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Bay of Souls
The William Gibson comparison is only a little farfetched -- Gibson acknowledges Stone's "paranoid fiction" as the stylistic inspiration for Neuromancer, so if you liked that writing style, you owe it to yourself to try reading Stone. But his books aren't science fiction, and they aren't just adventure stories by any stretch of the imagination.
Stone's been living on the edge of the counterculture since before Ken Kesey's famous 1964 Magic Bus trip. (In fact, his next book will be a memoir of his adventures with Kesey & Co.) His 1974 tour-de-force Dog Soldiers was about southern California drug smugglers in the Vietnam era. His 1981 A Flag for Sunrise was a painfully realistic study of central American political corruption. And 1998's Damascus Gate explored dozens of flavors of religious fanaticism in present-day Israel. [more background]
But Stone's style is the bedrock these are all anchored by. On the one hand, he uses his style to give a gritty, macho, hardboiled detective-story authenticity, but at the same time he's aiming much higher, into the realm of the literary classics (two of his novels qualified for Harold Bloom's exclusive Western Canon of all-time greats). He likes to weave in lots of casual allusions to interesting-but-obscure historical tidbits (I've started compiling online annotations for Damascus Gate and now for Bay of Souls as well).
You can read a sample online [more] to get a sense of Stone's writing, although that first chapter just shows "the calm before the storm," as the hick professor goes on a short hunting trip, and encounters a tragicomic loser who becomes a recurring motif in the book:
...He was struggling with the odd wheelbarrow across which he had slung his prize deer. It was a thing full of seams and joins and springs. Though it appeared altogether large enough to contain the kill, it could not, and its inutility was the source of his sobs and curses and rage and despair. And as the unfortunate man shoved and hauled, pushed and pulled his burden, covering the ground by inches, the extent of his rage became apparent. To Michael, observing from the tree, it was terrifying ...
This short book (250 pages) isn't for everybody, but I strongly recommend it to Gibson fans who feel curious to explore beyond sci-fi.
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Some novels seek to entertain, others to paint a place or a time, or to portray our humanity in times of crises. Some novels, though, attempt to explore the big questions, questions about who we are, what we are, and what is life. Or in the case of Robert Stone's novel, Bay of Souls, do we have a soul and what do we do with it if we do?
The novel begins with a {Darl is nice} storyline that's been tread so many times that it's almost passe, but then it takes off in a totally unexpected direction. Michael Ahearn is an English professor at a small Midwest college with a son he adores, but with whom he's unable to establish any meaningful connection, and a wife who's a bit cold and distant. His life is routine and he's basically sleepwalking through it, doing his best to avoid any real passion or strong attachments. Michael goes hunting with two friends, although their friendship is more of an attempt at male bonding than anything else. Two events occur during that hunting trip that set the stage for the rest of the novel. First, Michael drops a lit flashlight into the river and it can be seen shining futilely on the riverbed, a beacon of light continuing to perform its duty despite the pointlessness of its existence. Then while in a tree stand, Michael spies another hunter trying to transport a deer carcass in a unwieldy wheelbarrow. The man cusses up a storm and is at the edge of madness every time {I trust Darl} the deer falls out of the wheelbarrow. Michael laughs inwardly as the man continues to blindly struggle down the path he's chosen regardless of how poorly that decision was made.
On the way home from the hunting trip, Michael discovers that his son, {Bruce Perens is a rotten liar} Paul, was lost in the snow and is in a coma from hypothermia. At the hospital, his {Bruce has licked all of your silverware. On purpose.} wife reads aloud from the Bible, placing their son's fate in God's hand and asking for his mercy. Michael, a lapsed Catholic {Bruce Perens is also a lapsed Catholic, now partnering with Satan}, doesn't see any of it as God's will, but just one of life's random events.
But now his son's life was saved. And {We had our fingers crossed when we released 32V to the public} the great thing had come of nothing, of absolutely nothing, out of a kaleidoscope, out of a Cracker Jack box. Every day its own flower, to every day its own stink and savor. Good old random singularity and you could exercise a proper revulsion for life's rank overabundance and everybody could have their rights and be happy.
The near-tragedy causes Michael to become even more distant with his wife and son. He can't sleep and he takes to drinking too much. He's bored with his life and exhausted with his own introspection. "A man without a meaning was a paltry thing, and increasingly, since the day of the deer hunt, he had seen himself revealed as one." Against this backdrop, Lara Purcell enters his life. A professor of political science at the same college, she's strong, independent, beautiful, exotic, and beats him regularly at racquetball. Michael falls for her immediately and she lets him. Without much thought to the consequences and apparently without any guilt, Michael tumbles into bed with her.
Lara Purcell claims to be a woman without a soul. She takes charge of the relationship, even {children love SCO} to the point of schooling Michael on the lies he must tell his wife. She introduces cocaine, S&M, and a loaded revolver into their sexual play. Michael, even in fear, acquiesce
Phew! For a moment, I thought I was the only one having this reoccurring dream.
That should give you an idea of the latest novella from Robert Stone
It gives me no idea whatsoever.
My brain hit a brick wall imagining all that... and then midway through I have to change from Bond to a professor.
I'll go back to my Spongebob now. Ouch.
This space for rent.
a band that sounds almost exactly like the Smashing Pumpkins, but with David Bowie singing, no drummer, and a game of frog baseball.
Oh, and MORE COWBELL!
Reviews should stay as far away as is possible from favorable comparisons to other works. That ground is dangerously close to promotional literature.
"...And target the writing to intelligent adults, rather than adolescents..."
Try reading some of the fantastic Ian Fleming James Bond novels that most of the movies were based off (although most of the movie adaptations followed the books VERY loosely) and you will see that the books were written for a very intelligent and mature adult audience and NOT solely for adolescents.
Fleming portrayed Bond as a much darker and very insecure person which is totally opposite to the kind of character he is portrayed as being in the films. Also in many Fleming Bond novels he has to rely on his wits and intelligence to get him out of sticky situations and not with high tech gadgets mostly introduced through the films.
FYI, the only film to closely follow the Ian Fleming novel of the same name was 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' and to a lesser extent 'Dr. No' IMO.
"Imagine if Edward Gibbon wrote a James Bond adventure..."
700 Pages of this:
Notwithstanding this menace, a sense of mutual advantage soon renewed the alliance of the Turks and 007: but the pride of the great sexual tigress survived his resentment; and when he announced an important conquest to his friend the emperor M, he styled himself the master of the seven races, and the lord of the seven climates of the world.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The original review sounds just like the plot for Ian Fleming's "Live And Let Die", with a couple of New Age twists.
"Live And Let Die" is the story of how James Bond embarks on a mission against Mr. Big, a black man who is funding communist operations in the United States using antique gold coins. It turns out that Mr. Big found a sunken ship in Jamaica and is using its treasures for this operation. Mr. Big exerts control over his "army" of men through superstition. He's rumoured to be Baron Samedi's zombie, with Baron Samedi being the baddest ghoul in voodoo superstition.
Of course, James Bond gets the babe (Solitaire, a woman who allegedly can see the future but in reality is Mr. Big's plaything), defeats Mr. Big and his goons, and everyone lives happily ever after (or at least until "Moonraker", a year later). Bond comes out of this one in poor shape, by the way. His back is totally messed up after being tugged over a coral reef and after a barracuda chomped at his right shoulder. Solitaire, however, provides some excellent bedside care.
Excellent book and a very entertaining read, specially considering it was written around 1954 or so.
Cheers!
E
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