I also went out and bought a copy as soon as I could recognising that any book that could so strongly affect me HAD to be on my shelf.

I’d forgotten about that!

Maybe I need to re-read that too.

Lordessa, so much wonderful work out there, and all at my fingertips.

Just time — not so much ….

Love, C.

I really get into books I read and I finished “1984″ in one sitting, so when I read that line I was so revolted/shocked by what had happened to I thew the book across the room and may have done even worse if it had not been on loan from a friend.

I also went out and bought a copy as soon as I could recognising that any book that could so strongly affect me HAD to be on my shelf.

We all, meaning us, with educations and professions, think that we can prepare for any catastrophe by putting our essential family documents in waterproof containers, and gird ourselves with belts of water and freeze-dried food, and battery flashlights, etc, and have cell phones to reach our children wherever they are when the Thing comes down.

Love, C.

Richard writes:
Modern life is rapid change as the norm rather than the exception

Interesting - there might be something too that. I think we have become so accustomed to change that it’s difficult for us to put ourselves into the mindset of a time and place much more static. I know it is for me - all of my books are about change, no matter where or when they are set.

Where do I belong? and the other questions above are fundamental questions, period.
They have always been with us, not just in changing times.
-Perhaps I am seeing this from a different angle and these questions don’t need to be asked in static societal groups because the answers are obvious and intrinsic.

Many peoples in many times have been fortunate (open to argument on that) to have stable society (village, tribe, whatnot) where the belonging is clear and lasts a lifetime.
For writers there’s not much conflict there.

Many other peoples have not been so lucky and change upsets the apple cart.
Lucky for writers.

As a simplistic example (coming from a simplistic person), “The newly-orphaned child looked over the smoldering ruins of its village”.
Now there’s a simple, rapid and fundamental change, and in different forms is the start of so many stories, not surprisingly.

Modern life is rapid change as the norm rather than the exception (and it will only speed up, re: ‘Future Shock’).

On the positive side (also open to argument, that), the tools (tools in the most general sense) of modern life allow people the power, the independence, to choose their own belonging, their own allegiances, to a degree never seen or imagined before.

I don’t recall The Sheep Look Up that well; I read it only once, because it is pessimistic, and I was much younger then, and less able to understand or accept such pessimism. That is very much a part of the U.S.’s national character, perhaps? It would explain partly, why I did re-read Stand on Zanzibar more than once.

The optimism was acceptable, and the premise for it was intriguing, arising out of a genetic anomaly, iirc — it’s been a long time — prior to the human genome project, dna mapping, splicing and insertion of today. Additionally, as you likely know, Brunner modeled the structure and format of Stand on Zanzibar on American writer, John dos Passos’s USA trilogy. I was deep in my American Literature studies then, so this aspect was fascinating. I think perhaps this was the first sf genre work I’d encountered to use accepted “Literature” as a model. Later, of course, one learns this is common generic practice — and within sf/f many a writer does this, such as Benford taking on Faulkner, for instance, and even more lately, Robin Hobb’s second volume in her latest series, following to a degree, but with great imagination and originality, the narrative structure of sequential, rather than necessarily consquential, events in Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (see Frazier, at top of the post).

In that sense I wish I recalled Brunner’s book better. For, as one American Literature critic puts it:

“Where do I belong? To whom do I owe allegiance? What is my country? Where is my home?” These fundamental questions are basic questions of identity which emerge among people when society undergoes rapid, fundamental change. The questions are social as well as personal, for they raise concerns about the nature of this society, its hopes and its reality. Such questions appeared at the beginning of this century in America. They continue to resonate even today among a large number of Americans who have lived in this century of rapid and startling change.

I don’t recall whether Brunner asks these questions in his works or not, though I suspect he does.

KSR most certainly does. But he does not, as far I could see, employ dos Passos at all, instead, relying on Emerson (I’m making a sort of joke, since extracts from Emerson’s essay, “On Self-Reliance,” is all most students ever get in their American Lit survey classes — and on that thin paper and tiny, close print in two columns, who can stand to read such stuff these days?) and Thoreau, as well as scientific literature — he shouts out one of my own favorite writers here, Sarah Hrdy (stet) — as well as Buddhism. Also, he’s deeply involved in the body itself, via outdoor sports and fitness, unlike any SF writer I’ve ever encountered. You won’t get any of that in Brunner, iirc.

Anyway, I should shut up.

But thank you so much for provoking further thinking about this. I appreciate it very much!

Love, C.