From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:49:16 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: liuida!sunic!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!eddie.mit.edu!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: Don Webb <0004200716@mcimail.com> Subject: Reviews: GOJIRO & ADVENTURES IN UNHISTORY Message-ID: <25930628220652/0004200716NA1EM@mcimail.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 19:59:35 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 196 Review of Mark Jacobson's _Gojiro_ Reviewed by Don Webb (c) 1993. When I was in college my American Lit instructor, a man who viewed _Gravity's Rainbow_ as slightly more important than the discovery of fire, announced one day, "No one knows what Pynchon will write next, but it's rumored that he is watching all of the Japanese monster movies." Well, _Vineland_ came, and Godzilla left only a footprint. If not for the evidence of Mr. Jacobson's name, I would have assumed that this was indeed the Pynchon work of rumor. A decidedly lesser work than _GR_ (but then _Vineland_ . . .), but linguistically and thematically a child of _GR_. "Gojiro recognized that goldplated pill, remembered the day, not so very many years before, when it rolled up onto the beach at Spandex Shore, one of several set inside an elaborate handworked snuffbox. Game for any drug, he was about to submit the pellets to his raging gastros when Komodo stopped him, pointing at the ornate funeral robes that had washed up along with the case." Now those are Pynchon sentences. The length. The clauses. The way they sound when you read them aloud. For me this epic of Gojiro, the Japanese pronunciation of Godzilla, and Komodo creates two questions. How do you judge one man's quality in writing when you can only read them in terms of another man's craft? Secondly, what do I say to the world of letters -- is this a good thing? -- to copy the masters until you develop your own style -- or should I slyly condemn this flowing prose that I myself could not (probably) master? Before returning to these questions I'll made the obvious commercial remark -- this book makes a great gift item for the Pynchon lover on you list. Well at least a so-so gift (better than _Vineland_). I'll add an obscure commercial remark -- the book judging from the Godzilla synchronicity (I've seen 34 separate Godzilla items while _Gojiro_ has lain in my "to be read" pile) will be a success in terms of sales. It will probably do the best of the Atlantic Monthly Press line. Regardless of the morality (or even the accuracy) of judging one man's work by another's success, I suspect that all new writers are read as though their works are lesser products of whomever we've come to terms with. Some (like Mr. Jacobson) are simply easier to pigeonhole. So if this were Pynchon, I'd miss the subplots and set pieces. The real difference between Jacobson and Pynchon is that Gojiro moves toward self knowledge and his discovery of himself as microcosm provides the salvation motif of the book (unlike Slothrope's quest for knowledge of the other -- specifically his Impolex-G penis -- which leads only to dissolution). Gojiro is aided and thwarted in this quest. Reversals and ironies abound -- Gojiro, massive monster, becomes a small skink, and scientists like Joseph Prometheus Brooks become specimens for Gojiro to study. Strange beams open atavistic resurgence in Gojiro, and the number one path to self knowledge is making movies. Gojiro's quest for self knowledge does bring him into conflict with the novel's various forms of evil, but beyond this, as Gojiro finds out who he is -- there is an identification with the entire process of evolution. Gojiro becomes one with the unfolding of life, which currently is menaced by the planet's leading primate. This is not as syrupy as it sounds -- Jacobson fights the rising tide of sweetness with Pynchonian elements: drugs, pollution, techno-plots, and camp. Jacobson also uses the "O" as a symbol of return, like Pynchon's rainbow. We find it everywhere from the target marks on Komodo's chest to the spelling Gojiro rather than the more common Gojira. As a novel of ideas, _Gojiro_ is one of the best examples of John Campbell's definition of science fiction as a literature of ideas. It is no surprise that Mr. Jacobson writes the ethics column for _Esquire_. True to form the originality of the novel lies in ideas. Gojiro faces the dilemma that as a Monster, he can't quite cut it as a Hero. The best he can do is find himself -- integrate himself into the whole of life. In this knowledge he finds a oneness with Komodo, finding not only a species of salvation for himself, but a promise of re-integration for us human saps as well. Now to the second question -- is this a good thing? I put forward a reserved yes. For Mr. Jacobson to achieve his paean to life, a workable style had to exist. I realize that this speaks against the current call for originality, but books do not need to be original in style. Classical poets always cast their works in the appropriate style and Pynchon-prose is the appropriate mode for the current epic. It moves between consensus reality and stylized camp reality effortlessly. It leaves the complicated goings-on of the real world whenever a close-up focus is needed -- and best of all it can just tell the reader what's going on or spice up the flow with a few jokes. The story of Gojiro and the pot holders will cheer anyone who, like me, has too many family members practicing arts and crafts. This is an exemplary novel -- a writer writing in an existing style to achieve his intent. He handles the style well and has created a minor classic which will be recognizable to all who are familiar with the "school." Of such things are bookshelves filled and hearts gladdened. Review of Avram Davidson's _Adventures in Unhistory_ Reviewed by Don Webb (c) 1993 If America were to become a police state, there would be certain books banned. Most would be banned in accordance with their slants -- a right wing state would ban the _Communist Manifesto_, left wingers might not have much use for _Mein Kampf_. But any totalitarian state would be well advised to ban _Adventures in Unhistory_ for it is the kind of book that will make the young dream dreams and start off on Quests. This is the perfect book to give people who are a little too sure about the world. The book is a collection of fifteen essays by Avram Davidson on, as the subtitle says, the factual foundations of several legends. The topics are wide ranging from mermaids to mandrakes, and mammoths to the theft of the mulberry tree. The sources of the essays seem to follow (for the most part) the career of editor George H. Schithers, who bought my first pro story and has other crimes to answer for, -- _Asimov's_ in the early 80's, then _Amazing_, then _Amra_, then _Weird Tales_. Davidson uses a light and entertaining prose for presenting his scholarship, sort of like Mircea Eliade done by Dave Barry. But the light tone does not hide the two key words here: scholarship and a sense of wonder. This book is in some way the opposite of a bad fantasy novel. Instead of dragging out old stodgy fictions of dwarves and elves and expecting you to be amazed, Mr. Davidson shows real wonders and allow you to think about this universe that is_ stranger than we know. Many of the essays are accompanied by bibliographies. The range of works cited in each is astonishing. On the essay on the dragon among the fifteen books included are Mircea Eliade's _The Forge and the Crucible_, Jacob Grimm's _Teutonic Mythology_, and Philostratus' _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_. His magical curiosity has impelled him to research the topics with love and care and time far out of proportion for the money paid for the work. This is a love affair between one man and the mysterious. He senses something's out there and has looked in the best new scholarship and the older dust-covered volumes of curious and forgotten lore. But most important this is done in a critical spirit rather that the fuzzy way common to writers on occult and pseudoscience topics. This is a book of Runes, a Germanic/English term meaning literally a "Mystery" or "secret". Or if you would prefer the polysemy that Mr. Davidson himself delights in: in Latin it would be a book of "Arcanum" and in Egyptian "Seshetat." Magically it signifies the internal or subjective sense of the hidden, which is the driving force of all true becoming. It is the inner key to the power of curiosity without which Those who Know would never have set out on their Quests. Runes are thought to exist (though hidden) both within the subjective universe, and in some "place" outside the subjective universe. Because of the obscure outer edge of hidden things, the necessity of the development of objective foundations and of methods of understanding of such foundations while exploring in the usually all-too-murky world of the occult is essential. In this Davidson has succeeded, doing for popular readers what Mircea Eliade has done for the specialist. This book will be a seed for many a lifelong quest -- it shows the method and the reward. It would be the absolutely perfect High School graduation gift. The only other book that goes as well for High School graduation would be Baltasar Gracian's _The Art of Worldly Wisdom_, but I digress. George Barr has provided a series of well-crafted illustrations, and Peter S. Beagle, whom I normally find irritating, has given a good introduction to who Avram Davidson is -- although I suspect that if you deal with a bookstore that carries Owlswick works you probably already know. A final note: Something a little scary happened the day I got the book. I had been discussing the Aeon of Horus and its successor with a member of the O.T.O. (I have several black magicians in my sphere of personal acquaintance.) The O.T.O. is a group dedicated to perpetuating the legacy of Aleister Crowley. My friend was talking about synchronicities being one of the ways the god spoke to us. I was dismissing the argument when the U.P.S. (the U.P.S. is group dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Postal System) truck pulled up and delivered the yellow wrapped book. I told Gordon that I _really, really_ wanted to review this book (because I knew otherwise I would be buying it). I unwrapped the book and Mary suggested that I try bibliomancy. So I opened the book after a remark about Crowley -- sure enough to page 115 in the Crowley essay in which after some delightful remarks about the Crowley-Yeats rivalry was the passage my thick index finger rested on, describing the reception of the _Book of the Law_: _Aleister and Rose went to Cairo: and there on April 8, 1904, he had a vision, if that is what it was, which was to prove of immense effect: the "minister" of Horus, the ancient hawk-headed Egyptian god, appeared to him in the form of "a dark man about his own age with the face of a savage king." and, standing behind Crowley's left shoulder, dictated words which Crowley wrote, down:_ O blessed Beast and thou scarlet woman of his desire, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. . . . %A Mark Jacobson %T Gojiro %I Atlantic Monthly Press %D 1991 %P 356 %O Cloth $22.95 %A Avram Davidson %T Adventures in Unhistory %I Owlswick Press, PO Box 8243, Philadelphia, PA 19101-8243 %D 1993 %P 305 %O Cloth $24.75 Biography: Don Webb is the author of _Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book_, _Marchenland est abgebrannt_, and the soon-to-be released _The Seventh Day and After_. Don Webb has had fiction in recent numbers of _Future Sex_ and _Interzone_. He is a recognized authority on secret societies and an expert in ceremonial magic and small group interaction. He lives in Austin with his beautiful wife Rosemary. -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group wex@media.mit.edu Voice: 617-258-9168, Pager: 617-945-1842 wexelblat.chi@xerox.com You pathetic jugglers never lowered yourselves to developing the software. You should have paid a little more attention to R & D.