What I've Been Reading – 2010, Part 5

As I've gone through quite a few books since I last talked about what I've been reading, this time I'm only going to talk briefly about each book. I'm also skipping over some short stories and non-fiction I've read in the same period, even though much of it was good (e.g., Greg Egan's hard sci-fi short stories).

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
This novel focusing on the theme of female sexual desire was a huge seller when it came out. It was notable for being the first well-known novel by a woman to talk about sex from the female perspective (books like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill were of course written by men). As one might expect, sex is the dominant topic, though a lot of it is fantasies. While there is a fair amount of actual sex, there isn't as much as one might think (there's probably at least as much – certainly more variety – in Dhalgren, which is not mainly about sex) and as Erica Jong herself points out in the forward, it's usually somewhat disappointing. The novel also briefly touches on a theme of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, namely the difficulty people have in conveying their real feelings with words. Another interesting point is that the narrator's life has many points in common with Erica Jong's own, making the novel semi-autobiographical.

Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Reading Fear of Flying reminded me that I had a copy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure that I had glanced at but not actually read, so I decided to read through it. This 19th century work is famous (okay, infamous) for its graphic depictions of sex, and its reputation in this regard is fairly well justified, though of course there are much more graphic descriptions out there nowadays. There is of course a lot of sex, though interestingly Fanny Hill is really more of a mistress to successive men than a sex worker who receives many customers. In certain ways Cleland succeeds in showing a certain sympathy for his female protagonist, at least for his time, though in other ways his work reflects a purely male and sometimes sexist perspective. Also, despite depicting positively, or at least not particularly negatively, a wide variety of sexual practices, including lesbian sex, group sex, and sado-masochism, there is an extremely venomous attack on gay male sex, reflecting the extreme homophobia of the times.

More Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The last two collections of stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords, are notable for being somewhat bleaker than previous stories (both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo significant suffering), being set mostly away from the city of Lankhmar (the main setting for many previous stories) and containing a few explicit depictions of sex (though sex was always clearly a major motivation for the characters, it wasn't explicitly depicted in earlier books – there was supposedly a sex scene in The Swords of Lankhmar which the publisher asked Leiber to cut out). Otherwise the stories are as entertaining as always.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
A futuristic science fiction novel in which geneticists have found a way to modify the genes of embryos so that the children they grow into do not need sleep and become super-intelligent partly as a result. The obvious superiority of the Sleepless causes resentment and hatred among the rest of the population (the Sleepers), resulting in conflicts and eventually causing many of the Sleepless to flee to a separate sanctuary they have created, at first on Earth but later in near-Earth orbital space. The main theme of the novel is the question of balance between the rights of the individual and their obligations to the society, or, as Kress explained it, between an Ayn Rand-type philosophy (which she said she ultimately found to be neither workable nor morally admirable, a sentiment I completely agree with) and the more communal societies depicted by Ursula LeGuin. Though I'm dubious about certain parts of the premise (I don't think eliminating the need for sleep would have such a dramatic effect on people) and I disagree with the arguments against secession made in the last part of the novel, the novel is interesting and the point that Americans in particular often resent intelligence, if perhaps slightly exaggerated, is nevertheless well taken.

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Only slightly less famous than its predecessor Alice in Wonderland, this cleverly told tale includes Carroll's famous poem "Jabberwocky" and a tale which is structured like an elaborate game of chess.

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This is another brilliantly cynical novel from Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's style is unique and quite different from what I normally prefer, but he does it very well. It helps, of course, that I share a lot of his cynicism. I especially appreciate his mockery of things like patriotism, capitalism, and the type of history taught in schools. However, despite his liberal outlook, Vonnegut is not at all politically correct (not that that problematic term even existed at the time), so some liberals might have trouble with him as well (not me, however). Like a few of the other Vonnegut novels I've read, it's also metafictional, not only in that Kilgore Trout, one of the main characters (and a recurring character in a number of Vonnegut's novels), is a science fiction writer, but because Vonnegut himself appears in the novel.

Iron Council by China Mieville
This is the third of China Mieville's fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag. The most prominent power in Bas-Lag is the city of New Crobuzon, a huge, cosmopolitan and oppressive place a little like a more deadly fantasy version of Charles Dickens' London (Mieville's Bas-Lag novels are often characterized as steampunk, reflecting the type of technology prevalent in them). New Crobuzon was the setting of the first Bas-Lag novel, Perdido Street Station, and much of Iron Council is also set there (the second novel, The Scar, is set elsewhere, but New Crobuzon still plays a major role). The government of New Crobuzon, though supposedly a parliamentary democracy, is ruthless and authoritarian, and much of this novel focuses on resistance to it from dissident elements inside and outside the city, once again resembling somewhat the struggle of 19th century laboring classes against unfeeling bosses and rulers, including the major divisions among the dissident groups themselves, though here the authorities are more powerful and sinister (Mieville calls his world "an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind"). While most of the main characters are human, Mieville's world contains a fantastic array of strange and often unpleasant creatures, though some are friendly or at least able to interact peacefully with humans (indeed, one of the main characters in Perdido Street Station is a khepri, a being with a human body but a head that resembles a giant insect). Even among the latter, there are some of extremely unusual appearance, thanks to New Crobuzon's punishment factories, which remake convicted criminals in bizarre and often unpleasant ways, such as making them part machine, attaching useless appendages to them, and so forth. The resulting creatures, called Remade, are looked down and discriminated against by everyone else, even the lower classes. There is also plenty of magic (here called thaumaturgy), which often takes nastily destructive forms. Another point that shouldn't really be worthy of note but still is somewhat unusual in much literature today is that two of the the main protagonists are gay (actually bisexual in one case), though this probably shouldn't surprise readers of the first book, in which the two chief protagonists are in a relationship which, though heterosexual, is even less conventional, as one is human and the other is khepri. I highly recommend the Bas-Lag novels, though with the caveat that Mieville doesn't seem to believe in truly happy endings; at best, the worst evils may be averted and some of the protagonists may survive after having won an incomplete victory over the various forces of evil.

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen is a mix of historical and modern fiction, with a dash of metafiction thrown in. The first half of the book is narrated by Lady Hyegyong, an actual historical figure who was born in 18th century Korea. As a child, she was selected to be the bride of the Crown Prince, and she survived intrigues, scandals, and the execution of her husband at the hand of his own father to see her son and grandson take the throne. She wrote four memoirs of her life, which I unfortunately haven't read (in fact I hadn't heard of her before – I must confess that I know less of Korea's history than I do of most other countries in the region), but which sound fascinating. In The Red Queen, however, she is relating her fictional fifth memoir in modern times, even though (as she mentions several times) she is long dead. Thus she mixes her narrative of her youth with very modern interpretations of the events. The second part of the book focuses on the woman that Lady Hyegyong calls her "ghostly envoy", the modern doctor who is in a sense possessed by her, having become fascinated after reading a translation of her memoirs while on the way to Seoul for a conference (a fascination shared by Drabble herself, who in a sense is Lady Hyegyong's real "ghostly envoy"). This part of the book obviously doesn't contain events to compare with those in Lady Hyegyong's life, but nevertheless there is one fairly dramatic and unexpected (despite some foreshadowing) occurrence towards the end. Interestingly, both the protagonists consider themselves to be rationalists and thus not big believers in the supernatural, and yet one is dead and the other is watched over not only by the first but also by guardian spirits. Despite this supernatural element, the book focuses more on psychology and human relations as well as Korean culture, making it very much a modern novel. Drabble herself makes an appearance in the last few pages of this unusual but very readable book.

The Stand by Stephen King
The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest and most epic novels, though it is not as massive as his Dark Tower series (actually the only other work by him I've read). The basic premise of the book is similar to that of George Stewart's Earth Abides, in which a plague wipes out most of humanity (and apparently King has said Stewart's book was an inspiration), though they take the idea in completely different directions. Though the first part of the book reads like post-apocalyptic science fiction, the supernatural soon makes an appearance (unsurprising, given that it's Stephen King), and the book becomes an epic struggle between good and evil (King was also inspired by The Lord of the Rings, a big influence on both this book and the Dark Tower books). This makes it a bit hard to characterize in terms of genre; it is sci-fi, horror and fantasy all in one. The horror elements come mainly from the very unpleasant symptoms of the superflu early in the book, the massive number of corpses scattered around in the subsequent part, and the diabolically nasty antagonist in the last half, but they are not overwhelming, so the book is enjoyable enough for those who aren't big fans of horror (like me). Having read this and the Dark Tower series, I can tell that King listens to a lot of classic rock, as a number of different songs are referenced in both works and one of the protagonists in this one is a R&B-influenced rock singer; he's a fan of Richard Adams and Watership Down, which is mentioned in both works; he often uses his home state of Maine as a setting (parts of both works take place there, though relatively brief parts overall); and he likes creating links between his various works (there are a number of connections not only between these two books but also with other novels he's written). In some ways the book hangs together better than the Dark Tower, which is a bit unwieldy in places, though even here there are certain inconsistencies and implausible moments (the former perhaps increased by King's frequent revisions – in the paperback edition that I read, the date of the story was changed somewhat from that in the original edition). But it is certainly an entertaining read, and it is understandable that, as King notes in his forward to the revised edition of the first Dark Tower novel, The Stand is the favorite of many of his readers, with only the Dark Tower rivaling it in the passionate devotion of its fans.