Haunted/Hyperion/City of Saints and Madmen

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Haunted/Hyperion/City of Saints and Madmen

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1CarlosMcRey
Modifié : Oct 29, 2007, 12:28 pm

Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted and Dan Simmons' Hyperion are both works of genre fiction structured around a framing narrative. Despite being genre works (science fiction and horror*, respectively) both novelists are unashamed to telegraph literary aspirations, not just structurally, but with reference to literary figures such as Keats (Hyperion) and Mary Shelley (Haunted). Hyperion is an innovative exploration of genre fiction in service of a larger story with philosophical and political themes; the other is a messy affair, intermittently concerned with its genre, poorly plotted and rife with implausibilities.

Hyperion tells the story of a group of people traveling to an important location on the planet Hyperion as the interstellar empire of which they are subjects hovers on the brink of war. Each of the travelers has a particular reason for making this trip, revealed through the respective stories they tell. Simmons uses this structure as an exploration of genre fiction, incorporating elements of hard sci fi, space opera, cyberpunk, philosophical sci fi, even horror and noir fiction. The universe that Simmons creates through these stories is a fairly ambitious amalgam of literary and mythical elements, and though not as innovative now as it was at the time of its original publication, is an entertaining and thought-provoking exploration of empire, technology, and free will.

Haunted tells the story of a group of people at a writer's retreat, all of them participants save for the organizer (Mr. Whittier) and his assistant (Mrs. Clark). The other characters do not use their names but colorful titles (Agent Tattletale, Countess Foresight, etc.) and have signed up believing that this writer's retreat will allow them to create their respective "masterpieces" that will make them rich and famous. (Except for the ones that are already rich and/or famous and the ones that are hiding from the law, mob, CDC, or international arts conspiracy.) The writer's retreat turns out to be an abandoned theater whose decadent furnishings are meant to evoke Poe's "Masque of the Red Death." Some characters rebel against being trapped in a rundown theater, others decide being trapped in a run down theater will be the perfect "real life" story that will make them rich or famous. (While some believe a run-down theater is the perfect place to hide from the law, mob, CDC, or international arts conspiracy.)

What makes Haunted inferior to Hyperion is the complete lack of focus, as the stories veer from graphic or psychological horror (with odd stabs at the supernatural) to tales of callow individuals behaving badly. The framing narrative is meant to provide a coherency to the various stories, but it's inertness compounds the problem. (I personally gave up any hope that the book would redeem itself shortly after a character tales a story about being a werewolf. His animalistic aspect has been sketched pretty heavily up until that point, so it's not implausible that within the main plot he really could be a werewolf. Yet none of the other characters seems to consider that the presence of a werewolf in their midst should be a cause for worry. What should have ratcheted up the tension only ends up draining it of what life it had left.) Palahniuk has a talent for shock value which serves to distract from all of the glaring plot holes. (Why, for example, does the Earl of Slander, who in his story "Swan Song" describes himself as a wealthy, Pulitzer-prize winning celebrity journalist, go to a writer's retreat?) My most generous take on the novel is that it is a "suicidal novel," a novel that refuses coherency and eschews plot or plausibility, in order to repudiate the very idea of writing or art. (Like a Pynchon novel taken a nihilistic extreme, or something the Teatro Grottesco would release in hardcover.)

This may be giving the novel too much credit as its self-mutilation appears to be motivated (as with the characters therein) out of a desire for financial success. As Palahniuk describes it, he was originally wanting to release a collection of short stories. His agent informed him that collections of short stories don't sell as well as novels, so he adapted a story about self-destructing critics into a frame story of self-destructing writers. The term applied to this sort of work is "fix-up novel," which makes Haunted an interesting comparison with Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen.

City of Saints and Madmen (just City from here on out) lies somewhere between anthology and novel, and I have seen it described as a "kaleidoscopic novel" or "mosaic novel." Like Haunted, City is a genre work of multiple stories, mostly fantasy though of an unconventional sort. (Vandermeer is one of the more prominent members of the New Weird, which defies conventional genre definitions.) However, while Haunted fails to gain coherence from its frame, City achieves a considerable coherency while dispensing with a conventional frame. City is structured as a collection of four novellas and an appendix of supporting material, but this set-up is deceptive. For example, the first story "Dradin, In Love" is a third-person narrative about a missionary having a mental breakdown after returning to Ambergris. (The city of which saints and madmen make up a significant portion.) Only later are we told that "Dradin, In Love" is a work of autobiography published in Ambergris. The third "novella" turns out to be a tourist pamphlet outlining the early history of Ambergris, in whose footnotes we catch a glimpse of another history of academic rivalries among Ambergrisian scholars. City is full of these Borgesian games, which seek to lend a degree of verisimilitude to the most outlandish of elements.

Both novels are concerned with the creative process, as it relates not only to writing but to other forms of art. Two stories, for example, which have striking similarities are Palahniuk’s "Ambition" (Duke of Vandals story) and Vandermeer’s “The Transformation of Martin Lake,” both of which revolve around artists who find themselves drawn into shadowy conspiracies which push them into criminal acts. Interestingly enough, the description of the Duke’s paintings makes them sound kitschy, and the story attributes his success to his involvement with the cabal. (His paintings are of his mom, his girlfriend, and his dog named Boner.) Martin Lake’s works are presented as dark, surreal representations of the crimes in which he has become involved, crimes for which his only reward is continued survival. Palahniuk’s story comes off as a cynical take on how the pursuit of profit will manufacture success out of crap, whereas Vandermeer’s story is a more haunting meditation on art, its ability to both reveal and conceal, and the varied inspirations that give rise to it.

The same pattern holds for the two novels as wholes, with Haunted feeling unfocused yet insular, and City feeling like something of a city in itself, cohesive yet open.

* Haunted's failures as a work of horror outnumber its failures as a novel. However, the book was marketed as a horror novel, so I will not quibble whether it really qualifies as one.

2margad
Oct 27, 2007, 6:10 pm

Palahniuk’s story comes off as a cynical take on how the pursuit of profit will manufacture success out of crap. This observation is very interesting, because as I was reading the comparison, I was coming to the conclusion that the central flaw in Haunted was probably that the artistic choices Palahniuk made while writing that book were driven by assumptions about the market rather than his own artistic instincts or drive. If I were Palahniuk, feeling obligated to write to the market at the expense of expressing my own artistic vision, I, too, would probably have seeded into the story a nugget expressing my resentment about this.

The irony is that those rare authors who do achieve major financial success are almost never writing to the market. J.K. Rowling had no reason whatsoever to expect that a children's book would make her a multimillionaire; an "expert" advising her on how best to write a financially successful book would never, at that time, have encouraged her to write for children. Tom Clancy struggled to sell his first techno-thriller and received a miniscule advance from a small press. Frank McCourt was nearing retirement age when he published the memoir he had been working on for, if I recall correctly, decades. Nobody who spends decades working on a memoir is doing it for the money.

3CarlosMcRey
Oct 29, 2007, 2:26 pm

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Haunted seems to be a book with a certain degree of resentment or frustration in it. I also find it odd and a bit hypocritical that Palahniuk, cult author and frequent critic of modern consumerism, would alter his work in order to meet market demands. It does jibe with the way a lot of the shocks in Haunted feel calculated.

And at the risk of being all postmodern, it's worth noting that the first two stories, "Guts" and "Footwork," both are based around the theme/trope of "getting off." I'm not sure if it's meant to be self-satiric or not, but I think there is an aspect of "getting off" to Palahniuk's fiction: a certain laughing at/partaking of the hidden/depraved side of modern life without really getting beyond the superficial. (And tying into all this is that Palahniuk's previous novel Diary had apparently not been too popular with his fan base.)

I imagine any author will make certain calculations between art and commerce. For every J.K. Rowling, there's probably a Dan Brown. And I could even be wrong about The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps Brown just wrote the sort of book he imagined he would like to read and happened to have tastes similar enough to millions of people. (I'm not saying it's likely, just possible.)

4margad
Modifié : Oct 31, 2007, 4:03 pm

I think Dan Brown very likely did write the sort of book he wanted to read, and I think he was genuinely interested in the feminist/religious imagery (real or imagined) in Da Vinci's art. When writers don't really care about their subject matter, it shows, and their books - of whatever genre - are unlikely to succeed. As literature The Da Vinci Code is superficial, because the characters lack complexity and the plot turns on some highly implausible devices in order to maximize its appeal as a thriller. But it's really hard to create well rounded, believable and emotionally compelling characters and to create truly captivating plots that speak to readers' hearts and intellects, avoiding the cheap appeal to brute fear and anger. I think Brown works in a genre he finds comfortable and works hard at his craft while stretching himself thematically - a mix that resonates for a lot of readers.

Writers tend to choose themes that resonate for them personally. Sometimes I look back at something I wrote in years past, and realize it reflects a theme that I was struggling with in my personal life and did not realize I was writing into my work. Other times, I consciously choose material that reflects a personal life issue because I feel drawn to work it out - or to begin working it out - on the page. I'll bet Palahniuk was doing exactly that with Haunted.

At writing conferences, attendees have it steadily drummed into them by editors, agents and other presenters that they MUST consider the market or their books will fail. I think most of us, like Palahniuk, do resent that. None of us write primarily to make money - anyone who starts writing with that in mind will quickly discover that the money, if it ever comes, comes only after years of lonely and unremunerated engagement with the blank page or blank computer screen. And yet we do want our books to reach readers. And most of us would dearly love to be able to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves, however meagerly, with our work as writers.

So there is intense pressure to write to the market, and an equally intense internal pressure to write what we feel driven to write without regard to the market's demands. We have to find a balance, somehow, in which we can write what we need to write and think of our readers (the market) enough to be sure we are at least communicating effectively. Palahniuk's first book grabbed a lot of media attention, sold very well, and was made into a movie. I'm sure he wrote that one from the heart. A lot of writers whose first novels are breakout successes find it hard to get their footing with subsequent work, probably largely because they can't stop thinking of the "market" that was so good to them the first time around - especially if their agents and editors add to that pressure to write to the market, something that is quite prevalent in today's corporate-driven publishing world.

5CarlosMcRey
Nov 7, 2007, 7:57 pm

You bring up a lot of good points, which admittedly makes me a bit abashed at picking on Dan Brown (because he's an easy target and I've never actually read his work) and Chuck Palahniuk (because I was worried from the outset that I would drift towards non-useful complaints about his work). There's certainly an interesting issue here, beyond questions of literary merit, regarding the connection between people and the printed word. I know The Da Vinci Code draws heavily on Holy Blood, Holy Grail a book I read when I was younger, and I can certainly identify with the feeling of "Wow, this would make a much better thriller than the sort of generic kill the president/blow up a national monument/rob Fort Knox plot that tends to be the focus of those kinds of works." (Apologies to anyone who feels I'm grossly generalizing about thrillers.) I'm sure in order to go through not just writing but all the rejections on resubmissions of getting a work published, Brown had to believe in his work as something more than just a cash-in. Sure, he's had his imitators probably some of whom had an easier time, but his was the innovator and deserves credit for that.

What strikes me about Palahniuk, and why I bring up that whole "connection" question is that I approached him from the wrong angle, believing him as an author who had a lot of really important stuff to say. I had really liked Fight Club (the movie) and knew fairly intelligent people who liked his stuff. Well, he does have a lot to say, but little of it is that interesting, at least to me. Part of this is a matter of style, which I find self-conscious and heavy-handed. (I think that's what inspired me to compare Choke and Odd Thomas, though Koontz' stylistic problems are somewhat different from Palahniuk's.)

I had an ironic realization over the weekend that a lot of what I consider weaknesses about Palahniuk are probably considered strengths by his fans. So, I've decided I should give up on Palahniuk, at least for the moment.

6margad
Nov 8, 2007, 12:00 am

So many books to read, so little time! I finally gave up on The Master and Margarita, even though I was only a few chapters from the end, because it just wasn't speaking to me. I'm convinced that it was an extremely funny and meaningful book at the time and place it was written, but I don't live in that time and place (thank goodness), so it just didn't tickle my funny bone or arouse deep reflections. If I was a Russian scholar, though, I would probably still find it worthwhile.

Nevertheless, I'm glad you did read Haunted, Carlos, and shared your thoughts here, because your review aroused some very worthwhile reflections for me, and even tickled my funny bone a bit. I always enjoy offbeat comparisons.

I did read The Da Vinci Code, because my husband brought it home - he's the reason I ever read any thrillers at all. Brown lost a good deal of my respect in an early chapter after he vividly evoked the scene in the dark Louve by dead of night, faintly lit only by the red lights embedded in the floor (a skillful description that really drew me in) - and then his heroine enters and the hero notices details like her green eyes and the color of her sweater! But it was fun following the clues to the "historical" mystery.

7CarlosMcRey
Nov 8, 2007, 8:03 pm

It's funny how little details can make the difference between suspension of disbelief working and failing. Of course, I think a work that draws you in successfully can make it easier to overlook those problems.

I don't know if this is just me, but I've found this site feeds my biblioholism. I've even started borrowing books on CD from the library so I can get some "reading" done during my daily commute.

I actually have had a couple more Chuck Palahniuk comparisons kicking around in my head. The first is comparing his Lullaby to Thomas Ligotti's My Work is Not Yet Done as both are works of horror, written by authors often labeled "nihilistic," and both feature protagonists who inadvertently aquire some rather creepy powers. The other is comparing Palahniuk's Diary to one of Ira Levin's novels which helped inspire it, probably either The Stepford Wives or Rosemary's Baby. (Baby would be more appropriate, although I haven't read that yet but have read Wives.)

Unlike Haunted, I thought Lullaby and Diary were pretty good novels, though neither convinced me that Palahniuk was a genius. I realize it's a bit ironic that I'm inspired to write so much about an author I'm not particularly thrilled about. The best way I can explain is that I find his novels to be like sharks: easy (and fun) to dissect, somewhat primitive. Do either of those sound like good ideas?

8margad
Nov 10, 2007, 1:15 pm

Go for it, Carlos!

I love your shark metaphor. I think sometimes novels we don't necessarily like that much, or at least don't necessarily think we like that much on first reading end up provoking more thought and lingering on the mind longer than many of the novels we like on first reading but soon forget. Perhaps novels that challenge us by exploring unfamiliar and even disagreeable ideas end up teaching us more (if only about why we don't agree with the author) than novels that support our pre-existing views.

A resounding yes to this site feeds my biblioholism! I have a shelf full of books that I haven't gotten around to reading yet, which was very unusual for me in pre-LT days.