Brief review: Robert Charles Wilson, _Blind Lake_
Alan Scott
realized what it was about a third of the way through: this is Wilson's
take on a Stephen King novel. The mysteriously isolated community,
episodes of graphic violence, a focus on human minutiae, a cute kid who
hears voices... it could all have come out of the pages of one of King's
novels, if he had ever used quantum computing as the hook for one of his
plots. This is not necessarily a bad thing... King is very good at what he
does, and one could do much less well than to imitate him. But for Wilson,
who's capable of so much better work (I just finished rereading _Gypsies_,
which is one of the best alternate-universe novels ever written), it felt
as if I were getting second-best.
--
Alan P. Scott..................http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/apshome.htm
"It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions,
and one of the lowest human passions, a restless appetite for applause."
--David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"
Tabula Raza
"Alan Scott" <asc...@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:vlb13k3...@corp.supernews.com...
I've always thought that was one of Hume's more silly insights.
Epistemologically you could reply how can Hume know (given his philosophy),
and ontologically we may respond "why not?". Almost on par with his
miracles are absurd because they defy causation and then arguing that
causation is a mental construct. One of the funniest and overrate
philosophers, not a bad historian though...
I really liked Blind Lake and didn't see the King thing at all. If anything
Wilson is playing with familar themes gnosticism, transcendence, apotheosis
etc. I do agree with your assessment of Gypsies, a wonderful book. I just
purchased it again in hardcover after wearing out my trusty softcover.
Tab
j...@jolomo.net
> I really liked Blind Lake and didn't see the King thing at all. If anything
Just think of the scene (trying not to spoil...) with the bad guy
going out of control at the same time as everything else is falling
apart. My first thought was "Wow, an SF King novel". And I finished it
quickly just because of how readable it was but he went way past
my WSOD barrier and so many darned coincidences. Though he presented
a kind of "singularity" I hadn't considered before.
Now, _Chronoliths_ I liked a bunch and recommend
--
Joe Morris
Live music in Atlanta http://jolomo.net/atlanta/shows.html
Alan Scott
>> "It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions,
>> and one of the lowest human passions, a restless appetite for applause."
>> --David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"
> I've always thought that was one of Hume's more silly insights.
> Epistemologically you could reply how can Hume know (given his philosophy),
> and ontologically we may respond "why not?". Almost on par with his
> miracles are absurd because they defy causation and then arguing that
> causation is a mental construct. One of the funniest and overrate
> philosophers, not a bad historian though...
Oh, I think I see what Hume was getting at in this specific instance,
though I'm not especially familiar with his work (the quote above just
stood out to me, and was tacked on by the random .sig generator in my
newsreader, so I'm really not prepared to enter into a debate on Hume's
philosophy in general). It seems a contradiction to me, too: if we are to
attribute human appetites to our deities (to answer your "why note?"), why
stop with this one? That way lies the Greek pantheon of petty,
squabbling, sex-crazed gluttons, all those gods created in our images,
which is I understand rather the reverse of the intended process.
Isn't insisting that our God is so insecure that He (it's always He...)
must have constant reassurance of His greatness rather a sign of
disrespect, a failure of imagination? Wouldn't a real deity - omnipotent,
omniscient, all those NON-human qualities we already attribute - be above
that sort of thing? That, I think, is the absurdity Hume was talking
about here.
> I really liked Blind Lake and didn't see the King thing at all. If anything
> Wilson is playing with familar themes gnosticism, transcendence, apotheosis
> etc. I do agree with your assessment of Gypsies, a wonderful book. I just
> purchased it again in hardcover after wearing out my trusty softcover.
Oh, don't get me wrong - I liked _Blind Lake_ (haven't had a chance to
read _Chronoliths_ yet but am looking forward to it - next up is a reread
of _The Divide_). I just was struck by the similarity in several scenes
(and I'm not the only one - see followup in this thread) to how King
would've handled things. Wilson at this level is still head and shoulders
above most of what I run across these days...
--
Alan P. Scott..................http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/apshome.htm
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
--Sigmund Freud
Tabula Raza
> Tabula Raza <Uri...@ulro.net> wrote:
> >> "It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions,
> >> and one of the lowest human passions, a restless appetite for
applause."
> >> --David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"
>
> > I've always thought that was one of Hume's more silly insights.
> > Epistemologically you could reply how can Hume know (given his
philosophy),
> > and ontologically we may respond "why not?". Almost on par with his
> > miracles are absurd because they defy causation and then arguing that
> > philosophers, not a bad historian though...
>
> Oh, I think I see what Hume was getting at in this specific instance,
> though I'm not especially familiar with his work (the quote above just
> stood out to me, and was tacked on by the random .sig generator in my
> newsreader, so I'm really not prepared to enter into a debate on Hume's
> philosophy in general). It seems a contradiction to me, too: if we are to
> attribute human appetites to our deities (to answer your "why note?"), why
> stop with this one? That way lies the Greek pantheon of petty,
> squabbling, sex-crazed gluttons, all those gods created in our images,
> which is I understand rather the reverse of the intended process.
Well to be fair I just finished Dan Simmon's Ilium. You can read Ilium as a
kind of extended meditation on Clark's law that answers Hume quite well.
Hume's making an unwarranted assumption that a supremely powerful
being/entity would NOT exhibit the worst aspects of human nature--simply
because it offends his sense of logic. The assumption is unwarranted by his
own philosophy which relegates metaphysics to the dustbin.
> Isn't insisting that our God is so insecure that He (it's always He...)
> must have constant reassurance of His greatness rather a sign of
> disrespect, a failure of imagination? Wouldn't a real deity - omnipotent,
> omniscient, all those NON-human qualities we already attribute - be above
> that sort of thing? That, I think, is the absurdity Hume was talking
> about here.
>
But of course, he's being absurd himself. Who is to say what would go one
in the mind of a being of such power? Hume is anthropomorphizing as he
skewers those poor benighted Christian who anthropomorphize. SF is filled
with plausible examples of godlike beings acting like the worst psychotics
"humanly" imaginable.
> > I really liked Blind Lake and didn't see the King thing at all. If
anything
> > Wilson is playing with familar themes gnosticism, transcendence,
apotheosis
> > etc. I do agree with your assessment of Gypsies, a wonderful book. I
just
> > purchased it again in hardcover after wearing out my trusty softcover.
>
> Oh, don't get me wrong - I liked _Blind Lake_ (haven't had a chance to
> read _Chronoliths_ yet but am looking forward to it - next up is a reread
> of _The Divide_). I just was struck by the similarity in several scenes
> (and I'm not the only one - see followup in this thread) to how King
> would've handled things. Wilson at this level is still head and shoulders
> above most of what I run across these days...
>
> --
Please let us know what you think about the Divide. I just found a mint
hardback and I'm eager to know whether it gets a transfer to my much sought
after 'to be read pile'.
Best,
Tab
j...@jolomo.net
> hardback and I'm eager to know whether it gets a transfer to my much sought
> after 'to be read pile'.
Can't you just see all others squirming to move to that first tier pile?
I do kind of identify with the poor book that sits there for a bit,
then has its first dozen or so pages rifled through and then is
placed (ignominiously) on the "maybe next season" stack, or, even more
embarrassingly on the "off to the used book shop" stack.
Poor, poor, sad little book :*( But, and here the
Cimmerian's eyes blazed in answer, "Glory to the conquerers!"
Alan Scott
> Well to be fair I just finished Dan Simmon's Ilium. You can read Ilium as a
> kind of extended meditation on Clark's law that answers Hume quite well.
> Hume's making an unwarranted assumption that a supremely powerful
> being/entity would NOT exhibit the worst aspects of human nature--simply
> because it offends his sense of logic. The assumption is unwarranted by his
> own philosophy which relegates metaphysics to the dustbin.
> But of course, he's being absurd himself. Who is to say what would go one
> in the mind of a being of such power? Hume is anthropomorphizing as he
> skewers those poor benighted Christian who anthropomorphize. SF is filled
> with plausible examples of godlike beings acting like the worst psychotics
> "humanly" imaginable.
I saw those episodes too, and I'm with James T. Kirk - you don't worship
a god like that, you throw a punch at him.
More seriously: I take Hume's statement not so much as an assumption
about whatever deity may actually exist, so much as it is pointing out a
logical contradiction within the very human concept of god-as-personality
(Jehovah, Yahweh, the Three-Headed One or whatever your local name for
that deity is). IF God the Father is omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent
AND has the personality depicted for him in such works as the King James
Bible, THEN he's not especially admirable as a being. This does not rule
out other, more ineffable conceptions of deity, nor does it
anthropomorphize deities in general; it's merely the basis for a disbelief
in the idea of God-as-he-is-usually-wrote. Or so I take it; more
extensive reading of Hume might well disclose that I've misinterpreted him
horribly.
Haven't gotten to _Ilium_ yet, by the way, but I like Simmons; will be
looking for it.
> Please let us know what you think about the Divide. I just found a mint
> hardback and I'm eager to know whether it gets a transfer to my much
> sought after 'to be read pile'.
I bought it in hardback soon after it came out; I didn't like it quite
as much as _Gypsies_ but I do remember feeling that I hadn't wasted my
money. It does have the Wilson touch; I'd advise making the transfer if
you like Wilson in general.
Thanks!
--
Alan P. Scott..................http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/apshome.htm
"Who will babysit the babysitters?"
--Jello Biafra, "The Power of Lard"
Ron Henry
> Something about this book was nagging me just below the surface, until
I
> realized what it was about a third of the way through: this is
Wilson's
> take on a Stephen King novel. The mysteriously isolated community,
> episodes of graphic violence, a focus on human minutiae, a cute kid
who
> hears voices...
I haven't read any King in the last 20 years, but, fwiw, these sound
like characteristics shared with most of Wilson's other writings as
well. (I guess he hasn't done the kid thing since early in his career,
but definitely the other three are recognizably characteristics of other
Wilson novels.)
Ron Henry
Alan Scott
> I haven't read any King in the last 20 years, but, fwiw, these sound
> like characteristics shared with most of Wilson's other writings as
> well. (I guess he hasn't done the kid thing since early in his career,
> but definitely the other three are recognizably characteristics of other
> Wilson novels.)
I certainly won't say you're wrong, although I never got the same
feeling from Wilson's earlier works myself, back when *I* was still
reading King (more recently than you, but still not for many years). And
I really don't think Wilson was directly imitating King or anything crass
like that. I do think that _Blind Lake_, unlike earlier Wilson novels, is
at least to start with much more like a straightforward horror novel, with
the sfnal concept almost irrelevant. In _Darwinia_, say, the alternate
Europe is a major plot element from the get-go, and we know (or *think* we
know) a lot more about what happened - the book *feels like* science
fiction. In _Blind Lake_ the story starts out with a much tighter focus
on the people and how they react to their mysterious isolation, and
doesn't really explain anything, and so it *feels more like* a (relatively
well-written) horror novel. To me, at least, hence the King feeling.
Thanks!
--
Alan P. Scott..................http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/apshome.htm
"He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star."
--William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"