DISPATCHES FROM THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, DAMMIT!
Almost summer. Another apocalyptic one. This book review is taking up a fatchunk of the year, but then, in this year, I need it. Now . . .
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA by Robert Wissner
We come to the kind of story that this anthology wasintended for. A truly dangerous vision! It breaks all the rules and tearssociety to bloody shreds. Not only are the traditional restrictions of the pulpscience fiction magazine shattered, but so are the barriers of genre—is itspeculative fiction? Satire? Fantasy? Horror? Could it actually be mainstreamliterature (something that Harlan always aspired to)? Then it gets to a bizarreplace where slapstick collides with surrealism and dada.
The weirdest thing is, it probably could happen. Some avant-gardeperformance art piece going out of control. If the right individuals read it .. .Talk about dangerous.
It’s like the scene in the Marx Brothers movie A Day at theRaces (not A Night at the Opera) where Harpo demolishes a piano sohe can play it’s guts like a harp, but it goes far beyond that—like Luis Buñuel took over, in his close-up-on-a-sliced-eyeball mood, then the mayhem popped out ofthe screen and attacked the audience.
Culture. Entertainment. Art. Life. Silly distinctions.
I’m deliberately not describing the story because J. Michael Straczynskiis right--it’s best for the reader to be surprised by this diabolical gem.
It’s almost as if the preceding stories were meant to lull thereader into a false sense of security. Yeah, you can take all this so-calleddangerous stuff—then: AIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!
The mad genius who came up with this masterpiece only published ahandful of stories in what they called “original anthologies” in the Seventies.Most of them were variations on the Dangerous Visions theme. The NewWave. Ah, kiddies! Them wuz the daze!
Googling him comes up with Robert Wissners who were (several obituaries)doctors in various states of the union. For whatever reason he has dropped offthe ever more exacting radar. Maybe he was one of the doctors. Maybe he died.Maybe he just got fed up and went off to do something reasonable with his life.
I’d like to think that he’s still alive and well somewhere, and insome peculiar way, getting the last laugh.
In some high school campus, a quirky lass is slippingthis story before the unprepared eyes of a quiet lad who led a sheltered life,and maybe the two of them will live outrageously, if not ever after, for onebright, shining moment. The image makes me smile . . .
Thank you, Robert Wissner, wherever you are.
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