"The Time Bike" by Jane Langton

On many occasions in this blog, I have said that I sometimes like to read childrens' literature, especially that which has been recognized as being worthy of public recognition such as winning or being nominated for major awards. This book did not win any major awards in the field of adolescent literature so far as I know. But the author, Jane Langton, was previously nominated for a Newberry Award for her book, "The Fledgling", so I decided to take a chance on reading "The Time Bike". Since it borders on being science fiction which I have read for years and even written on this blog about a few science fiction books, I also found this book interesting. It is about a blended family but gives on explanation about why the two children, Eddy and Eleanor, are living in the home of their Aunt Alex and Uncle Freddy who run some loosely described school for adults out of their home. Uncle Freddy wins a seat as a town supervisor early in the book which increases the local banker and now defeated town supervisor's animosity toward Uncle Freddy and the entire family. Early in the book, Eddy receives a new, fancy bicycle as a birthday gift, leaves it on the porch at night, and has it stolen. But shortly thereafter, another member of the extended family sends Eddy an old fashioned looking, used bicycle which he really doesn't apprectiate until he accidentally discovers that it is a time machine. In the meantime, the banker has set out to steal the family home which is a very unique, perhaps unusual house with odd features such as a bust of Henry David Thoreau in the hall. Thoreau is also an icon in the eyes of the entire family. Eddy discovers that his second bicycle is a time machine and has both adventures and misadventures learning how it works and how to keep himself out of trouble during the times he is using it. The author died at 95 in 2018 after having an extensive career as an author of both children's literature and mysteries. She obviously had a great creative imagination. This book was published in 2000 when she would have been about 77, an age when most of us have already abandoned science fiction even when writing for young people.

The book progresses along two paralell lines of conflict, the one being Freddy's foibles with the Time Bike, and the other being Uncle Freddy's desperate attempt to find the deed to the house in time to prevent the banker from seizing it revenge for his lost election. But, in a mild twist, Eleanor uses the bike and, on her time trip, accidentally returns with the missing deed and saves the day. For many adolescents, this will be an interesting read and will also provide a much needed diversion for adults like me who are looking for a bit of light reading as a break from too much back to back heavy reading. It's worth giving to the avid childhood readers in your life.

"Job: A Comedy Of Justice" by Richard A. Heinlein

"Job: A Comedy Of Justice" by Richard A. Heinlein is a novel which the author based loosely on the Book Of Job in the Bible. It was published in 1984 and, like several others of his novels, was nominated for most of the major awards available to writing in the field of science fiction and fantasty. It was nominated for both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award in 1985 but won neither of them. It did win the Locus Award For Best Fantasy Novel in 1985. It is a truly unique book in many ways. But then it is possible to make that statement about many of Heinlein's novels over the years. After all, he won a pile of awards from nearly every organization which concentrates on science fiction and fantasy. He won four Hugo Awards for the best science ficiton novel during his lifetime. But this novel had aspects to it which probably prejudiced many voters and prevented it from winning as many awards as it might have otherwise. The pictures it presents of Heaven, Hell, and religion in general were not conducive of support from believers in anything remotely resembling a customary or acceptable view of religion. The novel begins with the protagonist Alexander Hergensheimer choosing to walk across a fire pit during a shore visit by the travelers on a cruise ship on which he is traveling. He successfully makes the fire walk but lapses into a faint or brief coma from which he is revived to find himself in a different world, returns to find his ship is different but with a similar name,and a totally different crew. But there is a bright side to that new crew which includes Margrethe, the steward assigned to his room with whom he begins an affair and eventually finds himself in love. The ship is apparently hit by an iceberg in tropical waters and the two find themselves afloat in the ocean on a pool float surrounded by sharks. This is just the first in a long series of events, or sudden changes in their world and lives, which happen spontaneously and always without warning. They travel the world trying to get back to Kansas where Hergensheimer, now Alec Graham, and Margrethe to whom he refers as his wife despite being married in his past life, hope to find the answers to why their lives are suddenly upside down despite being in love. The changes just keep coming and the only consistency is their devotion to each other, Graham's work as a dishwasher no matter where he is, and the unending upheavel in their worlds. The book moves on to their being swept up, but separated, by a Kansas tornado which turns out to be the Apocalypse. Graham finds himself not only in Heaven but promoted to sainthood and unable to find Margrethe in a Heaven which consistently is portrayed in ways which very fun traditional religious believers would accept as being based on the Bible. Graham chooses to be sent to Hell to hunt for Margrethe after refusing to stop seeking her. In Hell, he is somewhat befriended by Satan himself, given a high dollar suite in a hotel and constantly served in all ways by a different woman who actually turns out to be Rahab from the Bible. While it is a strange novel in many ways with polygamy, rampant sex, infidelity, and a multitude of what most religious believers would classify as sins, both minor and major, it is a highly readable book and pulls the reader from one change in the world to the next with no actual idea of where or how it is likel to end. Read it if you have an open mind and like science fiction! Don't read it if anyone has ever called you a prude!

"Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein, Reflections On A Rereading

My first reading of "Stranger In A Strange Land" must have taken place sometime shorty after it had originally been published in 1961. Until this rereading, I had never read the 1991 original uncut version which Robert A. Heinlein's wife had published after his death. This uncut version is about 60,000 words longer than the 1961 original published version. The difference in the word count apparently came about because the publisher felt that the manuscript was too long for the modern readership. The 1961 version was a massive hit with the reading public and quickly became ingrained into American culture both because of its literary quality and its truly unique story about a man known as "The Man From Mars" who is actually a human but born on Mars due to the fact that both his parents were members of the first Mars expedition from earth.The book and its story is similar in some ways to at least two other classics in the field of science fiction: "The Man Who Fell To Earth" by Kentucky born writer Walter Tevis,and the original first book in the Dune series by Frank Herbert. All three involve protagonists who arrive on earth or an earth like planet from outside the solar system, come to be somewhat or absolutely messianic figures, and untimately change the world around them. Since it has been so long after I had originally read the shorter version of the book, I cannot say much about the material which was deleted from the original and restored to the 1991 edition. The original version of the book brought two or three words or terms into common use in everyday spoken English. The most widely known of these words is "grok" which is a very widely applicable word for comprehension, understanding, or simply grasping the meaning of new information. Another new term which was introduced in the book was "Fair Witness" which is a term for a professional person whose work it is to be present at meetings, court proceedings, or other encounters between people and others with whom they might have some ongoing conflict. A Fair Witness is trained to verbatimly memorize every word which is spoken in their presence and, if necessary, to testify in a court about what actually happened in those encounters. A Fair Witness is literally a human recording device which is without error or falability. The book also described a contraption very much like a waterbed before the waterbed was invented. When the first patent attempt was made in the USA for a waterbed, it was initially denied under the judgment of the US Patent Office that the information from the book had constituted prior art as the office described it. It is likely that if Heinlein had chosen to contest that patent application and file his own application that he would have held the patent for the waterbed. The protagonist Valentine Michael Smith is the Mars born son of two US astronauts who traveled on that first Mars expedition while not married to each other and had Mike Smith out of wedlock and born on Mars. His conception and birth on Mars brings into play a legal concept on earth regarding rights of explorers in space to claim ownership to worlds they discover. Since Smith was the only survivor of that first expedition, it is claimed that he actually owns Mars and everything on it. But Martians, which is what Smith has been reared to be by his Martian caregivers, have no concept for personal property and Smith has no ideas about owning anything which would be meaningful to an ordinary earthling. Smith is originally placed in seclusion in a hospital by the planetary government on earth both to make it possible to control him, deprive him of his assets, and prevent him from having contact with anyone on earth who might interfere with the ongoing government effort to rob him of his alleged wealth. But a nurse, Jill Boardman, who meets and befriends him helps him escape from the hospital and eventually takes him to the truly unique home of Jubal Harshaw who is both a doctor and an attorney. He is also a worldwide public figure and author, incredibly intelligent and adept at the practice of law and become endeared to Smith and Boardman. They gradually learn that Smith has truly unique powers including the ability to use nothing more than his mind to make literally anything or anyone to "discorporate" or disappear permanently from the earth. His mental powers are truly prodigious and he quickly devours all the written information he can be supplied about earth and everything on it. Later in the book, Michael and Jill decide to leave the protection of Harshaw's home and begin to ramble around the country. Along the way, they join a traveling circus as a sideshow act and Smith uses mild examples of his Martian powers to perform "tricks" in the sideshow. But he is seen as a typical sidewhow fraud and is fired for his failure to attract good audiences. They are also invited to a church service by a major figure in the one dominant church on earth which is also controlled by one worldwide government. As a result of being exposed to the religion of that church Smith decides to start a church of his own, teach his mental powers to its members, and he becomes a cult leader and/or a messiah figure. His church is rapidly growing and putting the strangle hold of the original church at risk. That church also controls the government and the great majority of the masses on earch. As a result, Valentine Michael Smith becomes the victim of an assassination which is, of course, the most likely end of all messianic figures including Jesus Christ. The book is one of several in which Heinlein wrote in a fictional context about his somewhat unusual religous beliefs. Another such book is "Job: A Comedy of Justice". No matter which version of "Stranger In A Strange Land" you choose to read, you will find that it is one of the best books in all of science fiction and fantasy literature. But, I would strongly suggest that you choose to read the Unabridged Edition since it is the form in which Heinlein intended to publish the book before his editor and publisher overruled him.

"Bradbury Stories" by Ray Bradbury, Thoughts On Reading 100 Short Stories By The Master

This massive collection of Ray Bradbury's short stories was first published in 2005, seven years before the author's death, and contains an introduction by Bradbury himself. The book is 893 pages and contains stories which Bradubury wrote and published in a multitude of magazines and a few of his own books roughly between the years of 1945? and 2000. Much of the world, even the literary world, think of Bradury as a "science fiction writer" which he was having written two of the best novels ever in that genre, "Farhenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". But Bradury was much more than just a science fiction writer or even "one of the best science fiction writers". It is much more accurate to say that Bradury was "a writer", period, the end. He wrote in many genres, and nearly all genres of stories appear in this collection. If you love the short story as I do, you need to read this book. In terms of time from the first published story in the book to the most recently published story, it covers roughly sixty years in the development of the American Short Story. In terms of genres of short stories, it covers science fiction, mystery,suspense, coming of age, humor, and nearly every generally accepted type of short story in the American oeuvre. My wife and I often read the same books together with me reading aloud while she washes the dishes in the morning, and then I rinse the dishes becasue it requires more motion and she is in a wheelchair. We usually take turns choosing a book to read in the mornings which is customarily a novel with an occasional work of nonfiction. But we have also, of late, decided to read a single short story after supper each night, sometimes from an anthology, sometimes from a complete collection by one author such as this one. This is the most massive collection of stories we have ever attempted and, at one story a day, it naturally took nearly four months since sometimes we are out and about and just don't have time to read a story when we get back home. But this collection was well worth that time. It contains many of the Bradury stories you might have heard or seen mentioned in magazines, books, and on television as being among his best. It also contains some others of his best which don't usually get mentioned in those common settings. In the introduction, Bradury specifically mentions several which I assume he considered among his best, or simply his favorites. One of those is "The Laurel And Hardy Love Affair" about a man and woman who both love a particular scene in a Laurel and Hardy movie, The Piano Movers Scene as it is generally known. They reenact some of their favorite moments from the work of Laurel and Hardy as a part of their love affair and that love for the two comedians helps bind their love for each other together. Actually, Bradury's love for Laurel and Hardy is the subject matter of more than one of his stories. Other stories also highlight parts of the lives or works of other Bradbury heroes, great writers, great actors, great politicians, and all of the stories which fall into this subset are among his best. There are also seveal stories which fall into a genre known as Coming of Age Stories in which teenage boys are the protagonists. Those stories, much like the novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes", leave you believing that Bradbury must have had a wonderful childhood. One of those stories, "All On A Summer's Night", is about a young boy who lives in his grandmother's boarding house with a broad collection of both men and women; some young, beautiful women; some single men who often buy gifts for those young, beautiful women; and one somewhat older, less attractive, female librarian who has helped the young boy to enter the wonderful world of books. That story is typical of several others in the collection which are set in the literary world or feature literary authors or their worksHe watches the older males buy gifts for the beautiful young women on the Fourth of July, heads off to the store to spend his savings on fireworks for the night's celebration, and changes his mind after he gets to the town's commercial district. He decides to spend his savings to buy the ignored librarian some perfume and to ask her to go out with him on the town that night to observe the celebration. It is a touching story and one of Bradbury's best. There are also several stories set in an Irish pub owned by a man named Heber Finn and peopled by a group of local men who typify the Irish whom Bradbury met during time he spent working in Ireland on a movie script. They are a fine group of local characters including a well offman with a fine collection of wine who directs in his will that the wine be opened and at his burial and poured into his grave. Heber Finn and his customers, including the local priest, find a way to both carry out the man's directive and subvert it simultaneously. The humor of the Heber Finn stories is among Bradury's best. The book contains stories which have been published in "Playboy", "McCalls", "Collier's", "Saturday Evening Post", "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", "Harper's", "Weird Tales", "The New Yorker", "Esquire", and at least a couple of dozen others. Few writers in American literary history can say that they have been published in such a wide ranging collection of magazines. But then Bradbury wrote and published over 600 short stories in his life. Who else can say that?

Reflections On "The Man Who Fell To Earth" by Walter Tevis

 

 A little more than a year ago, I watched a documentary on KET about the life of Walter Tevis who had suddenly risen once again to a high profile in the media because of the success of a television miniseries based on his book "The Queen's Gambit" which is about a young female character who becomes a chess champion.  I have to admit I have still not read that book despite its having been on my large To Be Read Shelf for over a year.  But I did read his science fiction classic, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and loved it to the degree that it prompted me to order most of his published works and add them to my long list of books I "will get around to someday". But let's talk about the actual subject of this blog post, "The Man Who Fell To Earth".  Tevis's work on that book is as good as any science fiction I have ever read.  It is one of those rare works of science fiction which also falls solidly within the larger and more important body of what we know as "Great Literature".  It is a masterpiece and deserves every accolade it has ever received. It is masterful science fiction which is solidly based in the minds of both its characters and the author and not in ray gun shoot 'em up scenes which are cheap copies of some bad John Wayne western as much of ordinary science fiction is today.  

 

The main character in the book is Thomas Jerome Newton from the planet Anthea who has been sent to earth to determine if it is possible for the occupants of his doomed planet to emigrate to earth in order to save their lives and their much more advanced culture.  His spaceship is destroyed on landing and it is determined that he will not be able to return to his home planet.  He is humanoid in appearance with some odd features which he is able to disguise well enough to "pass" as human for quite some time.  He becomes a very wealthy individual because he is able to patent many ideas which his culture has produced that are much more scientifically advanced than anything on earth.  But his obvious intelligence and scientific acumen are soon recognized the government as being impossible for an ordinary human to have achieved and "the jig is up" to use common vernacular.  But in the end, he is allowed to remain on earth, still disguised as a human, living in quiet semi-poverty with a Social Security check and a small apartment.  This is a book which no aficionado of science fiction can claim expert status in the field without having read.  The book was made into a movie starring David Bowie in 1976 for which Bowie recieved rave reviews playing the truly unique alien.  It was also made into a 2022 Showtime miniseries which "The Guardian" panned as "a misbegotten and poorly paced attempt to update the 1976 cult sci-fi classic".  I have to admit that I have never seen either production of the work, but I will go so far as to say that I won't bother with the Showtime effort based on "The Guardian's" review.  When the time comes that is available somewhere again on television, I will definitely watch the 1976 work with David Bowie.  

Walter Tevis, The "Kentucky Writer" Who Didn't Like Appalachians

 

I had known indirectly about the writing of Walter Tevis for many years but had never really read his work until recently after my wife and I had watched a documentary about his life on KET.  Tevis was the author of two books which were made into two of the most well known movies starring Paul Newman, "The Hustler" and "The Color Of Money".  I  had always loved both movies primarily because of Newman's acting.  He was nominated for Best Actor Oscars for both movies and won for "The Color Of Money".  But, somehow, I had never read the books on which those two movies were based and had also never read Tevis' science fiction despite having been a regular reader of the genre for most of my teens and twenties.  Two of Tevis' books are considered among the best science fiction ever written and deservedly so.  I had also not heard Tevis's name mentioned, except perhaps in passing, despite  the fact that we both lived in Lexington, Kentucky, for several years at the same time.  Tevis was inducted into the Carnegie Center Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2018.

After my wife and I watched the documentary, she wanted us to read his works and she was especially fascinated by his novel "The Queen's Gambit" which has been turned into a Netflix miniseries which has been widely acclaimed.  My wife has now read the book and loved it.  I have still not read that book, but probably will get around to it sooner or later I suspect.  I did read his science fiction classic, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and loved it to the degree that it prompted me to order most of his published works the remainder of which still lie on my always large "To Be Read" shelf.  Tevis's work on "The Man Who Fell to Earth" is as good as any science fiction I have ever read.  It is one of those rare works of science fiction which also falls solidly within the larger and more important body of what we know as "Great Literature".  It is a masterpiece and deserves every accolade it has ever received.  As a largely productive genre of literature, science fiction can boast only a few such masterpieces with other examples being Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and "Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein which can be said to be somewhat similar to "The Man Who Fell To Earth" since both main characters are truly unique creatures from other planets who find themselves on earth. 

But after reading the book and watching the documentary, I became much more interested in Tevis, his life, and his other works.  That led me to the official Walter Tevis website which his agent, The Susan Schulman Literary Agency operates.   The website states in their biography of Tevis that "Walter traveled across the country alone by train at the age of eleven to rejoin his family and felt the shock of entering the Appalachian culture when he enrolled in the local school."  Tevis actually attended high school in Lexington which is not now, nor was it ever, an example of the Appalachian Culture.  The dominant culture in Lexington is vastly different from the Appalachian Culture.  The Appalachian Culture is seen in hundreds, perhaps several thousand residents of Lexington but is vastly different from the Central Kentucky Culture which is rooted in the earlier history of Lexington, Fayette County, and Central Kentucky as an agriculturally based economy which was deeply affected by the pre-Civil War slave holding plantation system while the Appalachian Culture is rooted in an area which was first settled by anti-slavery settlers from the British Isles, many of whom had actually come to North America as indentured servants large numbers of which settled the Appalachian regions of Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and the Western Carolinas.  The predominant culture of Central Kentucky is  rooted in settlers who were often recipients of large land grants due to a combination of justifications ranging from simple political connections to the political kings and king makers in early America to legitimate service in the American Revolution.  Most of the early landowners in the Eastern and South Eastern areas of Kentucky which constitute the Appalachian area of the state were simple homesteaders who traveled to the mountains where they could stake claims to small holdings of land which were never productive of the Thoroughbred horses, Bourbon, and tobacco which characterize early life in Central Kentucky.  While Tevis did use the "hillbilly" ethnic slur in his writings and his literary agency seems to see that as a point of pride, Tevis never lived in the truly Appalachian area of the state.  Whatever contact he had with Appalachian people took place in Lexington where they were just as out  of place and uncomfortable as the somewhat odd genius Tevis who actually was an immigrant from California.  

Tevis was a truly unique and apparently deeply damaged person well before he came to Kentucky to join his family of origin after having spent more than a year alone as an adolescent patient in the Stanford Children's Convalescent Home in San Francisco due to his having been diagnosed with a rheumatic heart condition. His parents placed him in the home and effectively abandoned him to return to their native Central Kentucky until he was released from the convalescent home and required him, at age 11, to travel alone by train across the continent to a place he had never lived to be reunited with a family whose only contact with him had been periodic letters and telephone calls.  Very few children at that delicate age of development would have survived that type of treatment without having been deeply damaged.  Tevis became a chronic alcoholic and was always known as a unique individual at best and a truly odd human at worst.  An argument can also be made that his advanced level of intelligence might well have made his ability to cope with the abandonment even more fragile.  But regardless of how deeply his abandonment affected his later life, it must also be conceded that Tevis was a genius, a tremendous novelist and short story author, and a man deserving of a great deal of respect for his literary output.  In all, he wrote six novels and one collection of short stories all of which are well respected work.  He also spent most of his life as a teacher and college professor at Ohio University where it said that he was a popular professor.  But, I am not convinced that he was ever truly a "Kentucky Writer" or that he ever viewed himself as such.  Yes, his works do have settings in Kentucky  and he does, from time to time, express his written opinions of the state.  But in many ways, he must be viewed somewhat as "a man without a country".  He was deeply traumatized by his last year living in his native California and never truly adjusted to Central Kentucky where he spent his late adolescence and was educated at the University of Kentucky.  He also taught at UK, Northern Kentucky University, and Southern Connecticut University.  He seems to have drifted across a great deal of American geography, spent his last years in New York City where he died, but was buried in Richmond, Kentucky, at the edge of Central Kentucky.  He was a deeply damaged human being who managed to turn his personal history into a productive life as a writer of excellent literature but seems to have been unable to attach himself in a meaningful way to any particular environment either in Kentucky, Connecticut, Ohio, or New York.  

But, he was a genius and he deserves to have his writing survive as long as humans read great literature. 

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury--Reflections On A Science Fiction Classic

 

When I was in my high school years, I used to read a lot of science fiction, and westerns, at least for a few years, and have read most of the early classics.  For some reason or other, I missed out on "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury but read and loved his other classic novel, "Fahrenheit 451" which is actually solidly in the field of dystopian literature and less of a pure science fiction novel.  In fact, I had reread "Fahrenheit 451" with my wife in April of 2019 and wrote about it in the post linked above.  At that time, I was reading a lot dystopian literature because of the terrible political disaster which had been unfolding in America since June 16, 2015, and which is still unfolding before our eyes.  But somehow, I never had taken up Bradbury's other classic, "Something Wicked...".  

 

A few weeks ago, I decided to correct that error in my reading and ordered a copy of the 2017 Special Edition whose cover is pictured above.  I am truly glad I did.  I also read this one with my wife in a practice we have carried on for several years now in which I read out loud to her each day as she washes the dishes.  In addition to the original text, this edition of the book also has a roughly 70 page section of "History, Context, and Criticism" at the back of the novel.  It is well worth reading, both for the classic work itself and for the section of "History, Context, and Criticism".  The book apparently took Bradbury several years to bring it to fruition, first as a short story, and then as a novel in which he greatly expanded the text, renamed key characters, merged at least one character into another already in the text, and turned what must have been a pretty nice short story into one of the best known and loved novels in all of science fiction.  The novel does have some detractors who primarily quibble about the style which is unique.  But, in my opinion, that style is one of the best aspects of the book.  Most of the chapters are very short with only a few exceptions, usually in the later sections of the book.  The writing style is very crisp, short sentences, rapid interchanges between characters, and little extraneous narration or description.  But it is a wonderful book.  I do remember in the first few chapters that I also questioned the style but as I began to fully understand what Bradbury was accomplishing with the style I came to love the book.  It is every bit as good as any other classic science fiction or fantasy novel I have ever read.  It is better than most.  In fact, I will go so far as to say this novel is better than many highly praised novels in the greater body of what we sometimes droolingly call "great literature".  

The three protagonists are two twelve year old boys and the father of one of those boys who is 53 or 54 years old and, to his son, seems to be incredibly old and unlikely to be understood.  I laughed when I saw the writing about this age difference in light of the fact that my own father, whom I loved dearly and still do, was 64 when I was born but saw me grown before he died and will always be a major influence on everything I do, or have ever done.  The boys, on a forbidden midnight jaunt in the neighborhood, see a carnival hauled by an ancient train, pull into and set up in a meadow near an abandoned railroad crossing at the edge of their sleepy little Midwestern town.  They become fascinated by the carnival and its owners Cooger and Dark, who are, naturally, the villains in the novel.  As the story progresses, the boys realize that the carnival is evil and on a mission to destroy them and anyone else with whom it comes into contact.  Finally, Will's somewhat aged father, Charles Halloway, joins the boys in their effort to save themselves and the town from the carnival and its evil proprietors.  Two mechanical portions of the carnival also play heavily into the suspense of the story.  The merry go round and the hall of mirrors are tools which the proprietors use to practice their evil on their unsuspecting victims.  Charles Halloway, his son Will, and Wills' best friend Jim learn the truth about the carnival and manage to snatch their collective bacon out of the fire just in time.  Bradbury builds the suspense throughout the novel in a way that is slow, methodical, relentless, and terrifying.  It is a masterful piece of work.  I won't spoil it for you by divulging too much of the plot.  But take my word for it, it is well worth your time and money. 

"Fahrenheit 451" By Ray Bradbury--Book Review

Ray Bradbury--Photo by britishfantasysociety.org

Reading "Fahrenheit 451" represents a return to reading dystopian literature for me which I have done intermittently since November 8, 2016.  In that time span I have read and posted about "1984" and "Animal Farm"  by George Orwell.  I have also attempted to maintain my regular reading list of Appalachian and general great literature but it has become increasingly more difficult to do so as the current illegitimate occupant of the White House has steadily veered farther toward compliance with his Russian Owner Vladimir Putin's wishes and attempted to force the country into a dystopian and Fascist bent in line with his own craving for illegitimate power and in response to his own seriously dangerous mental illness.  In many ways, this rereading of "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradury has been a pleasant return to a genuine classic of American Literature which I first read in my youth more than fifty years ago less than a decade after its original publication.  But the necessity of reading dystopian literature which has been forced on me and millions of other Americans by a treasonous band of Russian Agents who have managed, with the assistance of Vladimir Putin and his hackers, to seize the US White House has been a terrifying experience which those of us who actually value American Democracy have lived every day since November 8, 2016.  

But let's just get to the book in question and why it is a book you should also be reading with particularly close attention today.  "Fahrenheit 451" is a classic American novel which has generally been considered to be within the broad field of science fiction since its author, Ray Bradbury, was an acknowledged master of science fiction.  But it is bigger than one genre, any genre, since it has truly become one of the most important novels in the much broader field of American Letters.  It is also one of the acknowledged most important books in the much narrower field of dystopian literature.  As Bradbury says in an interview published in the Del Ray 50th Anniversary Edition of the novel, it did not start out, on its initial publication in 1953, as a bestseller or a potential classic. The hardcover first edition sold only 5,000 copies and the simultaneously published paperback sold about 50,000 copies.  Bradbury also sold a shorter version of the story to "Playboy" in the summer of 1953 for only four hundred dollars.  But over time, readers worldwide, especially politically and socially cogent readers turned it into one of the most widely read and bought books in all of American Literature.  It's place in all three of the genres I have mentioned above has been literally written in stone over the course of the last seven decades.  It is one of the greatest books in both science fiction and dystopian literature and will forever be solidly ensconced in the classics of all American Literature.  

Dystopian literature, especially dystopian fiction, is literature which examines the problem of governments which manipulate, control, and minimize their citizens often with overbearing, destructive, and invasive laws whose intent are to give the government absolute power and to homogenize the citizenry into a class of people without the power to resist the desires and goals of those in control of the government.  In "Fahrenheit 451", (the term is actually the temperature at which book paper burns), the United States has become a country in which books are banned, libraries have all been destroyed, and the people are mindless minions of the government whose lives are controlled by constant projections of government propaganda into their homes which often have every wall completely covered by large screens.  It is a crime to own and read books and the only job of the firemen, in a world where homes are all fireproof, is to find and burn books along with their owner's domiciles and, at times, even the owners.  The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman who eventually begins to steal books from the homes which he is sent to burn, hides them in his home, and begins to read them.  Eventually, his wife and neighbors report his crimes and his own commander at the firehouse, Captain Beatty, brings the firetruck and firemen to burn Montag out.  But Montag manages to kill Beatty and escape into the countryside where a few well read resistors live on the lam constantly moving in small groups and working to memorize and save as many books and as much knowledge as possible.  The novel ends in a nuclear war which destroys the cities and leaves these resistors with their memorized knowledge to save the world.  This memorization of books and the knowledge contained therein is a reminder of the Polish Resistance during World War II who formed what they called Living Rosaries in which each member attempted to memorize as much of the Bible as possible in case the Nazis controlled the entire world and outlawed the Bible.  It is said that Pope John Paul II, known then as Karol Wojtyla, managed to memorize the entire Bible. 

Ray Bradbury was a masterful writer and this novel is composed of alternating uses of long, flowing complex sentences and other periods of short, staccato phrases which pop like gunfire or walnuts falling on a tin roof.  It is a wonderful use of the language to tell a story which must be told on a daily basis in a world rapidly veering toward the governmental terrorism which it relates.  While some less astute readers tend to read the book simply as a work of science fiction describing a world which will never occur, the thinking reader will find it to be just as terrifying as anything written in the last two hundred years in America.  Bradbury wrote the book less than decade after the end of World War II and in many ways it is a response to the Nazi attempt to gain control of the world via the Blitzkrieg and the Holocaust.  But he also foresaw the world of helicopter televised police chases more than forty years before O. J. Simpson was able to illegitimately seize America's attention in a white Ford Bronco. Bradbury also built much of the book out of his knowledge of how effectively the World War II resistance movement helped in the defeat of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler.  The resistors who memorize the books and hope to teach them to others are also rooted in groups of WWII resistors who formed secret groups to memorize the Bible in case the Nazis won the war.  One of those resistors was the future Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla, as discussed above.   This is a book which every person should read and most can since it has been translated into more than thirty languages.  It is a book which has direct bearing today on what has happened in America since November 8, 2016, and should be seen as a lesson in just how rapidly a group of amoral, power hungry criminals can distract, divert, and destroy democracy even in the greatest country in the world. 

Reading Ace Doubles--A Blast From The Past

Sometimes when my normal load of reading of a political nature combined with a cross section of Appalachian Literature becomes too depressing, in the case of the political literature in light of the current tragic condition of American politics and the ongoing crime spree by TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump, or just too much of a good thing in the case of Appalachian Literature, I will take a clearly demarcated break in my reading material and pick something up which is either completely outside my normal bailiwick or rather light and meaningless.  Recently, I took such a break with an Ace Double edition of two science fiction novellas by Jack Vance called "The Houses Of Iszm" and "Son Of The Tree".  

When I was young from about ten or twelve until about the time I graduated from high school, I read a lot of Ace Double books in both science fiction and western formats.  Ace Doubles, for those of you who have never encountered them, were a paperback imprint of Charter Communications which ran from about 1952 to 1978 and published books, usually novellas by a single author in tete-beche format, that is inverted and back to back, and in western, science fiction, mystery, and some general fiction.  The one I found in my collection and read had been published in 1964 and sold for .95cents.  For a young boy in Eastern Kentucky in those days, a dollar could sometimes seem as big as a wagon wheel and being able to get two stories for a single buck was a great thing.  As I was developing a more mature and personalized reading taste and style, I wove my way through several genres including the aforementioned science fiction and westerns, horse stories, dog stories, and some of the less strenuous classics.  I have since noticed that most of the work published under the Ace Double imprint had a tendency to not be top of the mark literature.  Jack Vance who wrote the two novellas I just read was both prolific and successful in the genres of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction winning numerous major awards including two Hugo's, a Nebula, a Jupiter Award, two World Fantasy Awards, and an Edgar.  

To say the least, Jack Vance could write just as could most of the other authors whose work appeared under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, and Andre Norton all published work under the imprint and each of them is arguably among the best science fiction authors of all time as is Jack Vance.  John Farr (aka Jack Webb) published under their mystery label.  Louis L'Amour, Nelson Nye, and Brad Ward all published westerns under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Their overall stable of authors across all the genres was talented.  But it also appears that many of them were simply chasing a buck in a tough world where every publication might lead to another and many authors accepted the imprint who might not have if they had been at the top of the public approval charts at the time they signed their contracts.  

Ace Doubles served a legitimate purpose in that period when money was less than free flowing for many Americans and they do have a place in the history of American publishing and literature, especially in the genres of western, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.  I will always remember them fondly and doubtless I will pick others up in the future at some time when I need a break or simply run into them at yard sales, auctions, used book stores, or Little Free Libraries.  So should you, especially if you have never had the pleasure of reading one before.