threemonkeys (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threemonkeys) wrote2006-01-04 06:06 pm
threemonkeys) wrote2006-01-04 06:06 pm
Entry tags:
The good ol' days
My health, like the weather, is much improved although not as good as it should be. I could have got back into some mindless domesticity and attacked the garden, but I like y'know didn't. Instead I found a sheltered sunny music-accessible spot and did some more reading.
Since my brain was still a bit befuddled, probably from a bit of dehydration, I wanted something that wasn't too hard to read. What I went for was something written in a simple plain style but not a simple plain subject. That is, clearly written but in no way dumbed down. The sort of writing that typified the Science Fiction genre during "the golden age" of the '40s and '50s. It is a mode of writing that appears to be all too rare these days. There seems to be an attitude that complex ideas and emotions have to be described in a complex manner. Or perhaps it is a lack of ability - it takes real skill to render complex ideas in plain language without losing the subtleties of those ideas. Obviously there are exceptions and I grab onto new authors who show this skill with great glee.
The author I chose for today was Frederik Pohl. I could easily do a long rant about how great Fred is and how unrecognised and neglected this master of the field is outside the fan community - the older fan community at that. But instead I will just note that his active writing career spans more than 60 years and is of consistent quality over that time.
Years of the City was written in the early '80s and is a tale of New York as it will become. It does this by telling five connected stories a generation or so apart as the city develops. There are plenty of technology holes that are apparent because the writing is 20 years old, but despite that, it is still fresh because it isn't really about the technology but the impact of it and social change on the people involved. It is a series of personal tales which illustrate how change may happen.
I enjoyed this book a great deal and yet by Pohl's standards it is nothing exceptional. I'm not making a "it was better in the old days argument" because, despite what I said above, I don't actually believe that. I just think its sad that writers as good as Fred are being forgotten. Its probably time I had another trawl through the second hand stores to look for titles I don't have."
Since my brain was still a bit befuddled, probably from a bit of dehydration, I wanted something that wasn't too hard to read. What I went for was something written in a simple plain style but not a simple plain subject. That is, clearly written but in no way dumbed down. The sort of writing that typified the Science Fiction genre during "the golden age" of the '40s and '50s. It is a mode of writing that appears to be all too rare these days. There seems to be an attitude that complex ideas and emotions have to be described in a complex manner. Or perhaps it is a lack of ability - it takes real skill to render complex ideas in plain language without losing the subtleties of those ideas. Obviously there are exceptions and I grab onto new authors who show this skill with great glee.
The author I chose for today was Frederik Pohl. I could easily do a long rant about how great Fred is and how unrecognised and neglected this master of the field is outside the fan community - the older fan community at that. But instead I will just note that his active writing career spans more than 60 years and is of consistent quality over that time.
Years of the City was written in the early '80s and is a tale of New York as it will become. It does this by telling five connected stories a generation or so apart as the city develops. There are plenty of technology holes that are apparent because the writing is 20 years old, but despite that, it is still fresh because it isn't really about the technology but the impact of it and social change on the people involved. It is a series of personal tales which illustrate how change may happen.
I enjoyed this book a great deal and yet by Pohl's standards it is nothing exceptional. I'm not making a "it was better in the old days argument" because, despite what I said above, I don't actually believe that. I just think its sad that writers as good as Fred are being forgotten. Its probably time I had another trawl through the second hand stores to look for titles I don't have."