Mist

‘Mist’ (Niebla) by Miguel de Unamuno is one of the first great novels of the Modern era. By ‘Modern’ I mean from around 1910 to — well, whenever one wishes to cut it off. We were into the Postmodern by 1960, but I’m inclined to see that as simply phase two of Modernism.

The story was being written at about the same time as Proust’s first efforts toward the novel, somewhat before Joyce and other well-known Modernists were making their mark. It is certainly an Existentialist novel, as was de Unamuno an Existentialist writer and philosopher. One of the first ‘Catholic Existentialists,’ in fact, despite his bouts of agnosticism.

De Unamuno had criticized the Spanish novels of his time as all reading like French novels. ‘Mist’ does not; it feels closer to Modern English authors in some respects. The description and characterization is spare, and rises from the narrative. There is a tongue-in-cheek absurdity one finds later in such authors as Huxley and Waugh. But it also slips in some serious philosophical questions — even if they are not treated so seriously.

I had known Miguel de Unamuno’s essays and was definitely impressed by them. Now, I am almost equally impressed by his fiction. ‘Mist’ is a novel that should be more widely read and appreciated.

Best Seller

Blockbuster best-sellers rarely impress me. I recently tackled ‘The Godfather’ and found it long-winded, info-dumpy, and full of ‘telling,’ with characters who are more like caricatures.

Puzo was primarily a screenwriter, not a novelist, so I understand that he was just getting the story out, without a great deal of thought as to style. ‘The Godfather’ really works better as a movie. As a novel, it was a ‘did-not-finish.’

Maybe I’ll read a little Evelyn Waugh now to clear my palette and remind myself what good writing is like.

Review: Incomplete

A review of the novel 'Incomplete' by S.I. Foote

Although ‘science-fantasy’ is not a term of which I am particularly fond, it does describe ‘Incomplete’ as well as any other. It could also be considered a superhero story of sorts; the ‘Nine’ are very much in the same vein as the X-Men, the Justice League, and so on. With their own unique quirks, to be sure.

Anyway, it’s pretty decent science-fantasy. Oh, sure I can find things to criticize. There are some plot holes and inconsistencies; e.g. why did Plan AZ exist when there had never been any problem killing a Rogue before? We have a ‘magic’ system that does not make a lot of sense, but does, for the most part, respect its own internal logic. There is quite a bit of reliance on coincidence to tie the plot elements together. A certain amount of slightly clumsy info-dumping occurs.

But the story holds together and is written well enough. Certainly interesting enough and entertaining enough to keep me reading and to get me started on the sequel. The characters are well realized and their actions are believable. They are people we can care about, sympathize with—even the antagonists. I can recommend ‘Incomplete’ to fans of speculative fiction and to readers in general.

More on the author and their books at: https://www.sifoote.com/

Islands in the Sky

 

The first science fiction novel I ever read was ‘Islands in the Sky’ by Arthur C. Clarke. This was a young adult title that is more-or-less hard SF, published in 1952. I might have been ten or eleven when I picked it up.

It did not greatly impress me as a story at the time, yet I know bits of it have stuck with me. The ‘coffin’ space suits of my Jack Mack science fiction stories (written as Oliver Davis Pike) owe a definite debt to those in the novel. The technology is most of what I remember, to be honest; there didn’t seem to be much plot.

This was very early Clarke but he always liked to explore the engineering and science aspects in his tales. I don’t really have it in me to write hard science fiction, not that it keeps me from sprinkling some tech into my own stories. Only a little!

So when did I really discover SF that grabbed me? That would have to be the science fantasies of E.R. Burroughs a couple years later. I much preferred Barsoom to any space station Mr. Clarke might launch. And though I read a lot of science fiction in my teen years—most of the usual suspects—my tastes ran particularly to Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny and the like. Writers some might accuse even of penning ‘literary’ SF (not that such can be successfully defined).

Then I discovered fantasy and all changed.

The Wise Woman

One sometime finds Lord Dunsany’s novel ‘The Curse of the Wise Woman’ listed among his fantasy works. This is not too surprising, considering the book’s title and the fact that he is best known for his fantasy stories (Dunsany is arguably the most important and influential fantasy writer of all time). But it is not fantasy; it is novel of the Ireland in which the author grew up.

A bit of mysticism does creep in, to be sure, but it is never accepted as ‘true’ in any literal sense. Dunsany wisely leaves it to the reader to decide how to take it, how much of it to believe. Yet it is woven through the narrative and as integral to his Ireland as all the rest.

The novel is something of a love-letter to that Ireland, and there is most certainly some autobiographical material included. A great deal of hunting and shooting fills the pages, along with lessons in old-school conservation. There is also surprising darkness at times.

This is not the urban Ireland, but a wild countryside that fades into the mythical Tir-nan-Og*—at least in the mind of the narrator and other characters. Tir-nan-Og translates as ‘Land of Youth,’ and that is just what Dunsany portrays here; it is the lost Ireland of his youth, in all it beauty and danger.

At the time Dunsay wrote ‘Wise Woman’ he was becoming best known for his humorous Jorkens tall-tales. There is certainly gentle humor and satire in the novel, as there is in much of his writing, but it is, at heart, a serious work. It is also an exceptionally good novel, acclaimed at the time of its publishing (1933), but somewhat forgotten since.

A couple years later, Dunsany published ‘Up in the Hills,’ also set in Ireland but somewhat later, in the aftermath of the establishment of the Free State. More broadly satirical than ‘The Curse of the Wise Woman,’ it is not quite as good (and could possibly offend some) but worth a read.

Early on, the plot of ‘The Curse of the Wise Woman’ revolves (though not very closely) around the ‘political’ murder of the young protagonist’s father. Then it resolves on the need to stop a scheme to drain the bogs—his father had unwisely optioned them to a corporation—and cut all the peat. This is where the Wise Woman’s curse comes in. The fight against those draining the bog and that of Tir-nan-Og against the Church are much the same—and it’s a fight to be found everywhere, then and now, the old ways against the new and, perhaps, nature against man.

Despite loving Dunsany’s fantasy, both short stories and novels, I was new to this book. ‘The Curse of the Wise Woman’ is a fine work of fiction and should not have been forgotten. It may well rival ‘The King of Elfland’s Daughter’ as his best novel of any genre. I strongly recommend the book, which is available free at some sites around the internet (though it is not quite in the public domain yet in all countries). It does remain in print, so copies are available.

*That’s the way Dunsany spells it. One can find other variants.

Roots

William Morris is generally (and probably accurately) considered the inventor of the modern high fantasy novel. In ‘The Well at the World’s End’ and other tales penned late in his life, he created autonomous fantasy worlds with no connection to that in which we live (essentially, the description of what makes a story high fantasy). These books certainly influenced those fantasy writers who followed.

But before these came the two Wolflings novels, ‘The House of the Wolflings’ (or, in full, ‘A Tale of the House of the Wolflings and all the Kindreds of the Mark’) and ‘The Roots of the Mountains.’ These could best be described as historic fantasy, stories set among the Goths at some point in Antiquity. There is magic, but it is relatively low-key (prophecy, primarily) and the gods seem to take some interest in the doings of men. There is more of that sort of thing in ‘House;’ the supernatural element is barely to be found in ‘Roots.’

They are, in some respects, more accessible than the high fantasies that came later, if only because he avoided some of their archaic pseudo-medieval language. These were also influential novels. Their mark is all over Tolkien’s tales. His Goths are the template for the Rohirrim. That’s the most obvious borrowing from Morris, but we find echoes of the older writer’s work throughout Tolkien. Even the poetry is sometimes surprisingly similar.

Morris was not the writer Tolkien was. The novels are good enough, but neither masterpieces nor epics. The plots are straightforward, even a bit pedestrian. An enemy appears, there is fighting, some thoughts on mankind’s fate are thrown in. There is not a great deal of tension, no deep questions about good and evil, to be resolved by victory. This does not keep them from being perfectly good stories, and worth reading. For someone new to Morris, I would tend to recommend ‘The Roots of the Mountains’ as a starting place—especially if one already knows Tolkien! This book, and much of William Morris’s fiction, is available as free ebooks at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

Book Review: The Pioneers

THE PIONEERS by James Fenimore Cooper, a book review by Stephen Brooke

***** 5 stars

One could make an argument that “The Pioneers” was the first great American novel. It is certainly the first important one. Before Hawthorne, before Melville, Cooper gives us the American voice and sensibility (though with the obvious stylistic influence of Scott).

Yes, it is wordy. Cooper is always wordy and early Cooper even more so. The novel is not quite historical fiction in the sense some of the other Leather-Stocking books are; it is set in the time of the author’s own youth and draws on his memories of Cooperstown. Nor is it an adventure in quite the same sense. Natty Bumppo, Leather-Stocking himself, has a less central role, though he does stand as symbol of the end of an age, helping hold the story together.

The closing of the frontier, the felling of forest, the peopling of what was wilderness, is a central theme—but not the plot. Cooper knew better than do that. The theme is attached to a fairly conventional sort of story. We can all figure out who young Edwards, the closest thing to a main male protagonist, truly is. But the plot is set against the panorama of civilization expanding into the wilderness, both the good and the bad of it. Cooper was certainly a conservationist before the word existed.

The story concerns itself not only with the trees felled but the human lives impacted, including those of the Native Americans. Yet it is most certainly not all gloom. There is plenty of humor and maybe just a little too much description of everyday frontier life. It is one of those novels that captures its time and place—a newly-born nation finding itself and perhaps blundering a bit in the process. A classic and worth the highest ranking (though maybe just barely).

This review has appeared in a slightly different form at GoodReads