties card? Huh? Would you? I thought not. Moving on... I'm only a couple chapters in, but so far Little Women is proving to be everything I've heard, and how. I'll keep you posted. Next up: a book that's been on my parents' shelves for time immemorial, but I've never picked up and taken a serious look at until now. It's called Black Elk Speaks, by John G. Neihardt. First published in 1932, it is a personal account of the life of Black Elk, a great chief of the Oglala Sioux tribe, a second cousin of Crazy Horse, and a veteran of the Indian Wars (including the Battle of the Little Bighorn). Again, I'm only a couple of chapters in. The first two chapters are, respectively, Black Elk's opening invocation to the Great Spirit (which eerily resembles an ancient Greek poet's invocation to the Muses before the commencement of a magnum opus), and his childhood. Black Elk lived through and saw some heavy stuff. He was only a boy when the Fetterman Fight occurred, when Captain William J. Fetterman and nearly 100 soldiers were killed (I hesitate to say "massacred") by a much larger force of Indians near Fort Phil Kearney in the Dakota territory in 1866. This is as far as I've read, but later, as I understand it, Black Elk receives a monumental vision from the Great Spirit and is told that he will deliver his people from oppression to prosperity. In this way he becomes a great chief, a spiritual leader, an Indian Messiah, if you will. Along the way he fights in the Indian Wars, journeys to England, and does a whole bunch of other amazing stuff. And in the end...well, we'll get there when we get there. In the meantime, I'm utterly fascinated. Black Elk, like most Native Americans, has a direct and earthy way of speaking that is almost intoxicating. Spirituality and practicality are so tightly interwoven it's difficult to tell one from the other. Black Elk accepts that what he sees isn't all there is to the story, but he keeps his feet planted on the ground. Inherently sensible, that's how his speech (translated by Black Elk's son, Ben, and recorded and transcribed by Neihardt) strikes me. Already I'm charmed by Black Elk's description of his childhood: roaming the plains, making friends, and playing awesome games that would never, ever be allowed on a school playground. For instance, he describes one pastime that the older boys pursued:

And the big boys played the game called Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses, which is a battle all but the killing; and sometimes they got hurt. The horsebacks from the different bands would line up and charge upon each other, yelling; and when the ponies came together on the run, they would rear and flounder and scream in a big dust, and the riders would seize each other, wrestling until one side had lost all its men, for those who fell upon the ground were counted dead. When I was older, I, too, often played this game. We were always naked when we played it, just as warriors are when they go into battle if it is not too cold, because they are swifter without clothes. Once I fell off on my back right in the middle of a bed of prickly pears, and it took my mother a long while to pick all the stickers out of me.

Man, except for the nakedness, the prickly pears, and imminent threat of horrible death, Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses sounds pretty cool. Soon, Black Elk's speech turns to graver matters: the coming of the Wasichus, for instance. ("Wasichu" is the Sioux word for "white men"; however, to the Indians' credit, no reference is made to skin color within the actual definition of the word itself.) Black Elk talks of soldiers coming and building "towns of logs" (forts), and driving roads through his tribe's hunting grounds. I can only imagine what's to come, and I can't wait. As I've mentioned before, Black Elk is a hell of a narrator. I have no illusions that some of it will be tragic; and it'll be hard to read about the slaughter of U.S. Army soldiers, no matter what the cause; but reading about the Indian Wars from the other side's perspective is going to be enlightening and maturing, I just know it. That's about it for the moment. All bets are off as when I'll actually finish this stuff, seeing as how I'm so [cough] busy and all. But once I do, you can bet you'll be the first to know. Postman out.

"Tom Petty needs to learn to drive a stick"

I came slowly to myself on the morning of Thursday, November 5. I remembered immediately where I was—Room 245 in the Motel 6 in Yuma, Arizona—but it just didn't seem like a good time to wake up yet. Thirty minutes later I gave up the ghost and creaked out of bed. The motel mattress was firm enough, but sometimes sleeping in strange places stiffens me up. I shuffled to my suitcase, retrieved my kit bag, lurched into the bathroom, and showered, emerging to find John already awake and watching one of the Final Fantasy movies on TV. I'm not sure which one it was. The premise involved asteroids, and aliens, and ray guns, and an insane amount of jumpsuits. By and by we got road-ready. We hoped to hit the Grand Canyon with enough daylight left to set up a tent, and possibly an entire working campsite. At this time of year, that involved getting there well before 5:00 p.m. We needed about seven hours or so to drive to GCNP from Yuma. That meant departing no later than 9:30 a.m., if possible. At 9:48 a.m. we were pulling out of the parking lot, threading our way through copious amounts of road construction, and weaseling back onto Interstate 8. A few miles out of town we stopped for gas. As we were filling up, we're reasonably certain we saw Tom Petty pull into the parking lot, blasting his own music out of the speakers of a bright yellow late-model Ford Mustang. He parked, ran inside, came back out, got back in, pulled jerkily out of the parking lot (working the clutch inexpertly) and drove away. Finished staring, John turned back to me. "Tom Petty needs to learn to drive a stick." The Yuma-Phoenix run wasn't quite as scenic as I'd hoped. Extreme Southern Arizona turned out to be little better than Extreme Southern California. It was flat as a pancake, and whatever hadn't been bleached bone-white by the sun had been turned into mangy farmland with copious amounts of water. After a few hours, we came into the environs of Phoenix. Oh boy, I thought. I've never seen Phoenix, really. All I've seen are a few tantalizing glimpses outside the big plate-glass windows of Sky Harbor. Now I'll finally get a good look at the place! Yeah, right. This is what my "look" at Phoenix consisted of: Interstate highway interchanges can go take a running jump. That's all I've got to say about that. Fortunately for my mood, the scenery improved greatly once we emerged on I-17 north of the city. Not bad, eh? The first thing I noticed were the saguaro cacti. I'd seen them before, but not for about, oh, ten years. They were far more impressive in person than I recalled. So of course I badgered John until he pulled onto an off-ramp and we could have ourselves a photo-op. As we continued on, the scenery rolled by like prickly waves on a greenish ocean. We traversed the Prescott area (where we saw the smoke of an enormous brush fire, which stayed in sight for more than an hour), and moved onward, ever upward, growing nearer to Flagstaff. Flagstaff was actually nothing like I remembered. I'd been there once before, at the tender age of 13, during my family's epic move from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Apple Valley, California in 1999. All I remembered were a lot of rocks and pine trees, and a few bright yellow WATCH FOR ELK roadsigns. There were rocks, yes. There were pine trees, yes. There were plenty of elk-related notices. But the layout of the town of Flagstaff was completely different than I remembered. The place seemed bigger, too. Either my memory was truly atrocious, or the place had undergone some changes in the last ten years. Either way, it was still pretty: the most beautiful stony hills surrounded the town, arching surprisingly high into the ethereal blue, coated with trees and reddish rocks. We made a brief stop in Flagstaff to—you guessed it—drop by the Best Buy. John claims to have some kind of morbid, work-related compulsion. He says he has to go inside any Best Buy he sees, just to compare it to the others he's worked at. I think he might be jerking my chain. He did have some rather excoriating things to say about the level of customer service represented (or rather, not represented) by the Geek Squad at the Flagstaff branch, however. Apart from that, our purpose in Best Buy was clear: John had to buy another kind of cable. I contented myself with poking through the store's R&B music section, which is my morbid Best Buy compulsion. I was, for the nth time, unable to locate the Black Keys album I've been questing for, The Big Come Up. (It stands to reason; that's probably their most popular album to date.) I struck gold in the next aisle over, however: Led Zeppelin III. Laden with yet another mysterious cable and some succulent classic rock, we paid our money and made our egress. At John's suggestion, we gassed up on our way out of Flagstaff. Then we got down to the business of being confused about which route to take. John had been showcasing his lovely Garmin GPS system all day. It worked well, and had a multitude of useful user-friendly features. Unfortunately, like MapQuest, it occasionally had a debilitating tendency to send us on nastily circuitous routes. The only difference was that John's GPS sent us on these nastily circuitous routes in an irritatingly calm, feminine voice. After realizing that we were not on I-40 (which connected up with Arizona State Highway 64, leading to the south rim of our destination), we turned around and returned to that interstate. We turned onto the 64 at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Now it was a straight shot to the Grand Canyon. After all the stops we'd made and electronics stores we'd criticized, I never thought we'd make the national park with any sort of light left. But we did. Following a deliciously scenic drive down the two-lane AZ-64, during which I almost broke my neck craning to look at a Lockheed C-121 Constellation parked outside the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Valle (more about that in the next installment), we pulled up to the park entrance sometime after four. John stumped up the $25 entrance fee, and we made a beeline for the nearest campsite: the Mather Campground near Market Plaza. Fortuitously near Market Plaza, as it happened. We turned down Juniper Loop and began scanning either side of the lane for a suitable campsite-cum-parking spot. We chose one a ways in, a little too near an elderly couple's RV, but suitably close to the Dumpsters and lavatories. It had a flat expanse of ground for a tent, a wooden picnic table, and a fire pit. After clambering out of the car and donning an extra layer against the cool Northern Arizona evening, we promptly busted the tent out of the trunk and set it up. Our practice run on Tuesday night paid off. We managed to erect the thing with little trouble. While pounding the tent stakes in, we encountered a frustratingly wide patch of bedrock at the southwest corner; but with the aid of my military-surplus entrenching tool, I discovered its boundaries and was able to find a decent spot to embed the stake. We threw the pads and sleeping bags unceremoniously into the tent as the dusk gathered and then turned to the more interesting idea of dinner. We had a stove to cook on, but both of us realized that it really wouldn't be camping without a campfire. And we had no wood. And there were signs all around saying NO WOOD GATHERING. Well, shoot. John got back in the car and manfully found his way to Market Plaza to get us some flammable materials. I bustled about the camp, installing batteries in the lantern, setting out the cooking utensils, and generally organizing the campsite. I called John on my cell phone (there was barely enough signal to be heard) and requested that he bring back some more water. He agreed. I also hunted around for the triple-A batteries. I couldn't find the darn things anywhere. We'd picked up a few in Lucerne Valley along with the groceries, intending to use them in the fancy LED headlamp my mother had loaned me, but they'd disappeared in the meantime. Oh well, the heck with it. I had my Doomsday flashlight, anyway (one of the ones you charge by shaking). The darkness quietly completed itself as I worked (and searched fruitlessly). After a time, there was little to do but sit at the picnic table in the small white patch of illumination thrown by the lantern and hum a little tune as I waited for John to return. I didn't look up during this waiting period. It's a shame I didn't. I was missing out on quite a show. In due time, John returned with fire-starters, lighter fluid, bottled water, a six-pack of Stone Brewery's Levitation Ale, and three bundles of split cedar logs. He set the water on the table and the rest alight. The cedar wasn't well seasoned, and was more fond of smoldering and smoking than actually burning; but after moving the logs closer to one another and throwing a few more fire-starters on (and a few liberal squirts of lighter fluid), we soon had a cheery blaze going. Then we got down to brass tacks. John set up our new camp stove, pulled out a saucepan, opened a couple cans of Dennison's Chili, and set them to warm. Soon, we were chowing down on hot chili, crusty French bread and beer, with the quiet night all about us and the fire crackling away, sending fragrant cedar smoke over us as the breeze swung to and fro. "Marvelous" isn't quite the word for that meal. John and I chatted away as if we hadn't recently been separated for three years, joking and chuckling. The smoke curled away, up into the night. Our feast concluded, we cleaned up the dishes with the aid of icy water from an old-fashioned water pump near the lavatories. (Only the next day would we discover that there was a sink for dishes at the rear of the building.) Then we pulled up a cooler by the fire and watched the stars, which we'd just noticed. I don't want to sound trite, but they were glimmering like diamonds. Off in the distance, a couple of campsites over, a solitary flute began to play. The flautist was undoubtedly a novice; his or her repertoire was limited to the major scales, and a few lilting notes in no particular order. But the effect was stunning, especially in that darkness, especially in that strange and majestic place. Less than a mile from the Grand Canyon, under an adamantine sky, warm fire-glow and cedar smoke filling the air, a delicious meal in our stomachs and beer in our hands, John and I listened to that tinkling flute filter through the trees with a visceral reverence. It was the perfect complement to an evening of subtle splendor. "It's Ian Anderson!" I postulated. There remains little to tell. We secured whatever belongings we weren't going to sleep with inside John's car; disposed of our trash in the proper receptacles; and adjourned to the tent with flashlights, cell phones, and warm pajamas (sweats and long-sleeved shirt for me, a polypropylene body glove for John). John attempted to read a few Bible verses by the light of the lantern, but pronounced the illumination too dim. I was more stubborn. I laid awake for another half-hour with a flashlight in one hand and my new copy of Alcott's Little Women in the other. Between paragraphs, my friend Allison administered the daily grammar quiz via text messages. (The word was "gravid," I believe.) After an engaging electronic conversation, she signed off. I stayed conscious just long enough to finish the chapter, then put the book aside, switched off the flashlight, and laid my delightedly weary head to rest. And upon the morrow rested the golden promise of the canyon itself... I'd like to conclude by adding that I considered entitling this piece "Canyon dig it?" but I thought better of it.

recommended reading

I have completed A Long Way Gone, discussed more fully in the last installment of recommended reading. It possessed a poignant ending. As I turned the pages, Beah's personal tragedy kept mounting, until it was inconceivable that a mere teenager could take any more hardship. He was eventually forced to flee Sierra Leone, at great personal risk and high cost, after his uncle's family was...well, I won't spoil it. Suffice it to say that A Long Way Gone is a powerful book. It's powerful in a sense which no other book I've read can approach. It is heartrending on perhaps the same level as Night, by Elie Wiesel. It portrays the absolute worst of what human beings can do to one another, and even to themselves. It is both sickening and saddening...yet not without hope. I'm more than half done with The World Turned Upside Down, that splendid science-fiction anthology, and have only two stories left to read in The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. And make no mistake: the tales are bloodcurdling. I have encountered few writers who make my skin crawl in abject terror. Even Stephen King, whom I admire immensely, merely makes the bile rise to my throat, and has perhaps caused me a few nightmares. H.P. Lovecraft evinces an overwhelming, universal sense of horror that leaves a sensitive reader wide-eyed, pale and sweaty. Though I have been rendered wide-eyed and pale, I have yet to break out in a cold sweat. Then again, I still have two of Lovecraft's most seminal stories to read: The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time. I'm a grown man and Lovecraft's shorter tales like The Haunter of the Dark, The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep made me turn on all the lights and go jumping at shadows. I can only imagine what these last, lengthy stories will do to my fertile imagination. Lovecraft is one of the best writers I've ever read, for one simple reason: he knew what he was doing. He had each story's plot in mind the whole time he was writing it, and he knew where to lead the action to reach the terrifying climax. Along the way, he masterfully built suspense and dropped tantalizingly ominous hints relevant to the insidious denouement. He was also a literate and intelligent writer, whose prose is elegant and erudite, and whose vocabulary makes me run to the dictionary or encyclopedia every two or three pages. Furthermore, his imagination was limitless. He envisioned an inherently unknown, nefarious, multidimensional multiverse filled with monstrous evil. Anyone who solved the mysteries of this universe would go mad with horror. Spawned trillions of years ago, gigantic half-ethereal creatures from the outer dark, who once held sordid sway over the Earth and the galaxy, slumber uneasily in the depths of our oceans or behind our nearest stars, waiting to wake and extend their fibrous grasp once again. Innumerable volumes of profane arcana and obscene ritual, like the Necronomicon and the Pnakotic Manuscripts, passed down through millennia by these evil gods and their inhuman minions, lie forgotten in ancient tombs or dusty towers, holding their sickening alien secrets for some innocent eye. Disgusting, bestial ceremonies and barbarous sacrifices are carried out in forgotten catacombs and dusky swamps, breathing life into these ancient monsters, keeping their potent legends alive. Phalanxes of horrific things lurk in the dark and pounce upon unsuspecting (or willing) humans. Though he may have been a tad racist, H.P. Lovecraft was a talented horror writer who knew his trade and his stock-in-trade. I highly recommend him. As an aside, I'd like to reiterate that the more I read William Zinsser's On Writing Well and reread The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, the more humbled I become. There are things in the latter that I have unforgivably forgotten and things in the former that I have never suspected. More fool me. I started in yesterday on The Book of Five Rings (as written in Japanese at left). Purportedly, it is a discussion of martial arts, particularly kenjutsu, or swordsmanship. It is written by one of the foremost masters of the art, one of Japan's most famous (or infamous) swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi. I've read the first two pages and already my mind's been changed about both Musashi himself and Japanese martial arts. From what I understand, Musashi, who died in the seventeenth century, was a renowned swordsman and martial arts instructor. He never lost any of the dozens of duels he fought, even though he fought some of them with a wooden sword. He was supposedly a master of the two-sword style, with both a full-length sword and a short sword (or wakizashi). His legacy is less than flattering. It is rumored that he never shaved, never bathed, never combed his hair, and had a disfiguring skin condition. No matter. Musashi didn't care about any of that. Whereas some are merely practitioners of the martial arts, Musashi was a true martial artist. He practiced both physical and mental control in combat, and strove for perfection in every aspect of his life. That included something as simple as calligraphy (which is why I included the above image of Japanese kanji, instead of, say, an image of the book cover or a painting of Musashi). His legend—and his track record—impressed me so much that I decided to use him as one of the protagonists in my novel. There was a hitch, however. I knew nothing more about the man than what I've told you. Ultimately I decided to buy his book, his magnum opus on swordsmanship that many have touted as a road map to personal success in life. From the first pages Musashi defines martial arts, not as a simplistic mindset such as "being prepared to die," but as a way to serve your master, serve yourself, and establish social standing. That took me completely by surprise. I'd always thought of martial arts as a skill demanded only in war, or perhaps in recreation. Now this scruffy, centuries-dead ronin comes along and tells me it can be used to ascend the social ladder? I can only wonder what else lies in store for me. The volume is divided into five sections: the Earth Scroll, the Water Scroll, the Fire Scroll, the Wind Scroll, and the Emptiness Scroll. Each encapsulates different aspects of Musashi's swordsmanship technique and philosophy, except for the last scroll, which discusses other schools. Furthermore, the book's chapters have positively titillating titles, such as "The Way of the Long Sword," "Stabbing the Face," "A Stand against Many Opponents," "Moving Shadows," "Knocking the Heart Out," and "Being Like a Rock Wall." Oh, goody, he said, rubbing his hands. I'll keep you posted. There remains only tell you that I've placed yet another order to Amazon.com, despite my recent dismissal from my job and my slowly dwindling accounts. This particular order was made possible by a generous birthday gift from my grandparents, I'll have you know. Among other things (like the excellent war movie Battleground and a few more volumes of One Piece), I'm expecting Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok, by renowned Western writer Richard Matheson. I'm trying to catch up on the classics with Little Women, and Memoirs can only help me get a better idea of Hickok, the other protagonist in my novel. Though a work of fiction, the book eschews the fanciful, heroic light in which the ne'er-do-well lawman is cast, and focuses instead on the rawness and ignominy of his life, as re-imagined by Matheson. It's told from a first-person perspective, as is The Book of Five Rings. Who knows what kind of insight I'll gain? It can't hurt to read it. Like I always say, I'll read anything if I think I can learn from it. Except perhaps for the Necronomicon, written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, detailing the hideous secrets of the dark cult of Cthulhu and a great many other things too awful to mention. That might not be healthy at all. It might even frighten me to death.