Author Archives: Abalieno

The Claw of the Conciliator – Gene Wolfe

“There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden.”
(…)
“That is the wisest of all the books of men,” the Cumaean said. “Though there are few who can gain any benefit from reading it.”

The Claw of the Conciliator is the second book in the New Sun tetralogy. Or second of twelve if one considers the “Solar Cycle” as a whole. Since it takes me so long to finish a book, and since I don’t write about all books I read, I prefer to stick to the smaller unit available and comment as I move through. But, since I keep getting interested in other writers and series, it happens that quite some time passes before I return to something I begun (and these loops keep getting larger). So, looking at my blog, it’s been more than three years since I read the first part, The Shadow of the Torturer.

Most of what I have to say about this book is part of a general thought about Gene Wolfe. More than once in forum discussions I have defined him “esoteric”, in the original definition of the term. I tend to lump all writers in two groups: esoteric and generous. The difference is about the “intent” of the writer. Esoteric writers write books that are only accessible for a selected minority of like-minded, or sharing a certain status or cultural education, whereas generous writers are those that desperately try to make “communication” happen, whatever it takes. Generous books could retain all the complexity and ambition while taking time to teach the reader how to approach and extricate the work they are reading. They usually reward patience, but ultimately they reward it by letting you reach in and grasp their core. It’s not a matter of complexity, but of offering ways to access it. Esoteric works instead are “hidden knowledge”, they have high walls surrounding themselves and only those who have the password or know the secret sign are let through. Otherwise you’re left outside desperately trying to see through the wall and sometime feeling like you’re seeing some vague shape of what’s beyond. But you’re wrong.

Wolfe embodies this esoterism to its full symbolic value, to the point that what I described here with a rather negative connotation, becomes a positive one. This because, like the best works, the reader (and his re-action) is part of it. One thing that this work is doing is putting the reader out of balance and warp the space around him. It’s a dislocating effect, but not of the kind that prepares entering another world. Here the dislocation is the point, the message. Time, especially, collapses on itself, as if at the end of the world, before the New Sun arises, everything appears simultaneously.

This is relevant, specifically, to this book I was reading. It’s a kind of book that I loved and at the same time I wanted to hurl at the wall. Frustrating at the point of rage, but also possessing some brilliance that is right out of the corner of your eye, but that you absolutely know is not the kind that /just/ deceives. Imagine a calm sea in the night, the New Sun series is wholly contained below the surface. You see nothing. That’s my reaction starting to read it again from the first pages. On the surface there are characters, things happen, then you finish a chapter, begin another and there’s a new episode that seems to be only vaguely related to the one you just read. One uses to review books through certain patterns, so we examine characters, plot, pacing. But doing the same with the New Sun would end up in disaster. From my point of view and direct reaction while reading, this book has no sense of “plot”, or cause and effect. If one complains about arbitrary interventions (deus ex machina) here he could find them more than once within a single chapter, almost the sole force driving the plot. Characters do things seemingly without motivations, say things that make no sense, hypnotically dazed as in a movie by Werner Herzog. The scenes change from chapter to chapter as if part of unrelated episodes. This would really be a disaster, if it wasn’t that the problem is not in the material, but in the categories used on it.

Similarly, Severian is not the prime example of a character you can sympathize/empathize with. Quite the contrary. In fact I was thinking he may be the most horrifying character I’ve ever encountered. Early in the book there’s an episode where he has to perform a public execution. The horrifying part is not the execution per se and its gruesome description (“To be candid, it was not until I saw the up-jetting fountain of blood and heard the thud of the head striking the platform that I knew I had carried it off.“), but the reaction Severian has (“I wanted to laugh and caper.“). He GLOATS and parades grotesquely on the scaffold, showing proudly the severed head as he feels so happy that he was able to perform a tricky move with his sword. He continues to gloat even when it is revealed that the woman he just executed was innocent, victim of a machination. This gave me a profound feeling of amorality, of cold, alien detachment. Something entirely inhuman. It is horrifying but it also adheres to Severian the character, with his pragmatic, weightless mind that feels so alien to me. What is done is done, and very professionally from his perspective, everything else is simply not affecting him. He doesn’t even consider any other perspective. Which brings to a sort of salvation. His mind is so bent inward that he’s neither “good” nor “bad”. He seems unaware and unable to have a real, human existence because he has no experience of anything else. And so he’s also without guilt since he’s utterly naive and unable to make a choice (making him the embodiment of a pawn).

Wolfe demands a different approach from the reader and different ways to carve “meaning” from it. The most important rule is the “dream” (and Neil Gaiman featuring on all covers and introductions isn’t casual). What is narrated in this series has the “dreamlike” quality. That’s why everything you “see” (surface of the water) is “not the point” and apparently doesn’t seem to make sense in a strict, logical way. Every image or character is symbolic, and its symbolic weight has priority on superficial appearance. As in dreams scenes change with a loose sense of connection and everything goes to build this eerie, magical and ephemeral atmosphere (and as in dreams “time” collapses on itself). Words carry not meaning, but fascination and hidden construction. Giving a sense of dizziness and, as said, dislocation. Not toward a different “environment”, but toward a different “fabric” of reality. That in this case is the fabric of the dreams, and the world built through this symbolic projection of hidden and obscure powers and mythological beings. Lovecraft’s monsters made into pure ideas.

The problem, if a “problem” exists, is in the consequences. Reading page by page that’s the way I was feeling. Understanding clearly that there was “more” to what I was reading, that Wolfe was describing factually an episode but “doing” something else, hidden. Neither showing, nor telling. He hinted and teased, keep luring you. Deceiving. The problem of the esoteric work is when you hit the wall, again and again. Feeling that there’s more to it but without ways to get through. So I’m very critical about “how” Wolfe does things, because I feel he WANTS to keep me away, he WANTS to bait me in this malicious game and its hidden, obscure rules. It’s like in the myth of Theseus and the minotaur (a myth he specifically uses in this book), with Theseus going in the labyrinth from where no one returned alive to kill the minotaur. You are Theseus, Wolfe is the minotaur. The problem is that in the myth Theseus is told how to get out of the labyrinth (he’s given a ball of thread), while you, the reader, are left to the Wolfe/minotaur’s mercy.

I am in the presence of a practitioner whose moves I cannot follow; I see only the same illusions that are seen by those outside the guild [of writers]. I know the cards are up the sleeves somewhere, but there are clearly extra arms to this person.

Even in forum discussions one tries to get help figuring out this and that, but in most if not all cases it seems like one only gets evasive explanations that stack together in some kind of misshapen structure, but that do not seem anchored anywhere. It’s always a game of smoke and mirrors (mirrors that play a symbolic part in the books). And it’s frustrating because at some point you begin squinting so much that you get the illusion of seeing something, with the omnipresent doubt that you’re only imagining it. Being so ephemeral and deliberately obfuscated, it encourages speculation, but one has to know that it only goes to feed the minotaur.

This is my opinion of the book. If I decided to read the whole cycle of 12 books (eventually) is not because I expected a fun, enjoyable adventure. It is instead because I’m interested in that “underworld” of meaning, hidden just below the surface. My problem with it is that Wolfe builds walls that I can’t get through no matter how hard I could try, and this leads to a frustrating experience. He isn’t interested to let me in as much as in throwing puzzles and riddles at me to solve, without giving me nearly enough pieces so that the solution is even possible. The whole paradigm is a paradox. It carries over to the prose style as he uses often a pattern of inversion. Things that are or behave inversely than how they appear. You are left solving a malicious, impossible puzzle that reassembles itself whenever you get close to something. And this would be indeed a “problem” if it wasn’t also part of the point.

The Book of the New Sun is too complex a work to evaluate on one reading. It will undoubtedly be considered a landmark in the field, one that perhaps marks the turning point of science fiction from content to style, from matter to manner.

I wonder if going from “content” to “style” is a worthwhile mission. Wolfe indeed has a dense, ornate and convoluted, I’d say elegant prose style that is often dull and hard to follow. It’s also not banal, so it keeps the attention on what he’s doing and how. It requires certainly a constant attention, similar to some eastern non commercial movies, where the pivotal moment can be one where no characters speak, not highlighted in dramatic music at max volume. You let go your attention in a moment that appeared as a mere transition nested between two more important scenes, and you miss everything.

The “underworld” is certainly intriguing. It’s a big tangle of erudition, Wolfe taking all sort of mythic, religious and scientific notions from all known cultures, then removing their context and merging and transforming them till they become unrecognizable. A “decontextualized apocrypha”. But doing this he also realizes the transformation of culture through the ages, how the original meaning is lost forever, prompting something new. Many of these ideas touch cosmological arguments that I’ve hinted here and there on the blog (before I started to read this, it’s just stuff that intrigues me). There’s more than one reference to the Kabbalah and it’s interesting to track what Wolfe is doing with it since it’s what gives the larger framework. But he also leaves me with the impression that it’s all an elaborate labyrinth of misdirection. With mostly dead ends. For example when I read Erikson I can see the themes surfacing, reflecting on different perspectives, returning from different angles. But Wolfe is so busy hiding all meaning that he can’t also offer a discourse. He leaves things uncommented, simply stated or hinted, but never faced or directly experienced.

The gulf between plot and story, between the apparent and the real, alerts the reader to the fact that Wolfe is playing a complex and contrived textual game.

It’s a floating cathedral of meaning. It’s built on a artifice, risking of remaining detached and, so, irrelevant. But it’s from there that it also draws its undeniable qualities. The reader is a deliberate part of this game. The “purpose” of the series is not directly in the hidden message that keeps frustrating and irritating me, but in its effect on the reader. It’s strictly in the bleeding to death in front of the minotaur:

Rather, by effectively concealing his narratological sleight of hand and constructing a puzzle for his reader, Wolfe attempts to alert that reader to the level of perception required. Hence, The Book of the New Sun does not invite the reader to marvel at how clever Wolfe can be, but to marvel at his or her own intelligence in perceiving one facet of the elaborate textual game the author plays. In this sense, Wolfe’s tetralogy is a masterwork in that it can be read as a paraliterary fantasy but demands to be read as a comment upon, and a reaction to, such narratives. In effect, it is a coolly intellectual denunciation of passive reading practices, a clarion call to readers dulled by formula fiction.

It is only by observing how s/he has been deceived and cajoled that the reader comes to appreciate more fully Wolfe’s vision of humanity as a helplessly subjective species attendant to the whim of manipulatory forces. This observation is encouraged by the self-conscious stress on deception, artifice and artificiality that permeates the text and which emblematises Wolfe’s textual game with the reader.

From his other fiction, it apparent that Wolfe perceives the world as an ambiguous round of perceptions and misperceptions in which the individual struggles, and ultimately fails, to apprehend the precise nature of existence.

You try to understand, and the moment you feel like you can do it, taking up the challenge, is the moment you give the minotaur the vantage point to slay you.

What I continue to criticize, in opposition to that quote, is the fact that this game IS indeed indulgent, self-focused and self-serving. Sophistication bordering on narcissism. It is not a case that those who are passionate the most about this series are those that ascribe to it “literary” value, putting it one step above all other works of fantasy and Sci-fi (and so reiterating the same pattern). This “pretense” is for me very visible in the books and its style, not just its readers. And in the way it actively selects its readers, while rising barricades to those not “erudite” enough. The cold disregard. It’s not as much as being “sincere” and faithful to itself (“I thought them [the complex jargon] the best ones for the story I was trying to tell.”), as it is a deliberate will to create its elitist, esoteric group of like-minded who can properly perceive the subtext and savor the complex fabric. It’s the practice of literary snobbery and sophistication, secluded and removed. It doesn’t work by making the reader “feel” that complex experience, but actually failing at triggering ANY emotion, as long one is rejected and can only glide hopelessly on the surface. More often than not that’s the reader’s experience, and it will only be enjoyed by that selected elite that can ridicule that reader that tried to get in and failed miserably. Wolfe transforms the patient reader in one that can and should be taunted and laughed at.

So while there’s certainly a great value in this work. It is surely also very pretentious and written to gratify a certain public. A narrow public carefully selected to appreciate the sophistication, and that Wolfe had precisely on his mind when he wrote these books.

(if you’re interested, there’s a lengthy forum discussion that precedes this I’ve written here)
(and this is instead the insightful review that I quoted in mine)

The Aether, and other absurd ideas

These days I’m reading Gene Wolfe, who’s so esoteric that I could as well define him an “occultist”. Without any relation to this, though, I found a very old book in my house on my father’s book shelves. Four volumes and a total of 1600 pages.

It’s pretty much the same thing (as Wolfe).

Looking up the writer (a she), I found out a huge collection of her works, available online, directly linked on the wikipedia. Talking here about Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The other bigger works of her is aptly defined (and titled: The Secret Doctrine):

Blavatsky’s masterwork on theosophy, covering cosmic, planetary, and human evolution, as well as science, religion, and mythology.

A bit like Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle, only that she intended to write it not as fiction.

The interesting part is that she’s an occultist that engages upfront with “science” and gives it her own interpretation by embracing, instead of ignoring, scientific progress. So, instead of separating the disciplines, she tries to unify them, find things in common, leading to a model that should be coherent on the whole.

Being these texts about 120-130 years old and filled with very bold and definite claims (and predictions), it’s interesting to read them today to see how (if) they hold up. Her fundamental idea is that ancient texts and cultures had a near perfect knowledge of the world, and science is only re-discovering what occultists already knew for a very long time. Eventually they’ll meet at the end. So, as an occultist, she knows the “truth”, and in this book she examines all kinds of scientific theories of her time, pointing out how they all seem to move in a specific direction.

For example on the wikipedia it’s written that she claimed the “atom was divisible”, and today we can confirm this as a “truth”. Science agrees. So it’s interesting to analyze how many of her occultist ideas were actually confirmed and if her “insight” actually had some worth (or if her predictions were merely fortuitous). The real problem is that I’m not a scientist and so not competent enough to say what worked and what didn’t.

Take this for example (a section titled “Life, force, or gravity” almost like a Bakker’s wip):

The imponderable fluids have had their day; “mechanical Forces” are less talked about; Science has put on a new face for this last quarter of a century; but gravitation has remained, owing its life to new combinations after the old ones had nearly killed it. It may answer scientific hypotheses very well, but the question is whether it answers as well to truth, and represents a fact in nature. Attraction by itself is not sufficient to explain merely planetary motion; how can it presume to explain the rotatory motion in the infinitudes of Space? Attraction alone will never fill all the gaps, unless a special impulse is admitted for every sidereal body, and the rotation of every planet with its satellites is shown to be due to some one cause combined with attraction. And even then, says an astronomer (“Philosophie Naturelle,” art. 142), Science would have to name that cause.

Occultism has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient philosophers; but then all such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The “extra cosmic” God has killed every possibility of belief in intra cosmic intelligent Forces, yet who, or what is the original pusher in that motion? “When we have learned the cause, unique et speciale, that pushes, we will be ready to combine it with the one which attracts,” says Francoeur (“Astronomie,” p. 342). And again — “Attraction between the celestial bodies is only repulsion: it is the Sun that drives them incessantly onward; for otherwise, their motion would stop.”

I don’t know exactly what science believes today, but the idea of “God” shared by Kabbalists and occultists is rather close to the idea of “nature” that is given by science. God is not manipulating the world, but the complex rules that drive it (the world) were set in motion at the very beginning. So the god doesn’t intervene, as his creation is already as perfect as it can be, moving along its purpose. It’s a matter of semantic, since science tells us exactly the same. That the world follows a complex (and fixed) system of rules to be discovered.

And especially, there are scientific ideas that “reverse engineer” the approach to science, leading back right to occultism. For example: the anthropic principle. Which is built on certain “obligatory” deductions that just can’t be escaped.

One way to cling to non-magic/spiritual scientific belief and explain at the same time the anthropic principle is suggested by Sean M. Carroll, the cosmologist I found out via Fringe. So a scientist of today who knows well at what point science is, and so tries to explore new theories built on modern knowledge. He theorizes that the reason why entropy builds constantly in our universe, from the Big Bang to its future collapse, so from an absolute minimum to a maximum, is only possible because this universe is part of a much bigger multiverse, where a number of self-contained universes develop at the same “time”.

The example he uses to simplify this idea is extremely straightforward. Think of an egg. This egg is an organized system, very low on entropy. The moment we make this egg fall on the ground and shatter its entropy increases. To the point that the process can’t be inverted (you can’t rebuild the egg once it broke, it’s way too complex, an effort too great). So this egg-system is one starting from very low entropy, and moving toward high entropy. But the egg also exist as part of our universe, that itself is going through the same process, from low entropy (Big Bang) to high entropy (final collapse). Repeat the pattern and you can easily theorize that our whole universe ALSO is only a smaller system contained in a bigger one. And so we could explain that our system/universe entropy is only absolute to itself, but relative in the grander scheme of things.

This then also explains the anthropic principle, as it theorizes that we are only one of infinite possible observers. Essentially, the only way science has to deny god on this level is about: “in a sufficiently large universe, some worlds might evolve conscious life regardless of adverse conditions”. And having a multiverse of universes is the working possibility to have this necessity of context larger than our own finite universe.

My point is that no matter the scientific progress, occultism is merely flowing into the gaps, and linger there. It’s as if scientific progress moves onward, but never gets closer to a definite truth. More often than not the fundamental questions only shift their context, but those questions are never answered.

So its interesting to read these old occultist text not for truth, but because while some parts appear as ridiculous in light of modern progress, some other parts come back and are as actual as ever. Giving the illusion that science and occultism are describing the same object seen from two specular perspectives:

And this would be indeed occultism’s triumph over science:

Occultism, which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One eternal element at the first differentiation of which the roots of the tree of life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It says: — Ancient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader, Science is slowly but as surely approaching our domains of the Occult.

And, especially:

There can be no possible conflict between the teachings of occult and so-called exact Science, where the conclusions of the latter are grounded on a substratum of unassailable fact. It is only when its more ardent exponents, over-stepping the limits of observed phenomena in order to penetrate into the arcana of Being, attempt to wrench the formation of Kosmos and its living Forces from Spirit, and attribute all to blind matter, that the Occultists claim the right to dispute and call in question their theories. Science cannot, owing to the very nature of things, unveil the mystery of the universe around us. Science can, it is true, collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the occultist, arguing from admitted metaphysical data, declares that the daring explorer, who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow limitations of sense, and transfer his consciousness into the region of noumena and the sphere of primal causes. To effect this, he must develop faculties which are absolutely dormant

Well said, but still not granted or proven. One way or the other. We know our limits and little else.

Another intresting idea I read is about the “Aether”. In occultism given for granted as a substance that is everywhere. Now this is an outlandish idea that today appears as completely ridiculous, yet, when we push science to its newfound limits, it seems to return. See quantum foam:

The foam is supposed to be the foundations of the fabric of the universe

Quantum mechanics can be used to describe spacetime as being “bitty” at extremely small scales

Instead of being “smooth”, the vacuum is described as looking like “quantum foam”. It has been suggested that this seething mass of virtual particles may be the equivalent in modern physics of a particulate aether.

It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with ‘stuff’ that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.

And so sometimes it does feel like science is a very large detour leading to the same point. Strict scientific language seems to obfuscate and distract from the truth, as if the model was inverted and occultist language was not esoteric, but revelatory. Though occultist ideas require quite a bit of work to adapt to scientific knowledge. The occultist perspective:

What several rather mystical Scientists taught was that light, heat, magnetism, electricity and gravity, etc., were not the final causes of the visible phenomena, including planetary motion, but themselves the Secondary effects of other Causes, for which Science in our day cares very little, but in which Occultism believes, for the Occultists have exhibited proofs of the validity of their claims in every age. And in what age were there no Occultists and no Adepts?

Sir Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean corpuscular theory, and was also inclined to admit its consequences; which made the Count de Maistre hope, at one time, that Newton would ultimately lead Science back to the recognition of the fact that Forces and the Celestial bodies were propelled and guided by Intelligences (Soirees, vol. ii.). But de Maistre counted without his host. The innermost thoughts and ideas of Newton were perverted, and of his great mathematical learning only the mere physical husk was turned to account.

[…]

This “mystery,” or the origin of the life essence, Occultism locates in the same centre as the nucleus of prima materia (for they are one) of our Solar system.

“The Sun is the heart of the Solar World (System) and its brain is hidden behind the (visible) Sun. From thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve-centre of the great body, and the waves of the life-essence flow into each artery and vein. . . . The planets are its limbs and pulses. . . .” (Commentary.)

It was stated elsewhere (in the Theosophist) that Occult philosophy denies that the Sun is a globe in combustion, but defines it simply as a world, a glowing sphere, the real Sun being hidden behind, and the visible being only its reflection, its shell. The Nasmyth willow leaves, mistaken by Sir J. Herschell for “Solar inhabitants,” are the reservoirs of solar vital energy, “the vital electricity that feeds the whole system. . . . . The Sun in abscondito being thus the storehouse of our little Kosmos, self-generating its vital fluid, and ever receiving as much as it gives out,” and the visible Sun only a window cut into the real Solar palace and presence, which reflects, however, faithfully the interior work.

This, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases,* which is due to the contraction of the Solar heart. The universe (our world in this case) breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the earth; and as our globe itself breathes every twenty-four hours.

If ever this theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on earth and motion in heaven is accepted, and if that other far bolder one of Herschell — about certain organisms in the Sun — is accepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and esoteric allegory shown to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years, probably, for these are the Archaic teachings.

[…]

The whole range of physical phenomena proceed from the Primary of Ether — Akasa, as dual-natured Akasa proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos, so-called, the latter being the primary aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root-matter and the first abstract Idea one can form of Parabrahmam. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived ether in as many ways as it likes; the real AEther of Space will remain as it is throughout.

And so this pervasive “substance” that in quantum theory composes the fabric of the universe, is more or less similarly described in occultism. “Bitty”. Described through allegory as “organisms” that keep the universe moving and that make life possible.

Put away semantic differences, and they are pretty much descriptions of the same “object”. One factual, the other anthropomorphic.

(I was thinking of the image of connected panels that show the illusion of a sky. You look up and see the sky as if it was a real one. But if you dislocate one of the panels from its original position, then you’d suddenly perceive a “hole” (I was thinking about this because I was watching the anime Rahxephon, using similar imagery, but even Portal the game does something similar). Something like this “quantum foam”, that is transparent and intangible (ideally), but as the fabric of the universe, it shows only if dislocated. Showing the “illusion” below and appearing as “bitty”. So… digital?)

1Q84

From an Italian interview (I’m trying to translate):

By gathering facts that aren’t real it is possible to build a world that appears more realistic than the one we live in. In other words, it is possible to make a fictional world that shows us reality in a more authentic way. This is what, one of the things, I want to do in my work.

Q. As if one world wouldn’t be enough to explain human condition, let’s call it X. As if everything, literature, life, love, death, X was the result of the continuous interaction between A and non-A. Is that so?

A. I believe that one of the duties of a writer is to rouse that domain of the spirit that isn’t being used in everyday life. To achieve this one needs to turn “On” some switches on the control panel of consciousness. If you succeed, those latent, dormant domains can slowly reawaken. Novels – the good ones – have that potential. And if all works well, through that secret passage that was revealed, we can set foot in a world that we aren’t used to see. My books show the path to reach that internal landscape, a path as a metaphor, to provoke a reaction. Therefore, structurally, what is narrated within the story becomes its function.

I’m so glad I discovered Haruki Murakami. The two books I ordered arrived earlier today. 1Q84 is a lush hardcover edition. I ran a wordcount on it and it’s 425k, just slightly bigger than A Storm of Sword. A big book. I also noticed a subtle touch: the right pages seemed to have the writing “shifted” down by one line, and I figured out it was deliberate, as it’s based on the theme of the “mirror”, with one half being specular to the other.

The other book I got is “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”, but in the Italian edition since I knew the English one was arbitrarily cut. I spent some time comparing this edition with the English one and found out four chapters or so were cut, but, being the chapters rather short and the pagecount keeping a similar “ratio”, my guess is that not more than 10-15% was cut overall. Which doesn’t make sense, why 600 pages are just fine, but 660 so much that they needed to be cut?

From the few pages I’ve read it seems the kind of stuff I love. The writings flows superbly and is a pleasure to read. These days I was explaining why I didn’t like “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and what is interesting is that Murakami seems to share a similar “magic realism”. Yet the point is that (for me) in one case it works and in the other it doesn’t. A matter of “how”, and not “what”. (and Steven Erikson’s “This River Awakens” too can be put in this context)

A couple of quotes from 1Q84 that caught my attention:

No, of course, not in itself enough. There also has to be that ‘special something’, an indefinable quality, something I can’t quite put my finger on. That’s the part of fiction I value more highly than anything else. Stuff I understand perfectly doesn’t interest me.

And:

It was probably Chekhov who said that the novelist is not someone who answers questions but someone who asks them.

1Q84 seems to have this “meta” layer, with the character(s?) in the novel being a novelist, discussing other writers and their works. With lots of stuff being pertinent to Murakami, becoming self-referential, in a loop.

So you have these two levels. The one where you are a reader reading and trying to understand the book, and the one (in the book) where the characters also read and try to discuss/understand in superb metalinguistic, recursive, self-aware style. (and in this context I can mention this, also in relation to “Gödel, Escher, Bach”)

I love this stuff.

The horrors of the publishing industry

I was looking today for some Haruki Murakami books, because I have to decide to read in Italian or English, and the Italian version of 1Q84 is divided in two parts whereas the American hardcover is one volume (so one point for the latter).

But while looking at another big volume he wrote, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, I discovered that the English version has been arbitrarily cut. There’s an article here that explains the process and it’s horrifying. Especially because these cuts are somewhat justified by saying that the original writer continues to edit his works, and so no fixed version would exist anyway.

The cutting done on WIND-UP is a complex matter. The more you look into it and into the question of revision, the more you realize there is no single authoritative version of ANY Murakami work: he tinkers with everything long after it first finds its way into print.

[…]

I did virtually all the cutting on WIND-UP, but I would have done none at all if Knopf hadn’t told Haruki that the book was too long and would have to be cut by some number of words (I think it was around 25,000 words). Afraid that they would hire some freelancer who could wreak havoc on the novel, and filled with a megalomaniac certainty that I knew every word in the book–maybe better than the author himself–after having translated all three hefty volumes, I decided to forestall the horror by [doing it myself].

Fuck the publishers (and translators convinced they can write a better book than the original author). Why don’t you go and “edit” Mozart or van Gogh?

The only mitigation to this is merely that Murakami seemed involved in the process, even if the cuts he suggested himself weren’t respected.

Having recently completed Book 3, Haruki felt incapable of cutting that, but he had enough distance from Books 1 and 2 to mark many passages for elimination–many SHORT passages that didn’t add up to much in terms of word count. I included most–BUT NOT ALL–of his cuts as part of my cut version

Later, when the paperback version of the Japanese text appeared, I found that Haruki had incorporated into that many–BUT NOT ALL– of the cuts he had suggested for the translation

Haruki did NOT, however, adopt the large cuts made for the translation into the Japanese paperback

And finally the admission that the English version sucked:

I do think that if THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE outlives its time and becomes part of the canon fifty years from now, a re-translation will be needed, and scholars can have a fine time screaming about how Jay Rubin utterly butchered the text.

I’m not a scholar and I’d already scream without the need to read the book. You just CAN’T do as you please. Write your own books if you want to mess with them.

See this other horror:

This last point may be related to one of the problems I’ve encountered translating modern Japanese literature: a different notion of editing in Japan. What I mean is, at times I notice inconsistencies, repetitions, and illogical parts in original Japanese texts that I am pretty sure an American editor would have weeded out. When I translated an early novel (not by Murakami) I felt at times that I was both translating AND editing. (They wouldn’t let me get paid for both, unfortunately.)

He even wanted to be PAID twice as much for butchering a text he didn’t write. And then he candidly says this:

Thus when it comes time for people like us to translate them, we–and our editors–have to massage the original to make it fit OUR notions of a tight, logical text.

I’m starting to believe that fan translations of Anime and Mangas are far more competent and faithful than these presumed “literary” works.

The first review that appears on Amazon seals the deal:

But what the previous reviews do not mention is that the American publishers, Knopf, forced Murakami and his translator, Jay Rubin, to significantly abridge the original Japanese text. The casual reader would have no way of knowing this, and, indeed, I only noticed because I was reading alternating chapters of the book in English and Russian translations. Half-way through the novel, entire chapters suddenly started disappearing from the English-language text. Puzzled, I went back to the copyright page of the English-language edition, where, for the first time, I noticed the cryptic notation that the book was not only translated but also “adapted from the Japanese.”

How much of the original text was “adapted” away? I don’t read Japanese, but, based on a comparison with my Russian-language translation, which appears to be complete (no Russian publisher would commit such a travesty on an award-winning novel), it seems that something like 15-20% of the text has been cut. For those of you who find the English-language text of the “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” choppy, or puzzling, or seemingly incomplete, at least some of the blame lies at the feet of the American publishers who decided, unilaterally, that American readers cannot handle a long book.

Ah, the Communists.

This River Awakens – Steve Lundin / Steven Erikson

I was young and still making my world.

Oh, this book. If you know me from past reviews or forums you know I’m a big fan of Erikson and his immense Malazan series, but it still wouldn’t be just enough to make me interested in whatever he’s going to write in the case it goes out of the boundary of his fantasy series. This book was published one year before “Gardens of the Moon”, the first book in the Malazan series, and it can be considered “mainstream”, meaning that it’s a story set in our world and without any fantasy element in it. That puts it right beyond my reach, because, as I explained, my interest is limited to his fantasy work. I bought it because a new version is coming out in January, revised, and I found out that only used copies were available of the old one, that also had a much better cover. It cost me just around two dollars, so it was an handful of trivial details that made me buy it on a whim, and when it arrived I started to read since it was also a nice change of pace from books exceeding 800 pages (this one being “only” 359). Just curiosity.

I was expecting to find some seeds from which the Malazan series would grow, and a style of writing yet to mature, rougher even compared to GotM, that would show the hints of the kind of writer Erikson would become later. I was expecting to find that kind of hidden talent still to blossom that you can discover when reading the early works of some important writer. Now that I turned the last page, and certain of what I’m saying, I’m bewildered because this is Erikson’s best work, and by a fair, safe margin. It’s so much better, stronger, sharper, more powerful. Despite having liked a lot GotM I’m between those believing it has its flaws. It shows promise but it’s only the spark of what comes after it. It shows a writer that has talent and insight, on the right path but still compromising a lot and finding his voice. I argue about these flaws in discussions, but I recognize they often are legitimate. Well, for me that excuse won’t hold anymore, because I have in my hands a book, published one year before, that turns those specific weakness that many recognized into its sharpest points. This book excels on those specific aspects that were widely recognized as weaknesses in GotM. The characters feeling pulled randomly out of a roleplaying game and not developed, the plot that seemed to move without cause and effect, “not caring” about was going on. Being left cold, unengaged by a story folded on itself and without showing access points to let the reader in. A cold, confusing, contrived and apparently shallow world that only a certain type of geek could find interesting.

“I didn’t care” is probably the most hurtful thing you can tell a writer, any writer. You are telling them that their work left you cold, unaffected. Unfeeling. A story that was a waste and wasn’t worth spending time reading. It means failure even if that work has been interesting in some other ways. Every reader knows of holding that weapon, and will leash out to stab viciously without a second thought. That’s the nature of the deal and I’ve often found it in discussions about the Malazan series. Even if my opinion is different, I still recognize some truth in those claims. This part of the discussion could go on about the details, but it serves me to say that “This River Awakens” turns everything on its head. So often we all suggest readers to try again, to stick with the Malazan series and go at least through the second book, because it gets so much better, the prose is better, and so many of us completely changed opinions reaching that further point. The excuse we make is that almost ten years passed between the writing of the first and second book, and Erikson improved immensely, just you see. Well, that excuse can’t hold anymore because “This River Awakens” shows a sheer talent already fully mature (you could fool me telling me this book was written -after- the whole Malazan series). It has characters I’ll remember forever and that seized forcefully my heart, and then squeezed. Books never, no matter what book, what writer, what genre, get me so emotionally that I feel the swelling of tears and a tightening inside, I don’t know why, but books don’t work for me that way. But this book breached anyway. “Not caring” here is impossible, I dare you. It kept me on the edge, turning pages with the heart tightening (and quickening) to find out what would happen. Sincerely, this book was emotionally the opposite of the Malazan series. That I love, you should know, but never gripped me this much viscerally. Not Itkovian (he’s in this book too), not Felisin, not Heboric, not Coltaine and his Chain of Dogs. This book was more.

I know that the more I gush the less I’m credible, but this is the kind of book you want EVERYONE to read. A thing that can’t be left private and forgotten, knowing you hold a kind of treasure that is your exclusive. But you have to read this book. I imagine it must feel frustrating for Erikson having written such a masterpiece, then become popular for writing three million words in a fantasy. I’m not belittling the genre, I mean that “This River Awakens” is a book that is indispensable to read even if it can’t rely on hooks like epic wars, fireballs and dragons (though, there IS a dragon). It’s a kind of book that too easily gets lost and forgotten in that uniforming sea that is “mainstream” literature, with no stars above to help orientating. This book is a “rite of passage” or “coming of age” story like millions out there, why picking, specifically, this up, from an unknown author (as Erikson/Lundin was at the time)? You write this book, so powerful, mysterious and filled with revelations, and then you see it drift out in the ocean and sink.

And I guess it must be also frustrating, would Erikson be coming to read this I’m writing, declaring that this early, first book is better than the three millions and five hundred thousand words he’d wrote afterwards. That he wouldn’t get any better. But this I say because it’s what I’m honestly thinking, and because this book just can’t get pushed out into oblivion by that juggernaut that is his Malazan series. Admitting no distractions, or indulging outside what is already a pretty huge, even rare, commitment. This book needs to be read. Why, the book itself will tell you.

I’ve said how special this book was for me emotionally, but what it reveals is equally important. The seeds of Malazan are all there. This is a mythical book, filled with deep meaning and mysteries, as many you’d find in a Malazan book. It also shares its generosity, as everything will come together in a powerful way, revelation after revelation. The story will build, seeking a release. It will respect your intelligence and at the same time it won’t bait you only to reveal that there’s nothing behind the curtain (no magic, but permeated by sense of wonder and marvel). I need to say that, unlike GotM, there’s no struggle to get in the story. It will be measured and is as character-driven, slice of life as it’s possible. Something of its structure is shared with the Malazan style as you get to see a small village and a PoV for almost every character. This builds a system and you’ll see as the story develops how each life and action causes ripples in this sort of community, all these stories will come together, naturally, by the time the book ends. In some ways it reminded me of Stephen King’s IT (because of the four kids that make the core of the book) and Under the Dome, seeing this small system and how it develops. Only that Erikson can outmatch King all so easily, in what King does best: dealing with the monsters that brood and stalk in the shadows. These characters so splendidly written and real. If I have to find a flaw, being pedantic, is that in some lines of introspection some of that truthfulness of the characters breaks, because Erikson (as in the rest of his work) has a tendency to put things too beautifully into words, to overly articulate the thought, that is sometimes implausible when you are dealing with a thirteen years old. Even if I know to “never underestimate characters”. (though we could open a discussion here, because it may also be justified and deliberate)

If “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy won (deservedly) the Pulitzer, this book should win symbolically twice the prize. That book dealt masterfully with the father/son relationship and you’ll find some similar themes here, bereft of rhetoric. In a review on Amazon I’ve read the book described as repulsive because it contains “graphic descriptions of sick human behavior”, well, that should be a warning because it can be indeed VERY dark and reveal unashamedly the ugly bottom of human soul. It won’t flinch. Some themes may be eye-rolling inducing because already seen and refashioned millions of times in all mediums. There’s an alcoholic father, there’s domestic violence, violence on animals, a veteran from the war. But believe me that Erikson here has talent enough to veer away from that kind of rhetoric and commonplace. Not unlike David Foster Wallace, the worst of the worst characters with the depths of hell as their souls will still make you care for them. This kind of merciless and dark style of narration is never for sensationalism. But this is the kind of book that doesn’t need any excuse or guidance, just read it, I’m sure you’ll see on your own. I dare you to read it and “not care”, just try, I’ll eat my hat if you don’t. No forum discussions needed to explain why this book is a masterpiece above any genre, or demarcation of any kind.

I thought about the stranger, the one who’d once used this secret room, the one who’d sat here at this desk absorbing words and words and words, swelling, bloating and still devouring pieces of the world, until its face had become every face, and no face. The stranger, who was no more in anyone’s mind but mine. And the stranger’s secret, this room and all its books, nothing but food for the rats.

I’d tried so hard. Dragging the giant to the history in this room. Dragging this history to the giant on his bed of sticks. I’d thought it important, as if in remaking the world I’d find in my hands a gift. Of understanding, of feeling, of something other than this shivering solitude.

Some other quotes here.

Infinite Drift

The last episode of Fringe (3X06) was a very good one. As usual I try to track some references, this time a book that Walter takes away from Peter. The book is a MASSIVE tome titled “Cosmology”, by Sean Carroll.

I found out there are two of them, a Sean B. Carroll and a Sean M. Carroll, both actually interesting in the greater discourse but it’s the latter who’s a cosmologist and published something. Though, no massive “Cosmology” seems to exist. The closest thing I found is this.

Looking at the wikipedia it seems his work is mostly about the idea of the arrow of time, which seems to tread dangerous ground (see previous discussions):

1- It is vividly recognized by consciousness.
2- It is equally insisted on by our reasoning faculty, which tells us that a reversal of the arrow would render the external world nonsensical.
3- It makes no appearance in physical science except in the study of organization of a number of individuals.

So consciousness and time, as if isolated from scientific objectivity. I can imagine this line of thoughts leading to places…

While looking for these things I also randomly found this curious book.

Choice

I’m now on the last 100 pages of “This River Awakens” and my impression from the first pages was confirmed and reinforced: it’s a masterpiece. I’m wondering if the new version coming in January could be any better or if the changes aren’t modifying stuff that I loved (my suspicion is about removing a 1st person PoV, which I believe works great in the way it was handled). But obviously Erikson should follow his own mind whether or not I “approve”.

But what I wanted to say is about the choice of what book to read. This one specifically is a kind of book that wouldn’t normally have any hope of getting my attention. Within the fantasy genre, being a genre, things are organized and somewhat easier to parse. Only an handful of big debuts during the year, and another handful of blogs and forums where you can easily form an idea of the “scene”, and what book or author deserves your attention.

Outside the “genre” it’s really hard to FIND your book. I always imagine that there are THOUSANDS of books out there that I would absolutely love, but I have no chance of “reaching” them. It’s not a problem of not being immortal and not having enough time, it’s just that you don’t have ways to make your choices. You sample here and there at random, then stick to your genre like a funnel.

“This River Awakens” is specifically one kind of book that I would have no hope to read, if it wasn’t because its fantasy author wrote my favorite fantasy series and SO got that much attention from me to push me to get one of his books outside that specific area of interest. I had no hope to meet Steve Lundin, the author of “This River Awakens”, and it saddens me to realize that this book can’t find its way out on its own. A book like this too easily gets lost in that undistinguished ocean of “mainstream” literature. How can you get your bearings there? It’s impossible.

I guess I’ll try to write a review, but I obviously won’t accomplish anything with it (maybe I’ll trigger the opposite reaction if I end up praising it too much). I’d hope that at least Erikson’s fans will get this book, because it’s GREAT, and in no way a minor, negligible work compared to the masterwork that is the Malazan series. In fact if you ask me right now I’d tell you that it’s THIS book everyone should read, Malazan is optional. But what are the hopes for this book to reach its public? In a genre, the genre itself makes that shared “hook” that leads you to the most interesting works, but outside it, and without the ruthlessness of, say, Bakker (where his ideas can give it its power and unique space), a masterpiece like this is simply doomed to be overlooked and forgotten. Even if a reader like me points it out in forums and blogs and begs people to read it. It’s one of those stories that wants to be listened, but there’s no one around to receive them. Oh, it pains me so much.

If you are a Malazan fan then read this book because you’re going to love it. If instead you are among those who tried to begin reading Malazan because someone recommended it to you and you still didn’t like it at all, stop right there, don’t force your way through and READ THIS BOOK first. “This River Awakens” will tell you whether or not to spend another precious minute reading the Malazan series.