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Responses (sorted by date)
derek: genes (3/2/05)
KeithB: No Subject (2/27/05)
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Just finished Ender's Game this morning. Orson Scott Card's style is very reminiscent of Frank Herbert (author of the Dune novels) - hyperintelligent characters in messianic situations. Lots of internal dialogue, as they unwrap the layers of their situations and their own psyches, only to find them selves caught in the wrappings.
When I read these books, I think that if I were ever to write any fiction of my own, I would sound like them - driven but somehow disconnected from reality. The characters constantly move back and forth between the brutality of logic, the imperatives of necessity, and the lostness of insanity. Dreams are everywhere, be they natural, spice-induced, or computer generated. The characters are surrounded with lies, and they know it, and they rebel against it, and yet they know that they cannot be finally free of them. Power vies constantly with morality; moral clarity gets clouded in the wild necessity of a situation.
But that's not what my life is like, not most of the time. Why can I relate to characters who are so conflicted at so many levels, so driven to something, yet I am at peace - at least, more than them? Perhaps it is the blessing of relaxation. I want so much to fill my life with more and more work, more and more achievement, more and more everything that I hope and dream of doing. But I know that I have limits, and I am learning to give myself the permission to rest. I am not in a messianic position; I don't have obligations to save the world. Thus, I can pick up a book to read it, in order to better understand and serve a friend from work, and I can finish it because I'm enjoying it. It's a nice thing. I wonder how all this interacts...how much is insanity the expression of a mind outside of normal situations? Is it the result of the situation, or does insanity cause the messianic drive? |
