George R. Stewart
Earth Abides
This is the second of my plague posts, the first being on Feb. 16, 2017. (http://tinyurl.com/kman92p) which included a brief discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and Jack London's novella, "The Scarlet Plague.
One intriguing overlap is that Jack London's "The Scarlet Plague" and Stewart's Earth Abides were set in the San Francisco area and that the POV characters in both stories had been professors at a local university. It may simply be coincidence since Stewart taught at the University of California at Berkeley and London was born in San Francisco and died in northern California, as did Stewart.
Earth Abides is one of the best post-holocaust novels I've
ever read. It's a quiet novel which focuses on the effects on those
who survived a war in which over 99% of the human race died. The title
comes from Ecclesiastes:
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities: all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh;
but the earth abideth for ever. "
Ish comes across in the first chapter as the quiet, reflective type who seems to prefer being an observer than a participant (an observation he makes himself at one point).. I wonder how much of this detachment is him and how much is shock at seeing his world ended.
The story has two narrative structures. The first is the one in regular print, and that's mostly the story of Ish and his doings--his attempt to deal with the drastic change in the status of the human race. During the past century or so, humans had become the dominant species on the planet, and its favored animals and plants were slowly pushing the unfavored ones to the sidelines. Now, Ish has to change his behavior to reflect that of humanity's new status, a vastly reduced position, both in dominance and in numbers. Technology, his greatest asset, is slowly disintegrating and would soon be useless. The safety net that technology and the civilization based on it was gone. He finally realized it to some extent when his fears returned shortly after starting out. Before the catastrophe, if his car had broken down for any reason, he could just wait for a passing motorist, even on remote roads, or perhaps a state highway patrol officer. Now, he was on his own. Nobody would come to rescue him.
The second narrative is the one in italics. It is there for a very good reason. Ish is only human and has only a limited perspective, centered mostly on himself and his concerns. He has little if any idea of what goes on around him, especially if it's out of sight. The title of the novel is not Ish Abides, or Humanity Abides., but Earth Abides. The focus of the novel is, therefore, on the effects on Earth and the plants and animals that share the planet with humans. Humans are once again back on the same level as other creatures: it must take the Earth as it is and learn how to survive with what is provided by Earth. He can no longer reshape the Earth to fit in with his desires and presumed needs.
For example, we take fences for granted. They are one of humanity's means of control of the environment. Fences are humanity's way of saying these animals must stay here and not go somewhere else, while other animals occupy other places specified by humans. Now, the fences are breaking down, and those animals are now free to go as their natures dictate, regardless of human plans.
The novel is an account of the way the group survived several crises, grew, and changed over the years. There are no bloodthirsty mutants or no spectacular scientific advances, nor do they set up an Edenic society, in which all are wise, reasonable, and loving. Stewart has given us humans who lose almost everything they had taken for granted and that includes friends and relatives. Of the survivors, all have lost everybody they knew, the one exception in Ish's group being a young mother and her infant child. They are the only two with a connection that survived the Plague.
What we see in the novel is the gradual acceptance of their situation and an attempt to survive. It is a low key novel with expected challenges: the search for food, water, shelter, and companionship. The most significant change over the years is the passing of the first generation and the gradual assumption of control by the next generation, those that had no experience or knowledge of what life had been before the Plague.
Ish attempted to teach the new generation, but they were not interested in sitting around a classroom and being lectured on things which seemed to have little relevance to life now. Perhaps Ish's greatest contribution to their physical survival was the introduction of the bow and arrow. Ammunition supplies were dwindling and they lacked the knowledge and technology to make more or to repair or manufacture gun or ammunition.
.
Stewart has provided the reader with what I can only call a very human and a very ironic and a very satisfying ending, though it is not the ending of Ish's group. Those who have read the book will recognize the irony of the
following statement: a foreshadowing of the slow development of a
Myth. Early in the book, the question of his relationship to the group arises. He provides them with stability, and he alone, in the early days at first, is able to function. They look up to him, for his detachment to some extent sets him apart from the others. But, at one point he thinks to himself: "'No,' he thought. "Whatever happens, at least I shall never believe that I a god. No, I shall never be a god!'"
I wonder how future generations will view Ish.
At the beginning of this post, I wrote that this was one of the best post-holocaust novels I had ever read. I would like to modify that by saying it is one of the best SF novels I had ever read.
Showing posts with label post-holocaust novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-holocaust novel. Show all posts
Monday, August 7, 2017
Monday, March 21, 2011
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Wild Shore (concl)
Spoiler Warning: the following will bring out some important plot elements and hints about the ending.
Sometimes I think it's harder for me to write about a work that I have greatly enjoyed reading than to write about one I didn't like as much or even disliked. I have to step back, get some distance from a work, before I can comment on it and go beyond a simple plot summary or gushing about how much I liked it. If I really like a work, it's because the writer has grabbed me and put me in some way into the story itself and I can't get an overall view. Another reason is that I fear my comments will suggest the story is uninteresting and therefore drive readers away.
To be brief, I finished The Wild Shore last week and have been putting off writing about it, just as I'm doing right now.
To the story
Robinson broke the story into four parts: the first being an accounting of the life of this small group who are trying make a life for themselves in an US that has been destroyed by a sneak attack. The people of Onofre are now living as their ancestors did several centuries ago. Power is mostly human and water. They are aware of electricity but have no way of generating it. The closest they can come are batteries, not the small kind but car batteries. Occasionally, scavengers (those who occupy the ruins of cities) find batteries that were never filled and therefore might be functional once they are filled. They have books that tell them of what was possible before the war, so they do have some idea of what can be accomplished. However, they lack the knowledge and the materials at present to do anything more than wish for what has been lost.
But, at the end of the first part, it became obvious that something was happening that was going to affect them. The people of Onofre are visited by two travelers from San Diego. Tom Barnard, the only one in Onofre who was alive before the war, is suspicious of them. Since the people of Onofre have no official leaders (they work by consensus when making decisions), there is no one to decide what they should do in this situation. At a meeting, Tom Barnard is selected to return with them to San Diego and find out what the Mayor has in mind.
In Part Two, we follow Henry (the seventeen-year-old narrator) and Tom to San Diego where they meet the Mayor and learn just what he has in mind. The Mayor is ready to go to war against the rest of the world. He wants to establish communication with the people in the Los Angeles area, and since Onofre is between the two, he wants them to help. As Tom explains again, he isn't a leader and all he can do is relate the Mayor's ideas to the people who will decide what they will do.
The trip back to Onofre is far more hazardous than it was going to San Diego. They go by boat and encounter one of the Japanese blockade ships. In the firefight that breaks out, Henry is separated from the others and barely makes it ashore, fearing that Tom and the others are dead. Fortunately all have survived, including Tom.
In Part Three, Henry and his friends make the usual mistake of teens: their parents and the other adults just don't understand the true situation, for the vote just barely went against going along with the Mayor's plans. The teens, wiser than the adults, decide to work secretly with the Mayor's men.
In Part Four, Henry and his friends discover, sadly, that adults aren't always wrong. They are betrayed by both the Mayor of San Diego and even several people of Onofre. This betrayal costs Henry several of his friends. However, the resulting fight also results in the Mayor's death, along with several members of his group. Since San Diego is now without a Mayor, an election takes place, and the party that was opposed to the Mayor's empire building dreams takes control. The people of Onofre no longer have to worry about San Diego, at least for awhile anyway. At least some good came out of the disaster.
When it's over, Henry has to learn to live with the knowledge that he was at least partially responsible for the death of one of his friends. None of the people of Onofre blame him, even his friend's father, but Henry does and he struggles to learn how to live with it.
The novel ends or rather doesn't end, for the people of Onofre suffer their losses and move on. It has become clear that they need to at least find out what the rest of the world is doing, so they plan to get a shortwave radio working, but just for listening, at least for the present. Another of the Onofreans has decided that it's time to try whaling again, especially since the whales visit their bay annually. The oil would be useful for lamps and lubricants and trading at the swap meet. And, Henry himself has suddenly noticed a young woman, one he's known all his life, but now she seems different in some way, and she seems to have noticed Henry also.
Henry may also turn out to be a writer, for the novel is his account of the events of that summer, the one "that would . . . change us." He's also a bit confused by Tom Barnard, and he's no longer quite so quick to accept everything Tom tells him. Tom, who almost died of pneumonia during the summer, decides to tell Henry the truth about life before the war, or at least as much of it as he can. On the one hand he talks about the scientific and medical advances, the rapid transportation, the use of electricity as power, but on the other hand, Henry points out to Tom that he has said that "the old time was awful, that we live better lives now than they ever did."
The last paragraph:
"As for me, the moon lays a mirrorflake road to the horizon. The snow on the beach melted yesterday, but it might as well be a beach of snow the way it looks in this light, against the edge of the black sea. Above the cliffs stand the dark hillsides of the valley, cupped, tilted to pour into the ocean. Onofre. This damp last page is nearly full. And my hand is getting cold--it's getting so stiff I can't make the letters, these words are all big and scrawling, taking up the last of the space, thank God. Oh be done with it. There's an owl, flitting over the river. I'll stay right here and fill another book."
Some times I wish Robinson had written a sequel to this work. What happened to Henry and the people of Onofre. What changes came about? Did they continue to live lives that Tom Barnard said were better than before the war?
How long will the blockade continue? Nothing is forever. The quarantine has gone on for decades already. How much longer could it continue? There were already almost regularly scheduled clandestine visits by "tourists" who paid large sums to come ashore for a short time and perhaps come back with a "souvenir." During Henry's trip back from San Diego, the ship he was traveling on was sunk by one of the Japanese blockade ships, and Henry was on board briefly. He met the captain of the ship and noticed that he was wearing a ring that was the type that graduating high school seniors used to wear before the war. The captain of the blockade ship obviously had some contact with those who were running the blockage. Did he regularly become blind, for a fee of course, to what was going on?
But, Robinson hasn't written a sequel so far, and perhaps he's wisest to leave it to the reader to continue the story.
Overall Rating: It's one of my five favorite post-holocaust novels.
Five stars on a scale of 0-5.
Sometimes I think it's harder for me to write about a work that I have greatly enjoyed reading than to write about one I didn't like as much or even disliked. I have to step back, get some distance from a work, before I can comment on it and go beyond a simple plot summary or gushing about how much I liked it. If I really like a work, it's because the writer has grabbed me and put me in some way into the story itself and I can't get an overall view. Another reason is that I fear my comments will suggest the story is uninteresting and therefore drive readers away.
To be brief, I finished The Wild Shore last week and have been putting off writing about it, just as I'm doing right now.
To the story
Robinson broke the story into four parts: the first being an accounting of the life of this small group who are trying make a life for themselves in an US that has been destroyed by a sneak attack. The people of Onofre are now living as their ancestors did several centuries ago. Power is mostly human and water. They are aware of electricity but have no way of generating it. The closest they can come are batteries, not the small kind but car batteries. Occasionally, scavengers (those who occupy the ruins of cities) find batteries that were never filled and therefore might be functional once they are filled. They have books that tell them of what was possible before the war, so they do have some idea of what can be accomplished. However, they lack the knowledge and the materials at present to do anything more than wish for what has been lost.
But, at the end of the first part, it became obvious that something was happening that was going to affect them. The people of Onofre are visited by two travelers from San Diego. Tom Barnard, the only one in Onofre who was alive before the war, is suspicious of them. Since the people of Onofre have no official leaders (they work by consensus when making decisions), there is no one to decide what they should do in this situation. At a meeting, Tom Barnard is selected to return with them to San Diego and find out what the Mayor has in mind.
In Part Two, we follow Henry (the seventeen-year-old narrator) and Tom to San Diego where they meet the Mayor and learn just what he has in mind. The Mayor is ready to go to war against the rest of the world. He wants to establish communication with the people in the Los Angeles area, and since Onofre is between the two, he wants them to help. As Tom explains again, he isn't a leader and all he can do is relate the Mayor's ideas to the people who will decide what they will do.
The trip back to Onofre is far more hazardous than it was going to San Diego. They go by boat and encounter one of the Japanese blockade ships. In the firefight that breaks out, Henry is separated from the others and barely makes it ashore, fearing that Tom and the others are dead. Fortunately all have survived, including Tom.
In Part Three, Henry and his friends make the usual mistake of teens: their parents and the other adults just don't understand the true situation, for the vote just barely went against going along with the Mayor's plans. The teens, wiser than the adults, decide to work secretly with the Mayor's men.
In Part Four, Henry and his friends discover, sadly, that adults aren't always wrong. They are betrayed by both the Mayor of San Diego and even several people of Onofre. This betrayal costs Henry several of his friends. However, the resulting fight also results in the Mayor's death, along with several members of his group. Since San Diego is now without a Mayor, an election takes place, and the party that was opposed to the Mayor's empire building dreams takes control. The people of Onofre no longer have to worry about San Diego, at least for awhile anyway. At least some good came out of the disaster.
When it's over, Henry has to learn to live with the knowledge that he was at least partially responsible for the death of one of his friends. None of the people of Onofre blame him, even his friend's father, but Henry does and he struggles to learn how to live with it.
The novel ends or rather doesn't end, for the people of Onofre suffer their losses and move on. It has become clear that they need to at least find out what the rest of the world is doing, so they plan to get a shortwave radio working, but just for listening, at least for the present. Another of the Onofreans has decided that it's time to try whaling again, especially since the whales visit their bay annually. The oil would be useful for lamps and lubricants and trading at the swap meet. And, Henry himself has suddenly noticed a young woman, one he's known all his life, but now she seems different in some way, and she seems to have noticed Henry also.
Henry may also turn out to be a writer, for the novel is his account of the events of that summer, the one "that would . . . change us." He's also a bit confused by Tom Barnard, and he's no longer quite so quick to accept everything Tom tells him. Tom, who almost died of pneumonia during the summer, decides to tell Henry the truth about life before the war, or at least as much of it as he can. On the one hand he talks about the scientific and medical advances, the rapid transportation, the use of electricity as power, but on the other hand, Henry points out to Tom that he has said that "the old time was awful, that we live better lives now than they ever did."
The last paragraph:
"As for me, the moon lays a mirrorflake road to the horizon. The snow on the beach melted yesterday, but it might as well be a beach of snow the way it looks in this light, against the edge of the black sea. Above the cliffs stand the dark hillsides of the valley, cupped, tilted to pour into the ocean. Onofre. This damp last page is nearly full. And my hand is getting cold--it's getting so stiff I can't make the letters, these words are all big and scrawling, taking up the last of the space, thank God. Oh be done with it. There's an owl, flitting over the river. I'll stay right here and fill another book."
Some times I wish Robinson had written a sequel to this work. What happened to Henry and the people of Onofre. What changes came about? Did they continue to live lives that Tom Barnard said were better than before the war?
How long will the blockade continue? Nothing is forever. The quarantine has gone on for decades already. How much longer could it continue? There were already almost regularly scheduled clandestine visits by "tourists" who paid large sums to come ashore for a short time and perhaps come back with a "souvenir." During Henry's trip back from San Diego, the ship he was traveling on was sunk by one of the Japanese blockade ships, and Henry was on board briefly. He met the captain of the ship and noticed that he was wearing a ring that was the type that graduating high school seniors used to wear before the war. The captain of the blockade ship obviously had some contact with those who were running the blockage. Did he regularly become blind, for a fee of course, to what was going on?
But, Robinson hasn't written a sequel so far, and perhaps he's wisest to leave it to the reader to continue the story.
Overall Rating: It's one of my five favorite post-holocaust novels.
Five stars on a scale of 0-5.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Wild Shore, Pt. 1
I have finally managed to get some reading done in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore, the first novel in what I call "The California Troika." But, now that I've started, it should flow quickly to the end.
I've now finished Part 1, "San Onofre." The story is possibly set in what is now San Onofre State Beach. The year is 2047, some 60? years since the war. It wasn't much of a war. The US was caught by a sneak attack--planted bombs--only a few survivors were left. Tom Barnard is the only one among the 20 some households that make up the settlement who remembers before the war. He is their sole repository of their history.
One of the continuing arguments at the local swap meet among the few who survived the war is the identity of the attacker. Some thought it was either the Russians or the Chinese, others the South Africans, some the French, and others the Vietnamese. Another debate is about whether the President of the US was right in refusing to retaliate. In a discussion that reminds me of Theodore Sturgeon's short story, "Thunder and Roses," Tom Barnard insists, in defense of President Eliot, that "'We were goners as soon as the bombs went off . . . Makes no difference what happened to the rest of the world. If Eliot had decided to push the button, that just would've killed more people and wrecked more countries. It wouldn't have done a thing for us. Besides, it wasn't the Russians or the Chinese that planted the bombs--.'"
Regardless of who did it, it was effective. Moreover, the rest of the world was not affected. Somehow there was an agreement among the nations of the world on two points: for future peace, the Americans must not be allowed to rebuild beyond a certain point and no one was to attempt to settle there. The West Coast was patrolled by the Japanese Navy to capture anyone who left (they were never seen again) and to prevent anyone from attempting to make landfall. At the beginning of the story, a bullet-riddled body washes ashore, apparently a Chinese who perhaps had attempted to run the blockade. They can only speculate.
This is not one of those post-holocaust novels filled with slavering mutants, zombies, or vampires who suddenly appear as the result of a nuclear war, nor is it that post-holocaust Edenic garden so beloved of some groups who believe Life would be Perfect if we could just get the Dang Government off our backs. It is a relatively realistic attempt to portray life where most of the inhabitants have died, and the infrastructure has been destroyed: no power, no water, no transportation (except for the original means of getting from one place to another--walking). There's no existential despair either ; the survivors are too busy surviving.
The first person narrator is Henry, a seventeen year old boy who is just beginning to get restless. There's a whole world out there about which he knows nothing. He and his friends have a lot of energy that isn't quite used up by the daily struggle to survive. The novel opens with an example of this:
"'It wouldn't really be graverobbing,' Nicolin was explaining. 'Just dig up a coffin and take the silver off the outside of it. Never open it up at all. Bury it again nice and proper--now what could be wrong with that? Those silver coffin handles are going to waste in the ground anyway.'
The five of us considered it.
. . . . .
Gabby Mendez tossed a pebble out at a gliding seagull. 'Just exactly how is that not graverobbing?' he demanded of Nocolin.
'It takes desecration of the body to make it graverobbing.' Nicolin winked at me; I was his partner in these sorts of things. 'We aren't going to do any such thing. No searching for cuff-links or belt buckles, no pulling off rings or dental work, nothing of the sort.'"
The swap meet was run on the barter system mostly, but silver was slowly becoming important as currency. The people of San Onofre, living in the hills just off the beach, found that fishing served several purposes: it provided a dependable supply of food, and the surplus could be dried and traded at the swap meet for whatever they lacked.
"Part One" of the novel focuses for the most part on the lives of the people clustered around the San Onofre River, as Henry experiences it. It is hard work, but there are the good times also, and Henry is the optimistic sort.
"As I turned up the south path towards the little cabin that my pa and I shared, the smells of pine and sea salt raked the insides of my nose and made me drunk with hunger, and happily I imagined chips of silver the size of a dozen dimes. It occurred to me that my friends and I were for the very first time in our lives actually going to do what we had so often boastfully planned to do--and at the thought I felt a thrilling shiver of anticipation. I leaped from root to root in the trail: we were invading the territory of the scavengers, venturing north into the ruins of Orange County."
But, nothing stays the same. Near the end of Part One, two strangers appear. They have come up from San Diego. The Mayor of San Diego has ideas and plans:
Lee, one of the two strangers, tells them that "'We've been working on the rails north of Oceanside for a few weeks now. . .The Mayor of San Diego has organized a bunch of work forces of various sorts, and our job is to establish better travel routes to the surrounding towns . . . And since the Mayor began organizing things, we've accomplished a good deal. The settlements are pretty well scattered, but we have a train system between them that works well. All handcars, you understand, although we do have generators providing a good supply of electricity back home. There's a weekly swap meet, and a fishing fleet, and a militia--all manner of things there weren't before.'"
They are there as sort of ambassadors. The Mayor would like to establish communication as far north as the Los Angeles basin, and they would like the permission and the cooperation of the San Onofre people. Part One ends with Tom Barnard and Henry going down to San Diego to meet with the Mayor. Henry is excited, for he is leaving San Onofre for the first time in his life and going to a place that has maybe 2000 people and electricity, but Tom is somewhat suspicious about what really is on the Mayor's mind.
End of Part One
I've now finished Part 1, "San Onofre." The story is possibly set in what is now San Onofre State Beach. The year is 2047, some 60? years since the war. It wasn't much of a war. The US was caught by a sneak attack--planted bombs--only a few survivors were left. Tom Barnard is the only one among the 20 some households that make up the settlement who remembers before the war. He is their sole repository of their history.
One of the continuing arguments at the local swap meet among the few who survived the war is the identity of the attacker. Some thought it was either the Russians or the Chinese, others the South Africans, some the French, and others the Vietnamese. Another debate is about whether the President of the US was right in refusing to retaliate. In a discussion that reminds me of Theodore Sturgeon's short story, "Thunder and Roses," Tom Barnard insists, in defense of President Eliot, that "'We were goners as soon as the bombs went off . . . Makes no difference what happened to the rest of the world. If Eliot had decided to push the button, that just would've killed more people and wrecked more countries. It wouldn't have done a thing for us. Besides, it wasn't the Russians or the Chinese that planted the bombs--.'"
Regardless of who did it, it was effective. Moreover, the rest of the world was not affected. Somehow there was an agreement among the nations of the world on two points: for future peace, the Americans must not be allowed to rebuild beyond a certain point and no one was to attempt to settle there. The West Coast was patrolled by the Japanese Navy to capture anyone who left (they were never seen again) and to prevent anyone from attempting to make landfall. At the beginning of the story, a bullet-riddled body washes ashore, apparently a Chinese who perhaps had attempted to run the blockade. They can only speculate.
This is not one of those post-holocaust novels filled with slavering mutants, zombies, or vampires who suddenly appear as the result of a nuclear war, nor is it that post-holocaust Edenic garden so beloved of some groups who believe Life would be Perfect if we could just get the Dang Government off our backs. It is a relatively realistic attempt to portray life where most of the inhabitants have died, and the infrastructure has been destroyed: no power, no water, no transportation (except for the original means of getting from one place to another--walking). There's no existential despair either ; the survivors are too busy surviving.
The first person narrator is Henry, a seventeen year old boy who is just beginning to get restless. There's a whole world out there about which he knows nothing. He and his friends have a lot of energy that isn't quite used up by the daily struggle to survive. The novel opens with an example of this:
"'It wouldn't really be graverobbing,' Nicolin was explaining. 'Just dig up a coffin and take the silver off the outside of it. Never open it up at all. Bury it again nice and proper--now what could be wrong with that? Those silver coffin handles are going to waste in the ground anyway.'
The five of us considered it.
. . . . .
Gabby Mendez tossed a pebble out at a gliding seagull. 'Just exactly how is that not graverobbing?' he demanded of Nocolin.
'It takes desecration of the body to make it graverobbing.' Nicolin winked at me; I was his partner in these sorts of things. 'We aren't going to do any such thing. No searching for cuff-links or belt buckles, no pulling off rings or dental work, nothing of the sort.'"
The swap meet was run on the barter system mostly, but silver was slowly becoming important as currency. The people of San Onofre, living in the hills just off the beach, found that fishing served several purposes: it provided a dependable supply of food, and the surplus could be dried and traded at the swap meet for whatever they lacked.
"Part One" of the novel focuses for the most part on the lives of the people clustered around the San Onofre River, as Henry experiences it. It is hard work, but there are the good times also, and Henry is the optimistic sort.
"As I turned up the south path towards the little cabin that my pa and I shared, the smells of pine and sea salt raked the insides of my nose and made me drunk with hunger, and happily I imagined chips of silver the size of a dozen dimes. It occurred to me that my friends and I were for the very first time in our lives actually going to do what we had so often boastfully planned to do--and at the thought I felt a thrilling shiver of anticipation. I leaped from root to root in the trail: we were invading the territory of the scavengers, venturing north into the ruins of Orange County."
But, nothing stays the same. Near the end of Part One, two strangers appear. They have come up from San Diego. The Mayor of San Diego has ideas and plans:
Lee, one of the two strangers, tells them that "'We've been working on the rails north of Oceanside for a few weeks now. . .The Mayor of San Diego has organized a bunch of work forces of various sorts, and our job is to establish better travel routes to the surrounding towns . . . And since the Mayor began organizing things, we've accomplished a good deal. The settlements are pretty well scattered, but we have a train system between them that works well. All handcars, you understand, although we do have generators providing a good supply of electricity back home. There's a weekly swap meet, and a fishing fleet, and a militia--all manner of things there weren't before.'"
They are there as sort of ambassadors. The Mayor would like to establish communication as far north as the Los Angeles basin, and they would like the permission and the cooperation of the San Onofre people. Part One ends with Tom Barnard and Henry going down to San Diego to meet with the Mayor. Henry is excited, for he is leaving San Onofre for the first time in his life and going to a place that has maybe 2000 people and electricity, but Tom is somewhat suspicious about what really is on the Mayor's mind.
End of Part One
Friday, February 4, 2011
Russell Hoban: February 4, 1925
My first encounter with Russell Hoban was his post-holocaust novel Riddley Walker, a novel like no other I had read. After finishing this book, I had to see what else he had written. So far, I've read most of his adult novels and consider him one of my favorite writers.
Riddley Walker is also a quest novel and the quest is driven by a riddle, the riddle that Walker alludes to at the beginning of the second chapter: "Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same."
He is a walker and he walks his riddles; this is the basic plot of the book. He walks the riddle and attempts to make sense of the world about him.
The Riddle
"Horny Boy rung Widders Bel
Stoal his Fathers Ham as wel
Bernt his Arse and Forkt a Stoan
Done It Over broak a boan
Out of Good Shoar vackt his wayt
Scratcht Sams Itch for No. 8
Gone to senter nex to see
Cambry coming 3 times 3
Sharna pax and get the poal
When the Ardship of Cambry comes out of the hoal."
Does it make sense? No, but after reading the novel, it does. This is a series of locations that Riddley Walker visits on his quest. Try reading it out loud; it makes a little more sense.
Reading Riddley Walker is a mind stretcher, and it makes one see the English language in a new way.
Riddley Walker is also a quest novel and the quest is driven by a riddle, the riddle that Walker alludes to at the beginning of the second chapter: "Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same."
He is a walker and he walks his riddles; this is the basic plot of the book. He walks the riddle and attempts to make sense of the world about him.
The Riddle
"Horny Boy rung Widders Bel
Stoal his Fathers Ham as wel
Bernt his Arse and Forkt a Stoan
Done It Over broak a boan
Out of Good Shoar vackt his wayt
Scratcht Sams Itch for No. 8
Gone to senter nex to see
Cambry coming 3 times 3
Sharna pax and get the poal
When the Ardship of Cambry comes out of the hoal."
Does it make sense? No, but after reading the novel, it does. This is a series of locations that Riddley Walker visits on his quest. Try reading it out loud; it makes a little more sense.
Reading Riddley Walker is a mind stretcher, and it makes one see the English language in a new way.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Kim Stanley Robinson: The California Troika
When Kim Stanley Robinson published these three novels--The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988), and Pacific Edge (1990)-- they were known collectively as "The Orange County Trilogy." In 1995, the three were reissued in trade paperback editions and were then called "The Three Californias." This probably represents the recognition that these three works do not constitute a trilogy, at least not in the accepted sense of the word. Calling them three Californias does suggest that they are related but not as tightly as a trilogy would be.
I think a better descriptive would be the Russian term "troika," which is a sled or carriage drawn by three horses that are harnessed side-by-side. The three horses therefore move forward into space side-by-side and are equals in that sense--no lead or trailing horse. The same is true of Robinson's three novels, for they move forward side-by-side into time. There is no first or last novel. All three are independent, and it makes no difference in which order the three are read. I read them over twenty years ago in the order of publication, and for this second visit, I will read them in the same order.
I never learned the reason for the change from Orange County to California, but my guess would be a marketing decision--more readers might go for a series set in California than in Orange County, because California is a more recognizable locale than Orange County.
These three novels are inhabitants of my TBR bookcase (To Be Reread in this case). I won't read all three back-to-back but hope to be able to move them eventually during the year out of the TBR bookcase. I shall start within the next week or two with The Wild Shore.
The Wild Shore is a post-holocaust novel and belongs in the "what if" SF category. "What if the US was suddenly attacked, and it was the only country attacked." No other country came to the aid of the US for fear of retaliation. The novel begins in 2047, several decades after the war, if a one-sided attack can be called a war. The POV character, Hank Fletcher, is a young man who lives with his father in a small community made up of others who struggle to survive on the California coast in what was once known as Orange County. He can see ships from Japan and other countries as they maintain a blockade along the Pacific Coast. They will prevent any ships from entering or leaving the coastal waters.
The people survive by farming and trading surplus goods and pre-destruction artifacts with other small communities in the area. Not surprisingly, barter is now the dominant economic system. These people's lives are not characterized as part of that idyllic pastoral romance that shows up in so many post-holocaust fantasies. It is a hard, difficult life, and there is little in the way of significant change until several strangers arrive, who claim to be from San Diego, and they have some ideas about disrupting the status quo.
The Gold Coast belongs to the "if this goes on" category of SF. It is Robinson's extrapolation of what life would be like in Orange County, California, if some existing trends continued. It is set in 2027 and the back page description says it better than I could:
Southern California is a developer's dream gone mad, an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. Jim McPherson, the affluent son of a defense contractor, is a young man lost in a world of fast cars, casual sex, and designer drugs. But his descent into the shadowy underground of industrial terrorism brings him into a shattering confrontation with his family, his goals, and his ideals.
Pacific Edge, the third novel in the troika, is set also in the same area in 2065, but again in a very different universe. It belongs to the "what if" category, and frankly I consider it to be closer to fantasy than the other two works. I, anyway, believe this universe to be the one that is least likely to happen because the question answered by Pacific Edge is this: "What if the whole world suddenly goes green?"
Big is bad, small is good. Air and water pollution are not to be permitted for any reason. No company can have more than a certain number of employees. Growth, unless it is demonstrably necessary for survival, is forbidden; increasing profits has nothing to do with survival and therefore is not considered an adequate reason for expansion. A new set of three "Rs" has been added to the traditional "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmatic": "Reuse, Recycle, and Repair."
From the back cover description: "Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this 'green' world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation." I suspect this book is on or would be on every Chamber of Commerce's black list.
While there are no links among the novels--all three are independent and occupy separate universes--there are some commonalities among them. Locale, of course, is one of them. Another commonality is that the main character in each is a young male. A third is that shortly after the novels begin, the young male is involved in digging up something from the past. A fourth is the presence of the old man, who provides a type of historical commentary or perhaps even continuity with the past in each of the three novels.
What Robinson has created is a work that provides three different futures for Orange County or California, if you prefer, each of which takes place roughly during the middle third of the 21st century. Robinson thus gives readers an opportunity to select and discuss which is the preferable one and which is the most likely one.
I don't know of any other author who has created a similar series. If there is one, I would certainly like to hear about it.
I think a better descriptive would be the Russian term "troika," which is a sled or carriage drawn by three horses that are harnessed side-by-side. The three horses therefore move forward into space side-by-side and are equals in that sense--no lead or trailing horse. The same is true of Robinson's three novels, for they move forward side-by-side into time. There is no first or last novel. All three are independent, and it makes no difference in which order the three are read. I read them over twenty years ago in the order of publication, and for this second visit, I will read them in the same order.
I never learned the reason for the change from Orange County to California, but my guess would be a marketing decision--more readers might go for a series set in California than in Orange County, because California is a more recognizable locale than Orange County.
These three novels are inhabitants of my TBR bookcase (To Be Reread in this case). I won't read all three back-to-back but hope to be able to move them eventually during the year out of the TBR bookcase. I shall start within the next week or two with The Wild Shore.
The Wild Shore is a post-holocaust novel and belongs in the "what if" SF category. "What if the US was suddenly attacked, and it was the only country attacked." No other country came to the aid of the US for fear of retaliation. The novel begins in 2047, several decades after the war, if a one-sided attack can be called a war. The POV character, Hank Fletcher, is a young man who lives with his father in a small community made up of others who struggle to survive on the California coast in what was once known as Orange County. He can see ships from Japan and other countries as they maintain a blockade along the Pacific Coast. They will prevent any ships from entering or leaving the coastal waters.
The people survive by farming and trading surplus goods and pre-destruction artifacts with other small communities in the area. Not surprisingly, barter is now the dominant economic system. These people's lives are not characterized as part of that idyllic pastoral romance that shows up in so many post-holocaust fantasies. It is a hard, difficult life, and there is little in the way of significant change until several strangers arrive, who claim to be from San Diego, and they have some ideas about disrupting the status quo.
The Gold Coast belongs to the "if this goes on" category of SF. It is Robinson's extrapolation of what life would be like in Orange County, California, if some existing trends continued. It is set in 2027 and the back page description says it better than I could:
Southern California is a developer's dream gone mad, an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. Jim McPherson, the affluent son of a defense contractor, is a young man lost in a world of fast cars, casual sex, and designer drugs. But his descent into the shadowy underground of industrial terrorism brings him into a shattering confrontation with his family, his goals, and his ideals.
Pacific Edge, the third novel in the troika, is set also in the same area in 2065, but again in a very different universe. It belongs to the "what if" category, and frankly I consider it to be closer to fantasy than the other two works. I, anyway, believe this universe to be the one that is least likely to happen because the question answered by Pacific Edge is this: "What if the whole world suddenly goes green?"
Big is bad, small is good. Air and water pollution are not to be permitted for any reason. No company can have more than a certain number of employees. Growth, unless it is demonstrably necessary for survival, is forbidden; increasing profits has nothing to do with survival and therefore is not considered an adequate reason for expansion. A new set of three "Rs" has been added to the traditional "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmatic": "Reuse, Recycle, and Repair."
From the back cover description: "Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this 'green' world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation." I suspect this book is on or would be on every Chamber of Commerce's black list.
While there are no links among the novels--all three are independent and occupy separate universes--there are some commonalities among them. Locale, of course, is one of them. Another commonality is that the main character in each is a young male. A third is that shortly after the novels begin, the young male is involved in digging up something from the past. A fourth is the presence of the old man, who provides a type of historical commentary or perhaps even continuity with the past in each of the three novels.
What Robinson has created is a work that provides three different futures for Orange County or California, if you prefer, each of which takes place roughly during the middle third of the 21st century. Robinson thus gives readers an opportunity to select and discuss which is the preferable one and which is the most likely one.
I don't know of any other author who has created a similar series. If there is one, I would certainly like to hear about it.
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