Monday, November 26, 2018

The Book of Joan, by Lidia Yuknavitch


Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel The Book of Joan (2017) is inventive. The writer conceives of ways to imagine the future that few others, at least that I'm aware of, have managed. The writing tends towards portentousness and hyperbole. It's not quite fantasy, not quite science fiction. The novel is feminist, but its premises are vague, and at points it's difficult to know exactly where the writer is trying to go. The novel takes place in the future, sometimes after a global disaster has wiped out most of the human race and destroyed life on earth. The cause seems to have been both natural and man-made—the result of volcanic eruptions in the Deccan Flats in India, of war, pollution, and overuse of natural resources, and of the actions or powers of one of the characters. (The Deccan Flats are sometimes cited as a contributing cause of the rapid extinctions following the asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico 60 million years ago). A few survivors have escaped to caves below the surface of the earth and others have ascended to what appears to be a space station orbiting the dead planet, ruled over by a dictator named Jean de Men. He at first seems to be the embodiment of patriarchy, though events later in the novel call that into question. Those who have taken refuge on the station have been severely altered by radiation. Their genitals have atrophied and disappeared, and they cannot reproduce naturally. They have taken to altering their bodies with cosmetic surgery that adds sculptures and writings fashioned out of skin. These are not tattoos but rather more radical body alterations that leave an already unrecognizable human form even more so.
The main characters include a woman on the space station named Christine.  She is a writer, but since paper has disappeared along with all forms of printed communication, she inscribes the story she's trying to tell on the skin of her body. Her lover is a man named Trinculo, a supreme genius (so we are told, though he mostly seems a master of bombast) who's been condemned to death by Jean de Men for his rebelliousness. Christine herself is about to turn 50.  At the end of her fiftieth year she will be terminated because the law requires that everyone must die at the age of 50—this is to save resources. Down on the surface of the earth hiding in caves are Leon and Joan. They are lovers, and rebels. Joan has mythic significance.  She’s somehow responsible for the extinction of humanity but also the only hope for its restoration. The people on the space station believed that she was burned to death many years ago as a traitor. Somehow, she has survived, and she is now plotting to destroy de Men.  
Yuknavitch makes it easy to identify the potential allegory in her novel: Christine’s nickname is Christ, the last two syllables of the dictator’s name are revealing, Joan is obviously modeled after Joan of Arc, but she also has certain Christ-like qualities: she must die in order to bring about the restoration of life on the earth, and so on. But where does she get her power? This isn’t a religious novel.
The language is often breathless and poetic, abstract and long-winded. It's the kind of language, whether it's dialogic or discursive, that you would expect to find in a videogame. There’s too much speaking and declamation. There's little that's believable. The story is interesting throughout, but the terms of the narrative are so vague and the situations so unlikely, the application of logic so absent, that it's difficult to take much of it seriously. It's self-indulgent to an extreme. One can admire the complicated scenarios.  We can infer what the writer wants them to mean, the allegory of patriarchy, gender, environment, human excess she hopes to establish, but she insists too much on that meaning rather than allowing it to come out naturally.  The result is a didactic, ambiguous, overblown muddle. 

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death, by Deborah Blum


Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death (2006), by Deborah Blum, is about a remarkable point in late 19th century cultural and scientific history. Although many scientists had accepted the theory of evolution posited by Charles Darwin, not everyone had bought in, especially the general population. Some scientists who accepted the theory did not believe that it necessarily ruled out a spiritual realm. One of these was William James, the famous psychologist and philosopher, author of Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912, posthum.), and other influential texts, and brother of the novelist Henry James. Another was Alfred Russel Wallace, who co-developed the theory of evolution. These and other respected scientists, including one Nobel Prize winner, along with others who did not want to give up belief in the possibility of a spiritual existence, banded together formally and informally to conduct research that would, they hoped, prove the existence of a spiritual reality. Their organization, the American Society for Psychical Research, is still in existence today, though it lacks the prestige of its founders. James and his colleagues intended to use scientific methods to uncover spiritualistic frauds and to identify those mediums who were genuine.
These researchers were often derided by other scientists who regarded the idea of a spirit realm as ridiculous.  They were made fun of in newspapers and professional journals. Professional mediums did not particularly appreciate their efforts either because more often than not many of them were found to be frauds deceiving the witless multitudes.
A few cases produced tentative results that suggested something might be out there. The most intriguing experiment involved three mediums in different locations of the world attempting to receive messages from a scientist who had died but who had vowed before his death to make every effort to get in touch. When they compared the fragmentary messages they believed they had received, they found them tenuous. It’s unfortunate they did not pursue this experiment further. I would like to know whether the procedures employed in this research measure up to contemporary scientific standards.
Blum does not take a stand on the spirit world.  She does take with serious appreciation the efforts of the scientists involved to learn about or to disprove it.


Saturday, November 24, 2018

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald


Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016, dir. David Yates) was entertaining but lacking much energy or tension.  The second entry in the franchise The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018, dir. David Yates) is better: things of importance are at stake, evil is afoot in the guise of Johnny Depp as Grindlewald, we visit Hogwarts and meet a relatively young Dumbledore (Jude Law).  A few moments recapture the magic of the best of the Harry Potter films, but for the most part this one is as a whole less than that.  State of the arts DGI and motion capture produce truly fantastic beasts, especially Zouwou, a lion-like, dragon-like, spidery terror, which Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) manages to tame. As impressive as these creations are, there’s no doubt that they are DGI creations, that they are not real.  That actually isn’t a problem with the film. They’re part of its métier.  You accept them for what they are.  Children won’t care, though younger ones may be cowed.
The Harry Potter films benefitted from the backstory, the details, and context provided by the Rowling novels.  Many readers would have read her books and brought their knowledge of Hogwarts to their viewing of the film.  In Fantastic Beasts viewers don’t have that advantage.  As a result, this viewer found himself frequently wondering exactly what was going on, who the characters were, their histories, and so on. And I think the Potter films do a better job with exposition. But the general battle of good and evil was clear enough, and we’re introduced to characters who will clearly play important roles in the next installment, especially the character Credence (Ezra Miller), who learns from Grindlewald that he is Dumbledore’s brother Aurelius and also his bitter enemy.  A battle is in the offing (i.e., next film, to be continued, etc).
Depp is hardly recognizable as Grindlewald.  Redmayne’s acting remains odd and affected.  His character is clearly not a conventional one, and at times given his mannerisms, avoidance of physical contact, difficulties communicating, preference for fantastic beasts over people, we wonder whether he is on the spectrum. At least in the end he manages a meaningful kiss with Tina, an auror to whom he has been attracted throughout the film. I’m not sure Redmayne is right for the role, but he manages.
A major problem here is that the Fantastic Beasts films lack the engaging young characters of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and other Hogworts students who were at the center of the Potter films. Adults can’t measure up.