Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction, page 13

A Review of Julian Barnes "The Sense of An Ending"

I hesitate to review a prize-winning book, especially one well written and insightful. The introspection of the first person character carried me on, for I could identify with his youthful doubts and mediocrities. I could also identify with him as an older person looking back on a life well-lived but questionably significant. However, too much can begin to sound like whining.

My main criticism is that the story's suspense is built on failure to communicate--a device used way too often in soap operas. Too little motivation is given for both the actions taken and the dire consequences of reactions to those actions.

I kept reading. I love well-written English--but in the end, the book didn't tell me anything useful about human nature. It merely raised questions about the author's motivation. He seemed to be more interested in trying to shock the reader than carrying his exploration of human nature to a satisfying insight. What are we supposed to learn? That we are Not designed to carry on tragedies with resignation, at least with some understanding of fate or a touch of forgiveness? Is genius our undoing? Bitterness our destiny? Our mediocrity our salvation? Maybe that's it.

How The Hen House Turns Picked Up as a Weekly Column

The widely distributed Los Alamos Daily Post is now publishing How The Hen House Turns blog as a weekly column. http://caryneeper.com/blog.htm I'll be staying with the exploration of the steady state there along with the hens' connection to complexity and sustainable issues. You're invited to join the discussion about a bright future that challenges how we do things now.
I'll be backtracking a little for the news column, concentrating on the earlier blogs that focused more on animal care.

The Power of Story--and Paintings

My article about the power of story has been published by the Daly News at steadystate.org http://bit.ly/12uQdhH

Here is my recent review of "1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die"
This is an amazing collection of small reproductions, one or two to a page, each with a short history of the painter and comments about the painting. It is unlike any other view of history--seen through the eyes of recognized artists of every type of painting and world view. The chronological order of the paintings provides the orientation needed to understand the passions of each age from the 1400s though part of the 2000s. I'm flagging the paintings that strike me as inspiring or striking, and there are more than a few.

Ripe Issues for Book Clubs in The Webs of Varok

The Webs of Varok portrays a steady state economy, with all its differences from our current situation, hence it provides ripe fruit for Book clubs to pick, in discussion. Varok's legal definition of family provides another topic, as does the metaphor represented by the traitor Mahntik's unnatural ability to block her mind from reading.

The Webs of Varok might be called soft or relational or women's science fiction, because it features a mixed family of aliens and humans in an alternate 21st century solar system, dealing with their complex relationships. The book's aliens provide more fun than in most scifi stories, while the main thrust of the story deals with current economic issues.

The family is determined to see that an overcrowded Earth finds a way to solve its dilemmas. They decide that Varok would serve as a good model for how to maintain a sustainable, equitable society. However, when the family arrives on Varok, after a realistically long voyage, they find their trust in each other and in Varokian economics threatened by an ambitious traitor. The story's metaphor for human double-dealing is presaged in the first scene, in which the lovely human protagonist practices her mind-link with her varokian partner. The varokian traitor has learned to block her mind from its natural openness, giving her unusual leverage in the society.

The Webs of Varok is told by two storytellers. The human protagonist TANDRA tells her first person view on things as she leaves Earth for the alien planet Varok. When she is not present, the third person omniscient storyteller gets into the other interesting heads pushing the plot forward. The most fun is the ahlork Nidok, not too literate and yet able to exchange ripe insults with his best friend, the aquatic elll of the mixed family, CONN.

The Power of Story--Why We Write

Quoting Bryant Meyers: "Every community needs a big story, a story that frames our lives and our understanding of the world. . . that gives answers to questions of meaning and provides moral direction and social purpose. We need to know who we are..., where we are..., what went wrong (making sense of the poverty, pain, and injustice we see), what we must do (what must change and how it can be changed), and what time it is (how our past, present, and future fit into this picture....Any vision of a better human future must have its roots in the story that makes sense of our lives.
--Bryant L. Myers, Walking with the Poor : Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999), 20-21.
Read about it here.

Why do we write? Why do we read? Why have there been one million books published every year in the US alone? And countless blogs? Why are there so many more, now that self-publishing is so easy? I suspect it's because we all have a "big story." We want to share the "frame" that give us "understanding of the world." Perhaps our vision will provide nourishing roots for a "better human future."

As Bryant Myers suggests in the quote above, we need to know for following:
"Who we are?" I see my angst, my caring, my joy reflected in this blog's Hen House gang. I experience aging with my 13 year-old dogs. I want to reflect that awareness of things common to all life by creating alien characters in my fiction. They also share, in spite of differences so vast they are at first beyond awareness or comprehension.
"Where are we?" I thrill at the magnificence of the universe in new pictures from NASA and gorgeous photos of Earth on Pinterest. I want everyone to experience the awe I feel when hard evidence reveals the intricacies of how genes work, how cosmology and biophysics give birth to and sustain life and mind. I shiver at the knowledge of complex systems that describes everything connected in nonlinear ways, providing the possibility for amplification of our every effort (thus meaning?), along with the threat of unpredictability with those same efforts. This also invades my writing.
"What we must do." this is the hard part. We not only see different solutions, we see different problems, because all our experiences differ. Perhaps the best we can do is focus. "Write what you know," say some pundits. Perhaps we should write from or out of what we have experienced. We can try to provide a positive vision, a way out, a dream scenario that reassures and guides.
"What time it is." As we learn from the past, and look at what is happening now, can we paint in words a picture of the future grounded in realism, one that contributes to a "moral direction" and a nourishing "social purpose," a story that provides faith or hope in "questions of meaning" if not unquestioned "answers."Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practice of Transformational Development

Playing Fast and Loose With Points of View

(Yes, "play fast and loose" is in the Dimwit's Dictionary,
so should the title of this blog be "Being Unpredictable with POV?"
The other alternate suggestions are too unkind.)

The Webs of Varok is told by two storytellers--the third person omniscient and Tandra's first person view of things. She is not omniscient, doesn't have a clue what ahlorks or ellls think, not even Conn, though I suspect she thinks she does. We let her tell her view of things to add more dimension to the story. Sorry if it confused you at first. Her first person POV gets even more complicated because she is in "mind-link" with Orram, a talent that is not well developed in humans, so the sharing of thoughts comes and goes. I'm not really sorry about that, either. I think it adds to the fun. Some reviewers liked it.

It is not in the rule books, you know, jumping from first to third person as the story progresses, but in The Webs of Varok I believe it serves a good purpose. You wouldn't want to be stuck in Tandra's head, or even the author's head, would you? Wasn't it fun to get into Nidok's head? Ahlork probably don't share many genes with anyone else except ancient varoks, the same way many of us humans carry Neanderthal genes. Ahlork can gargle noises that almost sound like bipedal language--hence the translation in Webs--but I have taken great artistic license with their thoughts.

I also had fun playing in Mahntik's head, slamming shut her mental block and annoying her mates, just for the power trip it gave her. This talent also came in handy as a metaphor for what's been going on lately with humans and the economic casino games they've been playing. Their minds are slammed shut by nature, so not even the courts can find ways to throw the errant bankers in jail.

My conclusion? It doesn't hurt to break a few rules, if you're consistent about it. I'm doing it again--author's privilege when the publisher agrees. In the next book of the Archives of Varok, Orram tells the story in first person omniscient. Is this another rule broken? Too bad. Orram is a mood- and thought-sensing varok, isn't he? And he's in constant radio communication with everyone else in the story, so we'll give him a break. We'll give him a little character's license.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH by Dietz and O'Neill is a cliche to take to heart.

The rumors are true. I am reading Robert Fishe's "The Dimwit's Dictinary cover to cover. I'm underlining it too. What? You heard me. (Ha! I just looked up that phrase. He forgot that one.) I said, I'm underlining words and phrases that I probably would use, phrases like "express (concern)" or "attitude." Fiske lists helpful alternative words, sometimes, so I'll continue reading and underlining. I'm up to G. I'm sure his book will help me in the ongoing struggle to ramp up my verbiage to new heights. (Ooops. No, that one's not there, either.)

That said, I'm moving on. (Ha again! Neither phrase is listed, but "moving forward," is.) I'm going to express my doubts about the phrases listed in the Dimwit's Dictionary. Some are too useful; they express too precisely what I mean to say, sometimes with a tone that no alternative phrase or word captures. Take, for example, the title of Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill's excellent, concise summary of why we need to do this and that to begin the conversion to a steady state, now. "Economics for Dummies?" No! It's called "Enough Is Enough." Rob thought long and hard about using that title. A search can get 150 hits on the phrase. But it says exactly what they wanted to say, and I agree. They say why. They say how to make a steady state work for the betterment of all. It's a text that should be required reading in every school in the country, important for all of us to read before we can't stop imploding. I doubt that the title will hurt his sales. Enough Is Enough memorable and right on target. Just be sure to add the Dietz and O'Neill to your search.
Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources

Reading Thesaurus's Cover To Cover

I wouldn't recommend this for most Thesaurus's, but these two are so entertaining (even the introductions) that I've decided to stick my neck out (Ooops that's a nono) and just say it--I'm treating myself to one alphabet letter per day in The Dimwit's Dictionary by ?Castle Books? (or maybe Robert H. Fiske editor@vocabula.com) and in Peter Meltzer's The Thinker's Thesaurus. Dimwit has some shocking reminders. I'm underlining some. And The Thinker's Thesaurus comes up with some doozies (Ooops again--nope, it's not in the Dimwit's Dictionary), most of which are not useable unless you go to some lengths to make your meaning clear in context. But then, maybe that's the purpose of most books??

Reading Thesaurus

The Secret Feast of Father Christmas

What brightened the holidays were gorgeous snows on Christmas and New Years eve, a lovely week with daughter Shawne and her husband Tom, and Darryl Pickett's book The Secret Feast of Father Christmas. His characters came alive from the first page, a likable young teenager you could easily remember as being just-like-you at that age. The fantasy world that engulfed him, though a bit edgy, is one I will not soon forget. The twist near the end turned up the critic in me for a moment, but it was so beautifully handled I decided to give the story a full five stars. It is indeed a good example of the power of story told well, without recourse to toothy danger and violence. There is love out there--real joy that celebrates the human spirit and creative energy at its best. Thank you, Darryl.