24 September 2020
My taste in fiction has two main prongs and two side paths. Mostly I long to read great fiction, superlative fiction. Oft I commence my journey by reading what has been publicly judged as high quality as determined by people like the folks who award the Man Booker prize. Some great reads are to be found in the Booker winners and shortlisted titles. Last Orders was one I really liked. The Remains of the Day was another incredible read. Give me a tale that will linger in my mind long after the book has been returned.
The other main vein of reading for me is novels set strongly in a place. Think Steinbeck’s Cannery Row or W.O. Mitchell’s stories about the Canadian prairies. Thick books, well developed characters and narratives, these are things I long for. Sometimes the stories take you to where you knew they were going to as soon as you read the first page, but the journey is such a rich tapestry as to make the journey worthwhile. I like substance in my reading 99% of the time.
Still, I have always had one main diversion, science fiction. And when I say science fiction, I mean tales of space exploration and/or of life on earth millennia in the future. Robert Silverberg, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov stand out as creators of this genre. If a story is one 50% based on the tech of getting to another galaxy, 35% on the emotions and motivations of a human crew, and 15% or less on shape-shifting, mind reading, translucent alien life forms, I am good with sitting down for a read. I have never really liked tales with species and sub-species of thinking critters imbued with human motivations. Don’t know why I don’t like these, I just don’t. Dune was a jump ball but, in the end, I really liked the novel. None of the televised or movie adaptations have moved me.
The other sub-diversion has been a single series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels. The Dresden series of books violate all my rules about reading fiction. The writing is pulpy. There are witches, faeries, and all sort of other supernatural creatures. You are never left with deep and profound musings about the human condition when you put the paperback or the tablet down. (Thank God for free online library collections, I wouldn’t want to pay for this claptrap.)
Harry Dresden, for those who know nothing of him, is a wizard practicing his trade in Chicago. Back when they existed, he advertised in the Yellow Pages. This wizard has been tempted by the dark side, and in Dresden’s world there are clearly evil and good sides, but he struggles and fights to stay on the good side.
In his struggles Dresden is mentally, emotionally and physically battered to the point where his body should fail him but he keeps going because it is the right thing to do. There is a code, a set of rules, to which he must adhere about not killing with magic and similar prohibitions. This is externally created by a body akin to the legislature of the supernatural, and like human laws really, these do not cover all situations that might arise appropriately. Harry’s love life is for shit. And electrical appliances just don’t like him.
When I dwell on it, and trust me it is not something I dwell on much, I am much too focused on my health, my finances, the state of the world, when can I leave this nuts country, etc., I think what attracts me to Harry is that he is ill equipped for the job both in temperament and impliedly in talent. He is an earthy pragmatist in a world of hyper-focused rule enforcers and of hyper duplicitous rule breakers. In the conduct of his affairs Harry isn’t given choices that are clearly good and clearly evil. The choices Harry faces are bad and worse. These bad and worse decision points come in rapid succession, stacked one atop each other and Harry has to make do after taking hit after hit in the solar plexus both literally and figuratively. And yet he prevails.
In a five-day period in which the news headlines were 200,000 dead from Covid-19, Justice Ginsburg dead, only minor charges issued in the Taylor death and the President refusing to say if he would accept defeat at the polls, I think I/we have taken enough in the way of gut punches. My reaction to the high level of psychic pain was to turn to reading those Dresden books my local library did not have but the online libraries did have. Some occasions require you to just dive right in and dive deep into fantasy to keep yourself from losing your mind. Stare down those vampires and survive Harry. Take on the werewolves and while bloodied and bruised come out alive, more or less, Harry. Face down black magic and live Harry. Yeah, I needed this schlub to win a few in the past few days. His wins has kept me from crying about America’s losses.
If Harry were real, I know he would take on Donald Trump and win. I just know it. In fantasy stories like these good does triumph over evil. One more novel to go and then I will read the news again.
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