The Terraformers (2023) by Annalee Newitz

 Book Review

The Terraformers (2023)

by Annalee Newitz

   I first read journalist/fiction writer Annalee Newitz back in 2021 when I read her work of non-fiction, Four Lost Cities.  That book was an interesting attempt at the popularization of recent findings supported by the use of LIDAR ground-reading technology which allowed archeologists to see the outlines of buildings buried several feet below the surface.   This has led to a mini-revolution in the study of the collapse of civilizations, which seems to be a central pre-occupation of Newitz in both her fiction and non-fiction work. 

   The review I read of her recent work of speculative fiction, The Terraformers, an at times and at times almost comically dull exploration of the far-future business of planet development, written from the perspective of the broadly defined "people" that populate Newitz's speculative universe, was not positive, or at least not wildly positive, but I went ahead and picked up the Audiobook anyway because this is clearly a work of speculative written from what you might call an alternative viewpoint, and that elevates it above more conventional genre works in the area. 

   Newitz's universe is an interesting blend of hyper-capitalism and the post-scarcity anarchical world of Iain Bank's "The Culture" series.   Parts of The Terraformers are instantly recognizable- the hyper capitalist planet developers speak with a distinct southern accent and the entire book revolves around the for-profit development/terraformers of a "private planet" by a multi-galaxy human led corporation;  other parts are beyond wild: As part of something called the "farm revolution" and the "grand bargain" which apparently takes place in OUR near future, personhood is expanded to all sorts of non-human species.  Humans themselves have subdivided- you've got the traditional homo sapiens- who have evolved into body hopping demigods with access to limitless capital and lifespans of thousands of years.  On the other hand, you've got homo divertis (or something to that effect), which comprises everyone else.   Hardly anyone in this world is born, rather people speak of "being decanted" and the idea of people as property does not raise a collective eyebrow.

   Sentient trains have a disturbingly large place in the narrative as do the "realistic" problems of planet development- which makes parts of The Terraformers read like a New Yorker article written about public transit issues in space.  Personally though I like this book more for that feature- like Newitz has put some thought into her prose.  And if the plot is sometimes pokey, well, there are worse things to be in speculative fiction.

Time Shelter (2022) by Georgi Gospodinov

 Book Review

Time Shelter (2022)

by Georgi Gospodinov

   Time to take a break from the 1001 Novels: A Library of America project to take a look at the 2023 International Booker (books translated into English) winner, Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and his novel Time Shelter.  The first thing I did was check my own posts for prior references to Bulgarian literature.  I came up with Elias Canetti, who lived in modern Bulgaria but spoke German (Auto-da-Fé, 1935, 1001 Books Project).  I've got A Ballad for Georg Henig by Victor Paskov (1987), which was included in the 2008 revised 1001 Books Project, replacing a Philip Roth novel (Operation Shylock)- I identify Ballad as the first Bulgarian novel in the 1001 Books project.  Finally there is On the Eve, by Russian author Ivan Turgenev- this book isn't written by a Bulgarian author but the protagonist is a Bulgarian patriot. 

   Time Shelter is mostly an example of the genre of European Philosophical Novel with an interesting science fiction-y twist, but it is most certainly not a work of genre science fiction no matter what marketing materials might claim.  Rather, Time Shelter is an extremely deep and nuanced reflection on the meaning of time and memory in the 21st century- you could also imagine this book being a four hundred page work of philosophy but then it probably would have been translated into English.

  I would not, however, recommend the Audiobook- which I managed to check out immediately without a wait-list AFTER the prize was announced- the Audiobook is not great.

1,001 Novels: A Library of America by Susan Straight

 

Huge news in the world of "1001 Books" fans- Author/Professor Susan Straight has launched her own project, 1001 Novels: A Library of America and it is free to view online.  Amazing, wonderful news.  I am starting with Maine and will attempt to complete the reading a la my largely completed  1001 Books Project- which is down to 219 tags these days but was in the 940's when I started consolidating the back posts.

1,001 Novels: A Library of America by Susan Straight

Book Review: A Girl's Story (2016) by Annie Ernaux

 Book Review

A Girl's Story (2016)

by Annie Ernaux

  I don't think anyone was shocked when Annie Ernaux, and avatar of French autofiction, won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year.  After all, Scandinavia is itself a hotbed of autofiction and you could probably argue that the French invented it.  Autofiction is itself uniquely suited to the internet era of relentless self-exposure. Although the roots of Autofiction trace back a half century at this point (1970's France is where the term was first coined), you could say that it took the internet and it's culture of self-obsession to really get a larger, international audience interested in these books.

    A Girl's Story will ring familiar to anyone who pays attention to influencer culture or youth culture- Ernaux's self protagonist is a young woman from a rural background studying at university.  From her current situation she reflects backwards on her adventures as a teen:  Experimenting with her sexuality as a camp counsellor (and being shamed and persecuted for it), dropping out of teaching school to become a nanny in London, shoplifting sprees with her nanny bff.  It sounds banal perhaps but there is nothing tedious about Ernaux's prose in translation.  I found myself fascinated with the depth of exploration of inner feeling.   

Book Review: The Offset (2021) by Calder Szewczak

Book Review:

 The Offset (2021) 

by Calder Szewczak

   First of all, Calder Szewczak is not one person, it's two, an arrangement you see infrequently in European literature and almost never at all in the Anglo-American world.  One is Natasha Calder the other Emma Szewczak.  Together they penned this interesting variation of dystopian fiction where the set up is that every child born needs to choose one of their parents to be sacrificed  on their 18th birthday.  Cheery, I know!  Calder Szewczak's dystopia is set in London, where Miri, a street urchin who happens to be the daughter of the scientist in charge of humanities last attempt at saving the world:  Planting radioactive resistant trees enough to cover the whole of Greenland (Don't ask it is extremely complicated!).  

  Miri, who, it must be said, does not come across as sympathetic in any way shape or form, has already declared that it will be her famous scientist mother to die, rather than her retired doctor mother.  The narrative shifts between the perspective of Miri and famous scientist mom- while Doctor Mom does her best to convince Miri to kill her, Doctor Mom, and not famous scientist mom.   Meanwhile famous scientist mom has discovered something amiss with her world saving tree farm and must investigate.

  There is much to like in The Offset, particularly the straight forward portrayal of a world where having children is frowned upon- they call it anti-natalism in this book, and it isn't entirely clear to me that they are supposed to be unsympathetic, but personally I've often wondered why more people aren't explicitly anti-having children.  Seems like an eminently reasonable position considering (gestures vaguely) all this but how could one even voice such an opinion in public without being castigated.   Life, after all, is precious, unless the baby is born in one of the many places on Earth where human live is almost worthless, in which case, good luck!

  On the other hand, the story snaps off at novella length, with a non-resolution that is seemingly going for some kind of O'Henry ending ala The Gift of the Magi.  

Book Review: Will and Testament (2016) by Vigdis Hjorth

 Book Review

Will and Testament (2016)

by Vigdis Hjorth

   Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth is another nominee from the 2023 International Booker longlist.  I couldn't track down the nominated title- Is Mother Dead- the LAPL just recently got a copy of the Ebook which I have on hold- but I found an available Audiobook of her 2016 work, Willa and Testament.  I was intrigued by the description of a Norwegian writer of autofiction, since Karl Ove Knausgard is himself a Norwegian.  A quick internet search reveals that Hjorth has appeared with his ex wife, Linda Knausgard, who has penned her own version of the events chronicled in My Struggle.  Norwegian autofiction is a hot commodity- even if the French don't want to admit it. 

   One thing about Norwegian autofiction, read one book by an author, read them all, so I'm guessing that Will and Testament, a characteristically fraught tale about a family squabbling about an inheritance and deep family secrets (the narrator was molested by her father between the ages of five and seven, and the rest of her family, mother and two sisters, don't believe her).   That's not a spoiler- you know from page one that the narrator and her father don't get along because of something she did to her when she was a young child.  The continuous narrative is chopped up into 80 plus different chapters and presented non-chronologically.  It might have been confusing but the narrator is so obsessed with this single situation and it's impact on her family dynamic that it is impossible to get confused.  She simply doesn't discuss anything else. 

  As in every work of auto-fiction, the level of self-obsession is off the charts, mirroring culture and the way it has been impacted by the internet even when the protagonist of a work of autofiction never uses the internet, as is the case here. As an attorney who frequently represents women who were the victims of familial sexual abuse, I found Will and Testament fascinating, but it might easily trigger others for whatever reason.

Book Review: Ninth Building (2022) by Zou Jingzhi

Book Review:

 Ninth Building (2022)

 by Zou Jingzhi

  Congratulation to Time Shelter by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and his translator Angela Rodel, winners of the 2023 International Booker Prize for the English language translation of Time Shelter.  I was able to check out the Audiobook from the LAPL hours after the announcement, which should give you an idea of the ambient audience for Booker Prize winners among the citizens of Los Angeles/patrons of the LAPL.   I don't love it so far.

  Meanwhile, I'm finally getting my Ebook holds for books from the longlist, many of which weren't even out in the US when the list was announced.  Ninth Building, by Chinese author Zou Jingzhi, was the first title I've managed to obtain.  It's an episodic work of autofiction about the author's experience as one of the so-called "educated youths" who were instrumental to enacting the terrors of the cultural revolution, then essentially deported to the provinces in an attempt to regain control by the Chinese Communist Party.  It was a fascinating, horrible time, up there with other fascinating/horrible 20th century world events- well- I won't put a list together but the cultural revolution is like a top 20 world historical event for sure in the 20th century.

  Like much Chinese literature that makes it out of China, Ninth Building was vetted by the CCP- this means it bears the characteristics of all 20th century "Official" literature- authors are allowed to critique historical events within the context of individuals who are not "good" government officials, but the government itself is never criticized.  So, Ninth Building is interesting, but not very revealing about the subject.   

Review: Biography of X (2023) by Catherine Lacey

Book Review

Biography of X (2023)

by Catherine Lacey

   Every week I skim the New York Times Sunday Book Review section for new books to read.  They do a terrific job keeping up to date with everything going on in the first and second divisions of publishing, especially as it relates to keeping up on fiction.  The idea of an overwhelming multiplicity of options simply isn't true if you restrict the category to "Literary fiction that gets a contemporary review in the New York Times Book Review".  If that is the specific category you are talking somewhere between 0-10 books a week, with many weeks with zero prospects.  I mention that now because Biography of X 100% came to my attention via the the review written by Dwight Garner. I'm not ashamed to admit it- nor am I ashamed that I had never heard of author Catherine Lacey, despite the fact that she's written three prior books that all garnered significant praise, if not qualifying as the kind of "hit" that would have brought her to my doorstep.

   The Biography of X is many things: A rich counter-factual history that takes it place alongside The Plot Against America in the annals of succesful alternate history/literary fiction cross-overs.  It is a rich inquiry into what it means to be a capital A artist in the 20th century.  It is a sometimes tedious take or parody of the genre of "oral history" popularized by magazines like Spin , Rolling Stone and Esquire, with an additional overlap between the self-seeking inward looking feature journalism synonymous with the New Yorker under Tina Brown.   It is a "secret history" of the downtown art world of New York from the 60's through the 90's.   In the end, all of these threads combine for a 1 +1 = 3 type of impact that left me reeling and has me searching for an opportunity to buy a first hardback edition at an independent bookstore so I can go back and see in print what I may have missed on the Audiobook (which is fabulous, this audiobook).

   If you are looking for specific details, I would refer you to the New York Times book review I linked above- personally, even though it was necessary to get me interested in the first place, I found that the NYT review did indeed spoil some of the choicest counter-factual historical moments.   It doesn't spoil the pay off of the plot- which is substantial.  You make your way through the sometimes awkward "oral history" format- with lots of "quoted from the interview with the authors" and footnotes to imaginary publications and there are times where a reader or listener might question whether it is worth it.  But it is- the ending is indeed worth the awkward superstructure.    I have no doubt that Biography of X  has all the makings of a cult classic, if not a straight-up classic.

MVTANT announce New Tape/US Tour Dates/Gang of Four Cover

Cover of “Damaged Goods” + Tour Date
Listen to MVTANT’s Animalistic Cover of “Damaged Goods” + Tour Dates
(POST-PUNK.COM)


MVTANT 2023 Tour dates:


Tour dates:

4.28 TULSA – THE WHITTIER BAR
5.2 DENVER – GLOB
5.3 SLC – INTERNATIONAL
5.7 RENO – HOLLAND PROJECT
5.8 CHICO – NAKED LOUNGE
5.12 VANCOUVER – VERBODEN
5.15 OLYMPIA – CRYPTOTROPA
5.17 OAKLAND – GOLDEN BULL
5.18 SAN DIEGO – THE MERROW
5.19 TIJUANA – BLACK BOX
5.21 EL PASO – 101
6.8 NASHVILLE – COBRA
6.9 INDIANAPOLIS – BLACK CIRCLE BREWING $#
6.10 DETROIT – LELAND CITY CLUB $#
6.11 TORONTO- SEE SCAPE #
6.13 BOSTON – O’BRIEN’S PUB $#
6.14 NORTHAMPTON – RED KROSS $#
6.15 KINGSTON – BLACKBIRD INFOSHOP $#
6.16 NEW YORK CITY – ST. VITUS $#
6.17 RICHMOND – FALLOUT $#
6.18 WILMINGTON – ANGIE’S RAINBOW ROOM
6.20 ASHEVILLE – STATIC AGE
6.21 ATLANTA – THE EARL
6.22 GAINESVILLE – PORTAL 4 RECORDS
6.23 TAMPA – NEW WORLD
6.24 MIAMI – GRAMPS
6.25 ORLANDO – WILL’S PUB
6.27 NEW ORLEANS – THE GOAT
6.28 HOUSTON – BLACK MAGIC SOCIAL CLUB

     Something I learned in the process of going back and editing this blog is that the posts about my record label stuff are the least popular!   What was most popular is when I was specifically writing about the local music scene in San Diego because the people in that scene were interested in reading about themselves.  During the Dirty Beaches era there was some national interest and very little local San Diego interest and then after that period it's just been random- I assume the traffic is mostly bots at this point- which is fine but I wish bots would buy stuff. I don't see why they shouldn't.  If you wanted to create a real person on the internet having a bot buy stuff would probably do the trick.

    Anyway- Mvtant was the first Dream project I was involved in- the Gore/Mirrorshade EP.   I thought the sales for that record were good, that the streaming numbers- which had hovered at 1/2k monthly listeners on Spotify for years before a recent jump over 3k a month, were bad and that the "work rate" of the Artist- to borrow a term used to evaluate pro soccer players, was fantastic.  He has a decent social media presence and his touring game is great- he is self sufficient which is almost a must these days at the diy level considering the amount of time it take to get going.

    And, no one was trying to steal him away- which at the DIY level you have to realize that even the smallest success is going to mean other people trying to move in and take the artist to "the next level."  It's an easy pitch, and of course every other label can tell if a record/artist combo is doing well.  So like with The Serfs, when we put out Primal Matter I knew it was a good record and furthermore that anyone else who had a copy of that record and saw them live would be like, "Yeah, this would be good for my label."  Basically the goal is to just hang on to the record you've released by keeping it in print and continuing to sell it.

    For MVTANT- the first thing is this 10 song cover/remix tape cassette, which, the idea is to remix and combine with other artists and then to post one song a week on the streaming services to maximize the reach while selling out the cassette and hammering out weeks of social media posts about each new track.  It is...anti-romantic- all this streaming lore, but that is how things work these days.  One observation I've made is that streaming is actually a parallel universe that sometimes overlaps with "real world" measurements like selling physical media and concert tickets but not always.  It is quite frequent to see a disconnect between low streaming numbers and high real world figures and vice versa.   This goes all the way from the bottom to the top in both directions. 

Our Share of Night (2023) by Mariana Enriquez

Book Review

Our Share of Night (2023)

by Mariana Enriquez

  Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez first showed up on my radar back in 2021 when I read her short story collection, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.  At the time I noted her ability to combine conventional short story themes you find in most literary fiction with what can only be described as "body horror."  Thus, when I saw that her new book, Our Share of Night, an occult fantasia set against the backdrop of the turmoil of mid 20th century Argentina, was the February recommendation of the Good Morning America Book Club (!) I knew I was going to have to check it out.

   I was able to snack the Audiobook- which runs a cool 30 hours- not that I minded, because Our Share of Night is equally riveting as a sprawling occultist horror novel AND as a very specific novel about the life experiences of people in 20th century Argentina (with a side trip to Carnaby street era swinging London).  From my perspective, both sides of the equation worked.  You could pick at either strand from the perspective of genre fiction or literary fiction, but the combination was quite intoxicating.  Enriquez's grasp of the particularity of 20th century occultism- her fictional "The Order"- a British-Argentinian "cult of the shadow" that traces is it's existence to a chance discovery by a pair of amateur folklorists in the wilds of 18th century Scotland could be ready equally as a metaphor for capitalism or for the international culture of literary fiction.  

  It's also familiar to anyone who knows anything about 20th century occultism- the darkness is summoned through the use of a medium, the medium give out garbled but powerful instructions on different subjects that seemingly range from the transcendent (the transmigration of consciousness from one body (older) to another (younger) body is a particular obsession, but it also sounds like the cult was given economic advice which allowed them to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic. 

   The form of the narrative is sequential, with narrative responsibilities for each member of a nuclear family unit of father, wife and son who have their own relationship to "the order" and to 20th century Argentinian history.  Anyway there can be no doubt that Our Share of Night is a banger.  The Audiobook was great I would recommend it.