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Choose Your Own Advent, Day 1: Catch-22

Choose Your Own Advent is a yuletide celebration of literacy. We’ll spotlight a different novel every day until Christmas, hopefully helping you find one you’d like to read in the new year.

Title: Catch-22
Author: Joseph Heller
Year: 1961

There are novels that are important, novels you enjoy, novels that challenge your perceptions. And then there are novels that change who you are.

Catch-22 is that novel for me.

I don’t know what I expected from it. I’m not sure that I expected anything. But I was one person before I read it. I was another person afterward.

It is, to be as direct as possible, the reason I am a writer. It showed me, for the first time, the remarkable, bottomless possibilities of the English language. It made me think in a way that no piece of entertainment ever had before. It made me question things I never thought to question. It made me laugh at atrocities, and be moved and affected deeply by frivolities. It was unquestionably the most accomplished piece of fiction I had ever read at that point in my life. Just as unquestionably, I’ve read better novels since. And yet none of them have affected me the way Catch-22 did.

In the simplest possible description, Catch-22 is a novel about a United States bomber squadron stationed on the small island of Pianosa during World War II. The protagonist, Yossarian, seems to be something of a career malcontent. He pushes back against authority, against absurdity, against the rigid advance of fate itself. And yet, he’s not heroic.

Yossarian is a deeply flawed individual. He doesn’t rebel because it’s the right thing to do; he rebels because he’s terrified that he will not make it home alive. His rebellion takes shape and gains momentum because it taps into the one thing every one of his fellow servicemen feels along with him, to varying degrees: fear.

And it’s not unfounded. Colonel Cathcart, the squadorn’s commanding officer, keeps raising the number of missions his men have to fly before they will be sent home. Every time Yossarian gets close, the goal line gets pushed further out. Some of the other men try to assure him that he’s worrying over nothing…that the number of required missions can’t increase forever…that, at some point, this will all end.

One by one, they are shot down in combat.

Yossarian’s rebellion is one of desperate sanity. It’s born of seeing reality, of witnessing history, of watching the official lie unravel…revealing that there is no exit.

It’s a funny book, and a sad one. It’s clever. It flits back and forth through time with only a handful of hints to allow readers to orient themselves. And–most surprising and devastating to me at the time–the characters that you love, that you rely on, that mean something to you, often don’t come back.

Nobody is safe in the world of Catch-22. Every connection you make, like every connection Yossarian makes, is the first step toward disappointment, toward grief, toward, sometimes, betrayal. It’s the horror of war that largely takes place between missions, in the downtime. When you’re supposed to be safe. When you realize that the real enemy is on your side.

When I finished reading it, I immediately started the novel over from the beginning. I’ve never done that again. Catch-22 had more to say than a single reading could ever express. I knew that. I started back at page one. I read it all the way through once more. Since then, I must have read it twenty more times.

It inspired me to become a writer. It inspired me to communicate. It convinced me that communication wasn’t just important…sometimes it is the only defense we have. Heller actually served in the air force during World War II. Catch-22 is fiction, but I think it’s safe to assume that it’s really fictionalized. This was his method of processing his experience. It was a crucial, urgent, instant classic of American literature. And it remains so today, for very good reason.

There’s only a small number of books that I’ll ever read that will affect me nearly as much as Catch-22 did. It’s sad to know that I may have read them all already. It’s sadder to know that I may not ever get the chance to read most of them.

Catch-22 is the closest thing that I have to evidence of fate. I saw it one day in my high school library. I don’t know why I bothered to pick it up. I knew the concept of a “catch-22” (a concept which takes its name from the novel, rather than the other way around), and maybe I just thought I’d want to read about it. I flipped through some pages. I read the copy on the inside flaps. And I did something I’d never done before: checked a book out of the library.

I found that copy of Catch-22 by chance. I could have read anything else. Likelier still, I might not have read anything at all. But somewhere, in those pages, was the spark that would help me become the person I was supposed to be. I don’t know why I was in the library that day. What I was looking for. What I hoped to learn. But Catch-22 answered the questions I never realized I had.

Years later I returned to that high school as a substitute teacher. I was a literature major in college at the time. I was a writer.

I told one of my classes that story. About finding the novel in the library. About what an important moment that was, and how I found direction in a book I didn’t even know existed. It was an English class. It was part of a larger discussion I really enjoyed. I was with a room full of actual readers, against all odds. Young students who had things to say about books, and who wanted to share their opinions. That was heartening.

At the end of the school year, I was teaching another class. In fact, I was leaving for the day. A young girl called my name, and I recognized her. I’d taught her a few times.

She handed me that copy of Catch-22. The very one that changed me, so many years ago at this point. The same copy I brought home and pored over when I was younger. The same one that put me on a whole other track in my life.

She’d torn out the anti-theft sticker and smuggled it out to me. It was a sweet gesture. I wanted to give it back to the library. To make sure it was there for another student, in the future, to have the same experience I had.

…but for another student, it would probably be another book. One specific to them…not to me.

And so I never did get around to returning it.

I kept it. And on my shelf, right now, sits the most important copy of any book in my life. The one that reflected my soul back to me.

The one that let me know, for the first time, who I was.

20 Questions: Gabe Durham, Boss Fight Books

Gabe Durham is the brains (officially the publisher / series editor, but, whatever, brains) behind Boss Fight Books, an excellent series about video games that spans authors, generations, and genres. Depending upon the title you could read about somebody’s childhood, design theory, personal identity, or theological grappling…all through the filter of that author’s game of choice.

But whatever the game at the heart of the book, whomever the author writing it, you’re in for a thrillingly unique reading experience, and one that’s immensely rewarding. If that sounds like a gushing introduction, it’s only because the series has undoubtedly earned it.

I’m far from alone in thinking that; Boss Fight recently launched a Kickstarter for its third series of titles, including books on Mega Man 3, Katamari Damacy, and Kingdom Hearts II, and as of this writing it’s at about $30,000 of its $5,000 goal. That’s the result of a lot of satisfied readers. The Kickstarter is clearly in no danger of not being funded, but if you’re interested in the series at all, now is the time to pledge and get the entire set at a nice discount.

In celebration of Boss Fight Books series 3, I decided to ask Durham a few good questions, and a lot of very awful ones. Enjoy!

1) One day you had the idea for Boss Fight Books, and the day before you didn’t. Tell us what happened in your mind between those two points.

I was reading a cool book about Nintendo/Mario that I’d checked out of the Glendale Public Library, and it occurred to me that all the books I’d seen and read about games were vast industry histories — more stories about capitalism itself than the actual games. I wondered if anyone was publishing book-length criticism that approached games as art, using a personal and historical approach. Nobody was. Seemed like an oversight.

2) If you weren’t publishing books, what would you be doing?

Writing. And, for work, teaching or maybe some other new career track it’s impossible to know about. Oh god — maybe I’d be dead!

3) In an alternate universe, you didn’t write about Bible Adventures. What game did you write about?

Recently, I learned that actual Simpsons writers were involved in Tapped Out, the phone game, so what I think I’d do is write about that and use the book as an excuse to pick their brains and nerd out.

4) One Bible story that should have been included in Bible Adventures.

Sidescroller. You are Zaccheus the tax collector. You’re a wee little man: Mario pre-mushroom. In each level, you navigate through a crowd of people who hate you because you’ve taken all their money to line your own pockets. To appease them, you must throw coins at them. At the end of the level is a tree. You must climb the tree, avoiding animals, until you reach the top, where you ring a bell to get Jesus to notice you. As the levels progress, the streets get more dangerous and the trees get higher. At the end of the final level, the bell you ring comes alive and begins to attack you! You must throw coins at it until the last coin makes the bell ring out so loud that (1) the bell cracks, like the Liberty Bell, and (2) Jesus takes notice and says, “Zaccheus, you come down from there! For I’m going to your house today.” And in an animated cutscene, you and Jesus stand in your house, there are piles of gold everywhere, and Jesus waves his arms, zapping you with blue light, and suddenly—you’re big! You’re not a wee man at all! Thanks so much, Jesus!

5) Other than yourself, who is the most talented Gabe?

Newell! Marquez!

6) What video game has the best writing? No waffling. There can be only one answer, and you’ll have to carry it with you for the rest of your life.

Honestly, all my most-loved games aren’t loved for their writing! I’ll say Mass Effect 2.

7) When you grow up, you’re going to be…

An improv master. I do it in my free time — it’s challenging/humbling.

8) Who did you have a crush on at age 12?

Jeanette from school.

9) Games that have a perfect soundtrack. Go.

Mega Man 2. A Link to the Past. All-time favorite is Chrono Trigger.

10) What’s the worst thing you’ve ever written in your life?

At 19, I wrote half of a novel about weirdos holed up in a hotel writing a novel. And wow, yeah, it was bad. I think it was the first blush of understanding that metafiction existed, but I was not deploying it for any reason other than just to do it.

11) Describe Boss Fight Books to a space alien.

Humankind makes a lot of stuff, but only in retrospect can we guess at what that stuff does to us/for us.

12) What’s the biggest / most surprising thing you learned from managing the Boss Fight Books project?

Sometimes people pay attention! They mostly hadn’t before.

13) Zelda or Peach?

Peach, for sure. When my girlfriend and I play Mario Kart 8, she’s Peach and I’m Morton. So now there’s an ongoing casual fanfic between us where we’re Morton/Peach shippers. It’s not weird at all. It’s totally fine.

14) Tell us about one piece of media you love that nobody else seems to.

The album Secaucus by The Wrens. I’ve been listening to it since around 2000 and it still doesn’t feel as if I’ve “solved” it yet. There’s so much there.

15) Tell us about some reader / fan feedback that you’ve carried with you. Positive or negative.

Last week someone tweeted something like, “The last two Boss Fight Books made me tear up — let’s see if the third one does too,” and someone (in an unrelated conversation) tweeted, “Those books are too hippie dippy for me.” And, you know, fair enough. For better or worse, we’re not making books just about games, but games filtered through human experience. Not the best for “stick to the facts” types.

16) What’s your favorite Bob Dylan song?

“Hurricane,” “The Man in Me,” “To Make You Feel My Love.”

17) Is there one game you secretly hope somebody will cover? (I promise not to use this question to my advantage.)

The Binding of Isaac

18) Somebody wants to read just one book to determine if Boss Fight is for them. Which do you recommend?

I think they should pick based on the game they most want to read about.

19) Somebody wants to read just one book, period. Which do you recommend?

Yikes! Have they learned to read yet? Maybe Go, Dog, Go?

20) We’re making a video game about your life. Describe the most common enemy.

Self-doubt! And it looks just like a Red Slime from Dragon Quest.

BONUS: Say anything to our readers that you haven’t gotten to say above!

Have you seen Everybody Wants Some!! yet? What a cool movie.

Review: Game Art, by Matt Sainsbury

Releasing next week, Game Art is a directly-titled look at one of the most indirect forms of art out there. In fact, if I wanted to take issue with the book, that’s where I’d point; the title’s simplicity almost seems to do a disservice to the depths plumbed within.

To put it as succinctly as I can: I very much enjoyed this book. So much so that it took me several weeks to write this review. It’s easy to get drawn into, and when you manage to pull yourself away there’s so little that it feels like one can add to it. It’s a perfect study of a traditionally unstudied medium, and it’s hard to put any of this better than the author — or his interviewees — already did.

I received a review copy from Matt Sainsbury himself. I mention that by way of dual disclaimer. Firstly, I got the thing for free, which is always good to know…but by this point I hope you realize how much I hate all things, generosity included, so that wasn’t about to shape my opinion. Secondly, I know Matt. But I know Matt, primarily, as a writer. As a critic. As someone who has been doing exactly what he does in this book for the past several years. If my opinion of Game Art is enhanced in any way by my knowledge of Matt, it’s because his body of work has earned that respect.

Game Art feels like the culmination of a passionate lifetime of independent study and appreciation. It’s an oddly magical journey that gives respectful, gallery treatment to the kind of art that so frequently flits along in the background while somebody tries to survive a gauntlet or solve a puzzle. And it’s pretty incredible stuff.

Quite why game art (lowercase) gets the short shrift, I’ll never know. It’s in the same boat game music was in a few decades ago; creations by talented people that were not perceived as legitimate works. In the case of game music, the rise of OverClocked ReMix did much to grant retroactive legitimacy to these compositions. It provided a platform for other artists to pay homage to and develop upon the source material, and it opened a path to reappraisal and rediscovery.

Game art, oddly, has not had the same opportunity. As graphics improve massively year over year — and as games are often derided for not looking good enough — there’s a stunning lack of appreciation for those images as art. They’re a box to be checked, and then the world moves on to judging the next one against some cold, arbitrary scale.

Matt opens the conversation for reappraisal with Game Art, quite literally. Because in addition to presenting some stunning imagery, he gets in touch with the artists and game designers that put these visuals together, and does something unthinkable: he asks them to talk about it.

The result is a guided tour through underappreciated works by those who labored to create them, and there’s an overriding and charming sense of humility in the words of just about every interviewee. These aren’t artists who demand to be noticed or even understood. These are creators speaking about their processes of creation, and it’s a beautiful read.

In fact, the book could have functioned perfectly well in either of two ways. It could have been a big, glossy, quiet showcase of in-game and concept art worthy of a second look. It could also have been a collection of interviews with the unsung artists behind the games we love and a few we’ve forgotten.

Instead it’s both, which is why it’s so hard to put down. Read a few interviews, and get lost for minutes on end in the companion visuals. Find an image that draws you in, and dive immediately into the words of the artist who created it. It’s not just a great way to understand and experience game art; it’s a companion to itself.

Most importantly, familiarity with the games themselves isn’t necessary to appreciate the book. While I’ve played a few of the games covered here, I can safely say that I missed out on the majority. The conversations, though, are about larger topics. Like these comments from Michael Samyn, who has five games featured in the collection, regarding the somewhat limiting interplay between his role and the programmers’ in putting a game together:

If you want to get really creative, you’re up against a wall all the time thanks to the rigidity of the programming. Artists have very complex logic of their own; it’s just that their minds work differently than a programmer’s. I do think that’s perhaps another reason there aren’t as many interesting games from an artistic point of view.

He then goes on to discuss a — potentially exciting — aspect of artistic design that’s very specific to an interactive medium like video games:

The player not only has the imagination to complete the work, as they would with a movie or book, but they can actively change the narrative itself. We also like to make our games rich so players can express themselves and do things depending on how they feel. That means we can’t really finish a game like you would finish a book or a movie.

These aren’t conversations that require a specific frame of knowledge to understand; these are unique and valuable insights into the nature, obstacles, and experiences of the creative mind.

Game Art is at once an easy read and deceptively dense. It’s difficult to speak concretely about it, because much of what the book does is get your own mind working. When, as above, a question of leaving room for audience interplay is raised, it’s conducive to independent thought. It gets your mind working as a reader, if only because these are concepts that haven’t been explored in the public consciousness before. These are considerations that are familiar to those creating within the industry, and regularly glossed over by those enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Matt’s bridging of this disconnect feels long overdue, and the fact that it’s handled in such an appealing, gorgeously visual tome is, frankly, more than we deserve. It’s the sort of book that’s impossible to read without being at least mildly envious of the author for identifying such a massive gap and paving over it so perfectly.

I’ll remind you again that Matt’s my friend. He’s a great guy. And I’ve interviewed him here before in the early stages of the project. But none of that shapes my opinion of the final product. It doesn’t make me like it so much as it makes me appreciate all of the time and the effort that I know has gone into this. It’s a book that very much succeeds on its own merits, and absolutely lives up to its ambition.

If you have any interest in games, visual arts, interactive arts, or the creative process in general, Game Art is very much worth your time. It’s also a handsome enough volume that it makes for a great gift.

It’s available on Amazon and from No Starch Press directly. The latter offers it as an ebook for an outright psychotic $32, though, so, seriously, pitch in the extra few dollars for the physical version.

Here’s hoping Game Art is able to elevate the levels of appreciation and discourse when it comes to…well, game art. It’s a welcoming, inspirational, and by no means exhaustive way to open the conversation. It’s our job to keep it going.

The First Editions of Thomas Pynchon

I’ve been meaning to do something like this for a while. I’ve always been something of a collector of books (which is a polite way of saying it’s the one thing I’m liable to hoard), but as much as I love and respect them, I don’t usually bother to track down rare editions of anything. If I find them, great…but even then there’s no guarantee I’ll buy them. I just look at them, afraid to hasten their decay with whatever oils and greases are bound to be on my fingertips, afraid even to stare too long lest that be the moment I discover I am capable of pyrokinesis.

But once I fell in love with Thomas Pynchon, that changed. At least, as far as rare editions of Thomas Pynchon books are concerned. Over the years I’ve built a collection I really enjoy, and if there’s interest maybe I’ll share more of it later on. But for now, I just wanted to go through his brief bibliography, show off some very poor photos of the first edition hardcovers I’ve acquired, and talk briefly about them.

If you want to know more about what these books are actually about (what a concept!) you can check out my Thomas Pynchon Primer. This is really just a chance to look at some things that I think happen to be pretty cool.

V. was published in 1963, when even fewer people knew who Thomas Pynchon was than do today. I bring that up because it’s certainly the reason my first edition of the book isn’t in such stellar shape. As you can see, there’s some significant wear and scuffing on the front cover, and some discoloration on the back. But it could be far worse, and I’m not complaining.

Finding a better looking copy of V. won’t be easy. As his first book, I’m sure very few people cared to preserve it. Outside of private collections of people who knew him personally, the odds are that surviving copies of the first printing bear the marks of being crammed into backpacks, dropped carelessly, or having things spilled on them. That is to say, people treated it like a book rather than a collector’s item, which, at the time, it was. This copy is the best I’ve seen in person. Potentially I’d upgrade, but the odds of finding a better one seem pretty slim.

One thing that I really like about this cover is the back. As you’ll see, publishers never really figured out what to do with Pynchon’s back covers, but I like the way they experimented with V. the best. There’s no real value to having chapter titles on the back of a closed book, but in a novel as dizzying as V., any help with orientation is bound to be appreciated. It’s also a very efficient way of introducing new readers (as they all would have been, then) to the author; those titles do a great job, I feel, of conveying the way in which he writes. His approach, variety, and interests (and seeming conflicts and confusions) are all laid out right there.

Later Pynchon books would miss out on this back cover matter…but they’d do so out of necessity. V., after all, is the only novel in which Pynchon titled his chapters. FUN FACT.

Also, another FUN FACT: this edition of V. contains different text from all later printings. The reason is that Pynchon changed his mind about a few things after it went to the printer. It’s not uncommon for spelling or formatting errors to be corrected in later printings, but in this case they were actually rewritten passages. Oddly, this unique text wasn’t discovered until just a few years ago, when Pynchon’s novels were being prepared for release as ebooks. Due to the rarity of first edition copies, and the fact that nobody expected anything different there, decades worth of scholarship missed the fact that the V. we were reading wasn’t V. as it was originally published. Neat.

In 1966, Pynchon published The Crying of Lot 49. It’s a glorified novella in terms of length, but not — I’d argue — in terms of depth. My front cover is in better shape than one might think; the artwork makes it difficult to tell. But the back cover definitely betrays some wear and tear.

On the cover we see a sketch of a muted post horn, which is an important symbol in the story and is also the novel’s sole illustration. (It also provided the design for my tattoo.) On the back we have excerpts from the reviews for V., another back-cover idea that was never used again…perhaps because Pynchon’s reviews are notoriously mixed, but more likely because between V. and The Crying of Lot 49, his name began to carry significant cachet, and it became less important to “convince” people that he was worth reading.

I actually acquired this first edition copy twice. Yes, the same exact copy. A few years ago, my girlfriend at the time bought it for me as a Christmas gift. It was — and will certainly always be — one of the best possible gifts I could receive. But I didn’t want to read it…I wanted to display it on a shelf. My motives for this were obvious, I think; the last thing I’d want to do with a piece of literary history like this is put myself in a position to destroy it. But she took my reluctance to handle it too much as dissatisfaction with the gift.

She took it back. Merry Christmas to all. And that was the last I saw of it for years, until well after we broke up. The rare book store we both visited when we were together called me and told me they’d just gotten a very good first edition of The Crying of Lot 49 if I was interested. They knew I was, of course, and they did everything they could to make it clear, without saying it, that it was the same copy she’d bought for me in the first place. So I went and bought it myself, and I made sure to show me the proper appreciation for it so I wouldn’t have it taken away again.

Now this…this is the one I never expected to own. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) got a larger printing than both of Pynchon’s previous titles, so scarcity isn’t the issue so much as the fact that this is the Thomas Pynchon novel. Rare copies demand high prices, because this is the one people — fans, collectors, resellers — want most.

I had a chance to spring for a first-edition paperback, and passed it up…something I was pretty regretful of for a while. But eventually I was at my favorite rare book store and asked if they had any copies.

They did…and they kept it in the back, where nobody could muck it up with their grubby hands. It was gorgeous; on the upper right of the front cover it may look like there’s a bit of damage, but it’s actually just glare from the plastic dust jacket I use to keep it in good shape. It’s quite lovely, really.

The best thing, though, is this:

This isn’t just a first-edition hardcover…it’s a review copy. This was sent to some magazine or newspaper reviewer with the materials you see here. (They are loose; I arranged them here for the photo but they’re not attached in any way to the book itself.) As you’ll also see, the reviewer never did his or her job. This is a copy mailed out ahead of general release…that sat on a shelf somewhere, was moved to an archive, and was likely never even read. It’s one of the first printed copies of the novel period, and I’ve never seen another copy with the review request materials. For all I know, these are the only ones that survive.

Oh, and it’s my favorite novel of all time so THERE’S THAT.

It’s also the most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased, outside of any cars I’ve owned, so if you break into my house and want to get out with something quick, go for this. It’s small and worth a lot more than any of the other crap you’ll see lying around.

The back cover sets what’s pretty much the closest thing to a precedent Pynchon’s back covers would ever have: an uninterrupted continuation of the front cover’s artwork. It’s pretty beautiful.

In 1984, eleven years after Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon finally published something: a collection of other things he already published.

Slow Learner isn’t that great; as a reading experience, you’d be hard pressed to do much worse. As a slow study of a young artist becoming a legendary one, though, it’s unparalleled.

I’ve mentioned before that some copies of Slow Learner are reported to contain a sixth story: “Mortality and Mercy in Vienna.” I’ve found copies of that story, but never a version of this book that contains it. And since this is a first edition, I don’t know where else to look. It’s possible that it was only included in printings released in other countries, but I’ve never found specific information about that, and part of me suspects it’s just false information that’s been propagated over time.

The back cover in this case includes an excerpt from the book…specifically, the author’s introduction.

By this point Pynchon had only released three novels, but his reluctance to speak about himself, make public appearances, provide interviews, or do anything else that established writers were supposed to do meant that a huge part of Slow Learner‘s value came from the brief introduction Pynchon provided. Spotlighting it here meant that people wouldn’t miss its inclusion, and, certainly, it still stands as the book’s highlight.

Unlike the above, Vineland is fairly easy to find as a first edition. In fact, I think this one set me aside around $20, and it’s in gorgeous shape. I think the reason for this is that by its publication in 1990, Pynchon’s reputation had grown so much that it was guaranteed to get a huge printing…and the mixed to negative reviews that met its release meant that a lot of them were left unsold.

Personally, I don’t know why anyone could read Vineland and come away feeling negative about it. It’s one of my favorite Pynchon novels, and, yes, a wait of almost 20 years after Gravity’s Rainbow probably helped people set their expectations too high…but, damn. What a bunch of crybabies.

Oh well. It resulted in me getting this very inexpensively, and I’m sure you can find one around that price, too.

The critical reception to Vineland stings in a way that I can’t really articulate. I think I just hate the fact that I live in a world in which something of such strong literary merit is met with a shrug because it’s not whatever illusory thing people decided they wanted instead. Artistic entitlement is such an awful thing.

The book, though, is in pristine shape. The back cover features a bar code. A BOLD CHOICE.

From here on, we get to the first editions that I actually bought upon release.

Or, kind of. Mason & Dixon came out in 1997, but I don’t think I bought mine until 1999 or so. I wasn’t a Pynchon fan at the time, but it was on an overstock table at Borders, as you’ll see from the price tag.

I bought it, read it, and hated it with a passion. Now I think it’s a remarkably warm and profound book that I revisit every couple of years, so…yeah, sometimes it’s worth persevering with things you don’t at first understand.

The price tag is still on it because I don’t want to remove it without damaging the book. Granted, it’s on a dust jacket, but that dust jacket isn’t entirely transparent…the words “Thomas Pynchon” and “Mason & Dixon” are printed on it.

Of course, since I bought this before I was a collector there’s quite a bit of shelf-wear and a few dings, so it’s not like it’s in the best of shape anyway, but I still haven’t risked removing the tag. Maybe part of me just really misses Borders.

I can’t get too upset at the first-day Vineland haters, because I had a similar (if not nearly as strong) reaction to Against the Day when it came out in 2006. I’ve warmed up to it since, but it still feels a bit overlong…like it could do with a reduction of a couple hundred pages easily.

That’s not to say it’s without charm, though, and I re-read it recently and found more reasons to love everything I initially loved, and a few new reasons to love some of the things I originally overlooked. It’s by no means Pynchon’s best…but it’s an experience I know I’ll return to many times.

My copy is in pretty good shape!…is what I would have said before taking these photos. Now I see a pretty nasty scratch across the back cover. I have no idea what that’s from, but it’s a good reminder to be careful. Fortunately I’m sure I could find another copy; for now I’m okay with it, but in the future I have a feeling that proof of carelessness is going to drive me insane.

I bought Inherent Vice the day it was released in 2009. It feels like a lifetime ago. I was a different person then, in a very different place in life. I won’t get into any of that, but I know I read through this exact copy multiple times I was recovering from a surgery. It was this and Neil Young’s Heart of Gold concert DVD that kept me the most — and best — company.

This one is still in very good shape, even if the back cover still has a price tag and I can’t take a non-blurry picture to save my life. I’d like to be able to say that any first editions I buy as an adult are guaranteed to remain gorgeous and pristine, but the fact is that I like to read them. Wear and tear is the cost of enjoying what you collect, I guess.

And, finally, 2013’s Bleeding Edge. No great stories about this one (I drove to the bookstore after work and bought it!), but I guess I did cross some kind of ethical line. After I’d purchased it, but before I left the store, I noticed damage to the dust jacket, so I EXCHANGED IT WITH ANOTHER COPY WITHOUT TELLING ANYBODY. I hope the statute of limitations is up on that crime, because if there’s one kind of prisoner that gets it rough, it’s the book swapper.

As of right now, that’s Pynchon’s most recent book. It might end up being his last, but I’ve been saying that for the past three books, so maybe I’ll just wait and see rather than convince myself that my favorite author is as good as dead.

So, that’s my tour of my first-edition hardcovers of Thomas Pynchon. A complete set, and there’s something truly comforting and rewarding about looking over at that shelf and seeing a small piece of literary history. It’s humbling…especially for a guy who writes about ALF.

Guest Post: Eyeing Up ‘Net Privacy

The following is a great article on artistic discussions of the deep web, online privacy, social responsibility, and more, courtesy of UK-based reader Patrick Massey. I found this fascinating, worrying, and enlightening in equal parts, and I hope you experience some mix of those three things as well. Take it away, Patrick.

A “Marco Polo” of the contemporary public sphere: “Internet” and “privacy.” The two phenomena are often yoked together in the news: the various problems of data access (who should be denied it? Whose data should be sacrosanct? What justifies access sub rosa?) swap pre-eminence in public consciousness as the Big Three of ‘net privacy–Snowden, Assange, Manning–swap the limelight. (In this essay, “‘net” refers to both the readily accessible surface Web, typically but carelessly referred to as “the Internet,” hence my coining an alternative term— and the Deep Web, the Internet’s large, largely criminal underbelly.)

In this essay, I want to consider how, not the news, but contemporary visual culture (i.e. screen and theatre of 2013/4) visualizes and/or fails to visualize ‘net privacy. I hope to address familiar issues of ‘net privacy via less familiar co-ordinates. Of course, William Gibson and other genre authors have been addressing cyber-issues, crafting cyber-aesthetics for years; but here I’m thinking of a) the real world ‘net in b) mainstream works of c) the last two years.

SCREEN MEDIA, and The ‘Net/Screen Problem

Documentaries aside (though cf. Terms and Conditions May Apply, Citizen Four), Internet privacy is surprisingly scantly treated in ‘13/4 screen culture. The two so bracketed, ‘net-oriented films I remember most readily–Her and Transcendence–privilege online addiction and a deus ex machina Johnny Depp over issues of ‘net privacy. Even Assange bio The Fifth Estate is more reportage, a primer on its subject and Wikileaks, than a meditation on abstractions or themes (and even then, Assange’s relationship to the media is privileged over ‘net privacy).

In mainstream C21 cinema in sum, ‘net privacy is principally a means to emotive ends. In Hard Candy, Chatroom, and Trust, the abuse of ‘net privacy does not itself merit attention–rather, it enables plot-wise the kidnaps et al that define and rather pre-occupy those thrillers. Even in the Catfish franchise [’10 film + current MTV series], any interrogation of ‘net privacy abuse is suborned to affect: to first terror (“who are these people?”), then horror (“look at those people!”). Although Catfish et al can be, indeed have been starting-points for discussing ‘net privacy, that discussion doesn’t happen in the films themselves.

Such scanty treatment of ‘net privacy on screen owes not only, I think, to auteurs’ simply “not having got round to it”, but also to a fundamental, broader disjunction between the ‘net and screen media. The ‘net does not readily lend itself to concrete visualization. One must get figurative, experimental; but screen media tend towards “meatspatial” settings— realities, however fantastical or futuristic. Consider Star Trek’s holodeck: always a real-world milieu, often Earth-historical, never a Tron-scape. Consider too the recent backdoor pilot for CSI Cyber: introducing a series oriented around the Deep Web, yet resorting latterly to “Female (Early 20s)” showing hard copy evidence of her online chat-room ignominy to meatspatial paparazzi in a meatspatial VEGAS: EXT.

I might suggest three reasons for this disjunction. First, the chokehold of corporate network funding and the likelier non-profitability of experimentalism [versus the realism that characterizes the “New Golden Age” of television]; the desire to fully exploit and justify investment in physical sets; and third (and still more tentatively proffered), the Internet’s being TV and film’s unheimlich, uncanny counterpart, perhaps frustrating the interrogation of the former by the latter… Heady stuff. But the bottom line for us is: if the Internet in sum cannot find a screen aesthetic, what hope for its clandestine, its even less readily visualized cyberspaces? And what hope consequently for addressing ‘net privacy?

Happily, ‘net privacy has been better visualized in theatre of ‘13/4— a medium naturally more amenable to the figurative and the experimental.

THEATRE, and Romancing the ‘Net

In The Net Effect, Thomas Streeter posits romanticism as a key co-ordinate in ‘net studies. He primarily argues that neoliberal forces propagate a romantic individualist idea of computing, and that “capital R” Romanticism can help us understand the social meaning of computers.

With this precedent in mind, I turn to ‘net privacy in theatre of ‘13/4. All the plays I’m going to consider deal with perversions, criminal iterations of ‘net privacy. But none less than Keats was ‘half in love with death’; and however perverse their content gets, these plays evince, if not a Romantic aesthetic per se, then something sufficiently akin that I’m going to draw formal Romantic parallels and beg your indulgence.

Jen Haley’s The Nether deals with online pederasty in a private “Hideaway” [Haley’s device]. In fashioning the Hideaway, Haley eschews a complementarily grimy, abject aesthetic for irony: it is an archetypal country estate, with trees, gazebo, and fishing-pond. Notwithstanding its nominally Victorian context, a Romantic aesthetic— Blakeian innocence, a “Lakeland Poetic” idealizing of Nature— surely underpins a milieu that presents like this:

Blakeian also is Iris, the Hideaway’s resident, white-clad sprite–and “willing” victim of virtual child abuse. Innocent prima facie, but horribly au fait with abhorrent experience (“Perhaps you’d like to use the axe first”): Iris embodies the disjunction that hinges Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. Note finally how, according to its creator, “it’d upset a balance” in the Hideaway to suggest that Iris could grow older: anyone whose mind went to the Romantic organic conception of nature, give yourself a mark.

Price’s Teh [sic] Internet is Serious Business is a reportage piece about the respective rise and fall of the “hacktivist” groups Anonymous and LulzSec. Its dominant aesthetic is anarchic: a ball pit abuts the stage, from and around which emerge Socially Awkward Penguin and other costumed memes. Bright lights, Harlem Shake: you get the drift. At first sight, privacy is not the word here. But Price also depicts hackers’ private forums— and here, the staging tends towards lyricism. Computer code is recited as poetry (cf. Chandra’s recent equivalence of the two, if intrigued); databyte flow, enacted as dance. Here, literarily and physically, is a lyricism where elsewhere is jouissance: thus is privacy “Romanticized” (cf. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Dvorak’s New World Symphony…).

James Graham’s Privacy tacks otherwise to Haley and Price. Graham’s is a synoptic approach to ‘net privacy, a condemnation of illiberal governmental/corporate/ security state malpractice as regards ostensibly password-protected public data. Such factuality is not the Romantic way, likewise Privacy’s format: a hybrid of verbatim enactments of his [The Writer’s] interviews with real British Establishment figures (Shami Chakrabarti, anyone? Well, Google her sometime); lectures; and fourth-wall—breaking audience participation. For good measure, Privacy rides roughshod over the Romantic exaltation of the subject: an array of thumbprints is the default [screen] backdrop, and the “subject” of the audience participation (having given prior permission) has her real-world online footprint, herself by proxy dissected onstage.

Despite all this, Privacy retains a double pertinence. First, it acts as a counter-proof: as its core is non-Romantic, so Privacy does not depict privacy itself [cf. Haley’s Hideaway, Price’s hackers’ forums] but exposes, is an exposé of its absence. Second, its aesthetic rather taps into the “other end” of Romanticism, where rapturous apostrophes fade into disquiet, into sublimity: the awesome dimensions of Big Data, the staging [that screen, those magnified thumbprints] vis-à-vis the actors and the script’s analytical impulse.

So: 2 1/2 proofs and a counter-proof, we might say, of a relationship between ‘net privacy and a quasi-Romantic aesthetic. My humble explanation: that the ‘net (especially the Deep Web) remains so broadly un-comprehended, its depth so untapped, as to inspire from us what “the naked countenance of Earth” [Shelley] inspired from the Romantics.

PYNCHON: A Quick Nota Bene

In another world, where space and time were as playthings, I’d fully discuss Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge: the only “literary” fictional novel that readily comes to mind that not only foreground ‘net privacy as a theme, but actually figures it as a distinct, visualized cyberspace–DeepArcher; conceived of as a ‘grand-scale motel for the afflicted’, for Pynchon’s kindred preterite [cf. Gravity’s Rainbow, or Google judiciously]; variously iterated as train concourse, desert, and galactic Void; and ultimately a Purgatory for leads, lovers, and 9/11 victims all encountered (and killed off) in the narrative. (On a complementary note for that latter point: Kabbalistic imagery and lexis is deployed in descriptions of the Void). Would I could share my MA dissertation with you all; but I’ll highlight simply this: doing what even screen media cannot (at least easily), and in keeping with his typical trickster mode, Pynchon visualizes ‘net privacy chimerically; that one cannot identify a definitive DA-scape is the whole point. A nicely postmodern note, I hope, on which to finish considering contemporary cultural visualizations of the ‘net.