Song For Che

Otomo Yoshihide's cover of Charlie Haden's famous "Song for Che" embodies the natural connections between the jazz avant-garde and the worlds of rock, hardcore, punk, and metal. I am not sure what one should call this, but a sort of 'punk-jazz' fusion of jazz themes, instrumentation and improvisation meet the frenetic and raucous sounds of rock and its successor genres makes for interesting listening. Otomo Yoshihide's jazz groups also reinterpreted Eric Dolphy's classic Out to Lunch in a similar vein, definitely worth checking out. I always enjoy it when the rockers try to do jazz, and though it's usually less impressive to me than say the actual music of Haden or Coleman or Ayler, it still makes life worth listening. The same could be said of Captain Beefheart, too. 

The Ganymede Takeover

The Ganymede Takeover is worthwhile for a very phildickian tale combining more typical Dick themes with some surprising twists and turns, especially in regards to the Civil Rights Movement and the Nation of Islam. And as a collaboration with Ray Nelson, it's interesting to see how the writing style is, while similar to that of other Dick novels and full of much of his creative imagination and technology in a near-future Earth, is also full of unexpected humor and different pacing in terms of the plot (not to mention some awkward but possibly self-aware prose). Dick must have been one of the few creative minds in science fiction to find some way to tackle the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, Buddhism, collectivism versus individualism, and the recent legacy of World War II in such a zany yet thought-provoking manner, including some rather interesting aliens, worm-like beings occupying the Earth. 

Naturally, as one would expect with Dick, things are never as the appear on the surface, feelings are hurt and some are betrayed, and the central contrasts or dichotomous aspects of the mind, the social order, and in psychology and philosophy are perhaps not as clear-cut as one would expect. Perhaps the intersection of reality and unreality in this novel (occuring with weapons designed by Bulanik, a central figure of the novel who may be comparable to Palmer Eldritch) is less developed here or as challenging as Dick's famous works from the 1960s, but this novel is still worthwhile for rare glimpses at Dick's creative goosebumps 'vibing' with another writer. Frankly, the very humorous and dated (to the point of caricature) depiction of Percy X as a reflection of 1960s Black Power and Gus, the horrid redneck representing the white American Southerner as a redneck racist trying to revive the Confederacy leads one to presume Dick and Nelson were smoking marijuana while reading the news or listening to speeches of Maulana Karenga, Farrakhan, and Bull Connor.

Here's a fascinating reading of a short story by Ray Nelson and an interview with Nelson, including discussion of The Ganymede Takeover. Nelson, LeGuin, and Dick go way back...

The Quiet American

What I love about Graham Greene is his perceptive nature and penchant for being in 'hotspots' before they blow up. Sure, one doesn't have to be a prophet to have foreseen some of the conflicts of the Cold War and colonialism, but Greene's The Quite American shares with Our Man in Havana an intuitive understanding of imminent political and social change. Sure, American intervention in Vietnam long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident was probably predicted by others as early as the mid-1950s, but Greene saw the wasteful Vietnam War in postwar American hegemonic foreign policy, even when masked by American "innocence" (or, perhaps, naivete, as embodied by Pyle). This concern with US foreign policy was self-evident in The Comedians and Our Man in Havana, but this highly cinematic novel littered with references to America's eternal adolescence, articulate this particular postwar British perspective better than The Comedians.

 

 And Vietnam was perhaps the best setting for this shift to decolonisation and US hegemony, especially as the Americans were prepared to ascend as Britain and France lost their empires. This is why Ishiguro's Remains of the Day came to mind while reading this, despite their vast differences in setting and characters. Nonetheless, Ishiguro's novel captured that withering might of the British Empire, whose sun finally began to set, within the metropole. As Robert Stone's explanatory introduction states, Greene came from such a family that was invested in the Empire, and hence the ambivalence on the US and its encroachment in the colonies, or, to be even more direct, Pyle taking away Fowler's "native" woman, Phuong. Naturally, it being Greene, Catholicism is a consistent undercurrent in the novel's portrayal of war, crime, guilt, and redemption, as well as a witty sense of humor and bitter barbs against the US. I loved it all. 

Time After Time

Although I am not a connoisseur of vocal jazz, Chet Baker's unique voice and phrasing makes for interesting music. Sentimental, emotive, a little behind the beat like Billie Holiday and not a bad trumpeter, one can see his appeal. I usually prefer women jazz vocalists whose voices tend, in my experience, to have a greater range and emotional expressiveness, but Baker's managed to forge his own path as a vocalist. As the instrumental side of the equation, they're competent, sure, but I still have much to learn when it comes to cool jazz and West Coast jazz, which is too often a little restrained and not as adventurous or experimental like modal jazz, free, or sometimes, even hard bop.

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness is the second novel in Le Guin's Hainish Cycle that I've read, and far more developed and interesting than the great novella, The Word For World Is Forest.  Exploring androgyny in a wintry planet possibly on the brink of war, Le Guin's brilliant novel forces us to rethink our notions of gender as Genly Ai seeks to bring Gethen into the Ekumene. Mr. Ai is forced to confront a society of humans without gender (well, except for kemmer) and see how despite the differences, the balance of "masculinity" and "femininity" has led to the creation of a very different society. Much like The Word For World Is Forest, Le Guin's interest in anthropology must have led her to research the differences in the social construction of gender in various societies, and brings mythology, elements of Eastern philosophy, and fantasy to craft this world. Much of the transgender and non-binary movements have pushed for a similar sort of realization in the present: an acknowledgement of how the gender binary is not necessarily "natural" and independent of social forces. Le Guins's consistent use of male pronouns for the non-gendered Gethenians is a bit confusing, particularly when coming from the point of view of Gethenians themselves, but the general point remains consistent on dualism that is not neither/nor but both/and, a form of thinking quite common in indigenous societies. 

The astonishing level of detail and chapter entries consisting of Gethenian mythology and history create a fully-fleshed world where the past, present, and future collide and connect with the main plot, including a powerful moment at the novel's conclusion. Furthermore, this world features some uncanny parallels to the "precogs" of Philip K. Dick's literature and the Cold War-era. The Foretellers, mindspeech among the Hainish humans of other worlds, and last but certainly not least, the power accorded to deviants (those with mental illness or in a permanent state of kemmer) have numerous comparable scenarios and characters in Dick's oeuvre, albeit Dick was never quite on the same page when it came to androgyny. In fact, the only instance in which "hermaphrodites" appear in Dick's fiction are the "mutants" who have sex with each other while changing genders for audiences (The World Jones Made). Nonetheless, the mutual interest in precognitive abilities, telepathy, and metaphysics point to a shared concern for understanding who and what we are. So what if novelists lie, as Le Guin says in her introduction, if those lies can lead to some truth? Perhaps Naipaul is right about fiction never lying.

Graham Greene's Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter is another masterpiece of his Catholic novels, all of which I hope to finish. Much like James Wood's useful introduction to the brilliant novel indicates, Greene's Catholicism was often of an anti-institutional kind that can appeal to Protestant tastes or people of all faiths. The Heart of the Matter accomplishes this just as well as The Power and the Glory, and the Freetown, Sierra Leone setting is used quite well here. While Greene's depictions of the local population, especially the Africans and Syrians, could be seen in a 21st century light as racist or questionable, there is a genuine love and concern for all residents of that "Tower of Babel" in Scobie, and, by extension, Greene himself. 

Whilst hardly an anti-colonial novel and lacking the socialism of Camus, whose The Plague is compared to Greene's novel by Wood, Greene is a better writer with a magical combination of humor, accessible prose, subtle and unsubtle phrasing and metaphors, and a deep commitment to Christian values in ways a secular leftist would approve. A tale of love, loyalty, faith, and humanity's struggle to know humankind is a universal struggle, and Greene's setting during World War II in a "white man's grave" colony bring this to the fore. Naturally, some may object to the image of Africa in Greene's imagination (sometimes reminscient of Conrad, perhaps), but with a closer look, Greene's story could just as easily be set in postwar London or Northampton, especially in the battle for love, intimacy, selflessness and pity between men and women, white and black, Allies and  Axis, neutrals and colonials. Scobie's own Christ-like action at the end and good intentions bring to mind the unnamed whisky priest of his other famous Catholic novel, as both must confront guilt and the consequences of their actions, hoping to find some redemption. 

I only wish Ali, Scobie's "boy," and other African characters were given equal consideration or focus for a inclusive narrative on Freetown during World War II. As indicated in the novel and Greene's real-life experience during the War, obviously espionage, smuggling, submarine attacks, local unrest, and a corrupt colonial police and bureaucracy existed, yet we see nothing of the "wharf rats" or the numerous "mammies" who populate the city, only offered rare glimpses into their thoughts and world. And what of the West Indians, the Indian fortuneteller, or Tallit, the Syrian Chrsitian rival of Yusef, who disappears from the novel rather abruptly? Perhaps what Greene's novel needs is a response or counternarrative, maybe along the lines of Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation, for a fuller picture of Freetown during that time. 

Art Ensemble of Chicago Blues

Great black music, past and present. Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Barnyard Scuffle Shuffel" pays tribute to the blues past of Chicago and African-American music in that quintessentially Art Ensemble of Chicago way. Think "Theme de Yoyo" but instead of funk, AEC tackles the blues form in a rather humorous and light-hearted way while threatening to fall apart.