Random Thoughts

This is a collection of short stories and novellas — but I skipped the first one, Souls, because I’ve read that one before. (Winner of the 1983 Hugo Award — it’s good, and I remember it well.)

Souls is, by far, the most straightforward story here. There’s a variety of approaches here, but Russ mostly enjoys befuddling people by having the text not actually explain what’s really going on. I quite enjoy being confused, so that’s fine by me. But I’m not surprised by responses like this:

Extra(Ordinary) People (1984) by Joanna Russ (buy used, 3.73 on Goodreads)

I have zero interest in Lao Tzu, but I quite like Le Guin’s writing, so I bought this book in 1997. And didn’t read it until today.

It’s surprisingly enjoyable. The author seems like a fun guy, at least in Le Guin’s version. I liked reading the book.

And I didn’t know that Trump was a Taoist!

The book is unapologetically Le Guin’s very opinionated version of Tao Te Ching, which I like. And in addition, there’s more text in the “Notes” section than there is in the main section, which would normally be a chore, but it’s Le Guin, so of course the notes are also well-written and entertaining.

Tao Te Ching (1997) by Lao Tzu (buy used, 4.29 on Goodreads)

I bought this on sale around 1997, and I didn’t get around to reading it until now. No particular reason, really — I’ve read about half of Solstad’s novels, and I’ve got some other unread books by Solstad in my to-be-read bookcase.

I guess Solstad is finally starting to be recognised outside of Norway?

It looks like most of his books are now available in English, for instance. Perhaps it’s because of the commercial success of Knausgaard’s books internationally, so there’s more curiosity about other Norwegian authors?

I think this one is a bit of a hard sell, though. I guess Solstad is considered to be a modernist author? And this one, despite having a “hook”, is mostly ruminations on surviving and enduring, so we get a lot of stuff about Ibsen and etc etc etc. (Oh, the plot — a professor sees (out of his window) a woman being strangled (yes yes Rear Window), and then he does nothing. He doesn’t report it, and he doesn’t know why.)

Looking at Goodreads, this book is among the lowest rated of his, and I can certainly understand why — but I liked it a lot.

Heh heh.

It’s not for Solstad beginners!

Professor Andersens natt (1996) by Dag Solstad (buy new, buy used, 3.39 on Goodreads)

As usual with these books by Stevenson, it’s well-written, has a satisfyingly convoluted mystery, and there’s witty repartee.

The only problem is that the investigation itself is curiously tedious — it’s mostly just one interview after another with people who just aren’t much fun to spend time with, even in a book.

But it’s fine — it’s better than the previous book.

One kinda interesting thing about this series is how long a period it’s written over. It started in 1981, and the latest book was in 2019 — but there’s only a book every three years or so. And the books are very much into describing what’s going on at the time (politically and not), so readers get a kind of fast-forward through American history… Books like these are often set in some kind of vague unspecified “present” — the thought is perhaps that it gives the book more longevity? And you don’t have to age the characters, I guess.

Shock to the System (1995) by Richard Stevenson (buy new, buy used, 4.07 on Goodreads)