I was looking forward to this one, as I, in theory, am interested in science fiction, but was very disappointed. Much like Snow Crash and Neuromancer, the characters are weak, the scenarios complicated and the prose turgid. One star.
Are any of Dick's other books any good?
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man was published in 1952, five years after Jackie Robinson became the first black player in the modern era of Major League Baseball.
I make this connection having recently read the novel and currently reading The Last Hero, a biography of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant.
Bryant paints a picture of a time just after Robinson's feat in which it was still very difficult for black ball players. In the South, they still had to stay and eat apart from the team, and in the North, they still faced a lot of non- and quasi-official racism and segregation. They were cheered as ballplayers when they played well, but they were not seen as individuals, especially off the field.
The same goes for Ellison's invisible man. He is seen not as a unique individual, but merely one of a group, both at the college he is expelled from and in New York City as he tries to make a living.
He then ends up part of a socialist/civil rights political movement, but still is just seen by even his comrades as a spoke in the larger wheel, not a vehicle unto himself.
I would have liked for a more resolute ending to this fine book, and perhaps a more explicit stance for individualism rather than just an indictment of its opposite, but it's good enough for a four-star rating.
I really hated the first half of this book, but Doctorow tied together what seemed like disparate strands in such a fashion as to make the book not a horrible one. His attempt to make the book flow like a storyteller's tale by eschewing quotation marks for dialogue is quite annoying.
To a degree, he does capture the mood of the New York area during the early part of last century by employing real, famous people as characters, but his main achievement here is the character of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a black musician who does not bow to a very real injustice.
Not really recommended, but, as I said, not horrible. Three stars out of five.
Though it's an alternate reality tale involving human cloning, Never Let Me Go is by no means a science fiction novel. Rather, it is a nuanced, beautifully written story of how those deemed less-than-human by fiat of government and fear on society's part grope for what all humans want - love, purpose - and in doing so manage to attain some measure of the dignity denied them by the actions of others.
In the first-person narrative of Kathy, a young British woman created and raised for the ultimate purpose of being a multiple organ donor to those considered fully human, we also see the reactions and internal conflicts of those who administer the clone/donation system but don't have the courage or clout to change things, a situation which should give pause to those who perpetuate injustices in our societies today, i.e. cops, judges, politicians, union leaders, bureaucrats, etc. But that's way too much to hope for, especially from a novel too well- written for most of that lot to comprehend, much less appreciate or learn from. 5 stars (out of 5).
This is one of the most famous and heralded examples of the postmodern novel, having won the National Book Award in 1985. Normally, postmodern novels are minefields of nonsense, but this one actually works.
There's enough of a plot to keep things from getting too amorphous, as Jack Gladney, a Hitler studies scholar at a small midwestern college, and his family have to evacuate their home because of an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by a train wreck. Also, Jack's wife is secretly taking an experimental drug that attempts to treat the fear of death, which causes Jack and one of his daughter's some consternation.
Both of these plot points tie into the title, which refers to Jack's own fear of death. There's lots of pop-, media- and consumer-culture references, which Jack uses as a way to stay connected to reality. They also inject humor and insight into the tale, and serve as a nice landmark of what life was like in the early 1980s.
DeLillo manages to be thoroughly postmodern without being obscure or insufferable, and for that this book gets a four-star (out of five) rating.
Here is a nice radio interview with Greil Marcus about his book When that Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison.
I don't agree with his point about Van having a fallow period in the '80s and '90s by a long shot, but he does get a lot of what makes Van great.
I haven't read the book yet, but will have a full review soon.
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