Reviews

  • Idoru, William Gibson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Putnam, 1996, 292 pages, C$33.95 hc, ISBN 0-399-14130-8

    TONIGHT, on “Litterarly Incompetent!”:

    Is William Gibson still living off Neuromancer‘s Reputation?

    Ever since the release of his latest novel Idoru, fans are asking the same question: Is this good stuff for you, or good stove fuel? Is Gibson back, or still living in Wired magazine? Is there life after Neuromancer?

    Tonight, we will attempt to answer these questions. And the answers may not please you. Please welcome the Literary Incompetent himself, Christian S.!

    Fancy introduction, but does the job.

    For various reasons, I’ve been less than enthusiastic about William Gibson in recent times. Neuromancer was a classic, but far less can be said about Gibson’s later works. I’ve been variously bored and confused by everything else. Cyberpunk’s nice, but it’s also mostly irrelevant: Low-life people living in dirty cities doing insignificant things. Is this what I want in my SF?

    And I’d rather not talk about The Difference Engine.

    In Idoru, we meet two very different persons: A man named Laney, whose particular talent is an uncanny ability to spot relevant information in a sea of virtual data. Then, a fourteen-year-old girl named Chia, member of Seattle’s Lo/Rez Fan Club. Both are going to Japan, to search for the same thing.

    You see, Rez (one “half” of the band Lo/Rez) has declared that he will soon marry. Except that his bride-to-be is an Idoru, a virtual person with a programmed personality and no corporeal existence. Both Laney and Chia, from their own perspectives, are investigating why Rez would do such an idiotic thing.

    Idoru is in many ways a step up from Gibson’s previous work. It seemed shorter, read faster and felt better than Virtual Light, (less filling, too) although Virtual Light wasn’t such a bad novel.

    But Idoru is far from being a great work. It’s a good story, well-written, with sometimes confusing action. As a first novel, it would be fine, even promising. But as a sixth novel by a “master of the genre”…

    Fortunately, it’s written with the same hip style than the previous novels: Not always clear, but usually with a certain potency. Gibson has an eye for details and unusual gadgets are strewn around the story.

    The problem with Idoru is that I’m running out of things to say. Much like the novel itself, I’m trying to cover that up by fancy style and rhetoric. And failing miserably.

    So yeah, basically, it’s decent and well-written, but that’s about it. There are no sparks, no flashes, no fireworks from this. It’s the kind of novel that gets two stars out of four: Not really bad, but nothing exceptional either.

    Definitely wait for the paperback, borrow it from the library but don’t use the waiting list, etc…

  • The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

    The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1997) The good news are; it’s only vaguely based on the book, it’s somewhat better than the written work and it’s got some terrific sequences in it. The bad news was expected by every single moviegoer in North America: It’s not nearly as good as the original. Some stupendous special effects (notice the “shaking camera” shots: Flawless composting!), a few exceptional action/suspense sequences (the cracking glass sequence will remain in most viewers’ memory for a long time) and a likable hero are highlights. In director Steven Spielberg’s capable hands, everyone can expect to be entertained. Unfortunately, The Lost World suffers from the same disease that will (should) make the “thrill ride”-type of movie extinct: The story thread binding the great sequences is frayed, sometimes hastily knotted together. Characters act like (literally!) idiot savant; making the same stupid mistakes, going against ten+ years of their own experience, not reacting like normal human beings would, etc… The mind wobbles at the number of incredibly easily-fixed errors in the script. (and in the direction too: Don’t gag at the brain-damaged gymnastic sequence and don’t yawn at the fifth consecutive “Dah, amazing!” close-up.) Don’t count the incoherencies; they come with such a boring regularity that you’ll soon fall asleep. Still, it’s moderately fun. The story is (in broad strokes, if not in the details) better than the original. The last act is a blast, and the preachy anti-science tone of the original is mostly gone. Not a great movie by any means, but a moderately satisfying matinee.

  • Le Cinquième élément [The Fifth Element] (1997)

    Le Cinquième élément [The Fifth Element] (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1997) Big, colourful, loud European science-fantasy comic book brought to live-action. It’s probably the best movie ever in its particular sub-genre. Whether you’ll like it or not is an entirely different matter. It’s not good, it’s only occasionally smart, it’s even insulting given the amount of highly-talented artists assembled by this movie. But it’s a blast. A wacky sense of humour helps, as well as a fondness for unsubtle not-quite-mature shtick. Tremendous debate has occurred on the newsgroups and elsewhere concerning T5E, but this reviewer had more fun there than at his last previous movies. The polarization of opinion over the DJ Ruby Rhod character is especially intriguing. There are a lot of things going on screen, so don’t doze. (As if you could!) Great music, good performances by Willis and Jovonovitch (the last being too thin to be “perfect”, though), some stupendous editing and a definitely French attitude. Just don’t gag over the plot, costumes and finale. It’s worth seeing on the big screen.

    (Second viewing, On TV, January 2000) While watching this film again doesn’t pack the same wild rush of first approach, it still highlights the good editing, nice direction and wacky humor that are the strengths of this French SF comic book made live-action. Sure, the humor is a bit juvenile, and the imagined future too weird to fully believe. But who cares? Fast pacing, unique gadgets and an overall sense of fun missing from most current SF films make this one a treat.

  • Slow River, Nicola Griffith

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Del Rey, 1995, 343 pages, C$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-345-39165-9

    I approached this book with the worst intentions. Faithful readers of these reviews may remember that a while ago, I panned Nicola Griffith first novel, Ammonite: Story was linear, science was goofy, agenda was anti-tech lesbian and everything worked better as a soporific than a SF novel. I had made a resolution not to touch Ms. Griffith’s work if that was possible.

    Sadly, the 1996 Nebula Award results came in, and Slow River won the Best Novel category, beating out The Diamond Age and Starplex. Since I’m a Nebula completist, there was no choice but to read the g’dang thing. With stupefaction, I now have to admit that Slow River is a good book.

    Story-wise, we’re miles beyond the ultrapredictible linear lesbian fairy tale that was Ammonite. As Slow River begins, a young girl finds herself wounded, moneyless, without ID in an unknown city. The girl is Lore Van de Oest, the youngest daughter of one of the world’s richest family. She just escaped from her kidnappers and she can’t return to her family for complex reasons. She is quickly taken under the protective embrace of Spanner.

    Actually, Slow River begins a few years later, as Lore tries to build an identity separate from the domineering influence of Spanner… No, Slow River begins when Lore is five, and… Confused? Don’t be. The book is made up of three threads: Lore-Present (1st person POV), Lore-Near-Past (3rd person; her time with Spanner) and Lore-Past (3rd person, separate chapters; her life before/during the kidnapping) All three threads intersect nicely, even though sometime, I couldn’t wait to go back to the Lore-Present story. The plot is decent. Even though Lore isn’t (to me) a particularly engaging heroine, her struggles for love, identity and independence are gripping.

    Surprisingly, this is a novel with a lot of science in it: since most of the story revolves around water purification, it’s no surprise that we get a lot of tech-talk about “bioengineered bacteria” and the like. I can’t vouch to the accuracy of everything, but at least it sounds right.

    There should be a word or two here about the explicitly lesbian content of the novel: Lore is gay, and her behaviour (ie: falling for the most available girl(s) ) is about the same as we would expect from an active heterosexual young male. Whether this is ridiculous, or just indicative of the different society Lore lives in, is left to the reader’s prejudices.

    Notice, however, the careful wording of the jacket copy, which uses no gender terms relating to Spanner. (Who is, naturally, female) Even though a quick search/replace job could be done to replace Lore by John with scant impact on the novel, I’ll argue that Slow River would be a weaker novel without a lesbian protagonist. (And certainly wouldn’t have won the Nebula novel) Those who think that Slow River is a militant gay novel are… wrong. Despite the fact that the only hetero couple is presented as dysfunctional, that most males are evil or weak… The fact that [Spoiler] is [Spoiler] should convince even the most paranoiac bible-thumper that this isn’t a Pink Lambda recruitment pamphlet.

    Well, that’s a lot of wordage to say that despite my worst intentions, I can’t help but recognize this a decent novel. There are still a few problems here and there (The motivation and identity of the kidnappers is a bit far-out, but fits in the twisted logic of the book.) but nothing as blatant as her previous novel. The emphasis on another theme (water) makes the feminist/lesbian subtext much more tolerable.

    I kinda liked it, and most readers with a sufficiently open mind should, too. While not being superior to Starplex, it’s better than Ammonite, and redeems the author to my eyes.

  • The Iron Dream, Norman Spinrad

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Timescape, 1972 (1982 reprint), 256 pages, US$3.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-44212-0

    Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream has attracted its share of controversy in the twenty-five years since its original publication. And for good reasons: You see, The Iron Dream‘s nothing more that a repackaging of “Lord of the Swastika: Adolph Hitler’s best Science-Fiction Novel!”

    Interested, yet?

    Spinrad takes one premise and runs with it: What if Hitler, instead of staying in Germany and taking control of the Nazis, had emigrated to America and become an pulp-SF author? What kind of novel could have been written by Hitler?

    So we get Lord of the Swastika: A 240-page epic in which perfect-hero Feric Jaggar goes from a humble exile to becoming Master of the World. The plot is straight power fantasy stuff: The introduction of a good-but-powerless hero, his acquisition of a mighty weapon, his rapid ascension to the throne, etc… This is pulpish stuff at its most extreme, consciously pastiched by Spinrad: The intent is to ridiculize the Nazi mystique, and he goes at it with big guns. The prose is suitably bombastic:

    “The victory of Lumb had buoyed the spirits of the Helder race, while the realization that it was only a matter of time before the Dominators would once more unleash their ghastly minions against sacred human soil moved them to incredible feats of fanatic self-sacrifice and unprecedented energy.” (Page 168)

    I started smirking on page one, and chuckling on page two.

    The novel’s afterword is a delight in itself: written in tedious academic jargon, it makes most of the points I wished to enumerate in this review: The obvious phallic symbolism, the ridiculously repetitive imagery, the absence/irrelevance of female characters, the Dom/Jew analogy, the classic heroic fantasy structure, etc… At the same time, the afterword presents a nice little piece of irony in its picture of the alternate world in which Lord of the Swastika was written. Even without WW2, history isn’t necessarily better…

    This book can, and should be read on many levels: As a ridiculous send-up of power fantasy, as a warning of the appeal of totalitarism, as an alternate history, as self-conscious macho trip and -my favourite- as an insidious satire of Science-Fiction itself.

    Because frankly, I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Feric Jaggar. He might be a mysoginistic, racist, totalitarian bastard, but nothing stands in his way. Realistic heroes might have flaws, but flawless heroes are far more fun. And there lies the lesson of The Iron Dream, as banal as it is: Power fantasies are amusing, as long as they remain fantasies. It’s when they ooze into the Real World that people start to be hurt.

    It’s frightening to see how easily I, as a reader, was seduced by the omnipotence of heroes like Feric Jaggar. There’s a solid lesson there about the appeal of SF, and how even bad fiction can start re-writing your brain without your permission. Other pulp-era SF stories may have been more benign in intention, but an awful lot of them relied on the same levers than Spinrad’s straight-faced satire.

    As a powerful but one-note gotcha!, The Iron Dream doesn’t get my highest commendation… but it’s certainly a classic SF novel for none-too-obvious reasons.

  • Triumph, Ben Bova

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1993, 253 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-52063-7

    Are alternate-history tales true science-fiction?

    Even though I admit this isn’t a sexier subject as “Fantasy and SF” or even “Verne vs Wells” or “Is media SF hopeless?”, it’s still a subject that hasn’t been solved to anyone’s satisfaction. Ben Bova’s Triumph is unlikely to shed any new light on the matter.

    While SF often asks ‘What if?’ by projecting its conclusion in the future, alternate histories ask the same question, but by focusing on the other direction: The past. What if the South had won the Civil War? What if the Atom Bomb would have been developed by the Nazis first? What if Leonardo da Vinci had been named King of France? Alternate history tries to examine the possible pasts/presents that would have resulted by changes in our history.

    And this is, revealing the punch early, where Bova’s Triumph falters. What if Churchill plotted to assassinate Stalin? What if -sorry for the spoiler- he succeeded?

    Bova tantalizes, but delivers only partly. Since the novel restricts itself to the April 1945 time-frame, we never get a sense of Big Changes. In many ways, Bova’s novel is not alternate enough.

    But it is remarkably historic. A lot of research has been poured in this work, and it shows. I especially liked the characterisation of Churchill, as unrealistic as it was. It seems that everyone in Bova’s novel is far more prophetic than they should reasonably be, an artefact of a 1993 novel about 1945 people. A lot of cameos from a lot of subsequently famous persons makes this an interesting, if increasingly unlikely read.

    It’s moderately entertaining, especially for the WWII buff. Despite the ho-hum battle scenes the book moves quickly, an impression confirmed by the relatively low number of pages.

    Like most Bova novels, this isn’t anything ground-breaking, nor especially spectacular. However, Bova delivers the merchandise in a professional, almost routine way. Worth the library loan if you’re interested in this kind of stuff.

  • Society of the Mind, Eric L. Harry

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Collins, 1996, 504 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-06-017694-6

    Rarely has an author made such an impressive debut on the techno-thriller field than Eric L. Harry with Arc Light. That first novel started with World War III… and then went on to bigger things. It was a better Clancy than most Clancy. And now, Harry goes on to write a better Crichton than Crichton.

    Everyone knows the kind of story Crichton writes: Jurassic Park, RUNAWAY, Sphere, The Andromeda Strain. The kind of novel where the first half’s a walkthrough and the other half’s a non-stop race against time, death and technology run amok.

    When Society of the Mind begins, a brilliant psychologist (Laura Aldridge) is brought to the private high-tech island of a multi-billionaire. Her goal, we finally get to discover, is to psychoanalyse a computer’s mind. But as the first two-third of the novel is spent “ooh-ing and “aaah-ing over bleeding-edge computers, AIs, robots and the handsome billionaire, it’s no bet to bet what’s going to happen: Before long, Laura and her billionaire will be trading kisses with each others and bullets with robots and computers gone crazy. That’s what eventually happens… but not quite in the stereotypical manner.

    Harry has a real talent. Arc Light was a good story enhanced by good scenes and adequate characters. Similarly, Society of the Mind is the traditional cautious techno-thriller, but done with considerably more forethought than Crichton.

    [This is where I tell the reader that Eric L. Harry has his own Web site at http://www.eharry.com/ and that on this site, you can find such fascinating information as:

    • Harry never had any intention to begin writing. Arc Light was begun because (I am not making this up!) he needed to have something to print with his new printer.
    • The first draft of Society of the Mind, a 500+ pages thriller, was written in six weeks, as an aside during the redaction of his next techno-thriller. Wow.]

    It’s borderline science-fiction/techno-thriller. In E-Mail, Harry confirmed that he thought about marketing the novel as straight SF, but didn’t. Good call: Society of the Mind has the SF gadgets, but the TT “attitude” that gadgets can -and do- kill people whether we want it or not. I found the approximate date of the story (around 2000) to be ridiculously optimistic, but one never quite know…

    Arc Light remains a better book, I think, but Society of the Mind doesn’t disappoint. Most of the ideas presented here are familiar to anyone versed in the latest Wired/socio-technical literature, but they’re presented quite entertainingly. However, Harry still have problems with closing down his books (The first half is usually more fun. Here, I thought most of the robotic wars could have been compressed in half the pages) and providing a satisfying finale. Even though the last few lines of this novel are a kicker.

    Society of the Mind is now out in paperback and it’s a worthwhile buy. You’ll get decent entertainment value for your money, as well as more than a few thought-provoking issues. Encourage your friends to take a look at it; I know I will.

  • Volcano (1997)

    Volcano (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 1997) A volcano pops up in Los Angeles, a disaster movie ensues. Decent entertainment, but a better title for it should have been Lava, given that the actual volcano is never really “fought”. I thought the final “big” sequence seriously lacked any kind of clear suspense, but the remainder of the movie is okay. Points given for a self-aware treatment of the “saved pet animal” problem, points removed for trying to put messages in the script. Tommy Lee Jones is a credible lead, and Anne Heche is merely fine. Notice the structural similarity between Volcano and classical hard-SF “problem” stories: A problem, a competent hero (engineer!), high stakes, ingenious solution by hero, etc… As a book, more would have been expected (such a dealing with the other lava flows), but as a movie… I remain pleased.

  • To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Robert A. Heinlein

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace/Putnam, 1987, 416 pages, C$20.00 hc, ISBN 0-399-13267-8

    (Or: To sail beyond the boundaries of adequate editing…)

    Even in a field as smart as Science-Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein stands tall intellectually. His influence is enormous enough that we should probably dedicate the whole field of SF to him and move on to other matters. He’s the man who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land yet he’s also the man who gave us Starship Troopers. Beyond my personal liking for the man’s work, he has attracted a tremendously fanatical following—even now.

    Yet all fans, and most critics, consider that Heinlein’s career suffered immensely during his later years. Following a severe period of bad health in the beginning of the Seventies, Heinlein’s latter novel, they say, are overindulging, under-edited, sex-obsessed and more concerned (in the words of Alexei Panshin) about “opinions as facts”. Heinlein’s opinions.

    To Sail Beyond the Sunset was Heinlein’s last published novel before his death in 1987. How does it measure up to his other works?

    Not very well. TSBtS is the autobiography of Maureen Johnson, the mother of Heinlein’s favourite literary alter-ego, Lazarus Long. Her history is also the history of Heinlein’s famous “Future History” cycle. This novel chronicles her life, from her birth in 1882 onward.

    The first thing one must accept about this book is that it’s all about sex. From Maureen’s Electra complex to her first boyfriend to complex “family” affairs to her rescue of her father (and subsequent elopement, we presume), this is where Heinlein Says to his readers “Listen up; I have a fascination with It and I thing everyone who’s prude is seriously pucked-up.”

    Mix in some philosophy on the Downfall of American Society (Such uncultured barbarians we all are nowadays!), Good Wars, Bad Presidents… The only good persons here are Maureen, her father and her son Lazarus Long. Everyone else is an idiot, a puppet or inconsequential. The Encyclopedia of SF‘s is right when is says that “in praising one family over everything else, Heinlein has cheapened everything else.” The final nail in the coffin is that, for a novel that’s entirely cantered around sex, the sex scenes are lousy. Can’t have everything, I guess…

    Still, despite these considerable flaws, TSBtS manages to entertain considerably. Always readable, Heinlein’s style is distinctive and pleasant. Never mind that the no-nonsense, street-smart monologue of Maureen could have been generated from the same place that Richard Ames’ narration (In The Cat Who Walks Through Walls) came from…. it’s still loads of fun. Then there’s Maureen/Heinlein’s obsession with cats- (Okay, so I lied: TSBtS isn’t all about sex. There’s a cat in there too. But you get my meaning.)

    Yet, the prose may be light, but the meaning is sombre, even bitter. Heinlein is more concerned about preaching than amusement. Maureen makes explicit speeches about such subject as religion, government and other things… which brings us to the touchy subject of editing.

    A competent editor could have looped off a good hundred pages. I’m still not sure if this would have been an improvement, or at least not a dramatic improvement like a good editing of I Will Fear No Evil.

    Even then, this is Heinlein’s Last Novel. Treasure it, burn it or tolerate it… There will be no more things like this.

  • Se7en (1995)

    Se7en (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, April 1997) One of the most satisfying movies in ages: The script is great, the dialogue crackles, the visual style is dark and distinctive and the ending… perfect, just perfect. Plus, the premise: A serial killer is killing according to the seven deadly sins. Is the police going to be able to stop him before his seventh victim? I can’t believe I waited as long as I did to see this movie. I rally to all the positive opinions surrounding this film. See it.

  • Monolith (1993)

    Monolith (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 1997) Bad and stupid SF thriller, starring then-unknown Bill Paxton and Lindsay Cromwell (“Who?” “The blonde psychologist in Op-Center!” “Ah!”). The setup is intriguing (a female Russian scientist shoots a young boy) but the script quickly dissolves in a series of routine “alien cover-up” scenes. So routine that the plot seems to have been forgotten in the writer’s head. Remarkable mostly for the total absence of monoliths in the movie, despite the title. The conclusion is brain-damagingly stupid. Avoid.

  • Liar Liar (1997)

    Liar Liar (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 1997) Jim Carrey is great as a lawyer unable to lie during a full day. Never mind the ambiguous script, the disappointing finale and the sugar-coated messages, this is one of the best comedies of the year. I don’t think that Carrey is the ultimate comedian, but he has charm, and the movie would be much poorer without him. There are more than a few good jokes other than Carrey’s antics, which probably accounts for the movie’s long-running success.

  • Kôkaku Kidôtai [Ghost In The Shell] (1995)

    Kôkaku Kidôtai [Ghost In The Shell] (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, April 1997) Great anime movie, based on an equally superb manga. It’s far from being perfect (variable quality of animation, a lot of overlong scenes, classic “anime” annoyances) but it’s the best -and the smartest!- SF movie I’ve seen in a while. The plot is something between Nikita and Blade Runner: Female killer android searches for her identity. This movie passes my criteria for good media SF: I could imagine reading this as a short story.

  • The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Prism, 1995, 520 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105648-0

    Ah, new bookstores… For the average bibliophile, few things are as pleasant in life than discovering a new bookstore. In the Ottawa area, we’ve been lucky lately (despite the closing of the House of Speculative Fiction): Both a downtown mega-bookstore (Chapters) and a new SF bookstore (Basilisk Dreams Books) have opened in the last six months or so.

    But this isn’t a review of a bookstore… To make a long and potentially boring story short, let’s just say that my first trip to resulted in the purchase of a long-awaited book: The Time Ships. Curiously enough, this particular edition isn’t supposed to be published in Canada… Indeed, the jacket copy lists only one (American) price. Bad move from Harper Prism, or restrictive rights agreements?

    Still, you can’t keep an SF reader away from a good book. My reasons to be curious about The Time Ships were diverse: It was a 1996 Hugo Nominee. It wasn’t available at the library. It wasn’t available at any other bookstore. AND, it’s the first “approved” sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.

    Now, understand that I’m no particular fan of Wells. His prose style was fine for the turn of the century, but today… it’s a bit full of cobwebs. But even then, one cannot help to admire the legacy left by a few novels and shorter stories. Wells tackled on themes as invisibility, time-travel and alien invasions a full century before INDEPENDENCE DAY… with considerably more intelligence. But that’s another essay.

    The Time Ships picks up where Wells’ story ended: The Time Traveller resolves to go back to the Eloi/Morlock world. Of course, things aren’t that simple, and five hundred pages of various adventures follow. We get far-future extrapolation, an alternate history, a robinsonade and another far-future big-canvas scenario. To say more would be a spoiler.

    The book is told “a la Wells”, which is to say, using a pseudo-Victorian style. I wasn’t too enthused about that, but I was surprised at how readable the whole book was. This, incidentally, also makes The Time Ships surprisingly accessible to any reader unfamiliar with science-fiction: The complicated concepts of alternate worlds, time-travel, etc… are explained to them as they are explained to our time-travelling (Victorian) hero. We sometimes get the false impression that this is a book Wells could have written himself.

    But Baxter did write the book, and should be deservedly proud of it: He tackles on big subjects here and succeeds more than he fails. I felt the book was more interesting when he veered off Wells’ ideas than when he followed the first book’s story, but that’s a highly subjective opinion.

    The Hugo nomination for this book was warranted. Whether it should have won is another matter entirely, which I won’t discuss here… But this is still a superior read: Grab it, read it. Baxter is now on my “to catch up on!” list.

  • The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    DTP, 1975, 805 pages, C$21.95 tpb, ISBN 0-440-53981-1

    I read Gravity’s Rainbow, once.

    It sounds like a shameful admission, and that’s not far from the truth. Even years after the horrendous experience, I still remember the darn book’s page count (760) since I glanced at it every four pages or so. I never read something I understood less (except, maybe, for my calculus manuals… but I digress). There are a few other anecdotes relating to this book. (Like how I managed to read it at a traditional canadian maple-syrup party and (the day after) right in the middle of a family emergency.) But that’s another story for another time.

    Suffice to say that I approached The Illuminatus! Trilogy with a similar state of mind: Was this going to be another postmodern 800-pages muddle? Would I be able to enjoy anything?

    The answers were… surprising. I don’t usually like literary experiments, and still shudder at the memory of Gravity’s Rainbow. But The Illuminatus Trilogy is different.

    For one thing, there is actually a story in here. It’s over-convoluted, way too long and stuffy like you wouldn’t believe, but it’s still a story. Never mind that most of the book doesn’t “happen” in chronological order, there’s a more-or-less defined beginning and end here. (The middle is all over the place).

    That story, to put it simply, is the exposition of all the conspiracies that control society. From the Kennedy assassinations to the pyramid on the american $1 bill (which, speaking as a Canadian, still freaks me out) everything can be traced to one controlling group: The Illuminatus! Of course, the “truth” (if there is such a thing) is far less simple. If the Mafia part, over, under or a creation of the Illuminatus? Or is it the other way around? At one point in the novel, there are about three thousand groups that may or may not be in conflict and simultaneously part of the same organisation. If that’s confusing, don’t worry: It’s part of the enjoyment one gets from the trilogy.

    To paraphrase one of the cover blurbs; you won’t know what’s happening, but you’ll have too much fun to notice. For fun is what’s included in The Illuminatus! Trilogy that’s missing from the other literary “stuff”. Whether you’re looking for gratuitous sex scenes (there are many, but -unfortunately!- less of them as the book advances), “cameos” by celebrities (Adolph Hitler, H.P. Lovecraft and Buckminster Fuller, to name a few), dramatic ironies (heh-heh-heh) or plain jokes (My favourite: “He worked with Smith-1, Smith-2 and Smith-3, three identical siamese triplets. Their father was a mathematician, so he indexed rather than named them.”)

    Never mind that everything is outright incoherent fantasy. Forget that the book would have been immensely clearer with blank lines between sections. Pass over the 70-some pages of appendices. Drive the insane pseudo-erudite details out of your mind… This is fun stuff, for mature reader. “Mature” here being ability to digest twenty-odd plots occurring simultaneously at different points in time…

    Unavoidable flaws are evident: There is a very “early seventies” feel to the trilogy, not surprising given the copyright date. Also, I felt that the ending is a bit drawn-out… but a re-reading might correct this impression.

    Nevertheless, high conditional marks for The Illuminatus! Trilogy. If only for the explanation of why the Pentagon is built that way… Just don’t forget: They might be controlling you, right now!