OH, PURE AND RADIANT HEART, by Lydia Millet
In the middle of the twentieth century three men were charged with the task of removing the tension between minute and vast things. It was their job to render asunder the smallest unit of being known to be separable from itself; out of a particle so modest there are billions in a single tear, in a moment so brief it could not be perceived, they would make the finite infinite.
Two of the scientists were self-selected to split the atom. Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi had chosen long before to work on the matter. . .
The third man was a theoretical physicist who had considered the subject of the divisible atom among many others. He was a generalist, not a specialist. he did not select himself per se, but was chosen for the job by a soldier.
From left: Oppenheimer, Fermi, Szilard.
Thousands worked at the whims of these men. From Szilard they took the first idea, from Fermi the fuel, from Oppenheimer both the orders and the inspiration.
And thus the novel begins, with those opening paragraphs. Its dramatic conceit is that at the moment of the detonation of that first bomb, the three men are catapulted over time and that they “wake up” in 2003 where they must look back at the results of their labors.
Welcome to the second meeting of BooBooks, the Booman Tribune book club devoted to delving into novels and non-fiction books that illuminate political issues.
At our last (first) meeting, we had a pretty big crowd and a non-fiction book with a complex subject. I wonder if things will seem a bit more cozy this time when we’re doing a novel?
Maybe not, since this book intersperses bits of fact with the fiction, and in a way I have never seen any other author do, have you?
I’ll start with an easy, general opinion and then we’ll see how you want this conversation to grow.
I loved the first half of this book, was riveted by the non-fiction paragraphs about the history of atomic power, and had to force myself to read the last half. I’ll explain why in a little while. But first, I’ll wait to hear from some of you. . .
Hi, kansas!
I completely agree with you, “I loved the first half of this book, was riveted by the non-fiction paragraphs about the history of atomic power, and had to force myself to read the last half.”
And it’s kind of surprised me, because the person who recommended it viewed it in exactly the opposite way. He slogged through the first half and thought it picked up as she went along and had such a powerful ending he had to restrain himself from talking about it.
I’m kind of thinking that if it wasn’t for the non-fiction paragraphs and booBooks, I might have forgotten to pick it up again.
I think it ground to a halt when Larry appeared. He plays to powerful a role in the events. He is right there. But his character is completely undefined. We spend more time with his wife. And not enough with her either to understand WHY they exist.
Interesting–and unfathomable!–about your friend. Well, he’s just wrong. š
Yeah, Larry & friends stopped me cold, particularly starting at the party in Japan.
After some thought–and taking into consideration certain advice my editor is always giving me about my own novels–I decided the major problem was that the two main characters, Ann and Oppie (or would you say it was Ann and Ben?), become more and more passive as the book goes alon. The least likable characters take over the action. It’s really important for main characters to drive action and not just be helpless pawns of it. Even when Ann seems to get herself together to be active, she either gives up again or events stop her. And Oppie just gets more and more dreamy.
I want to talk about the non-fiction parts eventually, do you?
Yes, it’s actually as if there stopped being main characters, or any characters at all.
The tone changed to a kind of dreamy remoteness. And since Japan, the action seems muffled somehow.
If I have to make a blunt statement, I guess I’d say that I don’t like this book. I wish the reviews put more emphasis on “dull” (which they didn’t mention at all, over “madcap” (which they do).
I don’t know, I thought I liked “madcap”, but maybe not.
I think that part of the problem was that the last 150 pages of so were somewhat flabby — I think they could have been cut if off and made a much better book.
But I did like the book overall and wasn’t unhappy with the way the last part of the book evolved — it felt quite natural to me. I thought the book was going to be hard to end and that she found a “reasonable” way to get there.
However, I don’t think the book was madcap — I thought it was tragedy in which Annie tries to acquire a life based on the lives of others and then spends the book learning how fragile and eventually unreal that kind of life is.
Remember how Mrs. Granger, in Sophomore English, used to tell us that the first sentence of paragraph of a novel foreshadows the ending? I think that happens here, where she writes, “. . .the task of removing the tension between minute and vast things.” That’s Ann’s dilemma–the tension between her own life–the minute–and the larger issues at stake. Sounds as if her struggles saved the book for you?
Yes, I think the core of the personal story was what made the book and that what Annie has to learn about the vast is that it is vast and for most people their place in it is minute. Everybody in this book yearns to be more than that and believes that being bigger will somehow be better but three scientists were people who got to be something bigger and part of what they have forced to learn is just how much “not better” their strivings made the world.
You know what the last 150 pages lacked? A marmot. There are few books that could not be improved by the addition of a marmot.
Well, who would know better than you?
Ha! If only I had known about marmots then. . .
Wait… did I miss something else? (I miss lots)
That’s not you, is it? Jenny Cain and all?
’tis, she whispered.
I won’t say a word! Didn’t mean to barge into the bookroom …shhh (am a big fan tho, whispers back).
lol! Thank you, she shouted. And you “barge in” any ol’ time.
(cough)
Where ARE you?
Haven’t checked your emails lately, I see. š
(sigh) I did right after posting that. So check yours please.
I love moments like this!
I await eagerly the publication of “The Whole Marmot.”
Andi’s doing the cover.
I gotta tell ya — if a marmot doesn’t show up somewhere in the book you’re working on now, Marmotdude will be crushed.
The gauntlet has been thrown. Let’s see, she mumbles, are there marmots in northwest Kansas? A marmot would be the Least Likely Suspect, for sure. . .
The marmot, with a candlestick, in the parlor.
So I went looking to see if marmots had ever been in Kansas and found this interesting bit of info:
You are too much! Now I need to google to find the Marmoton River. And the called them prairie dogs, but are they the same?
You won’t find it with that spelling — it’s the Marmaton River (and it flows through Fort Scott, KS) wherever that is.
And prairie dogs are in the same family as marmots but they aren’t the same — those frenchies got it wrong (then again, they aren’t dogs either so no one else has anything to brag about).
I knew if I spelled it wrong and waited long enough you’d do all the work. With very little effort (of course), I could give passive-aggressives a bad name.
Maybe after I retire from being a computer consultant, I’ll let you hire me as a research assistant — that way, I won’t be thrown into shock by the sudden withdrawal from all my passive-aggressive customers. Though I’m afraid that it won’t really work, since you are woefully inadequate in the asshole category.
Well, shoot! I’ll have to work on that. Wouldn’t want you working in an unfamiliar environment.
If Karl Rove is ever arrested maybe Boo would change the mascot to a marmot. But Marmot Bottom Cafe? Maybe not.
It’s my dearest dream to be in the same room with you two. I love it when you’re on a roll.
Backatcha, right, Andi?
I’m replying to my own comment for the space. . . .
sniff, I feel like I’ve got a couple more sisters! I’ve always wanted to have 6 sisters.
Is it time to move to the Cafe for hugs?
sniff, uh-huh . . .
Makes you wonder if the reviewers read the last half. š But I really really liked the first half, though it’s hard to recommend a book just for half of it. I was totally impressed by her act of imagination in thinking up the idea for this book. It will be interesting to see if any of our other readers think she fulfilled the promise of that first half.
I am also ambivalent about her style.
Are the dashes for quotes a way of keeping the passive (or remote) voice while still having conversation?
That remoteness reminds me of certain books by Ursula K. LeGuin.
Could you elaborate a little more about this? I don’t think I even understand what an epigram is.
An epigram is short, witty saying like (a personal favorite) Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist everything but temptation.”
I’m not sure Millet’s are quite epigrams but she does seem to like to make or to have her characters make pithy and meaningful sounding pronouncements.
Here’s an example from page 194: “Reason, like bombs, can be deployed from far away. Closer up there is nothing but feeling.”
Thank you! for saving me from having to look some up.
I think you’re right, Andi. They’re not really epigrams. What’s a word for “pithy and meaningful pronouncements?”
Geshundheit.
slogans? banalities?
How can there be a question about the main characters?
One difference between Oppie and Ben is that we get to see inside Ben’s brain more than Oppie’s (my nephew’s name by the way).
So if there is a question about it, couldn’t that mean that the author changed her mind about who the main characters should be?
I think the split and the reaction probably is caused by the fact the first half is full of hope because the characters believe that what is happening must be happening for a reason and that they can understand and control their new future. The second half imposes a “special theory” of reality on that hope and demolishes the idea that any of us really has control, no matter how intelligent or how well we do (or don’t) understand our specific world.
I think it takes a certain kind of person to keep a reader’s attention when hope is lost. Vonnegut at his best made it seem effortless as did Huxley.
But, others, often imitators don’t seem to realize that they’ve lost us (or are losing us). Gore Vidal had several books in the 70s that started out with a bang-up concept. And by the end you not only were slogging through it but felt like you’d have been better off slashing your throat rather than reading it (thus my tag line for a certain type of fiction or movie as a “slash-your-throat” movie or book).
I should admit that I’m still slogging (which says something since I’m a speed-reader) through this book.
well hope isn’t so much lost as transformed into something both more and less human but since you haven’t finished the book I don’t want to say more than that.
Actually, I don’t mind spoilers at all. Not at all. If I like a book or movie, I always, always enjoy it more the second time through than the first.
I worry too much about everything the first time through. Will I like the end? Do I like this character or that? Am I going to be too scared. Too grossed out? Will I be let down by the ending? Will someone I like die.
None of it actually matters if I like the book, but the questions make me nervous.
So, spoil away. I will only like it more knowing what’s coming, I can absolutely assure you.
I know that I’m dragging through it because there are only more questions not less. Give me some answers! That’s why I’m here.
I do think that when it comes to the official discussion we have to feel liberated to talk about all parts of the book.
If I thought my not having finished would stiffle conversation, I would have kept my mouth shut or stayed away.
Wasn’t that a song by Simon and Garfunkle?
Anyway, I was looking for something to compare the likelihood of stiffling me to and I couldn’t come up with anything so don’t worry about that. But I do think the impact of the end of the book would be better if I didn’t try to describe it (and I’m not entirely sure I can).
It’s something of a truism in novel writing that it’s a bad idea to have an ill-defined villian, that a book is weakened if the villian(s) is/are never really identified or turned into actual full-blooded characters. Did you think the Bad Guys were well enough identified in this book?
I think there were no villains in this book (there were some bogeymen but that’s different). All the main characters’ behavior is driven by their certitude that their particular illusions represent truth and reality and they are all wrong. Perhaps that is part of what is troubling about the book — everyone is wrong.
The “real” villains, for me, and the power of this book, lay in the non-fiction parts. There came a point, I think when she was detailing the vast numbers of bombs we have manufactured, and the way people around bomb sites have been treated, when I thought more than I have ever thought before in my life. . .we are in the thrall of evil men and most people don’t even know it.
Reading about the military/industrial/atomic complex. . .which I knew, but for some reason this brought it home more powerfully. . .I felt like a Republican must feel about welfare–so many of my taxes going into a great ravenous maw from which no benefit to society returns. And the Bushes have started it up again.
ditto to your whole comment.
I almost feel like skimming through the rest just to read these. Everytime I come to a non-fiction aside, I sit up and focus. And think that I’ll get a copy of it for my folks for Christmas. And then . . .
My folks, my dad in particular were very involved in some of the very events that are portrayed here. My dad witnessed 2 or 3 test explosions in Nevada (as a scientist). He said that they sent enlisted men out into the tested area to gather soil samples (in paper cups) right after the explosions. They always expected him to be the one with cancer problems, but he’s had no history of that at all.
So my subject head fits better than I knew? š
Apparently, it is not possible to overestimate the ability of our government to subject its citizens to the possibility of pain and suffering. Thank god your father has such a tough constitution that he has foiled them.
If it wouldn’t be a copyright infringement, I’d like to type out all those non-fiction paragraphs and post them in a diary.
I’d love it! Oh the burden of ethics. I wonder if she could be talked into extracting them as a special edition (or something).
I thought she really captured that strange romantic aura that surrounds Oppenheimer. What was it about him? Was it just that he was that seductive combo of handsome and smart, was it the eyes?
I picked that particular photo of him so we could see the porkpie hat he’s often wearing in the book.
Interesting how, in her portrayal of the 3 scientists being captured by the Christian fundies, she mirrored the strange bedfellow alliance we have seen between some Jews and the fundies. She had Leo allowing himself to be co-opted by them, just the way (I believe)certain Jews have allowed themselves to be co-opted by people who actually want them dead so the rapture can come. That has always left me shaking my head. I read just this week that those strange bedfellows may be parting company. About time, is all I can say.
(I don’t see any reason why we can’t reproduce the sections that we want to discuss — If we were sitting in a room together, we would read them aloud after all)
So, our leaders were quite open about their willingness to end civilization? He doesn’t mention anything about “winning”, only that we should be the ones to end everything.
As she built up the atomic story, paragraph by ominous paragraph, didn’t you get the feeling that this was the Greatest Self-Fulfilling Prophecy story of all time? It’s as if the men in charge of these things cannot help themselves, as if they are compelled, like little boys, to build the bombs and then see how they go boom. Whether they know it or not, they hunger for that blast. Hunger for it.
NRDL is where my parents worked when they met. And my dad worked there until we moved to Kansas in 1967 (I wonder what would have happened if he had stayed until closing?). It was very stressful for my pacifist father because even though the stated mission was to find a defense against nuclear weapons — the atmosphere was more aggressive than not.
From what I’ve heard from him – what you said, “Whether they know it or not, they hunger for that blast.” is right on the mark.
I think they were hungering for the quest; they attached themselves to this great project and that’s all they can see — the new knowledge, the discoveries and how they will be a part of it; they lose themselves — literally – in the process which allows them to disconnect from the reality of what they are doing. Ann’s story is a reflection of this same thing but on a more intimate scale.
Yes, that’s true about Ann attaching herself to the quest. It’s thrilling to think we’re part of something larger than ourselves. Just ask those of us who joined the Dean campaign.
The difference is that when people work for a political campaign they are focused on the purpose, more so than the process. In fact, sometimes that’s people only see the purpose and the process gets trammeled. It’s the opposite of Ann and Oppenheimer — people who get so focused on the purpose that they forget to examine the process — when that happens, you get Bradley, don’t you?
I dunno. There’s process and there’s process. The scientists probably loved doing the day to day process, which is to say the science, just as in the Dean campaign we loved doing our campaign stuff. I think what you’re getting at is not the process of the daily work, but the process of continuing to ask oneself the big moral questions? And actually I think one of the reasons Oppenheimer and Ann got so paralyzed and passive was that they were continually engaged in introspection about what was really going on and whether it was a good thing. Esp. Oppenheimer, who understood more.
Or possibly I have completely misread your point!
I’m not sure I know anything about Bradley, actually, because we ended up not really knowing who he was or what he was really working for. Or so it seemed to me.
I was thinking about some of the things I’ve read about Los Alamos (particularly by Richard Feynman) that make it clear that many of the scientists never gave any real thought to the purpose of the science they were doing — that there reasons they were there was to come up with a weapon to kill people. They were so immersed in the pleasures of doing science that they were able to, in essence, disconnect themselves from reality.
My roommate’s family has a member in its tree who was a scientist involved in this sort of thing at a particularly critical time (which is all I feel comfortable saying about that since it’s not my family). Feynman’s interpretation resonates strongly with what I’ve heard from their family. Their family member spent his older years in some regret and anger, having had a sense of what he had done finally dawn on him.
I think this happens not only in science, but in many human endeavors.
I used to write and produce commercials for a radio station–and I loved the work. I specialized in clever dialogue and had great fun producing and starring in my little 30- and 60-second pieces of theater. The thought that there might be social costs to advertising didn’t flutter through my mind.
Later, during my short-lived practice of law, I discovered that my enjoyment of the field was limited to the abstract–loved doing the research, couldn’t deal with clients. It was great fun to poke around the cases and statutes to come up with a novel legal argument. But I couldn’t stomach using that novel legal argument to help the firm’s corporate clients screw someone else over. Building the bomb was fun, up until it came time to use it.
Do you suppose her style lost the rest of them? Do you think they started reading it and didn’t make it very far at all?
I wish I could talk about this with you all. I just haven’t had time to read it this month!
Isn’t that the irony of being a librarian? I hear book store owners saying the same thing. They got into the biz because they love to read. . .and now they don’t have time to read.
Yes it’s terrible to be surrounded by books you want to read and can’t ’cause there’s no time.
it’s not terrible, it’s actually quite stimulating to be surrounded by books, and I’m lucky to have the access. But alas this last and the next couple of months are hella busy for me.
Do librarians, like bookstore owners, get stuck with a pile of books you have to read, as opposed to those you’d choose to read?
Sometimes… school or youth librarians have to keep up on kidlit which I love to read, but insead as an academic librarian I must try to keep up with piles of painful professional journals on arcane topics.
Could be, or maybe a novel is just not going to attract a crowd. Last time we had such a truly “current event” and lots of people who hadn’t read the book wanted to talk about that, too.
Let’s go back to really timely non-fiction next time and see if that makes a diff. This is all an experiment, really.
as much as it was that the book was big, only available in hard cover, and very complex.
I think for both fiction and non-fiction we should stick to smaller (350 or less) books that are available in paperback.
I’d like to see us tackle some poetry — not a whole volume but two or three pieces that we could take apart in detail. There are a lot of poetry readers and writers on this blog.
Yeah, the size and cost. . .
I, too, am thinking that we ought to go paperback next time, esp. if we want to encourage Powell purchases.
I love poetry, but I’m not sure about doing it here, Andi. It is BooBooks. I’m always willing to be out-voted,and if you want to you should bring that up when we select the next, um, book. Or. . .how about if somebody (hint) does that in another series? The more activity, the better, it seems to me. Which reminds me, doesn’t the site seem lively today? It feels like Saturday at the market–Cafe over there, book club meeting over here, art fair over there, economists gathered in that corner, techies getting together, movie buffs at another table, people collecting names on petitions. . .I love it.
the art fair is a non-dial-up event — I tried it but I haven’t got the patience to wait it to load. Maybe I’ll visit it the next time I take my laptop where there is wifi.
I’ve got a bit of work that needs finishing up, then I’ll come back and jump in.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who didn’t exactly find the book to be smooth sailing. There were certainly some wonderful quotes, though, such as this from p. 102:
And Oppenheimer again, on p. 469, just before the cranes descend:
I think a principal theme of the book concerns our enormous capability for self-deception, as reflected in those quotes.
I’ve been struggling, though, with the rather heavy-handed religious themes. You’ve got the “Trinity” of Szilard-Oppenheimer-Fermi, you’ve got Ann and Ben playing something of a Mary-and-Joseph role, you’ve got all the various screwed-up disciples, you’ve got poor Eugene (who dies in the library) as John the Baptist and Clint the smelly double agent as Judas. Is it all meant to be merely satirical, or is the author trying for a more profound critique?
I was trying to think what role Eugene plays, in the religious metaphor sense. I also hadn’t connected Ann and Ben with Mary and Joseph.
I’m so glad you quoted those particular things.
I thought a lot about the first one, when I first read it, asking myself if I think that’s true. I decided that I do. (It’s an example of her epigram style that I mentioned earlier.)
The second one I may even have missed while I was kind of skimming toward the end, so I’m esp. grateful that you spotted it. That may be the heart of the book and even her reason for writing it?
The reassurance quote immediately made me think of the role played by the media–for every quote about the dangers of global warming, there must be a “balancing” quote dismissing the concept. Even the fearmongering that the media engages in–such as missing white girls–tends to fall within the realm of Things We Can Prevent. Don’t marry a murderer. Don’t go to Aruba. Avian flu? Yes, it could be a pandemic–but don’t worry, there’ll be vaccine. The really scary stuff is either downplayed or not reported at all.
I think the “enemy within” concept does lie at the heart of the book. It certainly ties into the discussion about the pursuit of science without examination of the uses of science.
Yes! The global warming reassurances are perfect examples, as were all the reassurances given to all the people affected by all the bomb blasts. Nothing to fear. Nothing to see here. Move along to the movies.
I got the book. I started the book. I was way to busy to finish the book. I asked every person in the bookstore I was signing at on Thursday if they had heard or read it (I was cheating, looking for an oral book report). Nobody had even heard of it. And this was a pretty cool bookstore. I was surrounded by brillian reading people. Still. Nada.
I have no right to form opinion, since I only got through a handful of pages. But I’m emboldened by the general willingness to go negative on the book. I thought it sucked. The only thing I liked at all was the concept (definitely an intriguing concept to have the father of the A-bomb caught in some mystical time-warp). But as for execution on the idea, I was asleep everytime I picked the book up.
Hated the format. Those dashes are incredibly distracting to me. I read a popular Australian literary novel a couple of years back, where I was first introduced to that style. Seems like crap to me. Is it an artsy thing, or what? Because it just pisses me off so that I don’t want to read, even if I like the work.
Wasn’t overly fond of the author’s language/voice. Since so many people voted for the book, I figured it was critically acclaimed and really great. But now I’m just confused. How did we get stuck with this book? Who thought it was going to be a great read? And why?
I know. I’m not much of a reader. And probably way too blunt for this discussion. Just calling it as I see it from my fairly uninformed place. I would have smiled and nodded politely if everyone else had obviously liked it. I’m secretly relieved that others couldn’t stand the second half, at least. And feel better about not finishing it. That anyone would compare it to Vonnegut, my favorite living author, makes me cringe. Vonnegut = a fucking genius. This = not even readable for some people, I think.
Okay. Someone educate me on what I missed. I will admit to complaining from a place of ignorance.
One last point. Something Kansas said. At the beginning. About the allure of the bomb. Humanity’s desire to use it. I did like the factual aspects of the novel (those I got to). One that I liked was the explanation that there was a small probability known to the fathers of the bomb that in the test, they may actually incinerate the atmosphere. And how the bet was placed (by Oppenheimer, if memory serves) where he wins if they live and he loses only if everyone is blown up.
And as to the “need to nuke,” I can relate. Let me reveal my really geeky side. I love the computer game Civilization. Can play it for hours. Do best to avoid it altogether. Addictive. Time suck. The game allows you to build a civilization through the ages. Technological advancements. Territorial and resource disputes. Politics. Diplomacy. Very fun. As a game. But I have always found that once I am in a warlike game, where countries are building the bomb (including myself), I, Mr. Pacifist, do have the insane desire to just find out what will happen if I nuke a few million people here or there. I have even indulged this whim for want of reason from time to time. So that is my personal experience with the “need to nuke.” I think it is definitely in us. The pathos. The death instinct. I am become death. And I’ve read some passages of Chomsky where he talks about the mere existence of these weapons as the most immediate threat to our existence. Not terror. Not even the collapse of the global envrionment. Just the chance of an errant nuking, or some lunatic who decides he wants to act on his pathos.
More than enough said. For someone who has not finished his homework. I’d take a zero for this in law school. And never make the law review.
It was my original suggestion. One of the guys I work with loved the book — especially the end(!!) I read the descriptions and it seemed like it would fit our club.
(sigh)
I was wrong.
(sigh)
At this moment I don’t think I will never read anything at his suggestion again.
In my defense, I will say that I never said or implied that I had read it. I told everyone about he recommendation. And posted the reviews. Everyone worked with the same information I had.
However, I am very sorry.
Don’t be sorry! I think most of us are glad to have read at least parts of it and anyway, it was our choice to pick it. There were other possibilities.
Oh God. Please don’t apologize. I was just venting. Not on you or the Boo Books selection process. (I am an ignorant hick when it comes to literary criticism — you shouldn’t apologize, you should playfully flame me).
I don’t flame people. Not even playfully. I do stop talking to them though, so I’m glad you got back in touch before it came to that.
Well, see, katieb’s friend–a guy, if that makes any diff, and who knows?–hated the first half, but loved the second half, so maybe you would, too. Not that you should plow through to get there.
As to how we picked it, mainly from a recommendation and from the reviews. Hard to know when we’re picking blind. It sure sounded great–because of that premise.
I’m glad I read it, though. I really did like the first half and the non-fiction parts were worth it, all by themselves. Glad I didn’t purchase it, though.
Sell any books today?
I know that you are reluctant to spill the beans about the ending of a book. But could you email me a summary?
I’m just wondering why he thought is was the most amazingly powerful explosive ending ever. And that the last half built to it?
Did you read anything like that?
(I promise to read the whole book if you tell me)
I think I would sum up the ending as “What if they gave a Rapture and nobody came (or, rather, practically nobody left)?”
ah. well. I promised I’d read it, so I will (actually after talking so many others into it, I would have anyway)
You didn’t twist any arms. Don’t read it out of guilt.
Well don’t forget the guy in the next cubicle. I can make much more pointed comments if I’ve actually read the book before I blast him.
Tell us the end. Just the basics. Tell the story in three acts. No more than three sentences per act. Because, I can promise you, I’m never picking the book up again, except perhaps to use it as an oversized coaster.
Not knocking selection process. Just venting. Don’t worry about me.
My favorite response from an unprepared law student came from a classmate who was called on in administrative law class: “Beam me up, Scotty. I’m in serious trouble down here.”
I didn’t really mind the stylistic quirks, such as the dashes. And I can’t say that I disliked the book, although I agree that there was some serious bogging-down and it was a bit heavy on the cryptic.
I was always a good boy. Rose at 4am, if necessary. Always had assignments read. Talked too much. I was an idiot. Had contracts professor right out of “The Paper Chase.” Used to have nightmares where he turned into a serpant. But I grew to love the Socratic method. And I sure as hell loved using it when I got a chance as an Adjunct. I think it is the best method for learning. A modified-nice Socratic discussion.
I generally stayed on top of things in law school, but I had moments where I just Made Shit Up.
Once in a class on regulated industries, a friend (who was sitting next to me, and who was an undergrad economics major) answered a question with a discourse on opportunity costs. I must have looked especially clueless, because the professor asked me to respond. And I did. I had no idea then and have no idea now what the hell I said–I was channeling some Higher Source of BS. The prof, a wise man, simply moved on.
So you guys must have mostly hated it, too. To let me get off that easy cussing the book out. Come on. You can say it. It sucked. Right?
(Oh, and my hidden agenda for anger. Soft Skull Press turned my novel down with a form letter. They will rue the day. Bastards.)
P.S. — I’ve actually shot ahead of Pure and Radiant Heart on Amazon rankings 45,679 to 53,081. Eat your heart out Soft Skull. I’m on a tear since Kos this week and my cool reviews. Fucking corporate book industry.
Barnes and Noble Rankings I mean. Bad Joe. Bad. Says Cedwyn in my head. Buy blue. Or buy green at Powells.
Well, shoot, no wonder you’re pissed!
I only thought the last half sucked and even then I loved reading the non-fiction parts.
Sorry! š
Alright. I acknowledge the cool non-fiction parts. I even found some of those in the first few pages. But I bet you could have got most of that using Google, right?
Which leads me to a question for the seasoned author. What in the hell did you do before the invention of Google? Did you like live in a library as you wrote? Or am I assuming your writing career is longer than it really is?
I am old. It is long. I made things up.
I notice that you aren’t telling him
Oh, never mind.
You are not old. I can prove it. First, I’ve got a fairly recent novel of yours, and your photo on it looks great. Not old. Second, you can still appreciate trendy bits of Internet humor, like this Spongemonkey song that references Marmots. You must listen to the whole thing. At least to get to the part about Marmots.