Discover new books on Goodreads
See if your friends have read any of Tentatively, A Convenience's books
Sign in with Facebook
more photos (1)
Tentatively,’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tentatively,’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Tentatively, A Convenience’s Followers (247)
1,986 books
|
244 friends
8,016 books
|
1,351 friends
6,076 books
|
298 friends
1,663 books
|
92 friends
456 books
|
257 friends
1,450 books
|
3,621 friends
563 books
|
241 friends
2,245 books
|
365 friends
More friends…
Tentatively, A Convenience
Goodreads Author
Born
in Baltimore, The United States
Website
Genre
Influences
YOU & them
Member Since
October 2007
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/tentativelyaconvenience
Thanks to the idiocy of Goodreads policy my books are no longer easily found & do not all appear here. Instead, 5 of them appear under "Tentatively a Convenience": https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... .
My name is "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE". It is NOT "Tentatively, A Convenience". The completely disrespectful push for conformity is on. Such 'normalization' of my spelling, wch I've been using since 1979, is a symptom of what I call "AU", Artificial Unintelligence - both that of algorithms wch can't possibly cope w/ the human imagination & that of robopathic humans - say the type of person who studied creative writing w/ a professor who isn't a creative writer & who isn't published. This type of person then proceeds to learn 'how to be Thanks to the idiocy of Goodreads policy my books are no longer easily found & do not all appear here. Instead, 5 of them appear under "Tentatively a Convenience": https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... .
My name is "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE". It is NOT "Tentatively, A Convenience". The completely disrespectful push for conformity is on. Such 'normalization' of my spelling, wch I've been using since 1979, is a symptom of what I call "AU", Artificial Unintelligence - both that of algorithms wch can't possibly cope w/ the human imagination & that of robopathic humans - say the type of person who studied creative writing w/ a professor who isn't a creative writer & who isn't published. This type of person then proceeds to learn 'how to be creative' in a completely uncreative way & goes on to not be a creative writer or to be published either but to still be convinced that they're qualified to edit actual published actual creative writers. That's a form of regrettably delusional behavior fostered in them by their inability to educate themselves outside of potty training.
Alas, some GoodReads fiend has removed my date of death! I had it as "September 3, 1953" - before my date of birth so that my death won't happen in my lifetime. Some humorless GR person must want me to die. Foo on them.
Making matters even worse, my bk "footnotes" has been removed from the database here & I'm now listed as the author of "15" bks instead of the correct SIXTEEN. "footnotes" was still for sale online the last time I checked so I highly recommend getting a copy before they disappear altogether.
OTHERWISE, please read this extensive interview w/ me by poet/essayist Alan Davies as part of "Otoliths 27" ( http://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/20... ). It's a DOOZY, I promise. It'll also hopefully be published as a small & cheap bk
ALSO, my friend Anthony Levin-Decanini has started an excellent new (as of mid 2013) improvising series called "Crucible Sound" in Pittsburgh at Modernformations Gallery & I was honored by his interviewing me regarding improv for his relevant blog. I quite like the interview & I hope you do too. Here's the link for part 1:
http://cruciblesound.blogspot.com/201...
& the link for part 2:
http://cruciblesound.blogspot.com/201...
I hope you find it interesting enuf to subscribe to the blog & to check out the other programs. If you're in or nearby Pittsburgh, PLEASE ATTEND THE CRUCIBLE SOUNDS! Things like this don't last forever, but while they do they can be quite lively!!
The photo of me is by my friend Julie Gonzalez. Maybe someday I'll write a bio in here but, in the meantime, I'll just sign w/ some of my email signature:
electronically signed,
He-Who-Has-Written
Amir-ul Kafirs
Some tenuous beginnings of P.N.T. (Perverse Number Theory):
(for all x)x = (for all x)x (Anything is Anything)
(A Double Negative As Not A Positive)
(A finite quantity represented as a set containing
an infinite quantity of its subdivisions
(such as its subdivision in terms of rational numbers)
does not equal the same finite quantity
represented as a set containing an infinite quantity
OF A DIFFERENT DEGREE of its subdivisions
(such as its subdivision in terms of irrational numbers).)
m + n does not equal n + m is isomorphic to x
the ceiling of x is greater than or equal to the ceiling of the ceiling of x
(Enough is Enough)
The Formula o ...more
To ask
Tentatively, A Convenience
questions,
please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
Tentatively, A Convenience
I go to the Emergency Room. I get the bill.
Tentatively, A Convenience
As far as I 'know', most of these questions have been created by Goodreads staff to stimulate the 'Goodreads authors' to make public statements that m…moreAs far as I 'know', most of these questions have been created by Goodreads staff to stimulate the 'Goodreads authors' to make public statements that may be of interest to people ON Goodreads. That's all well & good. The questions are generic & more or less irrelevant to my actual praxis but that's ok. I aim to please. SO, how DO I deal with writer's block?
1st off, I don't have "writer's block". EVER. Or any other kind of creative block. Why don't we hear about "Composer's Block" or "Pornographer's Block"? Maybe the writers who have writer's block are simply impotent, people w/ no ideas worth translating into texts in the 1st place.
2nd. when I see a writer's block I want to carve it, I want to carve a swan into it & watch it melt. Is that sadistic? I don't think so, the writer's block isn't able to feel pain. Or is it? There's always Hylozoism. Maybe the writer's block is ALIVE! Did you ever think of that you insensitive impotent sniveling writer?!
3rd, when I see the writer's block I wonder whether it's a Rubik's Cube. Maybe I just need to twist those little facets until everything lines up, until everything is 'perfect'. But what wd it say to US if it cd talk? 'Please, STOP, my reactive arthritis is killing me'?
4th, there's always the risk of getting the writer's block PREGNANT. I've known thousands of deadbeat writer's block dads. Sure, they act like they're completely comfortable w/ having knocked up a block, a chip off the old block.. but are they really? Look out for those furtive glimpses at table corners, room corners.. They're thinking of the wee ones.. & that one night stand when they had to PROVE to themselves that they weren't impotent, when they were going to stick it to that writer's block no matter what it took. But did they think further? NooOooOoooOo.. Bad plotting, bad narrative structure, no outlining, no thinking of how-it-wd-all-end. (less)
1st off, I don't have "writer's block". EVER. Or any other kind of creative block. Why don't we hear about "Composer's Block" or "Pornographer's Block"? Maybe the writers who have writer's block are simply impotent, people w/ no ideas worth translating into texts in the 1st place.
2nd. when I see a writer's block I want to carve it, I want to carve a swan into it & watch it melt. Is that sadistic? I don't think so, the writer's block isn't able to feel pain. Or is it? There's always Hylozoism. Maybe the writer's block is ALIVE! Did you ever think of that you insensitive impotent sniveling writer?!
3rd, when I see the writer's block I wonder whether it's a Rubik's Cube. Maybe I just need to twist those little facets until everything lines up, until everything is 'perfect'. But what wd it say to US if it cd talk? 'Please, STOP, my reactive arthritis is killing me'?
4th, there's always the risk of getting the writer's block PREGNANT. I've known thousands of deadbeat writer's block dads. Sure, they act like they're completely comfortable w/ having knocked up a block, a chip off the old block.. but are they really? Look out for those furtive glimpses at table corners, room corners.. They're thinking of the wee ones.. & that one night stand when they had to PROVE to themselves that they weren't impotent, when they were going to stick it to that writer's block no matter what it took. But did they think further? NooOooOoooOo.. Bad plotting, bad narrative structure, no outlining, no thinking of how-it-wd-all-end. (less)
|
How to Write a Resumé - Volume II Making a Good First Impression 2nd edition
4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings
—
published
1991
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Paradigm Shift Knuckle Sandwich & other examples of P.N.T. (Perverse Number Theory)
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings
—
published
2008
—
2 editions
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Not Necessarily NOT Very Important
liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings
—
published
2003
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) "Systems Management"
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
—
published
2009
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
The Kavyayantra Press Reading Series: "vii"
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
—
published
2010
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Puzzle Writing
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
—
published
1994
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
THE SCIENCE (volume 1)
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Everybody Loves a Poetry Critic (volume 1: January 8, 2008 - December 8, 2012)
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
—
published
2026
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Everybody Loves a Poetry Critic (volume 2: January 10, 2013 - December 28, 2020)
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
Everybody Loves a Poetry Critic (volume 3: January 31, 2021 - February 22, 2026)
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
—
published
2026
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
Tentatively,’s Recent Updates
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book really liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of H. G. Wells's The Croquet Player by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 15, 2026 This was really.. interesting. 1st, it's a hardback Viking Press bk, 6&1/4" X 9&3/8", w/ heavy paper designed to last & somewhat large print that's easy to read. T review of H. G. Wells's The Croquet Player by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 15, 2026 This was really.. interesting. 1st, it's a hardback Viking Press bk, 6&1/4" X 9&3/8", w/ heavy paper designed to last & somewhat large print that's easy to read. There're elegant line drawing illustrations by Clifton Line. It's a novella, only 98pp long, but given the full novel treatment by the publisher. What is it? Is it a comedy? A social satire? "The Croquet Player Introduces Himself": "I have been talking to two very queer individuals and they have produced a peculiar disturbance of my mind. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that they have infected me with some very strange and unplesant ideas." - p 9 "The ghost they told me about was something much larger than that, a haunting of a whole countryside" - p 10 The above vaguely introduces the 'mysterious evil' of the story, the following introduces the Croquet Player narrator: "I have soft hands and an ineffective will. I prefer not to make important decisions. My aunt has trained me to be her constant associate and, with displays and declarations on all possible occasions of an immense maternal passion for me, she has—I know it clearly—made me self-indulgent and dependent. Yet I do not blame her very much or resent it very much. It is how we two have been made. She was always been rich and free to do as she liked, not only with herself but with others, and I have always felt well off and secure. Our lives have been easy so far. Like most most well-born, well-off people, we have taken inferiors for granted, and the general good behaviour of the world towards us." - p 13 ""Reading crowds the memory and prevents one thinking."" - p 20 I take both of the above as a taste of class parody. Nonetheless, I don't find the bk to have an overwhelming moral about the stupidity & obliviousness of the character or the paranoid dementia of the 2 doctors who tell him their stories. The 1st dr claims to've set up practice in a marsh. It's there that the story of ghost-like malevolence begins: ""At first it did not seem to be of any particular significance that the traceable consumption of soporifics and opiates by this apparently insensitive population was not only remarkably high but increasing, nor that the proportion of suicides and inexplicable crimes—inexplicable as distinguished from normally motivated offences—over this part of the world was exceptional and apparently rising.["]" - p 30 Ah.. so what do you make of that? Ordinarily an increase in such things parallels an increase in despair, usually an economic despair, ways of making a living disappear, drugs to enable escapism from what seem like insoluble problems appear, drug dealers get rich off of the despair & escapism, the escapism leads to deeper entrapment, people get more deranged & commit crimes of a more deranged nature - but the explanation here isn't of such an obvious nature. The dr more & more decides that there's an increasing malevolence that's growing out of the land. ""There was an unusual terror of the dark. My old servant, I found, would not venture out after twilight to the pillar box a hundred yards away. She would make every sort of excuse and when she was cornered she refused absolutely to go.["]" - p 35 ""And then he bagan to talk less sanely. The evil was in the soil, he declared, underground. He laid great stress on the word 'underground.' He made a downward gesture with his quivering hand. There was something mighty and dreadful buried in Cainsmarsh.["]" - p 40 The dr conveying these paranoid fears goes to the local marsh vicar in search of some sort of wisdom on the matter. "["]He wanted suppression, he wanted persecution of Science, of Rome, of every sort of immorality and immodesty, of every sort of creed except his own, persecution, enforced repentance, to save us from the Wrath that was coming steadily upon us. 'They turn up the soil, they strip things bare, and we breathe the dust of long-dead men.' It was as if he was trying to escape from our common marshland obsession by sheer screaming violence. 'The doom of Cain!' he shouted, 'The punishment of Cain!'" - p 43 Perhaps the mst interesting idea in this bk is that the increasing malevolence & despair is caused by a change in humanity's relation to time. It's stated that animals live in the present but that humans live in the past, by excavating it, in the present, & in the future, by anticipating it. The increased evil is attributed to this, as if our savage past comes to haunt us as we become more aware of it. Such a theory may not be presented seriously by Wells but given that the bk was written by him in 1937, there were plenty of reasons for him to be sounding a warning of some sort, inspired by Nazism in Germany. In the meantime, the Croquet Player is being put off his game by imagining the cave man rearing up his head in the present. "The cave man was becoming more and more plainly a living presence as the story germinated in my mind." [..] "It made me inattentive so that in the afternoon my combinations at croquet were unusually shortsighted and poor, and in the evening I offended my aunt deeply by failing to play up to my usual form. She was against me, but, as she reckoned on my playing up to my usual form, she was surprised and perplexed by the things I did, and put off her game, so that she and her partner lost heavily." - p 81 Things are getting serious, eh? The Croquet Player meets the paranoid dr's psychotherapist only to find him even more abrasively paranoid than his patient. "["]Man is still what he was. Invincibly bestial, envious, malicious, greedy. Man, Sir, unmasked and disillusioned, is the same fearing, snarling, fighting beast he was a hundred thousand years ago. These are no metaphors, Sir.["]" - p 89 Is this comedy? Is it social satire? Anything that upsets one's croquest game is worrisome. ...more |
|
|
|
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book it was amazing
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of H.G.Wells's In the Days of the Comet by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 11, 2026 I've been on a 'spree' of reading Wells lately, I read & reviewed A Dream of Armageddon - The complete Supernatural Tales ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Cri review of H.G.Wells's In the Days of the Comet by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 11, 2026 I've been on a 'spree' of reading Wells lately, I read & reviewed A Dream of Armageddon - The complete Supernatural Tales ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticA... ) & When the Sleeper Wakes ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). As I wrote in my review of the former: "It seems to me that I start every review of an H. G. Wells bk in pretty much the same way: Reading his The Time Machine was an instantiating experience of reading SF at an early age (12? 13?) of great importance to me; I had a picture of him & his wife sitting naked on the porch of a cabin in a nudist colony - this, too, made quite an impression on me." So, now I read my 5th SF work by him. I loved it. I'm even going to give it a 5 star rating. Why? B/c Wells manages to mesh together several threads of major importance to me: class anger & a Socialist perception thereof, personal passion that veers into the deranged, an SF intervention that rearranges everything, a new utopic society replacing a dismal & destructive industrial one. As I think is usually the case w/ Wells, it's very visionary. Wells uses a writerly device that seems to've been more common around the turn of the 19th-to-20th century than it is now, one that I've never been fond of: the finding of someone else's ms (in this case someone who's still alive & writing it - a slightly unusual deviance from the typical) that tells an extraordinary history. In this case, the author of the ms writes: "The passage of years brings a man at last to retrospection; at seventy-two one's youth is far more important than it was at forty." - p 9 Given that I'm now 72 as I write THIS that might be an element that influenced my enthusiasm. This was originally written in 1906. Things in the story enforce this time placement: "My memory takes me back across the interval of fifty years to a little ill-lit room with a sash window open to a starry sky, and instantly there returns to me the characteristic smell of that room, the penetrating odour of an ill-trimmed lamp, burning cheap paraffin. Lighting by electricity had then been perfected for fifteen years, but still the larger portion of the world used these lamps." - p 10 "Already we begin to forget how modern an invention is personal cleanliness. It is a fact that Parload had never stripped for a swim in his life; never had a simultaneous bath all over his body since his childhood. Not one in fifty of us did in the days of which I am telling you." - p 12 Wells communicates the specialness of Atheism & Socialism in this time: "We had shared each other's secret of religious doubt, we had confided to one another a common interest in Socialism," - p 13 Or is it that different from now? The problem of class has yet to be resolved, 120 yrs later: "There on the one hand in a crowded darkness, about the ugly factories and work-places, the workers herded together, ill clothed, ill nourished, ill taught, badly and expensively served at every occasion in life, uncertain even of their insufficient livelihood from day to day, the chapels and churches and public-houses swelling up amidst their wretched homes like saprophytes amidst a general corruption, and on the other, in space, freedom, and dignity, scarce heeding the few cottages, as over-crowded as they were picturesque, in which the labourers festered, lived the landlords and masters who owned the pot-banks and forge and farm and mine." [..] "We saw everything simple, as young men will. We had our angry, confident solutions, and whosoever would criticise them was a friend of the robbers. It was a clear case of robbery, we held, visibly so; there in those great houses lurked the Landlord and the Capitalist, with his scoundrel the Lawyer, with his cheat the Priest, and we others were all the victims of their deliberate villainies." - pp 24-25 Yes, it is a bit different now, the worst conditions have been moved to Mexico & elsewhere. The places left behind, like Flynt, Michigan, rot like an untended garden covered w/ toxins. Still, labor has made some strides forward, steelworkers retired at age 46 in Braddock w/ more to live on than workers like my book-keeper grandmother who worked for 56 yrs w/o ever having a chance to retire & who dropped dead at 74. "Rawdon and the Rawdonesque employer and the injustice of "wages slavery" and all the immediate conditions of that industrial blind alley up which it seemed our lives were thrust." - p 28 The main character's mother, who he lives w/, is an important figure to the plot. She's religious, long-suffering, & self-effacing. "her poor dear simple beliefs could not help me at all—and she did not understand! Hers was the accepted religion, her only social ideas were blind submissions to the accepted order—to laws, to doctors, to clergymen, lawyers, masters, and all respectable persons in authority over us, and with her to believe was to fear." - p 31 I have to wonder if Wells is describing his own mother here. I've read that he came from a lower middle-class background, as did I. His description of the character's mom is not too far from a description of my own. Nonetheless, the mom in the story dies fairly young, probably under 50, & mine made it to 93. Class struggle is central to this novel & is one of the reasons why I like it so much. "All my enormous hatred of his class had flared up at the sight of his costume, at the fancied challenge of his words. I knew him. He was Edward Verrall, son of the man who owned not only this great estate but more than half of Rawdon's pot-bank, and who had interests and possessions, collieries and rents, all over the district of the Four Towns. He was a gallant youngster, people said, and very clever. Young as he was there was talk of parliament for him; he had been a great success at the university, and he was being sedulously popularized among us. He took with a light confidence, as a matter of course, advantages that I would have faced the rack to get, and I firmly believed myself a better man than he." - p 52 I have a saying: "Some Arrogant Rich People Mistake Their Privilege for Superiority". That's probably true more often than not. But the most interesting thing, for me, about this novel, is that while Wells's sympathies are clearly Socialist, his solution ends up being a Deus ex machina Sci-Fi style. "I believe I should have gone striding athwart the dark stage of that stagnent industrial drama without asking a question, if Lord Redcar had not chanced to come upon the scene about the same time as myself and incontinently end its stagnation. "He had promised that if the men wanted a struggle he would put up the best fight they ever had, and he been active all the afternoon in meeting the quarrel half-way, and preparing as conspicuously as possible for the scratch force of "blacklegs"—as we called them—who were, he said and we believed, to replace the strikers in his pits." - p 64 Eventually war comes along. War is great for distracting the fighting classes as well as good for thinning their ranks. "there was not a man alive who could have told you of any real permanent benefit, of anything whatever to counter-balance the obvious waste and evil, that would result from a war between England and Germany" [..] "And the press was the chief instrument that kept these two huge multitudes of people directed against one another." - p 75 & the mass media is still the chief instrument of mind control 120 yrs later. AND THE AVERAGE PERSON SEEMS TO'VE STILL not figured out how to critique its malevolent influence, they still let it define reality for them. The story manages to cover alotof ground, using the propellent of the main character's jealous anger. ""You see," I said, "I'm a socialist. I don't think this world was made for a small minority to dance on the faces of everyone else." ""My dear fellow," said the Rev. Gabbitas, "I'm a socialist too. Who isn't? But that doesn't lead me to class hatred."" - p 102 Yes, the reverend is a 'socialist' too. "Who isn't?" Why everyone that it doesn't benefit. Things don't really go right for our (anti-)hero. Suicide, anyone? "I drew my revolver from my pocket and looked at it, and held it in my hand. Life? Or Death? . . . "I seemed to be probing the very deeps of being, but indeed imperceptibly I fell asleep, and sat dreaming." - p 124 During all this high tension, this drama, a comet was approaching the Earth. There wasn't much trepidation about the matter, humans were distracted by their usual attempting to kill each other. & then the Earth was in the tail of the comet, engulphed in green gases. "I felt very light, full of the sense of physical well-being. I perceived I was lying on my side in a little trampled space in a weedy, flowery barley field, that was in some inexplicable way saturated with light and beauty. I sat up, and remained for a long time filled with the delight and charm of the delicate little convolvulus that twined among the barley stems, the pimpernel that laced the ground below." - p 133 "Blinded, I made a step. My foot struck something hard, and I looked down to discover my revolver, a blue-black thing, like a dead snake at my feet. "For a moment that puzzled me. "Then I clean forgot about it. The wonder of the quiet took possession of my soul. Dawn, and no birds singing!" - pp 134-135 Do wonders never cease! Deus ex machina to the rescure. The comet has changed the composition of the air, primarily the nitrogen. &, this, in turn has changed the mood of humanity. Is this so preposterous? Perhaps.. but I find it brilliant. Imagine, the air becomes less polluted, e.g., & everyone breathes more easily.. & life generally improves. Hhmm.. "Men stood up; they took the new air into their lungs—a deep long breath, and the past fell from them; they could forgive, they could disregard, they could attempt. . . ." - p 139 Our hero soon crosses paths w/ a prominent statesman. This statesman, too, has become changed by the new air. ""Stop what?" said I, stepping forward instinctively to help him. ""War," he said in his great whisper, putting his big hand on my shoulder and making no further attempt to rise, "I'm going to put an end to war—to any sort of war! And all these things that must end. The world is beautiful, life is great and splendid, we had only to lift up our eyes and see.["]" - p 149 "We common people of the old time based our conception of our statesmen almost entirely on the caricatures that formed the most powerful weapon in political controversy. Like almost every main feature of the old condition of things these caricatures were an unanticipated development, they were a sort of parasitic outgrowth from, which had finally altogether replaced, the thin and vague aspirations of the original democratic ideals. They presented not only the personalities who led our public life, but the most sacred structural conceptions of that life, in ludicrous, vulgar, and dishonourable aspects that in the end came near to destroying entirely all grave and honourable emotion or motive toward the state." - p 168 Are caricatures really that powerful? Perhaps.. if they're circulated thru the mass media widely enuf to become commonplace representations of their target(s) - but in order for that to happen the media hierarchy must be behind the cartoonist. I don't think that happens very often w/o a concerted oligarchical intention to bring someone in particular down. I can attest that at least one powerful person I knew personally was afraid of a local political cartoonist here in Pittsburgh. The reason I say this is b/c that cartoonist had come to speak at an institution where I worked, a museum, & he needed an overhead projector. I was the projectionist but my department didn't have an overhead projector & I didn't have the keys to a department that might have. Well, the director of the museum, apparently worried that not providing the projector wd lead to the cartoonist depicting the director or the museum negatively, took on the personal responsibility of fetching that projector & delivering it to the cartoonist. That was, ahem, a bit unusual. Anyway, the change happens, & the world is transformed. How extremely it's transformed is described in some detail that I won't repeat here. After all, I want you to read the novel. "Where is the old world now? Where is London, that sombre city of smoke and drifting darkness, full of the deep roar and haunting music of disorder, with its oily, shiny, mud-rimmed, barge-crowded river, its black pinnacles and blackened dome, its sad wildernesses of smut-greyed houses, its myriads of draggled prostitutes, its millions of hurrying clerks? The very leaves upon its trees were foul with greasy black defilements." - p 176 I've read that Wells was a proponent of Free Love & when I was a kid I had that afore-mentioned photo of him & his wife naked on the porch of a cabin, presumably in a nudist camp - that's the sort of thing that a proponent of Free Love might do so I tend ti believe it's true. ""No woman has ever believed them." ""You have to choose a man," said Verrall, apprehending her before I did. ""We're brought up to that. We're told—it's in the books, in stories, in the way people look, in the way they behave—one day there will come a man. He will be everything, no one else will be anything. Leave everything else; live in him."" - p 190 "["]Here I am between you. Here is Edward. I—love him because he is gay and pleasant, and because—because I like him! Here is Willie—a part of me—my first secret, my oldest friend! Why must I not have both? Am I not a mind that you must think of me as nothing but a woman? imagine me as always a thing to struggle for?" She paused; then she made her distressful proposition to me, "Let us three keep together," she said. "Let us not part. To part is hate, Willie. Why should we not anyhow keep friends? Meet and talk?"" - p 193 While I was taking a break from writing this review, I watched the "Children of Frankenstein" part of something called "The Sci-Fi Files". To quote from the back of the DVD packaging: "For centuries, science fiction has predicted our future through films, television, books and comics, it is one of the world's most popular genres, from fact to fiction, The Sci-Fi Files explores the history of this art form" As a Sci-Fi enthusiast (I've written a 6 volume set of bks of Sci-Fi criticism) I found this immediately annoying. For one thing, they call Mary Shelley the founder of Sci-Fi b/c of her bk Frankenstein (1818). I think Frankenstein & Mary Shelley both are great & very important but saying she started sci-fi then misleadingly leaves out such bks as Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyages to the Moon and the Sun (pre-1657) & Restif de la Bretonne's The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man (1781). That, unfortunately, is standard simple-minded inaccurate history. However, "The Sci-Fi Files" gets much worse. They conveniently leave out Wells's admittedly ambivalent Socialism by completely twisting the moral of his The Time Machine on its head. Instead of having society split into the Eloi (the upper classes) & the Morlocks (the working classes) be the result of capitalist exploitation they basically have the Morlocks be an extension of ostensible Working Class parasitism off of those 'nice & intelligent & beautiful' ruling elites. I think we can further expect Wells's support of Free Love in In the Days of the Comet to be largely erased from Sci-Fi history. I admit, tho, that Free Love or no Free Love, I cd've done w/o the love affair between Nettie & Willie as an ongoing trope here. ""She wasn't worthy of you, dear," she would say abruptly, leaving me to guess the person she intended. ""No man is worthy of a woman's love," I answered. "No woman is worthy of a man's. I love her, dear mother,and that you cannot alter." ""There's others," she would muse. ""Not for me," I said. "No! I didn't fire a shot that time; I burnt my magazine. I can't begin again, mother, not from the beginning."" - p 204 Moving on, a bit about horseback riding appears. "Hardly anywhere was the inhumanity of horse traction to be found after the first year of the new epoch, everywhere lugging and dragging and straining was done by machines, and the horse had become a beautiful instrument for the pleasure and carriage of youth." - p 205 I grew up in what started out to be rural but quickly became the suburbs b/c of people like my family. As I vaguely recall, t was common for people to ride horses at the time & as I even more vaguely recall I decided against doing so b/c I felt it was an imposition on the horse - or even a cruelty. That must've been one of my 1st animal rights (in)actions, probably in the early 1960s. ...more |
|
|
|
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book it was amazing
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of E. C. Tubb's Iduna's Universe by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 13, 2026 I just gave Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s Monument a 5 star rating & now I'm going to give this a 5 star rating too. What's happening to me? Do those green tentacles growing o review of E. C. Tubb's Iduna's Universe by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 13, 2026 I just gave Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s Monument a 5 star rating & now I'm going to give this a 5 star rating too. What's happening to me? Do those green tentacles growing out of my shoulders have anything to do w/ it? I mean, it's been so much easier to just let them do the typing, I'm sssssooooooo tired. But, really, after having gotten thoroughly sick of all the series-sustaining repetitions I finally reached one where they barely exist at all. This was refreshingly new. This has an unusually bucolic beginning. "It was late afternoon when Dumarest reached the crest and he paused to look down the gentle slope of the valley and at the village it contained. A small, neat, tidy place with snug houses set in close proximity, the walls washed with a variety of pastel shades. The thread of a narrow river wound between banks thick with reeds and flowering shrubs, the stone bridge crossing it mottled and stained with lichens, softened with time. The square was clean, dotted with bright figures as women bustled about their business and men stood talking in the shadows cast by solidly built edifices." - p 5 But, of course, this being an Earl of Dumarest story, brutality is just lurking around the corner, waiting to fuck up yr life. But, 1st, a little philosophy. ""We can talk, certainly." ""A cautious man." The Hausi smiled. "One who is reluctant to commit himself. Do you intend a further hunt?" ""Killing for the sake of it?" Tetray frowned and sat down his glass. "I think not. To encourage the young to regard living forms as a source of revenue is against our beliefs. It is obscene to slay for the sake of skins and bone and fur." "A statement, not an opinion, and Dumarest knew better than to argue against a point of view which he shared." - p 8 The Hausi, the trader, warns the peaceful people on this planet that they're in danger of being raided by slavers but even Dumarest doesn't realize that that's what he's doing. Then, yes, the slavers come & Earl Dumarest manages to kill quite a few of them before he's subdued & taken to their matriarchal planet. ""You have time to relax a little," said Shamarre doggedly. "A bath, even. Certainly something to take the stink of execution from your nostrils." ""You disapprove?" ""The man had to die. You didn't have to attend." "A mistake and one she knew all too well. Even though she was Matriarch yet still she was the prisoner of custom and Shamarre must know it." - p 21 One of the many things I liked about this novel is that he doesn't present the Matriarchy as some sort of idealized nurturing society as some people wd probably imagine it. Instead, women in power are just as inclined to abuse it as men. That sd, Tubb also uses this matriarchy to show how some patriarchal men treat women by having the women treat the men that way, as 2nd class citizens. "Men, she thought. Weak, romantic fools for the most part. Illogical and immature even when nearing the end of their natural span. Who else would risk seemingly inevitable madness for the sake of an ideal?" - p 68 Dumarest is restrained by a collar that wd explode if he tried to remove it. "The slaver slapped the box at her waist. "I've got him collared." "Kathryn could see it around his throat, the thick band of flexible links shining with a gilt luster. Too close-fitting to be slipped over the head it would detonate if removed with any other means than the correct key. The device incorporated within would respond to signals sent from the slaver's box and turn nerve and muscle into liquid fire should the man disobey." - p 31 For those women who think that all women are equal to men in every respect except for the one in wch they take responsibility for being vicious, blaming that, instead, on men, I suggest that you consider the case of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong & her murder of Brian Wells, a pizza deliverer, using a collar bomb. I read about it in a bk called Pizza Bomber - The Untold Story of America's Most Shocking Bank Robbery (see my review here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticC... ). Diehl-Armstrong got away w/ multiple murders of men, making herself out to be a victim of these men, despite the murders being cold-blooded & 1st degree. I wonder if she ever read this story & was inspired by it? Dumarest makes a deal to avoid being executed, a deal in wch he's to attempt to retrieve the matriarch's daughter from a mysterious object that has apparently captured her mind. No one who's attempted this prior to Dumarest has survived unharmed. "And, walking, he stepped through time and space to a point years in the past when a happy, carefree child came skipping into a deserted study to discover something new and wonderful which held an immediate fascination. A bright and glowing object illuminated by the dusty light of the setting sun. Enigmatic, mysterious, magical. "And he became that child, running now, entranced, eager to discover what a doting parent had bought. To reach out with open arms. To fold them around the Tau. To hug it close and to press his face against the bright enchantment. To feel the faintest of tingles and to see the luminosity suddenly expand to engulf him. To take him elsewhere." - pp 51-52 "They came from nowhere, oddly shaped creatures of garish colors and peculiar appearance. Eyes and heads and face seemed alien and yet totally familiar. They moved and talked and aped the style of humans but they were not and could never have been fashioned in human form. They were more like caricatures of familiar types; the fat one with the round, shining face, the fox-like one, the pigs, the toad, the nodding, weaving monkey, the solemn policeman with his truncheon, the giggling girl, the staid matron—the playmates of a lonely child." - p 54 One of those elsewheres was to his own highly unpleasant childhood on Earth. I hadn't read about that in any of the other Dumarest of Terra novels so it was a welcome bit of detail. "But this world was not one he had known. His childhood had contained no similar comforts. It had been a time of harsh deprivation unrelieved by moments of joy. "Dumarest shivered, remembering, then shivered again to the chilling wind. "It came from the north where ice still coated the ponds and snow filled the gulleys; the residue of winter stubbornly defying the sun. He glanced at it, narrrowing his eyes against the glare, wishing the watery brightness held more strength. Soon it would be dark and all hope of game lost and, again, he would hug an empty belly and nurse bruises from savage blows." - pp 55-56 Dumarest relieves his stowing away on a spaceship to escape Earth. ""Your name, boy?" He nodded as it was given. "Well, Earl, so you decided to stowaway. A mistake." "Dumarest said nothing. ""A bigger mistake than I think you realize. It is my duty to evict you into the void." ""To kill me, sir?"" - p 64 Coincidentally, the next bk I started reading after I finished this one is J. G. Ballard's Hello America wch also stars a stowaway. Strange. There've been a few coincidences in my life lately, more than usual. I sent a txt to a friend who lives in a different city asking about what's new to then learn that she had just arrived in town the day before; then I was walking on a park trail looking at sticks on the path when I realized that I shd be more careful b/c I might be mistaking snakes for sticks, w/in seconds of this the next object I saw on the trail was, indeed, a snake about 2+ ft long. Be alert for such things. Ha ha! Tubb, too, is critical of the medical industry. "Again Remick touched the hand, his fingers searching automatically for the pulse. Drugs could restore the flush to the sunken cheeks but it would be a temporary illusion and only a momentary staving off of the inevitable end. And a man should be allowed to die in dignity, not hooked and incorporated into a machine, a part of devices which pumped blood and air and adjusted the endocrine balance and turned the body of man into a thing of mechanics. "A respite gained at what cost? "Remick had seen such things in the big hospitals on wealthier worlds and had seen, too often, the fear and greed and envy such things induced. To live! To last another day, another hour! To stave off death. To linger no matter what the cost. To squander the accumulated wealth of years and rob the young of their patronage. To glory in the cult of self. To yearn for immortality.. "Madness!" - pp 71-72 I'm feelin' it. "Was the Tau nothing but a gateway to hell? ""Hardly, my friend." The man who appeared next to him smiled in his whimsical fashion and gave a shrug. "But what is hell? All men, surely, create their own? And as they face the perils of an unfeeling universe, the careless indifference of fate, at least they have a defense. To laugh. To joke. To regard everything as a source of humor. Only so can we remain sane."" - p 88 I'm feelin' that too.. but I don't want to have to feel it any more than I already have, wch has been entirely too much. "A mock battle fought from the depths of his memory, given versimilitude by his own experiences, set as a stage piece to attract a child. "Red set to strive against blue, yellow as an ally, green as a background, orange and purple and violet as minor instruments in the orchestration, swaths and strands of metallic colors to lace the whole into a composite pattern of noise and light which followed the dictates of his mind. "His mind—could it exist beyond his imagination? "And, even if she noticed it, would she be interested enough to investigate its cause?" - pp 89-90 Dumarest, already imperiled by the psychological challenges by the world he's entered, has left his body behind at the entrance to the Tau where the Matriarch is being incited by a bad advisor to try electroshock to speed up the apparently too slow pace of his mission. ""Something Tamiras mentioned," she said. "Electronic stimulation of muscle and sinew. If we use electroshock therapy on Dumarest the impact might produce an interesting reaction."" - p 138 All in all, a very rich & inspired bk. All impatience & boredom I may've felt reading the bks that led up to this one has been erased away by its brilliance. ...more |
|
|
Jun 14, 2026 12:48AM
· like
· see review ·
preview book
See a Problem?
We’d love your help.
Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of
Iduna's Universe by E.C. Tubb.
Thanks for telling us about the problem.
Not the book you’re looking for?
Preview — Iduna's Universe by E.C. Tubb |
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book it was amazing
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s Monument by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 12, 2025 I'm going to do something I rarely do here wch is give this a 5 star rating. I loved it. I can only remember reading 3 eco-SFs: John Brunner's absolutely fabulous The review of Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s Monument by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 12, 2025 I'm going to do something I rarely do here wch is give this a 5 star rating. I loved it. I can only remember reading 3 eco-SFs: John Brunner's absolutely fabulous The Sheep Look Up (1972), & Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1975) wch I don't remember & don't remember liking very much. Some people might consider Michael Crichton's State of Fear (2004) to be eco-SF but I found it to be a despicable anti-eco-SF. Monument was published as a novel in 1974 but the short story of the same name was published in 1961 so maybe Biggle was even more prescient than the amazing Brunner. There's a shipwrecked spaceman named Obrien on an idyllic planet whose future he's concerned about. He's known to the locals as the "Langri". He warns the beloved planetary dwellers about what'll happen if more of his kind discover the planet & decide to exploit it. "["]The men from the sky will take this land—whatever they want of it. They will take the hills and the forests and the beaches and even the sea, the mother of life. There will be boats that sail above and below the waters and poison them, and the koluf, the staple of life, will be driven into deep waters where the hunters can't find it. Our people will be pushed back into the mountains where there is no food. The strangers will bring strange sicknesses, and entire villages will lie in the fire of death.["]" - p 9 Obrien tries to teach them about the worlds beyond their world in order to ultimately make them ready to receive his advice on how to deal w/ the expected invaders. "He expected these young natives to stare openmouthed while he described flaming space wars, and fantastic creatures, and worlds beyond worlds, and suns more numerous than the leaves of the forest; but their attention spans seemed even shorter at night than during the day." - p 18 Obrien expounds further on what he perceives as what threatens the planet. ""The moment it occurs to anyone to put a vacation resort on this world, you're doomed. That man is your enemy, and you've got to fight him to the death. If you let him build just one resort, there'll be ten or a hundred more before you know what's happening. You'll have to move your villages back into the forest, and even if you're allowed to use the sea there'll be no more hunting. The resorts will drive away the koluf, and you'll starve. And I can't make you understand."" - p 22 The amazing thing about the plot of this novel is that he picks a menace that most people might not recognize as such & then articulates why it is so. War or mining wd be more obvious choices but the subtlety of the resort problem, of the colonizing of an area for its beauty is much trickier. Obrien dies & his great-great-grandson, Fornri, is left awkwardly in the position of trying to follow the protective plan that Obrien had laid out. The anticipated spaceships start to arrive. "An office opened a door in the circle of props, and Fronri stepped through and turned as Dallman and Protz followed him. "He ignored the proferred chair and faced Dallman with splendid dignity. "It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that you and the personnel of your ship are under arrest," he announced. "Dallman sat down heavily. He looked blankly at Protz, who grinned and winked. The native had spoken in a firm tone of voice, and beyond the circle the waiting officers were struggling to contain their laughter. "A seminude native possessed of not so much as a dull spear had calmly walked in and placed the Rirga under arrest. It was a gag worth retelling–if anyone would believe it." - p 39 The ENEMY has arrived, Wembling, who will eventually try to build the vacation resort, as predicted. Before he gets up to that mischief, he builds primitive ferries for fording rivers & thinks he's impressed the natives w/ them. ""Come out of there! Quickly!" Hort snapped. "Startled, she scrambled ashore, and he helped her from the boat and into a place of concealment behind some bushes. An instant later two natives emerged from the forest on the opposite bank. Without breaking stride they walked through the river, which was only waist-deep, and disappeared into the forest. ""Don't they use it at all?" she asked bewilderedly, when the natives had passed out of hearing. ""Only when they think one of us is watching," Hort said. He led her back to the boat, and so that she could wax properly enthusiastic about it without an uncomfortable amount of lying, she gave herself a round-trip crossing while Hort watched from the bank." - p 67 Biggle is a musician, I love it when that shows in his stories. "Sets of strings were strung from a yoke near the top to a wood collar near the bottom. The nab was not an instrument; it was many instruments. More musicians joined in, each on another set of strings, until Talitha counted eight playing one nab. Probably there were others hidden by the instrument. The rhythm took on fantastic complexities." - p 71 Two winners in my bk: an instrument invented by the author & fantastically complicated rhythms - both of wch cd apply to my own (M)Usic. Obrien's prediction comes true in the form of Wembling, business tycoon. ""That's the answer, Tal!" he exclaimed, "The people of Langri can operate a vacation resort, and the profits will finance a medical center and anything else they want. And setting it up for them will make my reputation." ""I don't think the natives would want their world cluttered up with tourists," Hort said." - p 81 A part of the genius of this bk, for me, is that Biggle reveals how a medical center, seemingly set up philanthropically for the good of the natives, is actually a PR foot-in-the-door for capitalist exploitation, one likely to be of very little actual benefit to the inhabitants. Biggle knew what he was talking about. Obrien tried to teach the natives, some of them his descendents, his PLAN for foiling the anticipated exploiters. Alas, he was dying while he did so. "Everything the Plan predicted had happened, every instruction they had followed succeeded easily, and Fornri needed no further evidence of the Langri's infallibility. Either they followed the Plan, or they would lose their world and their lives." - p 88 Despite the plan, Wembling & his cronies press forward destroying the environment in pursuit of the bldg of the vacation resort & 'golf courses'. I read once some statistics about the incredible amt of land wasted for golf courses, for the amusement of the idle rich. I don't remember the statistics now but it seems to me that they were given to make a point in relation to Native American reservations. "The machine skidded to a halt a few centimeters from a native who had sprung out of nowhere to fling himself across its path. As Wembling charged up, the operator got out and bent over the native." - p 108 Prescient, pure prescience. To put such a tactic in context, keep in mind that Earth First didn't start until April 4, 1980, 19 yrs after this story was 1st published, 6 yrs after this bk was published. The defenders of the old growth forest of Goolengook in Australia built a 'fort' on the logger road to prevent logger trucks from being able to access the forest. ""When we first got here I got Wembling to import all kinds of seeds," Hort said. "The few things that grew were mutated and nutritionally suspect." ""So the natives are forced to eat koluf, which would be a wonderful fate if they had enough of it." ""Right. The water activity by construction and naval personnel, the machinery and construction noises transmitted through the water, the pollutants that are dumped offshore—all this and maybe other things are driving the koluf into deep water where the natives can't catch them.["]" - p 139 I'm glad to report that in this fictional world there's a happy ending. May it be an inspiration in the 'real world'. ...more |
|
|
Jun 13, 2026 01:26PM
· like
· see review ·
preview book
See a Problem?
We’d love your help.
Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of
Monument by Lloyd Biggle Jr..
Thanks for telling us about the problem.
Not the book you’re looking for?
Preview — Monument by Lloyd Biggle Jr. |
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of E. C. Tubb's Web of Sand by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 11, 2026 So much to read, I have thousands of interesting bks in piles & on shelves in my house that I hope to read before I die. There's no way I'm even likely to read 5% of the review of E. C. Tubb's Web of Sand by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 11, 2026 So much to read, I have thousands of interesting bks in piles & on shelves in my house that I hope to read before I die. There's no way I'm even likely to read 5% of them & what am I doing? Reading Dumarest of Terra novels. Why? Well, I like Science Fiction & I'm always reading at least one small paperback b/c they're easy to carry w/ me when I go on walks. These stories are engaging & easy to read. I'm reading other more challenging work at the same time, Ron Silliman's Alphabet, e.g.. Still, considering that I'm not going to live much longer, that I'm surprised that I've even made it this far, it's important that I pick bks of great intellectual value to read & write about. What about something by John C. Lilly? I still haven't read anything of his yet. Let's say I barely have the energy to get out of bed. Oh, well, having already read over half of the Dumarest novels I have I've commented again & again about the annoyingness of the series-sustaining repetitions & the impressiveness of Tubb's imagination as he provides new challenges for his hero. 1st, a repetition: ""A warp," said Frome after a moment. "We hit one and it created strain in the generator. To proceed to Fendrix would be to take too big a risk. That's why I headed for Harge." He added, "We'd have landed by now if it hadn't been for the storm."" - p 11 The reader familiar w/ the series will detect those naughty Cyclan at work. ""He dumped us," said the trader. "All of us. He'd been paid. That lie about repairs was obvious." He looked baffled. "But why? What was behind it? What do the people here hope to gain?" "The money they carried and the labor they could provide—the normal reason for isolated communities bribing captains to dump their passengers. Once landed and in debt they would be helpless to leave, forced to work as contract labor to clear a steadily accumulating mountain of debt. Slaves in all but name and far more economical to keep." - p 18 Tubb seems to be into music & that always goes a long way for me. "Hezekiah had worked on it for half his life and had died still unsatisfied but few would admit that he'd achieved less than perfection. This time there were words all could follow, each syllable chosen for semantic and emotive impact, the music accentuating the message as her own skill modulated it, tone and key changing, pure melody providing contrast, long ululations stretching and distorting time. A tapestry of sound and music, words and tone, cadences weaving as threads, glissades, apparent cacophonies, the final, triumphant cadenza." - p 24 There's a jewel that sings, one cd say it ENCHANTS. But it can be killed by human song. "And still Ellain, mouth wide, throat corded with effort, sent the magic of her voice to challenge that of the jewel. "She had broken glass as a girl, won bets on her ability to do so, even ruined a crystal chandelier in the auditorium on Weem—an accident and one never repeated but she still had the power. And now, more than ever before, she used it. Seeking, altering her tone a fraction at a time, the harmonics, building resonance until the blood thundered in her veins and she felt the capillaries begin to yield in throat and mouth, in lips and tongue. Singing, aping the jewel, mastering it. "Killing it. "And killing Marta Caine. "Dumarest saw her stagger as the jewel exploded in her hands." - p 77 ""A syllogism! Earl, you are a man after my own heart. Have you heard the one about the woman?" Smiling, he told it. "No woman has three heads. A woman has one head more than no woman. A woman, therefore, has four heads. Ridiculous, isn't it?["]" [..] ""The term 'no woman' is being used in a double-sense," said Dumarest. "So, while each of the two premises is correct when regarded apart they can only give a false conclusion when taken as equal."" - p 80 Of course, it's a False Syllogism. These are often used to point out fallacies in what superficially appears to be logic. "He saw her frown, the genuine puzzlement as to his meaning written plain on her face and explained, "My treatment. Didn't you pay the hospital?" ""No darling. How could I? Yunus was with me and, in any case, I couldn't afford the expense." She added, as if in justification "I'd only just seen you. You meant nothing to me then. Not as you do now." Her hand rose to caress his torso. "You must have an unknown benefactor."" - p 88 The unknown benefactor is the society of 3 & 4-headed woman. (JK) ...more |
|
|
|
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book really liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of H. G. Wells"s When the Sleeper Wakes by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 8-11, 2026 I've been making a somewhat big deal as a reviewer about how much I love H. G. Wells's work & how important it was to me when I was in my early teens. It w review of H. G. Wells"s When the Sleeper Wakes by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 8-11, 2026 I've been making a somewhat big deal as a reviewer about how much I love H. G. Wells's work & how important it was to me when I was in my early teens. It was somewhat to my surprise to recently realize that I'd only read 3 of his SF novels & a similar # of his straight(er) lit. It seems time to improve on that so I read When the Sleeper Wakes & thereby upped the # of his SF I've read. SF writers are commended for their perspicacity about the future, the more often their prophecies come true the more astute they're perceived as being. In the Introduction by Hugo Gernsback (described herein as the "Father of Modern Science-Fiction") it's sd: "Mr. Wells not only anticipated the airplane and to a good extent, broadcasting, as it has come to pass, but he anticipated many other inventions, some of which we are still ignorant of, though they are certain to be realized." - p 1 While the above is somewhat accurate, in the case of When the Sleeper Wakes it cd easily be pointed out how utterly wrong Wells was, even to a jarring extent. The story is set 203 yrs in the future & while, yes, there're airplanes, they're not even remotely as sophisticated as the airplanes a mere 43 yrs in the actual future from the 1899 writing of the story. Wells doesn't really realize just how quickly technology wd actually develop. Now, I'm not knocking Wells, he was certainly visionary, it's just that when I read this it seemed almost demented rather than prescient. We're introduced to the main character as someone in the late 19th century who is suffering from insomnia. ""It may sound incredible," said the stranger, turning weary eyes to Isbister's face and emphasizing his words with a languid hand, "but I have had no sleep at all for six nights."" - pp 5-6 Isbister, a man out for a walk who's encountered the insomniac, invites the insomniac home where he proceeds to pass out in a chair. "Then he bent still lower to look up at his visitor's face. He started violently and uttered an exclamation. The eyes were void spaces of white. "He looked again and saw that they were open and with the pupils rolled under the lids. He was suddenly afraid. Overcome by the strangeness of the man's condition, he took him by the shoulder and shook him. "Are you asleep?" he said, with his voice jumping into alto, and again, "Are you asleep?"" - p 13 "The state of catalepetic rigour into which this man had fallen, lasted for an unprecedented length of time, and then he passed slowly to the flaccid state, to a lax attitude suggestive of profound repose. Then it was his eyes could be closed." - p 15 Graham, the man in the trance, doesn't snap out of it & seems to not age. "This was Warming, a London solicitor and next of kin to Graham, the man who had fallen into the trance. And the two men stood side by side in a room in a house in London regarding his recumbent figure." - p 16 "Warming turned. "And I have grown old too. I played cricket with him when I was still only a lad. And he looks like a young man still. Yellow perhaps. But that is a young man nevertheless." ""And there's been the War," said Isbister. ""From beginning to end." ""And these Martians." ""I've understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he has some moderate property of his own?" ""That is so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens—I have charge of it." - p 19 It seems that this bk has an unemphasized history w/ Wells's "War of the Worlds" in it. Graham awakens 203 yrs after going into his trance. Needless to say, he's confused. He awakens into an environment significantly different from the one he fell asleep in. He's under supervision by a "Council", he doesn't know who they are. He inquires about WTF?! ""All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person of importance. What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitude shouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men in white in that huge council chamber?" ""All in good time, Sire," said Howard. "But not crudely, not crudely. This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Your awakening. No one expected your awakening. The Council is consulting."" - p 57 OK, I'm not really sure where it's best to insert this commentary so I'll just put it here & be done w/ it. I wrote above that the story seems somewhat demented - that's b/c it's so preposterous. Graham falls into a coma or a trance or whatever at a low point in his life. He sleeps for 203 yrs. During that time, his estate is tended to by Isbister & Warming who establish what becomes the Council, a Board of Directors who invest Graham's assets. Graham becomes vvvveeeerrrrryyyyy wealthy under this care, oblivious to this b/c he's asleep. In these 203 yrs he becomes so rich that he's 'owner' of half the world. This is fiction, after all, & the ideas are entertaining but it's still more than a bit too far-fetched for any suspension of disbelief on my part. He's revered as the "Sleeper", the "Master". People are waiting for his return to consciousness expecting it to be a time of great change & improvement. His awakening comes at a time when the masses are itchy to revolt & his awakening is taken as the sign that it's time to act. There's more than a little preposterousness to it all b/c the masses want better living conditions (of course) & the Council, who rule everything, have made living conditions very poor for entirely too many of these masses (of course) - nonetheless, those seeking greater egalitarianism are clamoring around the idea of the MASTER, the Sleeper, accepting him as some sort of supreme ruler (or savior). Isn't that a bit confused? ""The Sleeper is with us! The Master — the Owner! The Master is with us. He is safe."" - p 85 In the meantime, Graham is just trying to figure out what's going on & is trying to relearn the English language in its present state. "oi Man huwdbi Kin." forced itself on him as "The Man who would be King." "Phonetic spelling," he said. He remembered reading a story with that title, then he recalled the story vividly, one of the best stories in the world. But this thing before him was not a book as he understood it. He puzzled out the titles of two adjacent cylinders. 'The Heart of Darkness,' he had never heard of before nor 'The Madonna of the Future' — no doubt if they were indeed stories, they were post Victorian authors." - p 61 "The Man who would be King" (1888) - Rudyard Kipling "The Heart of Darkness" (1899) - Joseph Conrad - written & published around the time of this novel "The Madonna of the Future" (1873) - Henry James Perhaps Wells was riffing off of Conrad & James being more obscure to British readers. "On the flat surface there was now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and in this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move, but they were conversing in clear small voices." - p 61 Ok, he's predicting TV, now that's prescient. ""There are kineto-tele-photographs," he said. "As you bow to the people here — all over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still in darkened halls, will see you also. In black and white, of course — not like this. And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouts in the hall."" - p 131 "It seemed to him the most amazing thing of all that in his thirty years of life he had never tried to shape a picture of these coming times. "We were making the future," he said, "and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making. And here it is!"" - p 64 Indeed. How many people actually take the trouble to imagine what the future might be like? Do I? Not much, Wells certainly made a regular practice of it. I do observe the present & note what its implications are to me. That's led to my strenuously objecting to what I consider to be the oppression of what I call the Medical Police State. IMO, accepting this latter has led to a drastic lessening of intelligence & critical thinking that's persevered for 6 yrs now & that's set the general well-being back a century or more in the guise of doing the exact opposite - no Socialistic Utopia for us, that's for sure! "He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose Socialistic Utopia had so oddly anticipated this actual experience. But here was no Utopia, no Socialistic state. He had already seen enough to realise that the ancient antithesis of luxury, waste and sensuality on the one hand and abject poverty on the other, still prevailed." - p 64 Graham's whole experience, once awakened, is a push-pull of denied information & a plunge into claustrophobic chaos. ""Do I seem to be the sort of man who would act rashly?" ""You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your awakening. No one dreamt you would ever awake. The Council had surrounded you with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you were dead — a mere arrest of decay. And — but it is too complex. We dare not suddenly — while you are still half awake."" - p 67 Graham is kept in a sort of 'protective custody' where he doesn't get to meet people outside his caretakers & doesn't get a chance to understand the rebellion going on outside. Eventually, he's helped to escape - both he & the reader have been frustrated in the meantime. ""Jump! Jump! — in God's name! Or they will have us," cried Graham's guide, and in the violence of his passion thrust him forward. "Graham tottered convulsively, gave a sobbing cry, a cry in spite of himself, and then, as the flying machine swept over them, fell forward into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the ropes with the clutch of death." - p 83 ""You are the Master of the Earth. You are owner of half the world."" [..] ""Who are those Councillors under the Atlas? Why should they try to drug me?" ""To keep you insensible," said the main in yellow. "To prevent your interference." ""But why?" ""Because you are the Atlas, Sire," said the man in yellow. "The world is on your shoulders. They rule it in your name."" - p 87 It's explained to Graham how rural village life had been rendered obsolete & been engulfed by the megalopolis sprawl. "After telephone, kinematograph, and phonograph had replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster, and letter, to live outside the range of the electric cables was to live an isolated savage." - p 144 Sound familiar? How many people can even feel comfortable leaving their home w/o a 'smart phone' on hand? "He tried to figure the individual life. It astonished him to realise how little the common man had changed in spite of the visible change in his conditions. Life and property, indeed, were secure from violence almost all over the world, zymotic diseases, bacterial diseases of all sorts had practically vanished, everyone had a sufficiency of food and clothing, was warmed in the city ways and sheltered from the weather, — so much the almost mechanical progress of science and the physical organisation of society had accomplished, But the crowd, he was already beginning to discover, was a crowd still helpless in the hands of demagogue and organiser, individually, cowardly, individually swayed by appetite, collectively incalculable." - p 148 "He thought of the hopes of his vanished contemporaries, and for a moment the dream of London in Morris's quaint old News from Nowhere, and the perfect land of Hudson's beautiful Crystal Age appeared before him in an atmosphere of infinite loss." - p 148 Wells is technologically prescient &, despite his hopes to the contrary, doesn't have very positive expectations for human nature. Alas, I have to agree w/ him. I will say, tho, that living in Pittsburgh has exposed me to what seems like an exceptionally high level of Working Class sensitivity & politeness. Maybe the more optimistic side of the labor revolutions that're in Pittsburgh's history really have yielded fruit. "The flying stage about him was empty save for Asano and their suite af attendants. Directed by the aeronaut he placed himself in his seat. He then drank a mixture containing ergot — a dose, he learnt, invariably administered to those about to fly, and designed to counteract the possible effect of diminished air pressure upon the system." - p 175 Interesting. Most of you readers probably realize that it was from ergot that LSD was derived. "Soup and the chemical wine that was the common drink were delivered by similar taps, and the remaining covers travelled automatically in tastefully arranged dishes down the table along silver rails. The diner stopped these and helped himself at his discretion. They appeared at a little door at one end of the table, and vanished at the other." - p 218 &, indeed, there are restaurants like that now. 6 yrs or so ago I went a few times to one in Towson, MD. It might've been called a "revolving sushi bar". Diners sat at booths next to an apparently motionless conveyor belt, a surface of white plastic along wch foods on offer moved. I don't know how it worked but I speculated that under the white plastic surface was a moving magnet that controlled the motion of plates w/ hidden metal in them. It was marvelous. Apparently, that particular restaurant is out-of-business now. One of the more bizarre parts of the plot is the use of black police brought from Africa to suppress the revolution when those in revolt refuse to stop when their leaders (NOT the Sleeper) tell them to. Their methods are reputed to be brutal. ""But burning a woman alive!" ""A commune!" said Asano. "They would rob you of your property. They would do away with property and give the world over to mob rule. You are Master, the world is yours. But there will be no Commune here. There is no need for black police here.["]" - p 221 There's a revolution but those in revolt recognize a guy who fell asleep for 203 yrs & accrued wealth from a Board of Directors's investments. The Sleeper, personally, did NOTHING to earn that wealth - &, yet, he's somehow accepted as "Master"?! That's what I mean by preposterous, demented. "and next there were men and women busied together upon the slabs of copper net that formed the basis of cloisonné tiles. Many of these workers had lips and nostrils a livid white, due to a disease caused by a peculiar purple enamel that chanced to be much in fashion. Asano apologized to Graham for the offence of their faces, but excused himself on the score of the convenience of this route. "This is what I wanted to see," said Graham" - p 238 Graham is trying to find out what the worst of the conditions are in the world that he's "Master" of so that he can work toward correcting them. Wells presents a very convincing example presumably based on conditions in the time of his writing. When the Sleeper Wakes keeps moving from beginning to end, depicting a claustrophobic world kept intact by the usual manipulations backed by violence. ""These blacks are savages, ruled by force, used as force. And they have been under the rule of the whites two hundred years. Is it not a race quarrel? The race sinned — the race pays."" - p 269 This was a remarkable bk.. Wells tried to predict a distant future London & tried to put a man from his time in the midst of it in an unexpected position of potential power. This makes the POV extremely chaotic. It didn't quite work for me but I admire it anyway. ...more |
|
|
|
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of Martin Copeland & Martine Marques's The Drunken Boat - A Life of Rimbaud by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 7, 2026 When I was planning my 3 volume Everybody Loves A Poetry Critic set I saw this outside my favorite PGH used bkstore, Caliba review of Martin Copeland & Martine Marques's The Drunken Boat - A Life of Rimbaud by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 7, 2026 When I was planning my 3 volume Everybody Loves A Poetry Critic set I saw this outside my favorite PGH used bkstore, Caliban, right after I'd spent all my money inside. The manager was outside when I spotted it & I commented that it's the sort of bk I'd read & review for my upcoming poetry criticism bks & that it was, therefore, unfortunate that I'd already spent my money. She then gave it to me. Thank you. I didn't however, read it in time for the publication of the 3 volumes - but there may be more volumes to come. I'd previously read Paul Verlaine's The Cursed Poets & in my review of that I related my history w/ reading Rimbaud & my discomfort w/ his presentation in biographical form. It's worth relating the beginning of that review by way of preface here: "I probably 1st learned about Paul Verlaine thru learning about Arthur Rimbaud (born October 20, 1854) when I was a teenager in the early 1970s. Rimbaud wd've probably been an author I wd've heard about from the same group of friends who wd've exposed me to Hermann Hesse, Kahlil Gibran, & Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I wd've then read the New Directions Paperbook editions of Rimbaud's A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat & Illuminations - both translated by Louise Varèse. "In the former, in the introductory "A Rimbaud Chronology" (prepared by Hubert Creekmore for the publisher w/ its "factual data [..] taken largely from the definitive biography of Rimbaud by Professor Enid Starkie" - p vii), I read that when Rimbaud was around 16 he "read everything he could lay hands on including the work of the new poet Paul Verlaine." (p x) "Bretagne, who knew Verlaine, suggested that Rimbaud write to him and himself added an introduction. In the letter Rimbaud enclosed some of his poems and received an enthusiastic reply from Verlaine and an invitation to come to Paris." (p xii) "1871: "Rimbaud's visit to the Verlaine household in Paris scandalized both the conservative family and the neighbors. His wife's parents felt that Verlaine, although twenty years older than Rimbaud, was being debauched by the young man" (p xii) Rimbaud & Verlaine's relationship resulted in Verlaine's leaving his wife & the 2 of them moving to London. "1872: "the following January, Verlaine, ill with influenza, recalled Rimbaud by picturing himself as dying alone in a strange city; and their debauchery was resumed. During this period, Rimbaud felt a growing disgust for Verlaine's sentimentality and wished to separate himself from what he now considered a debilitating influence." (pp xiii-xiv) "When he announced that he was leaving, Verlaine shot at him three times with a revolver, striking him once in the wrist. Mme. Verlaine and Rimbaud managed to quiet his hysteria, but when, on the way to the railroad station, Rimbaud remained firm in his decision to leave, Verlaine again lost control and threatened him. Rimbaud called for police protection. Verlaine was arrested, tried and sentenced to two years' hard labor and a fine." (p xiv) "&, w/ that latter, I, as a young anarchist, parted ways w/ Rimbaud. Given that I was about the same age as Rimbaud was when he went thru this I probably had the strong philosophical inclination to NOT have someone arrested under such circumstances. Now, I'm just glad I've never been shot. "In 1875 he traveled to Germany, and in Stuttgart, Verlaine, just released and full of his new religious zeal acquired in prison, joined him. Of this visit which lasted two and a half days, Rimbaud wrote in a letter to his old friend Delahaye: "Verlaine arrived here the other day pawing a rosary. . . Three hours later he had denied his God and started the 98 wounds of Our Lord bleeding again."" (p xv) Verlaine had it bad. Obviously, Rimbaud gave him something that his wife didn't. "at last in May, 1888 [Rimbaud] returned to Hasar as partner of two established gun-runners and slave-traders." (p xviii) Here, I part ways w/ Rimbaud again." - review of Paul Verlaine's The Cursed Poets by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 9, 2014 I quote that at length to present Rimbaud as someone who had his lover put in prison & then went on to become a gun runner & slaver. These were things that made me less than enthusiastic about him. This version of his biography is either whitewashed or corrected in The Drunken Boat. I don't know wch. This bk is presented 1st in English & 2nd en Français. This appealed to me. It's called a "scenario" on the front cover, I might call it a screenplay, a movie script. "FADE IN: "SUPERIMPOSE TITLE: CHARLEVILLE - 1869 "EXT. MEUSE RIVER NEAR PLACE DE L'AGRICULTURE - DAY "POV FROM THE SURFACE INTO THE RIVER DEPTHS "Green weeds down deep sway gently in the soft current. "A solitary frog makes its way through the water, its hind legs scissoring. "Fish large and small skim blithely, unconcerned by the world above, even the REFLECTION just now at the water's surface. It's "THE FACE OF AN ANGEL "or so it seems...this visage has the curly locks, large pensive eyes and cherubic features of a seraph drawn by Michelangelo." - p 1 Rimbaud is presented as an idealized Handsome & passionate literate rebel. "IZAMBARD Who is that? "DESDOUETs It's the little Rimbaud, our most brilliant student. His eloquence has made him the spokesman for the Republicans at the school. We expect a lot from him, not for his political ideas but because he represents our best hope of success at the Concours Académique." - p 14 Rimbaud, a student, & Izambard, a teacher, become friends. "RIMBAUD I'm sickened by the poetry of today, it's far from what it ought to be, very far. Take Musset. There were visions behind the gauze of the curtains, but he preferred to close his eyes. All that is too conventional, poetry needs a true revolution! "IZAMBARD And you are the one for that? "RIMBAUD (modestly) I am trying." p 17 Note that the authors attribute modesty to Rimbaud. It's interesting, isn't it? This passionate importance given to poetry?! Was that really so much more the case in the 19th century than it seems to me it is now? Are there poetry societies populated by poets plotting to overthrow the given order w/ formal innovations?! Rimbaud mocks: "—SERIES OF SHOTS limns each one of these members of the crowd in the square, lastly "RIMBAUD (V.O.)[) - in the bk there's an additiona; close-parenthesis: I think this is a mistake] "Fat bloated clerks drag their fat wives." "—A rather plump BOURGEOIS depositis himself—" - p 20 This takes place at a time when France was in the throes of its revolutuons subsequent to the big initial overthrow of the aristocracy in favor of a Republic. Victor Hugo, remembered mainly now outside of France as a prominent Romantic author, was also a prominent figure in these revolutions. "MADAME RIMBAUD Monsieur Professot, why do you teach these things to your students? "IZAMBARD Pardon? MADAME RIMBAUD This book that you lent to my Arthur, this Les Miserables. Victor Hugo is an enemy of the church and the king as you well know, justly banned for his depraved production, and this book above all! "IZAMBARD But Madam, it's not Les Miserables that I lent to Arthur. It's The Hunchback of Notre Dame." - p 25 Rimbaud gets arrested. I'd love to know the statistics about how many people get arrested. I was 1st arrested almost immediately after I turned 18. I was just walking w/ a friend & we were arrested for "Vagrancy while loitering" - in other words, we were poor & weird looking. That experience alone, & I've had many, makes it easy for me to identify w/ Rimbaud in the following: "RIMBAUD The arrested me at the station because I was traveling without a ticket and didn't have a cent in my pocket. Then they searched me and discovered my poems. Since they couldn't understand a word they took me for a spy! "IZAMBARD You arrive just when Napoleon was being ousted from power. Look at it this way. You had the honor of assisting in the birth of the Republic. "RIMBAUD Yes, between the four walls of my cell. "IZAMBARD Victor Hugo said, there's nothing more suggestive than a wall. How much more in your case, who had four!" - pp 34-35 Rimbaud, disatisfied w/ being an inactive youth, joins the revolution. "A GUARD Who are you? "RIMBAUD One of you. I've walked 60 miles to join you. "A GUARD (to the others all around) Look who's arrived! The provinces are rising up en masse! The example of Paris must be contagious! "The guards acclaim Rimbaud with CRIES and HURRAHS" - p 54 Rimbaud meets some old schoolmates & proceeds to shock them. "FIRST DANDY Rimbaud! What are you doing these days? "RIMBAUD PassING the time between editing a Communist manifesto, girls and dogs. "SECOND DANDY Hey? Dogs? "RIMBAUD When girls aren't available." - p 74 I don't know what sources this latter section is based on, if any, but it seems to me that prejudices of the authors are revealed - possibly more than Rimbaud's character. In the sentence that follows, unquoted here, the Dandies are referred to as "snobs". The authors seem to think that these "snobs" are being 'put in their place' & 'taken off their pedestal' by Rimbaud, acting as a 'great equalizer'. However, anyone who's ever dressed in an abnormally fancy way (or walked a lobster) has probably had the experience of being threatened by the 'normies', the conformists - the people who can't tolerate difference. As such, Dandies wd have to be brave, something the authors seem to miss - probably b/c they've never dared go there. OTHERWISE, the "ING" in "PassING" is the way it's written in the bk. I suspect that might be another error. "Rimbaud pours drop by drop water on the absinthe. In a moment the liquid turns snowy green. "RIMBAUD (lifting his glass) Long live the Academy of Absinthe!" - p 92 I've drunk absinthe before but I don't remember mixing it w/ water. It seems to me that the similar Pastis is yellow. "AUGUST CREISSEL "is beginning to read his poem 'LE LION' before the Parnassians, now seated around the table having finished dinner. "RIMBAUD (to Verlaine at his side) This is nothing but platitudes." - p 95 Now, I have to wonder if this is accurate. The authors have Rimbaud setting himself above his fellow poets, here the Parnassians. I tried to find something substantial about the Parnassians in the writings of Olchar E. Lindsann (I'm sure it's there) but only found this: "The new cenacles, journals, and communal undertakings in which many members became involved after the group's [Bouzingoes] dissolution provided the foundation of a permanent avant-garde community through Théophile Gautier, who mentored several generations of Romanticists, Parnassians, and Symbolists, passing down both the subcultural lifestyle and memory that would bloom into Futurism, Cubism, and Dada four decades after his death." - p 5, "Introduction", The Bouzingos - An Avant-Romanticist Sampler of Horror, Transgression, and Cultural Anarchy, Edited & Translated by Olchar E. Lindsann SO, 1st the authors have Rimbaud 'putting the dandies in their place' for being 'snobs' & then have him being a snob amongst the Parnassians. Of course, I'm slanting things that way - in both cases he cd be sd to be presented as a critic. Rimbaud is depicted as being sickened by Verlaine. I reckon that's probably accurate enuf but how wd I know? "VERLAINE I was a respectable family man, with a wife, a child, a house. I forgot all my duties as a human being to follow you, Now I am an exile, living off my mother. And you tell me I'm melodramatic! "RIMBAUD You're worse. You're pathetic. These tears, this constant guilt. You flagellate yourself when you should feel free. Family man, bah. You know very well you weren't cut out for that, it was only an excuse for the eyes of society." - p 120 Verlaine shoots at Rimbaud, hitting him on thw wrist once & then threatens him again when he's at the railroad stn leaving. He's arrested. My previous impression was that Rimbaud had had him arrested. "RIMBAUD What will happen to Verlaine? "MAGISTRATE He will go to jail. At maximum, two years. "RIMBAUD But I'm not pressing charges. I'm convinced he was drunk and not responsible for his actions." - p 136 That's quite a different story, eh? I have no idea wch is more accurate but, of course, the story presented here is one in wch I'm not disgusted w/ Rimbaud. Verlaine gets out of prison & goes to visit Rimbaud. "VERLAINE It saddens me to see you persisting in your idiotic ways. You are so intelligent, so ready for conversion. "RIMBAUD Stay a few days with me, we'll make the 98 wounds of Our Savior bleed again!" - p 145 It seems likely to me that SEX was a major aspect of V & R's relationship & that SEXUAL OBSESSION was behind Verlaine's hysteria. That obsessiveness is barely even hinted at here. Sex is entirely absent. Rimbaud is depicted as heroic. "GALLA To show their strength, the Danakils cut off the testicles of their enemies. "RIMBAUD (raging) And you want to leave him to these savages! "He spurs his horse and rides to the rescue of the native. Rimbaud and the two Gallas fall upon the Danakils, who take flight, unnerved by the cursing, shouting Rimbaud." - p 158 I must admit that I prefer this (probably sanitized) heroic version of Rimbaud b/c I've liked his poetry but I still have enuf sense to not trust it. The authors don't deny his being an arms dealer but there's no mention of his selling slaves too. Being an arms dealer is bad enuf but being a slaver is on my list of 'unforgiveable' crimes. "EUROPEAN Ah, the country's in chaos, they say there's a war imminent between Jean of Tigre and Menelik, the king of \Shoa. "SOLEILLET That might not be such a bad thing—that might serve our interests. "RIMBAUD What did you say? "SOLEILLET They need arms to make war. In short—there's money to be made." - p 163 Rimbaud is depicted as not being the person who perceives the profit to be made during war, he's made out to be more of an innocent. Again, that seems to be the authors's ongoing bias. Once Rimbaud reaches the king he's to sell the weapons to, after great hardship, the king simply robs him, taking advantage of his superior power in the situation. "RIMBAUD I'm left with the 15,000 francs I had at the beginning, after two years of horrible fatigue and hardship. I really am a very unlucky man. "EXT. SQUARE IN HARAR – DAY "Rimbaud is engaged in a new business. Among the abitual me4candise we discern European products (cooking utensils, stationery, etc.) Rimbaud is bustling about, again setting an example of nose-to-the-grindstone work." - p 179 "SAVOURE He's severe with himself but generous to others. His charity is the only thing he does without snickering or railing till it sickens you. (sighing) You want to help him but don't know how, he is so bizarre." - p 181 Life goes badly for Rimbaud & he dies young. The authors depict him as saintly. What's to trust? Read his poetry & go from there. ...more |
|
|
|
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book really liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of H. Beam Piper's The Cosmic Computer by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 3, 2026 I keep vacillating w/ Piper (even tho I mostly like him). I almost didn't read this one b/c I'd read the short story entitled "Graveyard of Dreams" in the Fede review of H. Beam Piper's The Cosmic Computer by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 3, 2026 I keep vacillating w/ Piper (even tho I mostly like him). I almost didn't read this one b/c I'd read the short story entitled "Graveyard of Dreams" in the Federation anthology that was its precursor (the story, not the anthology) - but I persevered & discovered that after the beginning I didn't really remember the rest so I'm sure the fleshing-out was worth it to me - this turned out to be one of my favorite Piper novels. The basic premise is that there's a planet that'd been used as a military HQ during a war now decades over. Legend had it there was a computer used for making military decisions that was powerful way beyond any other known computer. Since the military left the planet after the war the planet's economic condition had deteriorated. "Fifty-two years before, they had come to the mesa in the Badlands and dug a pit on top of it, a thousand feet in diameter and more than five hundred deep, and in it they built a duplicate of the headquarters for Third Fleet-Army Force Command. They built a shaft a hundred feet in diameter like a chimney at one side, and they ran a tunnel out through solid rock to the head of a canyon half a mile away. Then they buried the whole thing. Twelve years later, when the War was over, they sealed both entrances and went away and left it." - p 68 The hope was that the computer had been hidden on the planet & that it cd be found & used to revivify the economy. One of the young locals, Conn Maxwell, had been sent to Earth to both study computers & to see what he cd learn about this legendary computer's existence &/or whereabouts. The military denied its existence but people on the declining planet held onto their hopes. The story begins when Conn returns home. ""Conn, from what you've learned of computers generally, how big would Merlin have to be?" old Professor Kelton asked. ""Well, the astrophysics computer at the University occupied a volume of a hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I'd say something of the order of three million to five million."" - p 16 Conn is initially convinced that there is no Merlin supercomputer. ""There is no Merlin. Is that it?" "He realized, suddenly, that his father had known, or suspected that all along. He started to say something, then checked himself and began again: ""There never was one. I was going to tell them, but you saw them. I couldn't." ""You're sure of it?" ""The whole thing's a myth. I'm quoting the one man in the Galaxy who ought to know. The man who commanded the Third Force here during the War."" - p 19 Conn doesn't try to disillusion the believers in Merlin. Instead he uses this belief as a motive force in reviving industry. Various side-effect problems result. ""Why don't you talk to Wade Lucas. He's got brains, and he's honest—nobody but an honest man would have made himself as unpopular as Lucas has.["]" - p 83 What do YOU, dear reader, think about that statement re honest people? I consider myself to be honest & I'm definitely unpopular. Nonetheless, I'm also tactful wch means that I rarely, or never call people out. Honesty is very important to me, I'm not sure how important it is to everyone else I know. It seems to me that lying is a normal aspect of most people's interactions. Is honesty primarily promoted by people seeking the truth w/o wanting to, personally, reveal it themselves? Are we in an era where mass media has so excelled at 'Pravda' that even its purveyors have long since lost track of anything but propaganda? Do people believe more in a fiction that's fed to them than they do in what can be empirically observed? I tend to think that the answer to that is solidly YES. I suspect that the issue of how-alive-are-robots? is going to be much more advanced in the far future of this story than it's presented here but, then, this bk was published in 1963, a whopping 63 yrs before the writing of this review. "That was true. He didn't think robots were alive, either, though biophysics professors tended to become glibly evasive when pinned down to defining life. Robots could learn, if you used the term loosely enough. And any robot with more than five hundred hours service picked up a definite and often exasperating personality." - p 106 Do human children require five hundred awake hrs before developing an identifiable personality? That might mean roughly a mnth. Parents? Did yr child seem somewhat formless, personality-wise, in the 1st mnth? What if, instead of appraising robot development in human terms, we started appraising human development in robot terms? Merlin, possibly mythical, still hasn't been found & other hopeful cooks are now stirring the pot. "Merlin was now a political issue. A bill had been introduced in Parliament to amend the Abandoned Property Act of 867 and nationalize Merlin, when and if discovered and regardless by whom. The support seemed to come from an extremist minority, everybody else, including the Administration, was opposed to it. There was considerable acrimony, however, on the propositions: 1) that Merlin was too important to the prosperity of Poictesme to become a private monopoly, and 2) that Merlin was too important, etc., to become a political football and patronage plum." - p 127 A part of the planet's economic revival entailed creating a spaceship industry. "The ship lurched slightly. In the outside screens, the lights around, the crowd that was waving goodbye, and the floor of the crater began receding. The sound pickups were full of cheering, and the boom of a big gun at one of the top batteries, and the recorded and amplified music of a band playing the traditional "Spacemen's Hymn." ""It's been a long time since I heard that played in earnest," Jacquemont said. "Well, we're off to see the Wizard."" - p 135 Consider this: "WEIGHT IS WHAT YOU LIFT, MASS IS WHAT HURTS WHEN IT HITS YOU. WEIGHT DEPENDS ON GRAVITY, MASS IS ALWAYS CONSTANT." - p 136 I've never thought of it like that before. The seekers after Merlin continue to imagine its benefits. ""With Merlin, we could set up a legal code and a system of jurisprudence that would give everybody absolute justice," Judge Leduc said. "As if absolute justice wasn't the last thing anbody in his right senses would want, a robot judge would have the whole planet in jail inside a month." - pp 168-169 The guards & police wd certainly find themselves failing under this scrutiny. Besides, it wd be awfully lonely for people like myself. "the agitation was coming from extremists who wanted Merlin to be the whole Government, and now the extremists were developing an extreme wing of their own, who called themselves Cybernarchists and started wearing colored-shirt uniforms and greeting each other with an archaic stiff-arm salute, and the words, "Hail Merlin!"" - p 179 Piper's an anti-anarchist so it's not surprise to encounter this: ""Maybe we had better destroy it," Judge Leduc faltered, "You see what it's done already; the whole planet's in anarchy. If we let this go on . . ."" - p 230 Piper's anti-anarchism nonetheless, this was probably my 3rd favorite bk of his after the 2 Little Fuzzy ones. ...more |
|
|
Jun 06, 2026 04:35PM
· like
· see review ·
preview book
See a Problem?
We’d love your help.
Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of
The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper.
Thanks for telling us about the problem.
Not the book you’re looking for?
Preview — The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper |
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book really liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of Lloyd Biggle, Jr's Silence is Deadly by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 31 & June 3, 2026 I only 'discovered' Biggle this yr, 2026. I've read & reviewed 3 bks by him so far: The Fury Out of Time ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ), review of Lloyd Biggle, Jr's Silence is Deadly by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 31 & June 3, 2026 I only 'discovered' Biggle this yr, 2026. I've read & reviewed 3 bks by him so far: The Fury Out of Time ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ), The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ), & All the Colors of Darkness ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). I liked them all substantially & liked the Trumpets one enuf to add Biggle to my pantheon of SF favorites. Silence is Deadly was a wee bit too much like The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets so my respect for his writing diminished slightly b/c he started seeming somewhat formulaic. Lately, too much of the SF that I've been reading has been using knights & castles & such-like as the type of environment that the more advanced characters find themselves in - either b/c of time travel or space travel. I don't completely mind that but it's a bit too much in the realm of fantasy for me find the SF element very strong. This has applied to E. C. Tubb & H. Beam Piper &, now, Biggle. "The three knights were a mere thirty meters behind them and riding hard: black capes whipping in the wind, mustaches streaming, whip arms ascending and falling rhythmically, leather armor flapping. The ponderous riding nabrula were thundering along as fast as they could gallop." - p 1 Do you ever think about how writers when inventing a new noun have to choose how to pluralize it? "nabrula" instead of "nabruls"? Perhaps one of the more interesting premises of this bk is that the people on the planet snuck into by interplanetary agents is populated by deaf people, w/o ears. In order to blend in w/ the general population, the agents have to be surgically modified to have their ears removed & to have the holes covered by skin grafts wch dampen but don't do away entirely w/ hearing. Then they have to learn to speak using sign language. "He turned to Riklo and spoke with his fingers. The caterwauling of the cart wheels made vocal conversation difficult, also, Darzek needed the practice. "Why would black knights be waylaying innocdent travelers in the Duke Merzkion's province? he asked, trying not to lisp with his awkward sixth finger." - p 2 Ha ha! That "trying not to lisp with his awkward sixth finger" impresses me as a typical creative Biggle touch. It also attracts my attn as yet-another '6th finger' appearance in SF. The previous one being R. A. Lafferty's "The 6th Finger of Time" novella, an important work for me. "She turned and scrutinized him. "Did you speak truly when you said that your features are your own, and that you had hearing flaps which the surgeons removed to make you look like a Kammian?"" - p 5 Another inventive Biggle touch. I found it a bit shocking at 1st. & there's more. "What perplexed Darzek was the fact that her appearance was synthetic. She wore an ingeniously contrived artificial body that perfectly represented the appearance of a Kammian native, and within it was concealed the utterly alien life form that was an agent of the Galactic Synthesis." - p 6 Not all Galactic Synthesis agents are human, perhaps only a minority. The story starts off midway & then flashes back to an earlier time w ch then plods forward past the midway & beyond. I admire the writerlyness of this. Hence even tho the story starts off w/ Darzek on the planet Kamm we later get the backstory & then the time of his arrival. "He also had grasped the fact that deafness is synonymous with silence only for the deaf. The world of Kamm, the infamous Silent Planet, was in fact the most revoltingly noisy place he had ever experienced. No New York City traffic jam, even in the days when New York City had traffic, could rival a convoy of Kammian carts on the way to market. The Kammian squeaking wheel never got the grease, because no one heard the squeaking" - p 30 "The only locale in the entire city of Northpor where the night creatures went unmolested was the mart. "Darzek had not been aware of this. He happened upon their luminous display unexpectedly, and he halted the cart to watch it. The night creatures lived in the soil and amid the stones of the life pyramid. And they fed at the shrine of death. "All of the bits and particles and chunks and pieces of food impaled on the pole during the day as offerings to the Winged Beast were consumed by these nocturnal creatures, who descended on the black shrine like a scintillating plague of thieves." - p 62 So there. ""Close contacts with natives," Riklo announced, "are strictly forbidden." "Darzek, who had based a career on his talent for ignoring stupid regulations, regarded her with interest. He already had begun to wonder what sort of alien life form that attractivve Kammian female cocoon concealed." - pp 71-72 I wonder if there are ANY heros in mythology or fiction of any kind that are actually lauded for strictly following orders & NOT doing anything on their own initiative? By p 76 the narrative has almost worked its way thru to where it began. "On the ninth day out of Northpor, they crossed an unmarked boundary into the province of Duke Merzkion." Darzek & Riklo are looking for Riklo's disappeared former partner who had infiltrated Merzkion's castle in search of a suspected death ray. Now it's Darzek's time to go after him. "Then they found themselves a secure clearing deep in the forest where Darzek could prepare for his foray. "He improvised a stunning set of mustacjes for himself out of nabrula bristles, gave his hair a dark wash, and stained his face to produce the effect of the deep tan acquired by traveling knights. While he worked on himself, Riklo converted the blotched yellow nabrulak to a black and purple-spotted creature of a different breed. "By midafternoon both of them had finished. Darzek was the complete knight of the Winged Beast, riding a steed that no one in the duke's castle could possibly recognize." - p 78 Priot to this disguise, Darzek had been running a perfume business, smells being a highly appreciated artform among the deaf people. "These new perfumes of Hadkez must be good. "They are beautiful, Sajjo announced, using the Kammian term of highest approbation. Ours are the favorite scents in the entire Nortpor mart. The perfumer Hadkez worked for wanted him to come back, but he wouldn't. - p 93 Alas, unknown to Darzek, his natural smell, wch the natives are too polite to tell him about, gives him away to the Kammians hunting for offworldly agents. "Why would one of the black capes of OO be able to detect my disguise? "The captains exchanged glances. If Darzek could read anything of Kammian character—and he thought he could—all of them were embarrassed. "If there's a reason, I beg you to tell me, he said. I must correct it, whatever it is. Otherwise, I can exist here only by hiding, and my effectiveness is at an end. I can't accomplish my mission and help the citizens of Storoz if I can't move about freely. "Again the captains exchanged glances. Captain Wanulzk said finally, and his embrassament was acute, The reason the black cape suspected you is because you stink." - p 119 Meanwhile, one of the nefarious dukes is having a foul-smelling scent painstakingly manufactured for unknown purposes. "More likely this was the odor of the laien agents from Zruan, those who opposed the Duke of OO, and the duke intended to circulate the scent like a wanted poster: One hundfed coins reward for anyone who smells like this, dead or alive. "But even that seemed scarely credible. Darzek sniffed the scent again and shook his head. "An alien who smelled like that wouldn't be able to acquire any allies," he said to himself. "And yet—the captain had considered the scent almost as bad as Darzek's. No wonder Darzek was sitting alone in a room in Northpor, making no progress whatsoever." - p 136 Darzek's either damned lucky &/or very clever. At any rate, he ends up in a cushy safe position about to witness his rival aliens be sacrificed. "Once again he found himself looking out into the arena, but this time hewas seated comfortably in the Duke Dunjinz'z private box. And when the cage went up, there were seven aliens in the arena—three of the massive single-eared type from Arrn, and four of the double-eared Zruanians." - p 178 I love people w/ imaginations (except for the liars) & Biggle is high amongst our ranks. I'm not sure why this resonates w/ me so much.. but it does. Even w/ all the clichés of castles & knights & arenas this still seemed like a highly original work. ...more |
|
|
Jun 03, 2026 02:20PM
· like
· see review ·
preview book
See a Problem?
We’d love your help.
Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of
Silence is Deadly by Lloyd Biggle Jr..
Thanks for telling us about the problem.
Not the book you’re looking for?
Preview — Silence is Deadly by Lloyd Biggle Jr. |
|
|
Tentatively, Convenience
rated a book liked it
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
review of E.C. Tubb's The Quillian Sector by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 31, 2026 As I've written in earlier Tubb reviews, the owner of a local bkstore that I like, Caliban, recommended Tubb to me so I read his standalone Moon Base & liked it & review of E.C. Tubb's The Quillian Sector by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 31, 2026 As I've written in earlier Tubb reviews, the owner of a local bkstore that I like, Caliban, recommended Tubb to me so I read his standalone Moon Base & liked it & then bought a lot of 16 "Dumarest of Terra" bks on eBay. I've been working my way thru those. This is #19 of that series. I don't usually read series & reading these reinforces that it's better for me to not do so. The repetitiveness, alone, gets too annoying for me after awhile. STILL, I can appreciate the challenge that Tubb sets himself to up the trials & tribulations ante w/ each successive novel - something he's very good at. Earl of Dumarest has frequent attempts taken on his life. Here, he barely escapes a construction 'accident': "Luck was with him. A second later, or had he been less fast, he would have been crushed and buried like an insect. As it was, he felt the impact on his left shoulder, the barest touch of the debris which rasped down the sleeve of his coverall, the blow throwing him further in the direction of his fall. He hit a slope, rolling, falling, to land on the water-logged clay at the foot of the cutting as over him showered the mass of clay, dirt and rubble. "Too much rubble. It pressed on his back, drove his face into the water as it piled on his head, his shoulders, trapping his entire body with a layer of dirt which pressed with an iron hand. A hand which could kill, which would kill within minutes unless he could some way to breathe." - p 18 Later, the man who fails to kill him w/ the 'accident' tries to kill him in the construction worker group shower. ""Waiting for me, friend? Well, now, that's nice of you. A pity you're going to have another accident." His laughter was soft, feral, devoid of amusement. "A fatal one this time." "Dumarest threw the soap. "It flashed from his hand to drive against the giant's face, to land beneath one of the thick eyebrows and to slam against the eye with a force which tore the orb from its socket, to leave an ugly red hole streaming blood." - p 23 I'm reminded of a scene in "The Chronicles of Riddick" in wch Riddick kills a man by ramming a tin tea-cup into his chest. I'm further reminded of someone I knew who was in prison telling me about guys scooping each other's eyeballs out w/ spoons. In other words, just about anything can be a weapon. As is serially the case, Dumarest has to move on to another dangerous planet, out of the frying pan, into the fire. "Vult was as Allain had claimed: a mad world inhabited by the insane. In the sky, the sun, huge, mottled with flaring patches of lemon and orange, burned with a relentless fury, and at night the stars glittered like a host of hungry, watching eyes. Stars which were close, suns which filled space with conflicting energies, radiations which disturbed the delicate neuron paths of the brain, dampening the censor so that between thought and action there was little restraint. A harshly savage world where only the strong could hope to survive." - p 47 There's another bk in this series where there's a mad city, rather than a whole world. The city having become mad as a result of its in-grown isolation. I'm further reminded of H. G. Wells's story "The Country of the Blind", another condition brought about by in-grown isolation. My growsing about the annoyingness of the repetitiveness is becoming repetitively annoying. "It came from the aura surrounding the tremendous installation of central intelligence, the radiated power of the great cybernetic complex which was the heart of the Cyclan. One day, he would be a part of that installation. His body would age and fail but his brain would be saved, removed from his skull and joined in series with millions of other brains taken from cybers who had lived before him and now continued to live as disembodied brains in vats of nutrient fluid. He would live as they lived, totally divorced from the irking irritations of the body, able to concentrate on matters of pure thought. A time of endless tranquility in which he and they would work to solve each and every problem of the galaxy. "The reward of every cyber, but one which would be denied to him should he fail." - p 67 Yes, that's a recurrence. From my POV it's a nice touch b/c as an individualist hedonist the idea of being a brain-in-a-vat functioning as a component of a group mind is extremely unpleasant. Hence, having the Cyclan be Dumarest's enemy works for me. My sympathy is 100% on Dumarest's side. One of the characters who's most sympathetic for me is an artist named Gale who makes her living off of documenting rare natural phenomena. ""Success, Gale?" ""Leo!" She smiled as she saw him. "Yes, I think so. Did you catch that interplay over the western horizon a few minutes ago? It was superb! That recording alone will sell at least a hundred thousand copies on Eltania."" - p 70 Coincidentally. it was nightime when I read this & it was just a few minutes after I'd tried to take a picture of a large orange crescent moon next to a 10 or so story bldg to the west of my POV. The view was spectacular. Alas, by the time I steadied the camera, the moon was below the horizon & the only pictures I managed to get were failures b/c of their blurriness. Still, the way that effort played into this bk's story was an interesting interplay. ""Once, on Sante, I saw a man who had fasted for thirty days. It was a show at a carnival and I think he was doing it for a bet. If he lasted for thirty-seven days he would have beaten the record." [..] "Gale Andrei snapped, "Meaning me, I suppose. Hell, can't you talk about anything but food? I'm starving!" ""Not starving," he corrected. "You just want to eat. You're not really hungry yet. It's just that your stomach is accustomed to being filled at regular intervals and has started to complain. Just be patient. In a few days it will pass."" - p 119 Holger Meins, of the Red Army Faction, went on hunger strike in prison for 66 days, at wch point he died, weighing only 86 pounds. The longest I've ever fasted for was 28 days (twice). It wasn't THAT hard but I doubt that I cd do it now, at age 72. Dumarest was on a spaceship that's crashed. Among his fellow survivors is a bounty hunter who's after him named Bochner. Since Dumarest is wanted alive by the Cyclan, Bochner hasn't tried to kill him & Dumarest is unaware of Bochner's purpose. Bochner, who's been shacking up w/ Gale, another survivor, talks, using typical sociopathic logic, w/ Dumarest about what to do about the woman. "["]What if rescue does not arrive?" ""We live." ""Of course, but how? I mean in what manner? Three men and only one woman—you recognize the problem? The captain, I think, can be left out of the equation, but there is still you and me. Frankly, the need of a woman is, to me, only a minor irritation, but there is a question of principle. Of precedence. You understand?"" - pp 144-145 ANYWAY, it all works out ok in the end (except for Gale) & closure is provided, as per formula. Given that the formula has long since worn thin for me, I was less than enthusiastic about this one but as a standalone (in other words, it's not necessary to read the series) I can recommend it (sortof). ...more |
|
|
|
|
Cognitive Dissidents
— 82 members
— last activity Nov 09, 2021 08:48AM
A meeting place for people dedicated to subverting oppressive 'realities' by whatever means we're inspired to use. A meeting place for people dedicated to subverting oppressive 'realities' by whatever means we're inspired to use. ...more
Goodreads Librarians Group
— 331830 members
— last activity 0 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Librarians Group is the official group for requesting additions or updates to the catalog, including: * Adding new books or editions * Editing book information (including covers) * Combining and merging book editions * Edits to page counts, quotes or awards * Correcting author profiles for authors not in the Goodreads Author Program If you're a Goodreads member with a new request, click Join Group. Once you're added to the group, you can post your question following this link. Simple requests (e.g. page count updates) typically take around 48 hours depending on the volume of requests, while more complex requests could take up to a couple of weeks (e.g. adding a new book). Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide. Keep in mind that Librarians don't: * Grant or give insights into Librarian applications / Librarian status * Move ISBNs or ASINs between editions * Help with non-catalog Support questions (e.g. How do I reset my password?) For help with these queries or to submit general questions, comments or feature requests, try Goodreads Help or use the Contact Us form. If you're a Librarian and want to process requests, please refer to our Librarian Manual to ensure edits are performed in line with Goodreads policies. ...more
Working Class Readers
— 9 members
— last activity Sep 06, 2023 09:07AM
What sort of books do working class readers enjoy? Clearly all books! but OK if we are thinking reading in a class conscious way, what might we highli What sort of books do working class readers enjoy? Clearly all books! but OK if we are thinking reading in a class conscious way, what might we highlight to other working class readers. This might be books by working class writers; it might be books about working class lives or jobs or themes; but it might be something else! ...more
Oulipo
— 15 members
— last activity Mar 09, 2011 04:49AM
Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Harry Matthews, etc.
Feb 04, 2023 08:07PM
Feb 05, 2023 02:41AM