Merry Christmas, and goodwill to all

The Junky’s Christmas by William Burroughs, from the collection Interzone. A text version of the story to supplement Burroughs’s croaky narration, if required, is available here.

Buy William Burroughs books on Amazon.

Book Covers: The Book Design Review

Make Room! Make Room!, Harry Harrison (David Pearson)

Violence, Slavoj Žižek (Henry Sene Yee)

All the Sad Young Literary Men, Keith Gessen (The Heads of State)

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin (David Pearson)

Images from the excellent Book Design Review; now, alas, defunct (though you can still find the author on Twitter).

//Where do bicycles go to die?// Skeletons NYC

Images by Marko Vourinen, via Broadsheet.ie

Paranmanjang

This passed El Tarangu by completely when it came out in January, but South Korean film director Park Chan Wook (he of Oldboy fame) has shot a short film entirely using the iPhone 4.

No English subtitles, unfortunately, but insofar as the Internet tells us, Paranmanjang is about a family consulting a shaman to find out the circumstances of the death of a relative (the fisherman gentleman).

Nice poster, too.

Buy Park Chan Wook films on Amazon.

The Chrysalids

The Chrysalids is John Wyndham’s take on a post-apocalyptic North American theocracy. The novel focuses on David Strorm, a child growing up in Waknuk, a community in Labrador. Most technological processes have been lost to humanity during ‘the Tribulation’ (nuclear war); civilization has regressed to an agrarian, almost feudal state. Genetic mutations, resulting from the aftermath of the long-distant Tribulation, are rooted out and sent to live in ‘the Fringes’ - areas deemed uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout.

David, the book’s narrator, realises from a young age that he can communicate telepathically with his half-cousin, Rosalind. Soon David and Rosalind discover a number of other children who can communicate in this way. Though outwardly normal in appearance, the children grow up in constant fear that their secret will be uncovered, and they be deemed ‘Deviations’ and sent to live in the Fringes.

Not to give too much away, there is a catalyst that causes the children’s (though by this point, they’re young adults) secret to be discovered. David and Rosalind flee, along with David’s ultra-telepathic sister, Petra, encountering all sorts of dangers along the way, until the story reaches its dramatic conclusion.

The Chrysalids differs from much of the rest of Wyndham’s oeuvre. The book isn’t a ‘cosy catastrophe’, like The Day of the Triffids or The Kraken Wakes. Also, The Chrysalids doesn’t feature an educated everyman as its narrator and main protagonist. The book’s dystopian, post-nuclear war totalitarian setting is kind of reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale (always a good thing). The book also reminded El T of Keith Roberts’s Pavane (not exactly an unqualified recommendation).

The most unusual aspect of the novel is its skewed moral compass. For most of its length, The Chrysalids reads like an allegory promoting tolerance. When a childhood friend has to go on the run from the authorities on account of an extra toe, young David doesn’t understand why everyone can’t just get along. The book then ends in an odd coda, with it being suggested to David that it is all right for telepaths to kill off the norms, as telepaths represent the next stage in the race’s evolution; natural selection will kill off all the non-telepathic humans eventually, so why not lend a helping hand? David questions this notion briefly, and then seems to go along with the idea.

Its inconsistent position on the subject of eugenics aside, The Chrysalids is kind of a dull book. Genre novels in the classic 200 page format really need to get going from the first page; The Chrysalids meanders along for its first 100 pages and then, just when it has begun to get moderately interesting, finishes. A real disappointment for a book that some people compare favourably to Triffids (at one time, El Tarangu's favourite novel).

Not one of John Wyndham’s better efforts, El Tarangu would not recommend.

Buy The Day of the Triffids on Amazon.

Image from A Penguin a week.

The Moon

Images by Laurent Laveder; via Bad Astronomy.

Steampunk Computers

Images from The Hottest Gadgets.com