TO READ FOR NEXT WEEK:
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
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2001: A Space Odyssey
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We've had Kubrick's 2001 on the list for quite some time. While I don't have a source for it, it's quite attainable and about time we get to it.
DISCUSSION OF LAST WEEK'S READING:
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Prompts for discussion
1. That Hell-Bound Train: Would you unwind the stem if you had the watch? Could you think of a moment where you would want to? Would it change the way you lived if you knew you could?
2. I keep thinking that if this were translated into movie format (like a dozen or so other King works) it wouldn't be so impactful. Do you think it could work, and what reasons would/would it not work?
And remember to vote for your favorites for next week
Ongoing list of material to vote on (Still looking for digital format "Golem XIV")
Frankenstein
Golem xiv by Stanislaw Lem
Forbidden Planet
2001
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I, Robot (book)
Watchbird by Robert Sheckley
Equoid by Charles Stross
Blood Music by Greg Bear
Shoutouts:
kleinbl00 JakobVirgil mhr OftenBen plewemt elizabeth blackbootz flagamuffin Meriadoc minimum_wage Tiger_the_Lion _thoracic johnnyFive tehstone rthomas6 War Dala OftenBen bhrgunatha kantos francopoli anatomygeek Purple_Ruby
There's an aspect of science fiction that bugs me: I call it "gotcha sci fi." This is where you have a story wherein everything is completely normal or understandable and then they throw a left-field bullshit ending at you and say "gotcha!" The Carnival is a great example. The paradigm is so familiarly dumb that I've fallen into the trap myself. But it's not useful. The whole point of science fiction, in my opinion, is to explore ideas through metaphor. Throwing a "what if?" at the narrative allows you more latitude to examine social mores or philosophical experiments than if you must abide by the rules of society and physics. No one benefits, from my perspective, when a substandard story is justified by a substandard deus ex machina at the end in order to go "gotcha!" With that said, Stephen King will often burn out the last of his creative energies from a novel on a short story. He writes them in a day or two as a way to unwind from the long hard burn of a book, gives them very little thought and throws them at the wall to see what sticks. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, if I'm not mistaken, was the story he wrote after Cujo. It stands to reason that The Jaunt is his leftovers from Firestarter. As such it shouldn't be judged too harshly. I still hated it. The kernel of this story is there's an entire industry whose safety is purely and wholly dependent on its passengers being unconscious during travel and they have so few protocols in place that a 12-year-old boy thwarts them by holding his breath. I mean, FFS. I'm willing to accept all the parameters of the storyworld. I'm willing to deal with the tortured narrative structure (which is an editor's trick to hide the fact that there's nothing going on). But I just can't conscion a major tragedy provoked by anesthesiologists with lower intelligence and training than the average flight attendant. It's disrespectful to the reader and a cheat to the idea. It's lazy fuckin' writing. That Hell-bound Train follows the classic "deal with the devil" trope in which either man triumphs over evil by being clever or succumbs to evil by thinking he's clever - Aarne-Thompson 332, to be exact. I grew up with mexican folklore variations of this - the "godfather death" paradigm wherein the doctor sees Death's back turned and pours his own candle full of oil, so that Death offers his grudging but proud approval of the deceit. The watch is a lazy device; most iterations of Godfather Death involve more of an active deceit. Once again, however, I'm glad to have read them both, and sincerely appreciate you organizing this. I can pretty much cover both of next week's stories from memory; I'll point out that Flowers for Algernon was adapted to the movie Charly which I have not seen, but there it is.
I've watched Charly before and now got it pretty fresh after reading both source material and watched it again after reading your post. It's pretty damn good as far adaptations go. Went astray from Flowers for Algernon at places and Charlie seemed to progress a bit too fast when compared to book, but it was pretty enjoyable nonetheless. That said, I had some minor problems with the main actor, the one who portrayed Charlie. I don't know if it's just me, but at the beginning before the procedure was conducted I had some trouble with his slack-jawed expression. I know what he was supposed to convey, but he was constantly making me think "he looks like Mel Gibson with particularly douchebag look on his face". When that's the main complaint about the adaptation, I think it holds really well.
Oh, don't get me wrong. It works and considering his acting being convincing all the way throughout the movie I can see why he would get that Oscar. It was just the impression I got, mainly during the scenes where they were testing him. One girl that I had been tutoring was giving me a similar look. Let me say it like that: if I would be the one testing him and didn't know that I'm talking with someone mentally challenged, I would be pretty annoyed and assume that I'm dealing with a completely uncooperative case. It's probably for the better that I'm not trying to become a doctor though ;).
I appreciate your appreciation. I don't mind people disliking the material, as long as they have fun slagging them afterwards. There are items that I'm looking forward to covering on both the good and bad ends of the spectrum for that reason. I did like The Jaunt though. It checks off all the right boxes for me; scientific mystery, strange intriguing phenomenon, teasing the reader with the unknown, a bit of psychological horror. I totally know what you're talking about with the "gotcha" mechanic, but I can pass some suspension of disbelief in this scenario that maybe there are fail-safes, but the staff here is particularly aloof today or distracted and has let one slip past the normal checks, or maybe the experienced personnel had been replaced in favor of an inexperienced but "certified" TSA-type staff to satisfy some political agenda, and that those details just don't fit in any neat way into the narrative. What bothered me more, actually, was how did all the people get arranged neatly onto couches without somebody noticing that some kid has white hair?
It comes down to willful suspension of disbelief, and how much rope you'll give the story. I suspect you're a great deal more generous than me - I suspect that the majority of the world is a great deal more generous than me. I construct storyworlds from the outside in: I craft a viable, watertight, interesting place that I want to explore, and then I let the characters bump around in it. It's a borderline schizophrenic approach; I know I've created something worthwhile when the characters "surprise" me (as in, I'm writing and things go differently than I'd planned, spontaneously, as if I were holding an Ouija paddle). Tales like The Jaunt are irritatingly transparent. I can tell that it started with Stephen King imagining someone's son being exposed to ultimate horror and the rest of it was arranging the props and flats around that incident just enough to justify it. It's a punchline-backward approach and I hate it the way I hate puns. This is why I can't stand Chris Nolan for the life of me - everything he's ever written requires such a brutal and willful suspension of disbelief that I can't fuckin' handle it. Based on what you're saying about The Jaunt you're gonna love Bear's Blood Music.
The thing you have to understand about Greg Bear - and he's a friend - is that he has a tendency to literally end the world in his novels. As in, "the book's over when the entire field of operations has been eradicated from history." The novel version of Blood Music starts out with the short-story version and takes things to about as ultimate an ending as can be imagined. The short story version is basically the inciting incident. I can't recommend one over the other as one contains the other and they're both good.
Here is a Golem XIV in electronic format. Explanation about the source and legality is on page three. Please tell me about any mistakes or problems or if you would like the file to be with (for example) different font or on a different page format. Cheers!
No problem. Just, uch. I was by all means serious about letting me know about problems (btw: much appreciated if you would do so in bulk if any of you guys would like to pitch in). My source for this text was basically the shittiest tier of publishing. It's like they put Charlie Gordon as their editor-in-chief ;P. Part of me still feels cheated that I'd payed for ebook where people responsible for putting it together managed to commit things like: - Forgetting to put a friggin chapter title in a new line, and once they haven't even bothered with making it bold. - Forgetting to match quotation marks. - Space before and after a comma. - Text alignment / justing kept by adding literal hard-space characters. I had to edit it with my Polish copy in hand. Basically, if publisher can't deliver quality I'll take it upon myself while invoking closed-circuit clause for distribution of copyrighted intellectual property (or however that's supposed to be translated). So, you know, don't let it leak outside Hubski ;).
Only remembering to read last week's stories when you post the discussion thread has so far worked but Flowers for Algernon may be a little long. Anyway, I liked both of these a lot more than anything else we've read so far. They have a consistent tone.
I'm glad I read "That Hell-Bound Train" when I did. The "fun is in the journey" message is cliché but I need to be reminded of it sometimes. I've been thinking about what I need to be happy recently, and I though about how I was felt during undergrad. No major pressures, security in basic needs, no conflicts, and always moving upwards towards something better even if I didn't know what. It was serene then. I didn't have a want for anything. I objectively have more now but I find myself less satisfied with it. The only lacking aspect is my perspective. I haven't read much Stephen King although I've seen plenty of his work in other adaptations. I thoroughly enjoyed his storytelling in "The Jaunt". His writing (particularly in the details in the end) leaves just enough room for the imagination to fill-in the horrific details so that he can describe an outwardly-normal thing but the reader sees the psychological horror underneath. Stuff like that doesn't translate into film, which may be why so many of his movie adaptations come off so lame. On a side note the story reminded my of Junji Ito's The Long Dream manga story, which may have even been directly influenced by "The Jaunt".