ANTARCTICA – Kim Stanley Robinson (1997)

Kim Stanley Robinson probably is my favorite author, as recurrent readers of this blog might know. I have now read all of his novels – except for what is generally perceived as his magnum opus, the Mars trilogy, and 2018’s Red Moon – which I started but did not finish.

Antarctica is – like all of his other novels – unique in his oeuvre: Robinson never writes the same book twice.

At first sight it is a blend of near future adventure thriller, historical report, political treatise and landscape travelogue. But when I looked closer, rereading the parts I had highlighted to possibly quote here, it slowly dawned on me: this is KSR’s big epistemic novel. It is epistemology that subtly & cleverly holds together the different themes of this book: storytelling, imagination, science, ethics, politics, economics, the reality of nature.

As such, it might be the richest book Robinson has written – at least from an philosophical point of view. Robinson convincingly ties utopia and science together once and for all: this is no scifi, but realistic fiction about the essence & scope of science.

More on all that after the next few paragraphs, after the jump.

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Robinson has a love relationship with the antarctic continent, and he has visited it twice – the first time in 1995, with the Artists & Writers program of the US National Science Foundation, and a second time, with NSF as well, in 2016.

And just like his other landscape infatuation – the Sierra Nevada – that love will result in a non-fiction book about Antarctica. In an interview for The Weekly Anthropocene earlier this year, Robinson said he would turn in the book to his publisher this July.

It’s structured like my book The High Sierra: A Love Story — the same format, in that it will have a variety of modes, including lyric realism as you called it, memoir, history, geology, and this case, glaciology. I’m enjoying this kind of modular miscellany, or just the kitchen sink principle— just throw in everything. It helps me to do non-fiction. (…) I love novels with all my heart. It’s what I’ve devoted my life to. But after Ministry, I don’t know what fiction to write next. So these nonfiction books fill a gap. They are a way of keeping my hand in the game while I try to collect myself for another novel.

It will be interesting to read that forthcoming book, and see how much overlap there is with Antarctica – as that novel has a significant amount of non-fiction too.

GEHUWDE ROTSEN – Jan Lauwereyns (2021)

For now, a review in Dutch, about what translates as Married Rocks, a contemplative novel by Jan Lauwereyns, a Flemish neuroscientist & poet who lives and works in Japan.

Next post should be a review about Kim Stanley Robinson’s Antarctica.

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Jan Lauwereyns (°1969) timmert al een kwarteeuw aan zijn literair oeuvre, ietwat in de marge. Hij is naast schrijver ook neurowetenschapper: hij doceerde bijvoorbeeld biologische psychologie in Nieuw-Zeeland. Sinds 2010 is hij professor aan de Universiteit van Kyushu in Japan.

In 2007 las ik met veel plezier Anophelia! De mug leeft, zijn vijfde dichtbundel, en toen ik Gehuwde rotsen van twee verschillende mensen getipt kreeg, besloot ik het boek te halen in de bib.

Er prijkt ‘roman’ op de cover, maar dat strookt toch niet helemaal met de gangbare definitie. Gehuwde rotsen is vormelijk atypisch: een tiental hoofdstukken start telkens met een foto uit het familiearchief, dan een stuk of tien gedichten en daarna een twintigtal bladzijden fragmentarisch proza – biografische & filosofische beschouwingen.

Lauwereyns’ focus ligt op de zelfmoord van zijn moeder, het mislukte huwelijk van z’n ouders en zijn eigen scheiding – liefde en de vraag of het leven wel de moeite waard is ondanks al de angst en pijn. Het boek is een geslaagde mengeling van autobiografie, poëzie en essay, en toch werkt het wel degelijk als een roman omdat het een verhaal betreft: geen netjes afgelijnde vertelling, maar we zijn als lezer wel getuige van de poging van een man om grip te krijgen op zichzelf en de zelfmoord van zijn moeder. Het is geen vrolijk boek: miserie “geeft de contouren”, is “het raamwerk van dèes, van da getokkel ier, d’iên misère en d’aender, en wa doe’d’ermé“.

Gehuwde rotsen is nog op een andere manier een mengeling: Lauwereyns is een intellectueel die veel gelezen heeft, en verwijst naar allerlei auteurs, maar tezelfdertijd is hij lichtvoetig, volks zelfs – het proza is doorspekt met Antwerps dialect, en zijn formele keuzes geven hem ook veel vrijheid, alles is soepel in dit boek, soepel en naakt en eerlijk.

Ook al permitteert Lauwereyns zich vormelijk veel, en staan er citaten in van Darwin en David Benatar en Blanchot en Spinoza, toch is Gehuwde rotsen niet pretentieus – integendeel. Het resultaat is een roman die “Ambitieus én onnozel” is, in een toonaard die je niet zo veel tegenkomt in onze letteren. 

Het boek zit vol gevoelens, en Lauwereyns probeert die in hun waarde te laten door hun veelheid en veelkantigheid te beschrijven. Het volgende fragment deed me beseffen dat mijn eigen drang naar nuances eigenlijk een soort gulzigheid is. Lauwereyns toont dat de tegenstelling tussen hoofd en hart vals is, en dat de ratio – in termen van begrip & twijfel & onzekerheid – net de weg is naar een groter hart.

veel kanten, veel aspecten, veel gevoelens en gedachten, die in hun veelheid troost bieden, uitbreiding, deling, uitgebreidheid, een groter bereik, meer zin, zoals in die titel van Hans Groenewegen, Met schrijven zin verzamelen, meer zin, een groter hart

Die gulzigheid is een verslaving, en ik denk dat ik, net als Lauwereyns zelf, ook behoor tot “iedereen die verslaafd is aan het mysterie van lichaam en ziel, het brein en het bewustzijn”.

DUNE: PART TWO – Denis Villeneuve (2024)

Let me first repeat some stuff from the intro to my Dune: Part One review.

I’ve invested quite some time writing about Frank Herbert’s books, and my reread of the Dune series in particular, resulting in a series of long posts – if you’re interested, there are links at the end of this review.

I will refrain from comparing Villeneuve to David Lynch – I’ve seen the 1984 movie multiple times, but my memories of it are sketchy to the extent I can only say two things about it: I liked it, but it probably won’t make much sense to somebody that hasn’t read the book.

I’ll simply try to describe how I experienced this new film, based on just one viewing. I have no intention of writing a lengthy analysis, nor get into the nuts and bolts of the problems of the White Savior Myth or other hot topics.

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I’ll also won’t do a very detailed comparison of the book and Part Two, but I will zoom in on the effects of a few of Villeneuve’s choices. If you want a detailed overview of differences: there are pieces in Esquire and Screenrant, and a more general one in The Guardian. Part Two strays from the novel in much more significant ways than Part One, and while it’s overall still a fairly faithful adaptation, the differences result in a story with much less emotional impact – but more about that later.

First, I have a confession to make. A few months ago, I watched Dune: Part One again, and I stopped halfway through – it was boring. That took me by surprise, as I absolutely loved seeing it in theater when it just came out. What does that say about that movie – and more importantly: does it also say something about this sequel?

QUICK NOTE

It might be a few weeks before another review appears. Not that I’m in a reading slump or having blog fatigue – a few things simply got into the way. At the moment I’m enjoying both Antarctica and Gehuwde Rotsen (a novel in Dutch), and I will review them both.

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In the meantime, Kali Malone’s new record All Life Long just came out, and it is stellar. The first track – a beautiful piece for vocal ensemble – should sell itself. Other tracks are for organ, or for a brass quintet. Check it out for free here, on Bandcamp.

I also saw Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos, and that’s very much worth watching in a cinema while you still can. A wonderful, honest, funny Frankenstein for this age.

TOO LATE TO AWAKEN: STRANGE SUNDAYS IN HELL – Ballingrud, Schrauwen, Vikernes, Žižek (2023, 2024)

It seems that after the epic The Deluge – the last book I read in 2023 – I needed to cleanse my palate. Markley’s book was old school immersive & cinematic to a degree I hadn’t encountered in quite some time, and as a result it took me a while to get into a proper vibe reading other books. It is possible my enjoyment of The Strange fell victim to that – everything is context, always.

Anyhow, I ended up reading 4 very different books in the first three weeks of January – each of them fairly short and recent. After the jump, you’ll get some thoughts on these:

Nathan Ballingrud – The Strange (2023)

Olivier Schrauwen – Sunday (2018-2021)  (translated in Dutch as as Zondag in 2023)

Varg Vikernes – To Hell & Back Again: Part 1: My Black Metal Story (Norway 1991-1993) (2024)

Slavoj Žižek – Too Late to Awaken: What Lies Ahead When There Is No Future? (2023)

THE DELUGE – Stephen Markley (2022)

Stephen Markley had high ambitions for his book: “emotionally reorient the reader around what’s happening, so we can actually feel in our hearts what the stakes of this moment actually are.”

This moment refers to the ongoing predicament of our biosphere: The Deluge is climate fiction.

As with any book, it won’t work for everyone. Especially if you don’t believe rapidly reducing our carbon emissions is necessary, or if you feel the current American political & economical system generates enough equity, The Deluge might annoy you for ideological reasons. Markley does try to be balanced – more on that below – but it’s no denying this book advocates progressive measures rather than conservative ones. It’s impossible to write books that appeal to everybody on the political spectrum, and this book won’t convince anyone who doesn’t already think society is in peril because of human emissions. But for those who do, it will put the urgency in much, much sharper focus.

So, for me, Markley did achieve his goals: the novel gave me new insights, and it affected me emotionally. I cried numerous times while reading it, and it put a knot in my stomach – tight and then even tighter.

The Deluge is set in the US, and its 880 pages chronicle 2013 to 2040. It is a big, big book of the sprawling kind, told through the eyes of seven characters – a scientist, a poor drug addict, an ecoterrorist, a Washington policy adviser, an advertising strategist, a high profile activist and her partner.

These characters all have families and friends, and it is trough their well-drawn relations Markley managed to evoke strong emotions in me, as the cast experience climate catastrophes and political upheaval primarily while they are connected to other human beings. In a sense, this book is as much about love and friendship as it is about ecological systems and politics: we fear for what’s coming, because we fear for our loved ones.

The Deluge is immersive, cinematic reading. Stephen King called it the best book he read in 2022 and “a modern classic (…) Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.” I concur. At times I felt 14 again, utterly absorbed by The Stand. Markley wrote that kind of book – with the occasional boardroom debate thrown in. It’s arguably better, as The Stand had no real-world stakes.

The novel was 13 years in the making, and so Markley had to constantly revise and change stuff he’d already written to suit new political and scientific developments. It makes it an exceptionally timely book: to really experience what Markley pulled off, you need to read this now – not in 10 years.

So what exactly does he achieve in The Deluge – aside from showing, on a basic level, what could happen the coming decades: drought, fire, flood, food scarcity, inflation, migration & death?

2023 FAVORITES

I started 39 titles in 2023. It seems like I found a good ratio of speculative fiction and other stuff – some Dutch, some non-fiction, some regular literature. We’ll see how it goes in 2024, but it’s safe to say Kim Stanley Robinson, M. John Harrison, Greg Egan, Stanisłav Lem and Flemish authors L.P. Boon & J.M.H. Berckmans will remain regulars on this blog.

I wrote a bit more on art this year, scroll down for that.

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Before I’ll get to 2023’s favorites, a bit of blog stats for those of you who are interested in such a thing. Traffic has dropped a bit in comparison to last year. I can think of two factors. The Dune hype generated by Denis Villeneuve has worn off a bit, and as my Herbert reviews still draw most traffic on Weighing A Pig, that results in less of it. We’ll see if there’s again an uptick when the second movie gets released in March. Another reason might be that I didn’t review any Dune titles this year, nor any other hyped books, like Ada Palmer‘s last year. So the most successful reviews I wrote this year didn’t draw nearly as much readers as those of 2022.

Anyhow, in 2023 I got 39,902 views and 22,161 visitors – about 4000 and 2000 less than in 2022, but still a wee bit more than in 2021. I’m not complaining. Most visited 2023 post was about my reread of the Foundation trilogy, with 453 visits. Chapterhouse: Dune got most traffic in 2023: 1301 visits, adding up to a total of 2446 visits.

As for all-time stats, my most read reviews so far are those for Dune Messiah (5130 views since published), Children of Dune (4629), Heretics of Dune (4106), The Book of the New Sun (3648) and Piranesi (3574). I’ve been blogging for 8 years, and so far I’ve published 328 posts.

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Anyhow, as always, thanks to all my readers, and extra so to those who have commented, linked or pressed the like button: much appreciated, it never goes unnoticed. My best wishes to you and yours for 2024 and beyond.

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FAVORITE READS

As for the actual favorite book list: below are the titles I’ve given a 5-star rating on Goodreads in 2023, ten books – four more than last year. It’s impossible to choose just one book – the set is too diverse for that – but if I had to pick three: Wish I Was Here, The Deluge and A Mountain to the North, A Lake to the South, Paths to the West, A River to the East.

Honorable mentions for Drowning Practice, Independent People, Ralph Azham, The Man in the High Castle, Galileo’s Dream, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Shadows Linger and the Foundation trilogy.

Sadly no science book that shook my world this year – I hope to remedy that in 2024.

Click on the covers for the review.

EXCESSION – Iain M. Banks (1996)

People change. It must have been 2008 when I started reading fiction again, and Iain Banks’ Culture series became among the first things I devoured. Excession was my favorite of the series back then, and I decided it was time to reread it – hopefully to be entertained and awed again, and, at the very least, to take a long, hard look in the mirror of time.

For those unfamiliar with Banks & the Culture novels: they are widely considered to be among the best in the genre. Hugely influential space opera, on a grand scale. And a big plus: contrary to most of today’s series, the nine Culture books – published from 1987 to 2012 – can all be read as standalones.

As hivemind Wikipedia has it, the Culture is “a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy.”

The Culture is technologically so advanced that it can practically do anything with matter, has access to FTL and nearly unlimited genetic technology. That results in near-immortality and, just to pick one example, the ability to change sex in about a year just by thinking about it. Banks hit upon a gold vein when he conceived of the Culture, as it allows for about anything to happen, but not in an inconsistent or random way.

Excession is about an unprecedented alien artifact appearing out of nowhere. It particularly zooms in on the reaction of a couple of so-called Minds – “benevolent AIs with enormous intellectual and physical capabilities” that often inhabit & control enormous ships of ten or more kilometers, some of them home to billions of individuals. These Minds all have distinct, at times eccentric, personalities.

The ‘excession’ of the title is a sphere that suddenly appears in space, seemingly older than the Universe, resisting attempts to be probed easily, its control of physical laws vastly superior to the Culture’s. It’s Banks riff on a Big Dumb Object.

Last time I read a speculative work of Banks was in June 2019, over 4 years ago. I didn’t think Transition was a success, and I vehemently disliked The Algebraist, which I started in 2018. Before that I read Inversions, and I didn’t really like that either. So I was starting to wonder: was I too easily impressed in 2008 and 2009? Or did, by sheer luck, I read all the Iain M. Banks books that where least to my liking last?

FAVORITE CLASSICAL MUSIC

It has been 7 years since I published a list on this blog – that of my favorite non-fiction, a list I do keep updated btw. Today I’ve finally mustered the courage to make my long overdue list of favorite Western classical music. Somewhere in the future, I still owe you a list of favorite metal albums, and a list of favorite philosophy books. Maybe a jazz list too.

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I’ve been listening to classical music for over 30 years, but as I’m a musical omnivore I’m not a specialist, so I don’t consider myself a true classical connaisseur at all – there are giant heaps of people who’s knowledge of classic music far, far surpasses mine. So if you are looking for an in-depth list with lots of hidden gems outside of canon, this isn’t it. What I present is merely a list of fairly well-known works that somebody who’s not that familiar with the genre can use to start a reconnaissance. Just to say: this is not a list for purists or music snobs, and nobody will like everything that’s on here.

It is simply a list of stuff that was formative for me, stuff that somehow touched me over the years – most of which still touches me today.

I’ll start with Bach – who else?

INDEPENDENT PEOPLE – Halldór Laxness (1934-35)

“Some people grumble about monotony, – such complaints are the marks of immaturity, sensible people don’t like things happening.”

I have no idea how this book first showed up on my radar, but, speculative fiction aside, I do have a bit of a sweet spot for tales of rural epic loners taking on life, their farm or their craft. Marlen Haushofer The Wall falls in this category, as well as Felix Timmerman’s A Peasant’s Psalm and even The Door by Magda Szabó fits.

So when I learned this book basically won Halldór Laxness the Nobel Prize in 1955, and, more recently, has been more and more heralded as one of the greatest novels ever written, I decided to take its measure too.

Independent People was first published in Icelandic as Sjálfstætt fólk in two volumes, in 1934 and 1935.

Laxness’ works have been translated in 47 languages, this book in 35. The sole English translation dates from 1945 and was done by James Anderson Thompson. It was an immediate success when it was published in the US in 1946, selling nearly half a million copies. But as parts of this novel deal with socialistic reform in Iceland – more on that later – Laxness became the victim of McCarthyism, and his career in the US was destroyed by deliberate machinations of the American government.

It had been out of print for decades in the US, but at the end of the 20th century a glowing article by Brad Leithauser and a reissue slowly pushed it closer to the center of the canon of Western literature again, and now it’s often ranked in serious lists among the best books ever.

So, what’s it about – and did I like it?

SUCCESSION: SEASON ONE: THE COMPLETE SCRIPTS – Jesse Armstrong (2023)

I guess HBO’s TV series Succession doesn’t need a lot of introduction for those in the mainstream media loop. Its 4 seasons aired in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023. Collectively the series so far has won 13 Emmys, 5 Golden Globes, 3 BAFTAs, a Grammy and a plethora of other awards.

Before unpacking some of the content, and discussing this 740 page tome with the complete scripts for the first season, a few sentences on my TV biography – I’ve talked a bit about about series before on this blog, in my year end lists, but never at length.

I don’t watch a lot of series or movies anymore, but being in my twenties during the onset of the so-called Second Golden Age of Television, I’ve enjoyed quite a lot of the big titles. The ones most important to me were 1997’s Oz, 1999’s The Sopranos and The West Wing, 2001’s The Office, Six Feet Under and 24, 2002’s The Wire, 2003’s Carnivàle, 2004’s Deadwood and 2008’s Breaking Bad.

Of the more recent fare I loved Better Call Saul, BoJack Horseman and Rick & Morty.

And of course there’s that one, unavoidable title… Being only 11 when David Lynch’s Twin Peaks first aired I got to enjoy that show numerous, numerous times: first on TV in 1990, a second time during a rerun in 1997, and then countless of times when the DVDs came out. Defying all odds, 2017’s third season was such a daring blast too.

So if I’d have to name my favorite shows, it would be something like Twin Peaks, BoJack Horseman, The Wire and, yes indeed, Succession. Maybe Ricky Gervais’ The Office too, and Rick & Morty – even though I don’t know if they will be able to uphold quality, I haven’t seen anything of the new, 7th season that just started.

I discovered Succession in 2020, watched the first 2 seasons during the pandemic, and then the final 2 as they aired. A week after the final episode in May 2023, I started it all again, binging the full 40 hours in about a month. That second viewing was even better than the first, and I plan to rewatch everything a third time, after I finish reading the rest of the scripts.

Which brings us to that fat book this post is about – this is a book site, yeah?!

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE – Philip K. Dick (1962)

Glad that I finally read this – the first PKD I truly liked. Reading it almost never happened, as after Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said I decided to stop seeking out more Philip K. Dick. But as I’m also slowly trying to read all big classics of scifi, I had to tackle it one day.

The Man in the High Castle got Dick a Hugo award, and is one of the stalwarts of alternative history. It is considered his most literary novel – Ursula Le Guin even claimed it “may be the first, big lasting contribution science fiction made to American literature.”

Obviously it ticks many boxes for those that like to analyze things: it has meta-fictional parts, references to real and imaginary Nazis, characters with false names, characters pretending to be someone else, questions about the nature of reality & authenticity & art, a formally inventive origin story (Dick used the I Ching to plot the novel), ruminations on other cultures, totalitarian & leftist politics, and one of the biggest what if questions of the 20th century. A postmodern smorgasbord.

Yet none of that really sold it to me.

RALPH AZHAM – Lewis Trondheim (2010-2019)

Lewis Trondheim is no small name in the world of comics. In 2006 he won the Grand Prix de la ville d’Angoulême, a life time achievement award, and arguably the most prestigious award in the field. He has written or drawn more than a hundred titles in lots of genres, including The Fly, Kaput and Zösky, Little Nothings and his breakthrough series Dungeon, created with Joann Sfar. He’s also one of the founding members of the publishing house L’Association – famous for publishing Marjane Satrapi.

In 2004 Trondheim announced that he would more or less retire, to prevent his work becoming rote. It is during this ‘retirement’ that Ralph Azham was born: an epic fantasy series about a reluctant hero in the form of a duck. The first volume appeared in French in 2010, the twelfth and final volume in 2019. They were all first published in Spirou magazine, and bundled later by Editions Dupuis.

Joe Johnson translated the series into English, and Super Genius & Papercutz published everything in 4 parts: Black Are the Stars & The Land of the Blue Demons in 2022, and You Can’t Stop a River & The Dying Flame in 2023.

Ralph Azham is a sprawling story that keeps on doing unexpected things without feeling contrived. I’d say it is a must read for any lover of fantasy comic books. There’s action, magic, humor and adventure, and throughout the series Trondheim also introduces a bit of political ethics – but nothing too serious or heavy-handed: the focus is squarely on creative entertainment.

THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES – Ray Bradbury (1950)

The Martian Chronicles is one of those titles I saw listed again and again as one of science fiction’s key texts – it ranks sixth on the aggregate list Classics of Science Fiction. But because I thought Fahrenheit 451 was so awfully preachy, it took me 8 years to pick up this other Bradbury title. The lesson here is: never judge an author by one book – The Martian Chronicles indeed is a deserved, enduring classic.

While there is a certain naivety in the book – Earthlings just go and bang on an alien door and introduce themselves, unafraid of pathogens or possibly dangerous Martian mores – and Bradbury doesn’t seem too concerned with realism on that front, the book does manage to evoke a real enough image of certain crucial aspects of the human condition.

It will also delight certain readers The Martian Chronicles is critical of colonialism, American imperialism, consumerism and the nuclear arms race. It was published as The Silver Locusts in the UK, a title that clearly advocates a political interpretation. And yes, in a way, this early 50ies book is ‘woke’ indeed. But as Jesse pointed out on Speculiction, Bradbury does so without overtly preaching or easy dichotomies – is this really the same guy who wrote Fahrenheit 451?

THE CYBERIAD – Stanisłav Lem (1965)

Cyberiada is a short story collection by Stanisłav Lem. Michael Kandel’s outstanding translation appeared in 1974, but omits five stories that were in the Polish edition.

Lem writes about Trurl and Klapaucius, two brilliant constructors living in a far-future, galaxy spanning world that’s populated by robots and humans, in a setting that borrows heavily from medieval tropes: knights, dragons & kings. Gradually it becomes clear that Trurl and Klapaucius are robots themselves as well.

The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age is considered to be humorous, satirical fiction – but I think such a description, while not untrue, doesn’t fully do the collection justice.

This was my third Lem: Solaris was great, but Fiasco was marred by characters behaving stupidly. I’m glad The Cyberiad renewed my faith in Poland’s most famous speculative author. The Cyberiad is five star material, and deserves to be widely read – also outside of genre fandom.