John Walters's Blog, page 70

Why I Write Book Reviews

Writing book reviews grew out of my desire to create a blog.  I wanted a web presence to accompany the publication of my books.  In the beginning I wasn’t sure exactly what I would write about, though I had a general idea when I subtitled the blog “thoughts on writing, travel, and literature”.  Literature and reading is such an integral part of me that I could hardly ignore it.  I decided to post a review of every book I read.  It was partly a reaction to reading “The Books in My Life” by Henry Miller.  I don’t think that volume is one of his better works, but that’s not the point.  Reading was such a profoundly important part of his life that he decided to devote a series of books to it.  He never got past volume one; other things caught his attention and he moved on.  I wonder, though, what he would have done had he had the option of starting a blog.  He had said once he would be content with one true reader.  He might have avidly taken to blogging as a free means of expression.  Be that as it may, my own blog evolved from being merely an accompaniment to the publication of my books to a means of expression in its own right.  It reflects me and what I am going through.  It is not always current, as sometimes I have the posts prepared a few weeks ahead of time, but it is a general indicator of my psychic temperature.  And because I cannot imagine a life without books, book reviews are an essential part of radiating who and what I am.

Since I am always reading books, I am always on the lookout for good reading material.  I find my books in many ways.  I follow up on recommendations of people whose opinions I trust; I peruse awards lists; I write down titles when I come across references in odd places.  I do not go by popularity; I am not interested in bestseller lists.  I have my own ideas of what turns me on, and I don’t give a damn whether it interests anyone else or not.  But another good source of ideas for books are books about books.  Once when I was a young teen I came across a book called “One Hundred Great American Novels”, which was a compilation of synopses of books which, in the author’s opinion, constituted the germinal works of American literature.  It was a fascinating read, and from it I gleaned ideas for reading matter for many months to follow.  Among the books I heard about for the first time were “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, and “Jurgen” by James Branch Cabell, both of which became some of my favorites.  So though my primary purpose in writing book reviews is self expression, I hope that through these reviews you find your path to new worlds of reading adventure.

Reading, after all, is a voyage of discovery.  And though a true reader wants the freedom to discover new worlds without restriction, a map with a few landmarks is a useful tool to help save time.  All I can do is point out paths I have followed and what those paths meant to me.  They may not mean the same to you.  Some books I found crucial to my growth you may find boring.  Some books I found tedious you may find wonderful.  That’s as it should be.  We grow in different ways and in different directions.

As with my other books, in my book reviews I write what I would like to read.  I appreciate a good book review, but I do not at all like tedious reviews written for academic audiences, reviews written in highfalutin prose for a select few.  They bore me, those pompous exercises in pseudo-literary pretention.  In contrast, my reviews are as much about me as they are about the books.  I often let you know how I came across the book, and any background that makes the book particularly relevant to me.  That’s part of the experience, as far as I am concerned.  There is no absolutely objective criteria by which to judge books.  The experience does not takes place in isolation.  There is a relationship involved between writer and reader.

The book reviews, in fact, are the most popular articles in my blog.  They get more hits than all the other articles put together.  Of course, many of those who access the reviews probably do so because they need something to paraphrase for a school composition project.  That’s all right with me.  Although I wish those lazy bums would read the books instead.  I don’t mind them drawing from my ideas, but I do object to using them as a substitute for the wonderful activity of reading itself.  Nothing I can do about that, so I might as well not waste time lamenting over the possibility.

Really, though, I write these reviews to inspire you to read, not to keep you from having to do so.  If you don’t read it’s your loss.  You are closing your mind to an integral facet of existence, an entire dimension of experience.  Who would be content to close their eyes, plug their nose, jamb their fingers in their ears?  Open up, folks.  Allow yourselves to encounter the minds of those who have devoted themselves to communicating with you.  Not all reading material is worthwhile.  There’s a lot of crap out there.  But reviews are one way to fine-tune your discernment, to ensure that your reading experience is time well spent.

Having said that, I have to reiterate that these reviews really are more about me than they are about the books.  I come to the books from my perspective.  Every book I assimilate becomes a part of the totality that is me, John Walters, the writer, reader, traveler, seeker of truth.  By the time I have absorbed the book and the words come back out in the form of a review, they are hopelessly colored by everything that I have been and am.  This is what you must understand and allow as you read the reviews.  If you read the books themselves they will not affect you the same way they affected me.  We may agree on certain points, but the relationship you have with the author is not the same as mine.  This is a good thing.  We are each microcosms in the great vastness of the overall universe, and writing and reading is one way we have of closing the gap.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

Book Review: The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories

Connie Willis didn’t appear on the science fiction scene until the early eighties, long after I had stopped reading much in the genre.  I didn’t read any of her work, therefore, until a couple of decades later.  Right away, soon after she appeared in print, she began amassing awards, until now she is the most decorated writer in science fiction and fantasy, with seven Nebula Awards and eleven Hugo Awards won.  She’s also been named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  The first book I read of hers was “Doomsday Book”, the story of a woman who travels back in time to the Dark Ages and gets caught in the plague years.  The narrative switches back and forth between her adventures in the past and another epidemic in the future during the time she came from.  Next I read “Passage”, which is a long novel of life after death.  In this story the characters are mainly hospital personnel; one of them is murdered and the story alternates between what happens to her after she dies, and the people left behind in the hospital.  Both of these novels are long and complex, with multiple characters and many plot threads.  However, Willis is also known for her short fiction, which has won many of her awards.  All of her award-winning short fiction is presented in this volume, ten stories in all, ranging from short stories to novellas.  As I had read only two of them before, I looked forward to reading the others and was curious as to why Willis’s fiction continues to win so many awards.

As I read through this volume I noticed some patterns.  Almost all of these stories are written in the first person, either from a male or female viewpoint.  They predominantly have multiple characters and a lot of dialog.  The interaction between the characters appears to be mundane, almost trivial at first, until near the end when it all comes together and makes sense.

I found that the stories I enjoyed most were “Even the Queen” and “The Winds of Marble Arch”, which were the two I had read before.  And yesterday, as I finished rereading “The Winds of Marble Arch” and marveled at how wonderfully it all wraps up in the conclusion, I realized why these stories stood out to me.  Willis’s stories at first read seem almost incomprehensible in their simplicity.  You read them and you wonder what’s going on and why these people are doing and saying these things.  The fact is, though on the surface the dialog and activity seem random, underneath it is all held together by brilliant internal logic.  It builds and builds and builds until by the time you have reached the conclusion you have fallen securely into the rabbit hole and there is no hope of escape.  I will have to read these stories again, and I am fully confident that I will enjoy them even more the second time than I did the first.  Thus it is with great fiction.

I met Connie Willis recently at ConDor, San Diego’s yearly science fiction convention.  During her guest of honor speech I sat up near the front to see what sort of pearls of wisdom I could glean from a much more successful writer than myself.  She is a very friendly, simple person.  She sat down facing everyone, apologized that she had a cold and was sneezing and wiping her nose and so on, and said that instead of a prepared speech she had decided to answer questions from the audience, anything anyone cared to ask.  I was (and am) going through a crisis of confidence, so I raised my hand and asked her the first question of the session.  I inquired whether she had ever felt despair that she would ever make it as a writer.  She said yes she did, every day, even now.  She said that every day she wakes up frightened, wondering if she can still deliver, that she has no more confidence despite all the awards than she did when she was first starting out.  She recounted a story that once long ago she received a notice of a package at the post office.  Thinking it would be a nice surprise, she was devastated to instead receive back the dozen or so stories she had sent out to various magazines, all with rejections.  She almost despaired and quit the writing game right there, but instead she turned them around and sent them out again, and one of them sold.  She emphasized that writers have to have thick skins; they have to be willing to get up countless times after falling and press onward.  Success is never a guarantee of peace of mind and certitude of vision, but many would-be writers fall for the myth that it is.

In closing, let me emphasize that this is a fine collection of first-rate fiction by a master of the science fiction field who is a first-rate person as well.

This is not the best single-author collection I have ever read.  I think I would reserve that honor for “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever” by James Tiptree, Jr., followed by runners-up “The Rediscovery of Man” by Cordwainer Smith and “Phases of the Moon” by Robert Silverberg.  But it is a good, solid collection of stories, well worth reading and rereading.

Why Reading Gets Me Off

My youngest son has recently caught on to the joy of reading.  It happened abruptly, and when it did it snowballed or avalanched into an all-consuming passion.  The catalyst was a book that sparked his interest – nothing more.  But I had to insist he read that book.  It turned out I only had to insist he begin.  After that he caught fire and continued on his own.  Before this event, when living in Greece, he was, if anything, anti-reading, proclaiming it boring, preferring movies and video games.  Which makes the turnaround all the more remarkable.  Now I have to be sure his book hunger is regularly fed.  It is like throwing coal into a roaring furnace:  the more you feed it the greater the fire and the more fuel you need.  I have to take him to bookstores, order books on line, visit the library.  He consumes books as fast as I can gather them.

He reminds me of myself when I was that age.

I can’t remember when I first became interested in books.  I seem to have been born with the addiction.  Was there ever a time I was not intent on devouring reading material?  At a certain time in my life I forsook television.  It was a deliberate act; I sold my TV and just didn’t bother anymore.  But forsake books?  Never.  Even when I hitchhiked around the world carrying nothing but a duffle bag I always carried a book along.  One book was the limit, for the sake of the weight, but I always had that one book.  I chose long books, because I was not always able to find them so easily.  I read Henry Miller’s “The Rosy Crucifixion” at that time, if I remember correctly.  And in Greece I picked up a paperback copy of “Shogun”, by James Clavell, just before I headed across the Middle East; that one lasted me a while.

The point is, the books have always been there.  They have added nuance, depth, and richness to my life.  I still always have a book on hand that I am reading.  Nowadays I alternate between fiction and nonfiction.  I plan ahead so that I have a book ready for when I finish the current one.  If somehow I misjudge and I finish a book before I have acquired the next one in line I’m thrown into a tailspin; I’ve got to find something to read quickly.  I’m like a smoker running out of cigarettes or an alcoholic running out of drink.  I might pick up a magazine or reread a section of something I have read before, but I am ill at ease until the next reading project is underway.

That’s just how it is.  And when I speak of reading I am not talking about an expediency but a glorious adventure.  When politicians and educators talk about literacy programs, they refer to kids learning the type of reading you do when you have to:  making sense of words as a means of communication of facts or data.  That is one type of reading, and it is, of course, essential.  But the reading to which I refer is different.  It is like a drug rush.  It is an experience, a sensation, a phenomenon.  Many people never feel it precisely because educators try to inculcate it in them with the wrong kind of books, the so-called classics which turn out to be beyond their comprehension, over-long and boring.  It’s like trying to turn someone on to gourmet cooking by serving them a huge bland bowl of porridge.  It might fill the stomach and satisfy the hunger if you are starving, but it will not hone the taste buds and give you an appetite for more.  Many of the books I was forced to read as part of the curriculum in high school I have forgotten, and so bland was the experience I never had any interest in going back to them later and rereading them.  Maybe some of them are good books; I don’t know and I don’t care.  The problem is that many people develop a distaste for reading that goes back to those poor selections; they never get past the mediocre experience of being force-fed literature for which they were not ready or that simply was not their cup of tea.

My great reading experiences were all my ideas.  Wait.  Let me qualify that.  There was once when a high school assigned text caught my interest and led me to further reading.  The book was “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck.  The story so enthralled me that I sought out more works by Steinbeck, and ended up reading almost everything he ever wrote.  He was, in fact, one of my first literary loves.  I liked his simple, straightforward style, his depiction of fascinating, idiosyncratic common folks, his California settings.  My favorite was “Sweet Thursday”, the comedy-romance between Suzy the hooker and Doc the marine biologist.

But this was the singular exception, as far as I can recall, of assigned texts ever being interesting or leading to further reading.  It’s a fine line that teachers walk.  On the one hand you want your students to develop their individual tastes, but on the other you want to have a common text to be able to study and analyze.  But therein too lies a part of the problem:  the studying and analyzing takes the fun out of it.  Reading a book is different for each individual, and you cannot dictate terms under which it is relevant for anyone but yourself.

You might say that one reason you don’t read much is that reading doesn’t engage the senses as much as watching films or playing video games does.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  Reading is a much more total experience than either.  In films and video games the creators take you by the hand and do everything for you.  You have to use much less of your intellect, much less of your concentration.  With books, on the other hand, in order to achieve the fullness of the experience you must draw yourself into it; in a sense you create the experience as you go along:  the sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes.  The author’s words ignite your psyche and create an internal multidimensional, multisensory experience which can be totally fulfilling, totally absorbing.

That is why I need a quiet place, free from distractions, when I read.  Outside stimuli destroy the illusion, the suspension from reality.  As a young teen, after my father had built me my own small room in the basement of our house I would hole up in there, lay on my bed and read for hour after hour.  That is where I first encountered “The Lord of the Rings”.  I had heard nothing about it, and as Frodo, Sam, and Pippin hiked across the Shire with the dark riders close behind, I was more in Middle Earth than I was in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.  If someone inadvertently left the basement door open and the sounds from upstairs broke the spell I was under and brought me back to the real world, I would have to pause and march up the stairs and close the door again, cocoon myself in silence, so I could re-enter the fantasy world that had become so real to me.

(To be continued)

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

Do You Fear Death?

I suppose that many people would say that when you reach the age of sixty it is natural to think about death sometimes.  You are closer to the end of your journey; thoughts naturally turn to your destination and what awaits you there.  I find myself contemplating death off and on – not every day, I would say, but often enough so that it is a semi-regular part of my thought processes.  I would not say that it is an unhealthy thing to do so.  I know that some shy away from such ruminations in dread, as if not thinking about it will cause it not to happen.  Are they not aware that the mortality rate for humanity is one hundred percent?  We all die; it is as much a part of life as being born.  To fear such an inevitability as death is ludicrous, when you put it like that.  It’s going to happen; there is no doubt about it.  Your fear only spoils the ride.

I don’t fear death.  I don’t fear oblivion; I don’t fear leaving behind whatever material trinkets I have accumulated; I don’t fear worms eating my rotten corpse and falling into dust and decay and all that.  Those things are destined to be and there is nothing I can do about it.  Death is part of the marvelous adventure we call life.  Most of us agree that life, with all its ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs, pleasures of the flesh and of the spirit, is an amazing journey.  Death is the culmination, an integral part of the equation.  No, I do not fear death.  When the time comes I’ll be ready to say:  Bring it on.  However, there are two things that I do fear, or at least that I am concerned about, that are associated with the inevitability of death.

One thing I fear, and this is by far the more urgent of the two, is an unfinished life.  At this time my life has boiled down to the simplicity of two major endeavors:  writing whatever I have in me to write, and taking care of my sons.  I have heard and read from other writers that writing must take precedence above everything, even the needs of loved ones.  I disagree with this; I will abandon my writing (temporarily at least) to see to a son in need.  I will always get back to it, but I will not put it first.  That said, writing is my calling, my talent, my vocation, the purpose for which I am here.  When I was young and answerable to no one but myself, when I had no other responsibilities, I circled the world and threw myself into danger’s face for the sake of my writing.  I gave it up once for reasons I will not go into here, but I will never do so again.  I will leave the keyboard to help a loved one, but I will always return to it when I am free to do so.  I have written over a dozen books, and I have plans for a dozen more.  I want to write and publish all the books I have within me before I die.  I don’t want to die with projects unfinished, with things unsaid.

In addition, I want to live to see readers discover my work.  Right now my books sell sparsely.  I want to live to see them flood out into the market, to reach readers who will be turned on to what I have to say.  I know that they are good books, because they are the type of books I searched for as a reader but never found.  Because these books did not exist I created them myself.  If someone else had written my books and I discovered them as a young reader, I would have quickly devoured them all.  I know that there are kindred spirits out there who will love my books; I hope they find them before I die.

And yes, I live to serve my sons.  Some are grown and gone, successful in the careers they have chosen.  But even these need help from time to time.  The oldest recently had a serious accident and I flew across the country to stay with him while he recovered.  I say this not because I crave congratulations or praise but because that’s what fathers do.  I have two other sons who have not yet chosen their life paths, and one who is still a child.  These are the three I live with at present.  I want to see them all on their way to whatever destiny has for them.  I want to help them however I can.  I would not want to die before they are well on their way.

Apart from an unfinished life, the other thing I fear is pain, both physical and psychic.  I’m not afraid to die, but I would not want to die a slow, lingering, painful death.  It is not so much the pain itself; I have felt great pain in the past, but it was always temporary, and after it had gone I felt a greater appreciation for the pleasurable sensations I experience most of the time.  One of the greatest physical pains I ever felt was when I stepped on a poisonous fish in shallow sea water on the east coast of Italy.  My foot turned beet red and purple and swelled up to twice its normal size, and if even a fly landed on it the pain was excruciating.  But even that passed.  I fear the pain that does not pass, that lingers until death, that drives away all pleasant memories in its urgency.  I may die suddenly or I may die slowly, but if I die slowly I want to reflect upon all the joys of my life, all the loves I have know, all the people who have been important to me.

Worse though by far than physical pain would be dying in psychic pain.  By this I mean dying alone, in poverty, on the streets perhaps, unmourned, abandoned by all those I have known and loved, a failure in my own eyes.  I don’t think this is to be my destiny, because I do have those who know and love me, and even if I were to expire in some far corner of the world, they would be with me in spirit.

As far as pain goes, there’s nothing I can do about it one way or the other.  If it happens it happens, and therefore – why fear it?  This is not something over which I have any control.

As for the writing, I do what I can day after day.  I have a feeling that no matter how long I live I will always come up with new projects; there is always more to write about.  For myself as a writer, retirement is not an option.  As far as people reading my work, this is another thing over which I have no control.  The hell with it.  Why worry about it?

Therefore I have just logically knocked off the list the two things I thought I feared.  Would that the world were ruled by logic.  Alas, it is not.  Emotion is a strong ingredient in the mix, and in fact that which gives it spice and flavor.  So these things will continue to concern me, as I struggle onwards the best I can towards that inevitability at the end of the road.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

Book Review: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

This book has won all sorts of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  Personally I sort of steered around it because it’s not the sort of thing I am usually interested it, but I was delayed on my recent trip to New York helping my son after his accident and I ran out of reading material.  I took the subway to the local Barnes and Noble and looked around.  That’s another story:  how poor the selection of books was at Barnes and Noble, and how expensive they were compared to online bookstores.  But anyway, I found this one, remembered that I had been mildly interested when I initially heard about it, cruised around some more and came back to it, and finally decided to give it a try.

To be honest, the subtitle is deceptive.  The book does not at all explain how the world became modern, unless by modern you mean atheistic.  What the book is, is a history book that aspires to be something more.  As its core it takes the discovery in 1417 in an obscure monastery in Germany by book hunter Poggio Bracciolini of a manuscript of the lost text of Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things”, and stresses the importance of this discovery to the evolution of western thought.

The book begins with an image of Bracciolini, the book hunter, on horseback, riding through German forests on the way to the monastery.  From there it zooms back to give the reader a picture of the historical era in which the story takes place.  Bracciolini was an apostolic secretary in the service of the pope, and it describes the corrupt papal court, the personality of the pope he worked for, the state of Christianity in Italy and the rest of Europe, monastic life and how it developed, the censorship of books and how monasteries became the last bastions of manuscript protection, Bracciolini’s personal life and rise to prominence, the circle of humanists of which he was a part.  It pans back even further and tells us of classical Rome and its writers, the ancient city and library of Alexandria, the background of Lucretius and Epicurus and their radical ideas of atomism and atheism, and how these ideas were suppressed in the Middle Ages.  One chapter is a summary of the key points of “On the Nature of Things”.

The background history described in this book is fascinating, well-researched and well-written.  As it zooms back and back and back, centuries into the past, we understand clearly who Bracciolini was, where he came from, and why he was searching for books.  We understand who Lucretius was and why his poem was radical for the time.  We understand the poem itself and what it means.

In “On the Nature of Things” Lucretius espouses the Epicurean concept of atomism, that is, that the universe is made up of a specific number of atoms, and that these tiny particles shape everything in the universe.  These particles are eternal and in constant motion.  Instead of falling through the void in a straight line, which would mean that nothing would ever exist, they deflect from their courses and collide; these deflections are called swerves, and the collisions create whatever exists in the universe.  From this basic premise Epicurus and his student Lucretius conclude that there is no creator, that humans are not the center of the universe, that humans are engaged in a fundamental battle for survival, that there are other worlds and other beings, that when the body dies the soul dies, that there is no afterlife, that all religions are superstitious and cruel, and that humanity’s highest goal is the pursuit of pleasure and the reduction of pain.

In later chapters of the book Greenblatt explains how these ideas conflicted with the established church and how the church tried to suppress the ideas by banning the book and torturing and killing its adherents.

As history, “The Swerve” is a great piece of work.  Where it fails is in its exaggeration of the importance of Lucretius and his book.  Life goes on, with or without Lucretius, and Greenblatt did not at all convince me that Lucretius was germinal in the shaping of modern thought.  It was inevitable that as all other facets of human existence evolved, certain concepts that drive our thought processes would evolve as well, and a good portion of the modern church has adjusted to this change.  Dwelling as it does on the Christianity of the Middle Ages, which in fact was much more political than it was theological, “The Swerve” turns a blind eye to many factors involved in the shaping of modern thought and society.  I would say that whether or not Lucretius had ever existed, and whether or not Bracciolini had ever discovered the manuscript of “On the Nature of Things” in that far-off monastic library, the world would nevertheless be pretty much what it is now anyway.  So for me, the subtitle “How the World Became Modern” is an irritation.  However, as a book that takes an isolated bit of history and uses it as a focal point to present a fascinating panorama of the past, the book succeeds admirably.  All in all, it is an interesting read, and for the sake of the unique historical insight it provides, I am willing to agree to disagree with the author on some of his conclusions.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

It’s Been a Long, Strange Trip

For this reflective look back upon my life I find myself in sun-baked Brooklyn, New York.  I didn’t plan to be in New York at this time.  I had just moved from San Diego, California to Yakima, Washington when I heard that my oldest son had had an accident, tore ligaments in his knee, and had to have surgery.  After the surgery he would be unable to move and would need help with life’s daily intricacies, so together with my eleven-year-old son I made the journey across the country to assist him.  New York and the entire northeastern United States is in the midst of a heat wave.  The part of Brooklyn in which we are staying is old and run down and smells strange.  It is populated largely by blacks who hail originally from the Caribbean and speak French and sometimes Spanish, and Hassidic Jews in dark outfits who speak Yiddish and Russian.  The nearby shops are kosher and close in the afternoon on Friday and stay closed all day Saturday.  The schedule took a bit of getting used to but it is a minor inconvenience.  I have lived all over the world surrounded by assortments of dominant cultures and religions; I have learned to be adaptable.

But as I adjust to this most recent change I reflect on how different my life is than the lives of those by whom I am surrounded wherever I go.  Most people settle early on.  They dig roots; they find a steady job; they buy a house; they raise kids.  Most people, in fact, except when on a particularly exotic holiday, don’t venture farther than a few hundred miles from where they were born.  There are exceptions, sure; but that’s precisely what they are: exceptions and not the norm.

On the other hand, I have been traveling all my life.  Almost as soon as I could stand up and stick out a thumb I was hitchhiking up and down the west coast of the United States.  Later I ventured farther, to Mexico and Guatemala, then around Europe, then across the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent.  One would have thought that I would have worked the travel bug out of my system by then but no.  After a brief foray back to the States I returned to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh; I got married and we had our first two sons there.  Then we stayed in various homes in Greece; then we moved to Italy and stayed in a multitude of locations there; then we returned to Greece.  From time to time I thought we had finally reached the end, had finally arrived at the house where we would retire, grow gray hair, deteriorate, and decompose – but it was not to be.

I became aware that there was not a future for my sons in Greece (nor, for that matter, for many other Greek young people) and I decided to move to the States so they could find some sort of opportunities for jobs and education and so on.  The culture shock was difficult for me, as I recount in my memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”.  Nevertheless it was good for my sons.  Circumstances dictated a move up north to the state of Washington, and I thought that there I might have a surcease, albeit temporary, from travel.  But again I was mistaken.

And so here I sit.  When I think about it, I have done as much globetrotting as many of the celebrities people envy and admire, though on a much smaller budget.  And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I can’t imagine myself burying my head in the sand in some pseudo-respectable middle class suburban home.  It might not be wrong for others, but it would have been wrong for me.  I need the diversity, the changes, the movement, the adventure.

I have a confession to make.  Lately I have been dreaming of owning my own home.  But…  And herein lies the big difference.  I do not desire this home to rest and retire in.  When I think of it, I think of a place in which to store my books and other trinkets, and a place to which I can return and rest up between journeys.  What I really long for is to continue traveling and writing.  I want to take a camper all over North America, and then all over Europe.  I want to revisit India, and especially spend a good amount of time in Santiniketan (the site of Rabindranath Tagore’s ashram/university in West Bengal), Goa (a beautiful, largely Christian area on India’s west coast), and Kodaikanal (a lakeside mountain resort in the jungle-covered Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu in South India).  I also want to visit the south island of New Zealand, the Maldives, and many other places.

No, I have no desire to stop and rest, at least not permanently.  The road calls me as it always has, that strange alluring open road on which anything can happen.  In “Song of the Open Road” Walt Whitman said…

And here I am forced into an interlude.  I quoted “Song of the Open Road” at the beginning of my memoir “World Without Pain: The Story of a Search”.  I thought to include another quote here; I had one or two in mind.  But when I began again to read the poem I experienced a tightness of the chest, a quickening of the heart, and I came close to shedding tears.  So much of what Whitman writes is true of me.  His exuberant ode to the beauty and freedom of the open road is unrivaled in its brilliance.  I close, then, with some quotes from sections 9, 11, and 13 of Whitman’s poem.  This, in summary, is what my life is like, and has been like for as long as I can remember.

 

“Allons! we must not stop here,

However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,

However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,

However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.”

 

“Listen! I will be honest with you,

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,

These are the days that must happen to you:

You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,

You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,

You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,

What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,

You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands towards you.”

 

“All parts away for the progress of souls,

All religions, solid things, arts, governments – all that was or is apparent on this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.”

Book Review: Beyond the Cascade by A. H. Jessup; Part Two: Analysis

The novel “Beyond the Cascade” is divided into three sections, and each section has its own distinct style.

The first section is literary fiction and mainly focuses on character development.  It introduces the main character, Suzannah, who is a brilliant linguist receiving awards and climbing fast in her profession.  But at a certain point it all loses meaning for her, and she begins to suffer from depression.  What pulls her out is her discovery of an old text by an explorer which indicates he discovered a new language in a remote part of Africa near a waterfall called the Experience Cascade.  What fascinates Suzannah is not only the uniqueness of this language, but the fact that it seems to be based on mystical concepts totally different than those of modern languages.  As she dives into research on the explorer/writer, the language he discovered, and the people to whom this language is ascribed, her study assumes the nature of a quest, and her depression sloughs away in the heat of her single-minded determination.  Eventually she decides to journey to Africa and seek out this enigmatic cascade, both for the sake of her linguistics research, and also her own personal self-fulfillment.

This first part, for me, was the strongest section of the book.  Jessup brilliantly describes Suzannah’s plunge into depression, the linguistic threads that lead up to her discovery, her search for evidence to back up her insight, and her resolve to see the mystery through to its conclusion.

This section is extraordinarily well-written, and it made me wonder what the hell the agents and editors were thinking in giving this books a pass.  Sure, it could benefit from some editing and tightening, but I could say the same for a multitude of published books I have read and nevertheless enjoyed.  It also made me rejoice that self-publishing is now a valid option for authors, because books like this deserve to find readers.

The second section takes place in South Africa, as Suzannah assembles a guide and a group of porters and makes the long trek through primitive territory to the land of the Experience Cascade.  Besides the difficulties of the forbidding land itself, she meets with the opposition of locals who tell her that the place to which she is going is taboo.  She must go through various rites of passage to earn the right to travel onward.  This section reads more like an H. Rider Haggard novel of African adventure.  It is decently written but in my estimation goes on a little too long.  After all, what hooked me into the book were the mystical and linguistic elements of the story, and that’s what I wanted to hear more about.

The third section describes the changes Suzannah and those she has traveled with go through as they arrive at the Experience Cascade.  It plunges deeply into the metaphysical aspects of the tale, and here, I have to admit, I was lost from time to time, as the author attempts to describe concepts difficult to grasp in the abstract.  He does attempt to meld the linguistic element into the story by explaining names locals gave to various mountains, valleys, rivers, and other landmarks as they pass them, but I wish he would have covered the linguistic thread in more depth, as that is one of the key points which drew me into the story in the first place.

Overall, it is a highly original, compelling novel, and I am glad it is available for readers to discover.  Jessup is a promising novelist and I hope to see more from him in the future.

In addition, I applaud his courage in publishing it.  The publishing industry is changing rapidly, and self-publication is more and more becoming a viable option for writers, either as an end in itself or as a steppingstone from which to launch a traditional publishing career.  It is a wonderful, creativity-boosting development that self-styled gatekeepers no longer have the power to ban unusual, unorthodox books from being put before the reading public for their direct consideration.  There are a lot of diamonds in the rough out there, and it is a reader’s right to go treasure hunting in the wilds of the self-publishing world.  There is a lot of rubbish, yes, but have you been to a traditional bookstore recently?  Scan the shelves.  How much of all you see is really worth reading?  That’s how it is in all facets of life.  You have to dredge the garbage for the gems.  And the gems are there, waiting to be found and appreciated.

Book Review: Beyond the Cascade by A. H. Jessup; Part One: Writer’s Workshop

In my first lonely weeks living in a small hotel room in San Diego while on my first step of moving to the States after thirty-five years abroad, I reached out to seek the company of like-minded people, specifically writers.  It started out when I was doing a web search for science fiction related activities in the area.  I came across the Match-Up website, which is a national forum to help people with similar interests get together.  Since not much was happening in the realm of science fiction fandom, I checked to see what sort of writers groups might be available.  There were several, it turned out.  The ones with hundreds of members I found either too diverse or intimidating, but I settled on a smaller group of writers who got together once a week in a park in the city to critique novels in progress.

I registered online and joined the group not to have my own work critiqued but simply because I wanted to meet and chat with other writers, and from the beginning I made it clear that that was my intention.  The way the system worked was that people would e-mail sections of their novel to the moderator, who would in turn e-mail them to the rest of the members.  If you thought you’d be able to attend the week’s meeting, you would RSVP online.

I took a bus to the Mission Hills area, and then walked several blocks to Pioneer Park, where the meeting was being held.  It wasn’t hard to find the group of writers sitting around on the grass together.  Some had brought chairs, some had blankets, and some, like myself, sat directly on the grass.  I didn’t attend every week but for a time I went as often as I could.  It turned out to be a mixed group of people.  There were a couple of teenagers, several older people taking up writing as a hobby in retirement, a few housewives, a few freelancers who made their living writing web articles and did creative work on the side.  It was easy to tell the difference between the dabblers and those who were serious about writing and improving their craft.  The dabblers would generally not listen to criticism but try to justify themselves and their writing.  Those who wanted to learn and improve would consider any comments and suggestions carefully and sometimes ask for clarification.  I tried to put in my two cents worth when I thought it might be helpful, but as I said, generally I was there to socialize, and when I could see that someone was not in a position to receive or benefit from what I had to say, I didn’t bother.

I saw potential in several works that were presented in the meetings, but most of them were in the beginning stages.  The writer had only written a few chapters and was trying to get feedback for encouragement, or even suggestions as to which direction the story should take.  I usually told them that they should finish the first draft first, that they shouldn’t listen to others during the creative stage of the endeavor but only during the final editing.  Most of the time they wouldn’t listen.  Creative writing classes almost always assume the opposite; teachers and fellow students rip a story to shreds before it has a chance to be born.

But one work of which I read a few chapters was different.  The writer had already completed the first draft and was looking for help with the editing process.  Right away I sensed potential when I read excerpts from “Beyond the Cascade”.  There was a full story, complex characters, and a fascinating, full-blown plot.  It stood out from all the other efforts presented in the workshops.

Eventually the novel writing meetings moved from the park to another venue, and I started doing more article writing and had no time to attend.  But I kept in touch with Amos Jessup, and we arranged to get together with a few other writers from the workshop to sip wine and talk shop – not critique each other’s work but just talk about writing in general.  This is what I had been looking for and I enjoyed these get-togethers much more than the previous formal meetings.

Jessup had been trying to find an agent to market “Beyond the Cascade” and had been coming close but as yet had met with no real success.  I encouraged him to go ahead and self-publish his work, as I had done with my novels, memoirs, and story collections, and continue to market it, if he wished, in the meantime.  In this day and age in the present state of flux in the publishing world, self-publication with a view to possible future publication with a traditional publisher is a viable option.

So it was that “Beyond the Cascade” eventually saw print.  It is now available on Amazon and other online venues.  I myself was so intrigued by the premise and the few bits I had read that as soon as it became available I purchased a copy.

To be continued…  

Book Review: Beyond the Cascade by A. K. Jessup; Part One: Writer’s Workshop

In my first lonely weeks living in a small hotel room in San Diego while on my first step of moving to the States after thirty-five years abroad, I reached out to seek the company of like-minded people, specifically writers.  It started out when I was doing a web search for science fiction related activities in the area.  I came across the Match-Up website, which is a national forum to help people with similar interests get together.  Since not much was happening in the realm of science fiction fandom, I checked to see what sort of writers groups might be available.  There were several, it turned out.  The ones with hundreds of members I found either too diverse or intimidating, but I settled on a smaller group of writers who got together once a week in a park in the city to critique novels in progress.

I registered online and joined the group not to have my own work critiqued but simply because I wanted to meet and chat with other writers, and from the beginning I made it clear that that was my intention.  The way the system worked was that people would e-mail sections of their novel to the moderator, who would in turn e-mail them to the rest of the members.  If you thought you’d be able to attend the week’s meeting, you would RSVP online.

I took a bus to the Mission Hills area, and then walked several blocks to Pioneer Park, where the meeting was being held.  It wasn’t hard to find the group of writers sitting around on the grass together.  Some had brought chairs, some had blankets, and some, like myself, sat directly on the grass.  I didn’t attend every week but for a time I went as often as I could.  It turned out to be a mixed group of people.  There were a couple of teenagers, several older people taking up writing as a hobby in retirement, a few housewives, a few freelancers who made their living writing web articles and did creative work on the side.  It was easy to tell the difference between the dabblers and those who were serious about writing and improving their craft.  The dabblers would generally not listen to criticism but try to justify themselves and their writing.  Those who wanted to learn and improve would consider any comments and suggestions carefully and sometimes ask for clarification.  I tried to put in my two cents worth when I thought it might be helpful, but as I said, generally I was there to socialize, and when I could see that someone was not in a position to receive or benefit from what I had to say, I didn’t bother.

I saw potential in several works that were presented in the meetings, but most of them were in the beginning stages.  The writer had only written a few chapters and was trying to get feedback for encouragement, or even suggestions as to which direction the story should take.  I usually told them that they should finish the first draft first, that they shouldn’t listen to others during the creative stage of the endeavor but only during the final editing.  Most of the time they wouldn’t listen.  Creative writing classes almost always assume the opposite; teachers and fellow students rip a story to shreds before it has a chance to be born.

But one work of which I read a few chapters was different.  The writer had already completed the first draft and was looking for help with the editing process.  Right away I sensed potential when I read excerpts from “Beyond the Cascade”.  There was a full story, complex characters, and a fascinating, full-blown plot.  It stood out from all the other efforts presented in the workshops.

Eventually the novel writing meetings moved from the park to another venue, and I started doing more article writing and had no time to attend.  But I kept in touch with Amos Jessup, and we arranged to get together with a few other writers from the workshop to sip wine and talk shop – not critique each other’s work but just talk about writing in general.  This is what I had been looking for and I enjoyed these get-togethers much more than the previous formal meetings.

Jessup had been trying to find an agent to market “Beyond the Cascade” and had been coming close but as yet had met with no real success.  I encouraged him to go ahead and self-publish his work, as I had done with my novels, memoirs, and story collections, and continue to market it, if he wished, in the meantime.  In this day and age in the present state of flux in the publishing world, self-publication with a view to possible future publication with a traditional publisher is a viable option.

So it was that “Beyond the Cascade” eventually saw print.  It is now available on Amazon and other online venues.  I myself was so intrigued by the premise and the few bits I had read that as soon as it became available I purchased a copy.

To be continued…  

New York in the Summer: The Big Freeze Above, the Big Burn Below, and the Region Between

I have come to New York to help one of my sons who has had a serious accident, who was first hospitalized for surgery and then immobilized at home.  The city is in the midst of a blistering heat wave.  The heat absorbs into the buildings and the roadways and converts them into the reflective surfaces of an oven.  Sweaty stickiness and feelings of exhaustion are the order of the days and nights.

In Manhattan, where the hospital is, businesses cope with the heat with air conditioning.  Every establishment the son who accompanied me and I walked into, from hospitals to fast food places to restaurants to bookstores to movie theaters had the air conditioners turned on full force.  This had the odd effect of making us feel cold most of the time, and wishing we had brought jackets or sweaters.  During my son’s surgery, which lasted about five hours, we ducked into a movie theater to pass the time, and our enjoyment of the film was impaired by the frigid air around us.  It was ubiquitous, this big chill.  We couldn’t get away from it.  We began craving the hot air in the streets.  I wondered how much money could be saved if the businesses all turned down their air conditioners to a comfortable level – surely millions of dollars if not tens or hundreds of millions considering how many such machines there are.  It struck me as the madness of excess.  I’m not saying that it’s wrong to air condition a building in the summer, but only that the temperature should be kept at a tolerable level.

Contrast this, though, with the subways.  The New York subways, at first encounter, seem formidable mazes, but as you get used to them they get easier and easier to navigate.  The trains shoot through the tunnels like roaring dragons in which you are swallowed alive, only to be spit out at your destination.  The bowels of the beasts have air conditioning and are cool havens where the denizens surreptitiously stare at each other as they await their destinations.  The stations and waiting areas, though, are open to the heat.  And like in most underground caverns the deeper you descend the hotter it gets.  The first time my eleven-year-old and I had to take the subway we had to go down three levels to our train.  The first level was not bad – it was not much hotter there than up in the streets.  The second level was considerably hotter, and by the time we reached the third level, deep underground, I thought of Hades, the inferno, hell, the underworld, and I understood why ancient writers represented the land of damnation and torment as a place of fiery heat.  Who can dwell for long in such a location?  It drains the strength, saps the will, encourages destitution and despair.  And I thought of those far above in their chill palaces of wealth, prosperity, and power and marveled at the contrast.  Money buys them respite from the torment of heat, at least temporarily.  But there are many more in this teeming metropolis who have to suffer the heat than can afford mechanical solace from it.  Manhattan with its ice palaces is surrounded by those who must endure the sweat and the stink and the slow burn.

In Pacific Beach, San Diego, where I lived until recently, people are very conscientious in keeping the regulations about crossing only at intersections and only at the green light.  If you transgress the police are quick to bust your ass with an expensive ticket.  In New York, by contrast, pedestrians ignore street lights.  If there is much traffic they will await the light as the only means to safely cross an avenue, but if the traffic is sporadic they will wait for a break and go no matter what the traffic signal says, even right in front of a police station.  This struck me as significant, somehow, though I am not sure exactly what it signifies.  That it reveals something special about the characters of those who live in the eastern and western portions of the country is certain.  Or perhaps I make the field too broad.  Perhaps it is only New Yorkers who have this distain for rules and authority.  I know that it takes something special to be able to survive in New York.  It is too crowded, too violent, too anarchic, too filthy, too confusing, too smelly, too schizophrenic, too inscrutable, too impenetrable for most people, myself included.  But some thrive here.  Some wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.  I wouldn’t presume to understand why until I had lived here many more years, and that’s not likely to happen.

These are surface impressions, nothing more, born of the necessity of plunging myself into New York without preparation.  But is there any possible way of preparing for immersion into the Big Apple?