Old Friends

Two massively nostalgic books from when I first started to love reading, both of which I've gone a few years since revisiting. Satisfying, breezy stuff (Westing Game's occasional weird relationship with racial identity excepted), and the Adams reminds me that I haven't reread any of his books in years. Time to restart down the diminishing-returns road of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (sic)? Or, for that matter, to revisit Raskin's entire ouvre? PERHAPS!

Oh, and if you guys haven't read these? Do. They're swell!

"Revenge," protested the sensitive tycoon, "me?"

And here we have something beautiful. A sprawling, epic detective story, told in a marijuana haze, mixed with Los Angeles smog, paranoia, and all smushed together by the soft hands of Thomas Pynchon.

The year is 1969, and Doc Sportello, a private investigator, is trying to help out his ex-girlfriend. See, Shasta needs Doc to look into a problem involving the man she's having an affair with, Mickey Z. Wolfmann, the hotshot real-estate mogul with his fingers seemingly in every potential lot in town. So Doc lights a joint and decides to do it. Only then Mickey Z. goes missing, along with Shasta, murder ensues, and Doc finds himself immersed in a ridiculously complex conspiracy so deep that it may or may not date back to the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria.

Doc watches Looney Tunes, drinks Mai Tais and Tequila Zombies, smokes fine Hawaiian weed with his lawyer, Sauncho Smilax. He worries about Richard Nixon, rolls a joint of Vietnamese marijuana, drives down to the beach, tries to buy the Pussy-Eater Special. Pieces of the puzzle become illuminated, involving dentists, a mysterious schooner, a colony of zomes. The mystery seemingly seeped into every pore of Los Angeles, and beyond. But maybe that's just the weed talking.

Doc runs into, helps out, sometimes shares a joint with, people named Bigfoot Bjornsen, Dr. Buddy Tubeside, Jason Velveeta (a very sad pimp), Leonard Jermain Loosemeat, FBI Special Agents Borderline and Flatweed, Blondie-san, Scott Oof, Asymmetric Bob, Trevor "Shiny Mac" McNutley. He gets an erection when women hold eye contact. He uses a ouija board to find drug connects when the city is dry. He's the kind of PI who just goes with the flow, and trusts that if he smokes an after-breakfast joint and gets in the car, he'll end up where he needs to be. And he does, again and again and again.

But Doc's worried. It feels like something terrible is just on the periphery. The sixties are about to come to an end. This thing called the ARPAnet is around, in computers, connecting you to different worlds of space and time. People are sprinkling PCP into their weed, and Charlie Manson feels everywhere. But then Doc smokes a joint, some rare Hawaiian blend, and he remembers to quit being such a bummer. And then he steps out into the haze of Los Angeles, and it swallows him up.

There Is A World Inside the World

So way back when I wrote a post or two about the type of fantasy that might appeal to non-fantasy fans. The type of novel that is not about swords and knights and magicians and orcs but is rooted in literature as much or more than in Tolkien (not that there's anything wrong with that). Whatever I said before, ignore it. This is that book.

John Crowley's Little, Big (Originally and alternately titled the more telling Fairies Parliament) follows, in non-chronological order, four generations of the Bramble-Drinkwater family. They all live (with a few exceptions) in a house in upstate New York with that was designed to be many houses in one. They are related to all of their neighbors, whose surnames are (telling) things like Flood, Juniper, Mouse, Cloud, etc. They have a set of special tarot cards that has been passed down from generation to generation, that tells of their role in the "Tale" (always capitalized), a story that is both their story and the entire worlds. And they may or may not have access to the world of the fairies, a world inside of our own (making it smaller) that is also infinitely larger than our own (and may or may not exist). Meanwhile, they are architects and teachers and farmers and drug addicts and soap opera writers. They fall in love and have children and are turned into trout. And they are unknowing frontline participants in the brewing war between Faery and Human. I think.

The magic is present throughout the novel but is an undercurrent, an afterthought, the kind of magic more often found in Rushdie or Marquez novels than in Rowling or Jordan. This book, actually, may best embody the actual definition of Magical Realism, in that it is excellent examples of both. Crowley's style is highly literary, with roots in classics and poetry (every chapter is starts with an epigram, often from Shakespeare or Ovid or Aristotle, and is told in many short, named sections). The magic of reading this book unfolds slowly over time, and it has little hidden treasures (like tracking which words are always capitalized, no matter their use, words like Somewhere and Tale and There) and trying to keep track of the sprawling family (a task that recalls both great fantasy epics and Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude). The book bears a jacket quote from Harold Bloom, but is shelved with other speculative fiction (presumably. I actually couldn't find it at Barnes and Nobel, and I first heard about it via a believer interview with Crowley, which dealt largely with publishers inability or ineptitude at classifying and marketing his books). The point is I recommend it very highly for magic lovers, romantics, and all high level readers in general. Don't let the fantasy part fool you. Please.

Buy the ticket, take the ride

Hi gang.

When I was a wee lad I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was, and remains, the funniest book I've ever read. When the movie came out, I made my Dad take me on opening night. We were practically alone in the theatre. The movie was...?

I just didn't get it--how could this hilarious book turn into such a depressing, confusing mess of a film? Where was the humor? Why did Hunter speak in a voice that rendered his hilarious words incomprehensible? What happened?

I learned something from the Fear and Loathing film, something that was confirmed by Gonzo--it is hilarious fun to read Hunter's words...but to watch him living out a life of debauchery and violence is actually quite depressing.

Hunter walked the walk and talked the talk, but alienated almost everyone in his life, and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Not fun. Not funny. Good to learn from the greats; I'll make sure not to become a sexagenarian coke addict who can't pump out 1500 words a month, even with a $120,000 yearly salary.

And yet...I love Hunter. And so do all the people in his life, even if they hate him. He did it his way--let's hope that Hunter and Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious are all hitting the skull pipe in heaven and finding ways to fuck with us earthbound squares.

I'm gonna sip on some rum now and re-read some Fear and Loathing...if you hear squealing laughter, it's either me or your acid just kicked in. Either way...Hot Damn!

Stunning

Wow, Andy Lampl. Good call on this one. I have almost nothing to say (it's still really fresh, just finished it a few minutes ago), but this was really incredible. Just a rush of style and pain and rumination on love and death and God and grief, and I could not have loved it more. Y'all oughtta read this (though I have a sense I'm really late to the party on this one.)

Spooky, Scary!

A town built on incest and worm worship.

Giant rats.

Post apocalyptic beach parties.

Eyeballs in hands.

Killer laundry equipment.

A boozing--oozing blob man.

Killer war toys.

Killer trucks.

Bullies.

Psycho-killers.

Skyscraper torture games.

Killer lawn-mowers.

Vampires.

Killer kids.

Suicides.

Mom dies.

Quitting cigs.

The Boogeyman.

Yep. Tool rocked last night.

A Clockwork Orange.

O my brothers, my droogs, beautiful devotchkas, I meant to take a viddy at this book in the old mestos of high school. But I did not, feeling a malenky bit sick from drinking my milk plus synthemesc. Lactose intolerance, you see. Now, however, I've been corrected, O my brothers. With the clips on the skin of my forehead, pulling my glaz-lids up and up and up, unable to shut my glazzies or wipe away the sleepglue, I have consumed this so called A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Real horrorshow, fellow malchicks. Some real ultra-violence, a little of the old in-out-in-out, chilled moloko plus drencrom, flowing red red krovvy and kicked in litsos, and all at the heighth of literary fashion. Horrorshow indeed.