Drift 6 September 1998

Read Wasp Factory by Iain Banks today. Beginning to get a little worried. The book had been lauded to me as just one horrible thing after another, really nasty stuff, the same way Saving Private Ryan was brutal, almost unendurable. And I didn't find myself reacting like that at all to either one. Maybe it's just over-preparation. But maybe, too, I'm one sick little monkey. Too much TV as a child, no doubt.

In any case, I thought Wasp Factory was an interesting little book. An improvement on the usual coming-of-age story, in its own twisted way. But nothing tremendous, and honestly, not really all that shocking. The central character does some nasty things, but as a child, and they're all related from his own strange isolated, near-mystical sense of the world. I was too distant from any of it to have much of a moral reaction. Or, see above.

I liked Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick, which I read yesterday, much better. In this telling, Mephistopheles is from an alien race that despises humanity and wants to see it destroyed. So they bend the ear of Johannes Faust sometime in the Middle Ages and start explaining industrial technology to him. We humans take it up quite readily from there. The overlay of new machinery and old mentality is completely believable. Makes you realize how little time has intervened for ourselves, as well, apes with big sticks that go boom. It's nice to see a good follow-up to The Iron Dragon's Daughter, his industrial fantasy novel of a few years back. Always useful to find an author you can count on.

Today I got a strong glimpse of the real reason why I need to find something better to be doing with my life: memory. I described a bit of life back in high school in an email this morning, and I think the effort of recharging those paths in my brain set off echoes. I've been having random memories float up unasked-for all day. It's not pretty. And there's too damn much of it, already. God, what will it be like in another 20 years? Presuming I'm around to have such problems, of course.

Is it truly that my life has been such a string of wasted chances, bad behavior, and simple pettiness? Or do I just forget the good things? Other people seem to find their lives to be an endless source of amusement, hours of anecdotes about good times and absurd situations. I don't know. Perspective, genetics, character. Something. The bonds are unraveling for good, though. Time to tie them back up, or cut loose altogether.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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