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Notes -
So what are you reading? I just finished The Children of Men by P.D. James, review below. Also working on Way of Kings, Capital, and some Kant.
Didn't realize that the author of this was THE P.D. James, of thriller writing fame. I guess there is something about British authors who abbreviate there first and middle names and pulling surprisingly deep science fiction commentary that has stood the test of time (thinking of you E.M. Forster).
The Children of Men is a book about a world with ultra-low fertility, in other words, an extreme version of a world that we already live in. I had a friend's birthday party at the park a couple weeks ago (I'm getting close to 30 unfortunately), and I noticed that out of the 20 or so couples there, only one had a child. And I think this is becoming increasingly true over the whole entire world. Many of the downstream aspects of this fact also seem to be shared between James' novel and reality: the prevalence of pet parents, the lack of interest in the future of society (but a fixation on the past), and an obsession with health and safety at all costs.
Beyond the social commentary, the actual plot of the novel is a little lackluster. It centers on an Oxford Professor of History, Theo, who happens to be the cousin of the dictator of England. Theo lives a pretty unremarkable and utterly selfish life (even before the "Omega" where most men suddenly become infertile), until he becomes involved with a rebel group that wants to enact some minor changes in the governmental system, but more importantly, is sheltering a woman who happens to be pregnant. Theo's time with this group changes his inner and outer lives almost completely: it's amazing what hope for the future does to an individual, although I was left wondering at the end how much would really change in England after the birth of this child.
Having children is no basis for a moral system in of itself (this was Chesterton's critique of H.G. Wells), but it sure as hell makes constructing a society a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately I think our world is headed to a future more similar to what James envisioned in the 1990s. People simply aren't having children: I'm guilty of this too: it's not like I'm close to being married even. And that, I think, means that this society isn't very long for this world.
I finished Stranger In A Strange Land earlier this week, as I mentioned at one point in last week's SSQS thread. So now I'm on to the other book I picked up at the same time, an anthology of short stories by Harlan Ellison. Overall I have found it to be quite good, though I strongly recommend against getting the specific volume I got (a Barnes and Noble edition called "Greatest Hits"). First, B&N put a sticker on the cover that I didn't notice until after I got it home and ditched the receipt, and it left glue residue when I peeled it off. Second, it is tainted in places by the Current Year - there's a content warning saying that the stories have offensive thinking about women and minorities, and some editor thought it would be acceptable to change Ellison's text to say "Black" instead of "black" when referring to a character's ethnicity. Honestly, I would return it if I hadn't immediately thrown out the receipt, because editing an author's work after the fact like that is downright offensive. But c'est la vie.
For the actual content of the stories themselves, they are good (which is no surprise considering the author). I bought the book because it contained I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (which I had never read), and I thought it deserved all the praise it gets. But surprisingly, I found "Repent, Harlequin" Said The Ticktockman (which I had not heard of) to steal the show thus far. The story is a classic sci-fi story type, the cautionary tale. It shows a version of humanity where society is so far in service to keeping a schedule that the tool of a clock has become a tyrant over humanity. I don't want to talk too much about it because it is a short story (only perhaps 30 pages), so it would be pretty easy to give the whole thing away. But I thought that Ellison does a great job of introducing the world, setting up a story that the reader cares about, and resolving said story in an effective way, all within a very short format. It is a really great bit of writing and I'm glad I got exposed to it even though it's not what I originally purchased the book for.
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Reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for the third time.
My first time was in high school in the 90’s, where mostly it was Newspeak that impacted me. I’d just finished Rush Limbaugh’s two current affairs books, and the trickery of politicians changing words to “politically correct” variants was my takeaway.
My second read was during the first Trump administration, where the shock of the totalitarian state of IngSoc/Airstrip One/Oceania and the geopolitics of Goldstein’s book made me look at current affairs in a new light, especially during the Biden/Covid years.
This third time through, the small details of Winston’s life are hitting me hard. He’s 44 or 45, a few years younger than me, and his constant mentions of physical problems punctuate the existential misery of his life in the lower rungs of the Party.
He’s married but separated, a fact I’d forgotten. I haven’t yet reached the parts detailing his love affair. I also hadn’t remembered his furtive writing of a diary where he introduced the idea that freedom is the ability to say that two plus two equals four, giving [spoiler] the perfect tool to break him in the end.
Contrasted with the other big dystopias I’ve read (The Hunger Games’ Panem, Brave New World’s ultracivilization, Atlas Shrugged’s crippled Communist America, and Harry Potter’s Voldemort’s Magical Britain), the world system in 1984 feels the most hopeless, the most capable of keeping heroes from arising, the most terrible to live under — and yet somehow, the most realistic and likely, with certain aspects already showing up in America’s coastal capitals.
I'd have to say that The Children of Men feels both more realistic and hopeless to me (and also The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster). Although I suppose both end on a somewhat hopeful note: I have seen the hills of Wessex, as Ælfred saw them when he overthrew the Dane.
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Having finished Reverend Insanity for the second time, I'm left with the same void in my soul.
Of course, the easiest solution was to seek out something by the same author, Gu Zhen Ren. He wrote two other novels since RI was banned, Infinite Bloodcore (points for the name, negative points for being left unfinished) and Mysteries of the Immortal Puppet Master.
I opted for the latter, initially, I felt lukewarm on it, but I know that in Xianxia, you don't judge books by their covers, or their first 50 chapters. Yup, sure enough, it became very clear that it's a Gu Zhen Ren novel after all. The protagonist is... callous, if not as ruthless as Fang Yuan. Maybe his little nephew. There are plots within plots, excellent attention to detail, and heart wrenching stories about seemingly insignificant characters. It has the majority of my attention, even if the edges are sanded down a tad bit to reduce the risk of another ban. GZR himself stated that it's a more "mass-market" novel, with a more standard Cultivation setting. It's still pretty solid so far.
Others on my reading shelf:
I haven't read Years of Rice and Salt since I was about 16, but I remember absolutely loving it. It is an interesting exploration of reincarnation and of how "locked in" a lot of history seems to have been. It also inspired me to do an Iroquois mega-campaign in Eu4/vic2, which you will understand when you've read the book.
I also have this on my bookshelf (it's been checked out of the library for ages), so perhaps we can agree to read it September and discuss?
Sounds good! Your endorsement makes me inclined to give it a proper shot.
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