From rec.arts.sf-reviews Sun Jun 2 14:27:33 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!cass.ma02.bull.com!mips2!know!unix.cis.pitt.edu From: mctst@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Mary Tabasko) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: REVIEW: Disch, _The M.D._ Message-ID: <107@monster.pws.ma30.bull.com> Date: 31 May 91 15:41:50 GMT Sender: wex@pws.ma30.bull.com Reply-To: mctst@unix.cis.pitt.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Lines: 110 Approved: wex@pws.bull.com Review Copyright (c) 1991 Mary Tabasko %A Disch, Thomas M. %T The M.D. %I Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. %C New York %D April 1991 %G 0-394-58662-X [ISBN] %P 401 pages %0 hardback, US$22.00 Subtitled "a horror story," this new novel by Disch is a tale of power, greed, manipulation, and betrayal. If it is a horror story, it's a cerebral rather than a visceral one. The horror doesn't arise from things scraping in closets, mutilated corpses, or slavering hell-spawn inflicting misery on undeserving folk. It comes in observing how far one man with an unfair advantage will go in his quest for personal power and wealth. It's certainly not grist for the gross-'em-out horror-movie mill. The story, which begins in the 1970s and continues into the near future, roughly brackets the life of William Michaels. Shortly before Christmas, young Billy, upset after a nun at his school takes it upon herself to disabuse her young charges of such pagan notions as Santa Claus, experiences a vision of Jolly Old St. Nick himself. Santa reassures Billy of his existence and recommends that, in the future, Billy just tell the nun what she wants to hear. Billy asks the apparition about honesty of this tack and is told that "lying is only wrong with someone you trust." If you can't trust Santa, who can you trust? After espousing dubious ethical principles, Santa extracts from Billy a vow of secrecy about their meeting by offering to tell him where his older brother keeps his instrument of younger-brother torment, his "poison stick." As promised, the spirit later appears as Mercury, the god of doctors, businessmen, and criminals, and reveals the location of the poison stick, a gruesome parody of the caduceus made of a dead bird impaled on a twisted stick. Mercury also offers -- for a price, because "power is never free" -- to tell Billy how to use the stick. The price is an oath of loyalty, and Billy, like Faust, agrees to pay. The caduceus is governed by a set of rules that largely determines the course of the story. It must be enchanted, for healing or hurting, by a rhymed incantation, and any helping done must be balanced by harm. The caduceus can't kill directly, and neither can it be used to undo what it has previously done. Finally, its strength grows with use; if it goes unused for a long time, it can only hold a weak "charge." As the story progresses, Billy learns the importance of carefully wrought curses. He learns by experimenting, and the results are often tragic. He also discovers that Mercury is a trickster who likes to see that no good deed goes unpunished. Like wishes made on the Monkey's Paw, attempts to use the caduceus for good misfire in some unfortunate way, and the greater the intended good, the more horribly it will go awry. Granting such power to so young a child ensures that he will never develop a sense of right and wrong. For Billy, other people are tools to be used via the caduceus to get what he wants. Even when he has misgivings, the lure of power proves irresistible, and with the help of his powers, Billy grows up to become Dr. William Michaels, not just a doctor, but a shrewd, wealthy businessman and a famous researcher. We watch as Michaels, driven by greed and arrogance, builds an empire of research foundations and crooked real-estate deals. But his empire, founded on the misbegotten powers of the caduceus, is like a web of lies: it becomes more vulnerable to mistakes as it grows. Inevitably, it all comes crashing down. This is an anti-heroic horror novel. Williams, rather than being the character who saves us from encroaching evil, is instead the instigator of the evil. Once the plot-furthering device -- the caduceus -- is introduced, we can predict the basic rise-and-fall storyline. We watch, in horror, as person's moral sense atrophies while he becomes more and more powerful. We wait to see how far he will go; we hope he will be stopped. Aside from Mercury, there are no supernatural evils in the story, and as a result there is a dearth of typical horror-story descriptive prose. That doesn't mean that it's a "pretty" book, one that doesn't look at the goings-on, but if you want reanimated corpses and such, you will be disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it's not pleasant tale. A story with an anti-hero often provides a positive character somewhere, but there was no one in this book that I really liked. Pitied, yes. Felt bad for, sure. Liked? No. But Disch's writing kept me engaged anyway. I found a morbid challenge in trying to predict how the incantations for good would go wrong. I don't think the book is unflawed, though. One particular thing that didn't ring true to me were some of the conversations that young Billy, his brother and his step-sister hold. All of these kids are supposed to be smart, but some of the exchanges (not all) are just too smooth. Maybe I just resent kids who are more sophisticated than I am :), but I sometimes felt like I was watching one of those commercials where adults provide the voice-over dialogue for children. Many of the incidental characters struck me as rather pre-fab, but it was fun to watch them surface again later in the story. I recommend this book, especially if you're feeling cynical and mean and enjoying it. This book makes no attempt to promote faith in humanity; if you consider how the story would look to an outsider, someone who knows nothing of Mercury or the caduceus, it could describe the careers of multitudinous politicians, executives and other members of the rich and powerful set. And after reading the book, it doesn't take much effort to imagine your favorite bad-guy in the role of William Michaels. -- Mary ********************************************************************** * This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it * * is convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to * * be admired and enjoyed than used. -- H.D. Thoreau * ********************************************************************** Mary Tabasko (no relation to the hot-sauce folks) Snail Mail: 371 S. Negley Ave., Apt. 5 MaBellNet: 412/362-0544 Pittsburgh, PA 15232-1110 E-Mail: mctst@unix.cis.pitt.edu /or/ tabasko@icarus.lis.pitt.edu From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 6 09:15:16 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!ugle.unit.no!nuug!nn.no!ifi.uio.no!kth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!rutgers!network.ucsd.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!agate!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: THE M.D., by Thomas M. Disch Message-ID: <1992Apr2.041558.22001@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 2 Apr 92 04:15:58 GMT Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Organization: Pacific * Bell Lines: 153 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu THE M.D.: a horror story by Thomas M. Disch Review copyright 1992 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes Since his first novel, THE GENOCIDES, Thomas M. Disch has made it his habit to run counter to genre standards. That book was a classic SF aliens-conquer-the-world-and-decimate-mankind story, with one variation: the aliens win, finally, and mankind really is destroyed. Depressing? No, said Disch, it was funny as hell -- particularly the sausage machine scene. After all, he pointed out, the real thrill in these books was watching the world destroyed. Why not finish the job? Well, anyway, he continued, putting out an elegant (if depressing) novel every few years, earning award nominations for his brilliant CAMP CONCENTRATION -- the story of a prisoner of conscience and an intelligence-raising plague. His next novel, 334, the ultimate extrapolation of the welfare state and the dirty little war, brought him recognition outside the SF field. (He had already been garnering a reputation as a poet under the variant name "Tom Disch.") His last hooraw of proper SF seems to have been ON WINGS OF SONG, set in very much the same future world as 334, the story of a "fairy" in a world that considers bodiless flight perverse. If the term "fairy" made the obvious analogy a bit heavy-handed, there was much else that was subtle and delightful in WINGS, and many considered it a major miscarriage of justice that this novel didn't sweep the awards. In the meanwhile, Disch had begun parallel careers writing children's stories (THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER), opera libretti (THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER), poetry (THE RIGHT WAY TO FIGURE PLUMBING), interactive software (AMNESIA). . . So his novels have become fewer and farther between, and he hasn't written an SF novel since the late '70s. Some would even say that he never had; with the demi-exceptions of CAMP CONCENTRATION and ECHO ROUND HIS BONES, Disch has _never_ written a novel where speculation was central to the story. Rather, they have centered on characters, social comment, and intense irony. His last novel was THE BUSINESSMAN: A Tale Of Terror, which sank without a trace into wherever books go when nobody buys the paperback rights. It was by turns chilling, witty, sardonic, and whimsical. Which can also be said of his new novel, THE M.D., except that this time Disch has the mix down pat. It can be all four at once, and if you don't believe that read this passage. Billy Michael's kindergarten teacher, Sister Symphorosa, has just told Billy that there is no Santa Claus; Billy inisists that he has _seen_ him. When he persists, she sends him to the principal's office. "You tell Sister Fidelis what you told me, and if she agrees that you saw Santa Claus come down the chimney, then she will give you a note to me saying that you are not a liar. But if she does not, then you will have to apologize to me and to the entire class for wasting our time with such ridiculous nonsense. And you will not be allowed back into my class without either that note or an apology. Because I cannot tolerate liars." When he was out of the room, Sister Symphorosa, as a kind of reward to the rest of the class, told them the true story of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, how he'd miraculously brought back to life three rich youths whom a wicked innkeeper had murdered, dismembered, and hidden in a salting tub. "And that," Sister Symphorosa said, rounding off the wonderful tale with a lesson, "is why St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children, and why we still pray to him to be protected from robbers and thieves. But he is _not_ Santa Claus. I hope that is clear. Now, are there any questions?" The Burdon girl raised her hand. "Yes, Sally?" "Sister, what is a salting tub?" "A salting tub, Sally, is what butchers used to use in the olden days to keep meat from turning bad. When meat isn't properly preserved, it rots and gets worms in it.; But if you put meat into a tub of salty water, it won't go bad. Of course, that was in the days before refrigerators and deep freezes. If St. Nicholas had lived today, he would very likely have found the bodies of the three rich youths in a deep freeze. Are there any other questions?" There were no more questions, so Sister Symphorosa used the rest of the afternoon to teach the children to sing Christmas carols. They sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" and then "Adeste Fideles," "Silent Night," and "We Three Kings of Orient Are." Then she let them make requests. One of them asked for "Jingle Bells," but no one suggested a song about Santa Claus. She dismissed the class with a sense that she had done a good day's work. Then she remembered the Michaels boy. He had not yet returned from the principal's office. It would not do to go running after him. That would only make him feel more self-important. She took her rosary from the drawer of her desk, kissed the silver crucifix, and made the sign of the cross: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." Then she pondered the first Joyful Mystery, which is the Annunciation. Young Billy is the novel's hero. He has indeed seen the supernatural being he calls "Santa Claus," and who soon after reveals himself to be Mercury, the Roman god of (among other things) medicine. Mercury gives him a caduceus with which he can heal or harm, simply by saying a rhyme and touching the caduceus to the victim. In a sense, THE M.D. is an extended version of "The Monkey's Paw," the classic story whose moral is "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it." The power of the caduceus in a child's hands is a horrifying thing indeed, and he accidentally causes great harm to many of his family members before he learns how to control it properly. Even under control, the caduceus is a terrible thing; it can only cure in proportion as it harms. It seems to gain energy from its cursing, which must be spent to cure. Billy's first act is to take revenge upon neighborhood bullies. He charges the "stick" with a curse which will cause a terrible form of neural disorder. (He doesn't think of it that way; he merely tells the stick that its victim will "be like Bubby," a local victim.) But Billy's stepbrother finds the stick and touches it before Billy can stop him. . . The story proceeds with the fine inevitability of the greatest horror novels. And, like many of the greats in horror, it works on the emotions and not on the appetite. There is very little in THE M.D. to nauseate, but much to shock, the sensitive reader. Even the "kite scene" Stephen King lauds in his lengthy note to the public is brief, and the (limited) blood is not dwelt on. It depends on the reader's identification with the characters, which is assured from the beginning, for its emotional impact. The prose is elegant, never twisted, never calling attention to itself, but always carrying rich implications and overtones. Disch has been in complete control of the language from the beginning of his career, and never more so than in this novel. With sparing daubs of color and precisely the right details, he places the characters firmly in his imagined Minnesota. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm recommending THE M.D. as one of the best novels of 1991, possibly _the_ best, a novel as powerful as CARRIE or THE PRINCE OF TIDES, encompassing America in a fantastic vision and a confident voice. I'm done babbling; read this book. %A Disch, Thomas M. %T The M.D.: a horror story %I Berkeley Books %C New York %D April 1992 (copyright 1991) %G ISBN 0-425-13261-7 %P 466 pp. %O paperback, US$5.99