Strange Horizons has now posted
my review of John Clute's latest collection of materials, Stay. A taste:
Even a mere glance through Stay, John Clute’s latest collection of book reviews, short stories, and lexicon entries, (or through any of Clute's books, really) will convince you that you are in the presence of genius.
But a genius of what type? The type that can turn a million candy wrappers into a surprisingly convincing small-scale replica of a rocket ship, or the type that zips to the heart of a zeitgeist faster than the rest of us? Is this genius a fox, a hedgehog, an anorak? Does it sing in seemingly effortless perfect pitch, or is its singing, like that of a dog, remarkable simply for being at all?
The desire to taxonomize is inevitable after reading even a few pages of Clute. He is a wild literary Linnaeus: obsessively compulsed to categorize. As someone generally uninterested in taxonomy, I have struggled to learn to read Clute appreciatively. I used to want to shoot his clay pigeonholes, to mock his neologistic frenzies, to clothe the emperor. But then I realized I was enjoying his work too much to do so. Clute’s imperative to categorize is contagious. I’d passed through the portal and made my way into Cluteland.
This review marks ten years of my writing for
Strange Horizons — I began as a columnist in February 2005 with a rather odd piece titled
"Walls". I stopped as a columnist after writing
fifty, since I felt like I'd done what I could do with the form for that audience, but I've continued occasionally to write reviews.
I don't do a lot with genre speculative fiction these days, since other things have taken me elsewhere, but it's nice to be back now and again at a publication that feels so much like home. I owe thanks to lots of people there, especially former editor-in-chief Susan Groppi, who first asked me to write for the magazine, current editor-in-chief (and the first, if I remember correctly, reviews editor) Niall Harrison, recent past reviews editor Abigail Nussbaum, new reviews senior editor Maureen Kincaid Speller, and book reviews editor Aishwarya Subramanian, who not only let me keep some of my bad puns and jokes, but even liked some of them!
Strange Horizons remains a unique, wonderful place out there in the wide world of the web, and it has always been an honor to be associated with it.
The 2012 Hugo Award winners have been revealed, honoring the best science fiction and fantasy writing of the year. 1,922 ballots were cast during the voting process.
Below, we’ve linked to free samples of all the winners–including the complete text of the winning novella, novelette, short story and graphic story. Be sure to check out John DeNardo‘s SF Signal blog, winner of the best fanzine award.
Here’s more about the awards: “The 2012 Hugo Award winners were announced on Sunday evening, September 2, at the at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago. The ceremony was hosted by Chicon 7 Toastmaster John Scalzi.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Hitting this parenthetical, I knew I was in the wonderful Land of Clute:
--Ajvaz has made it clear he does not want the reader to be reminded of Magic Realism in his work, that his texts do not valorize any hero bearer of sigils out of the swamp nor any origin tale at the heart of the delta of tales untold--
Since the death of
John Leonard, I've come to cherish
Clute more than ever. I've always had an admiration for Clute -- for though my ability to embrace his ideas has often been tempered by my (quasi-irrational?) antipathy to taxonomy vs. his
career of it, I love his rhythms and diction, and more than that, I love his willingness to follow the words into a realm more of sound than sense, something Shakespeare did now and then, and all the best poets, and John Leonard, too, who was nearly unique in offering that quality as a book reviewer.
Nearly unique. I think of Leonard and Clute as the Jazz Johns of Bookchat. I wish they'd had the chance to play a session together. Imagine what it might sound like--
The sky's falling and so's the yen. Suddenly the jaws of Story shut cleanly on him. And he realizes he's been holding his breath even on those occasions -- under a tent at Caramoor, once in a cathedral -- to which he's been invited as a designated partisan, after which he's guaranteed a standing ovation because, of course, he's followed by the Laureate, who reads from her novel-in-progress, which begins: "They shoot the white girl first."
Shouting, farting, swearing, grinding his intimates into stricken silence but also lifting them high, shitting himself so hard he blasts a hole in his own peritoneum, arguing, staggering from the ring of truths so great the world shouts God in his ear, he is a stunning creation, a histrion utterly real to the eye, a porridge of sensation who turns on a dime into icon. Old son, you're nicked. From sea to shining sea: long-distance loneliness ... Deer slayers, cow punchers, whaling captains and raft river rats ... Greedheads, gun nuts, and religious crazies ... Carpetbaggers, claims jumpers, con men, dead redskins, despised coolies, fugitive slaves, and No Irish Need Apply ... Land grabs, lynching bees, and Love Canals ... Lone Rangers, private eyes, serial killers, and cyberpunks. Not exactly the ideal social space for a radical Johnny Appleseed to plant his dream beans.
All in all, though, it is a structure into which a thousand tales could nestle, each nudzhing its niche, each transacting furiously. So superior are these sentences to the churlishness that passes for criticism elsewhere in our culture -- the exorcism, the vampire bite, the vanity production, the body-snatching and the sperm-sucking -- so generous and wise, that they seem to belong to an entirely different realm of discourse, where the liberal arts meet something like transubstantiation. It is the outside of the inside of the data of the dance. It is a shape for the knowing we're going to need.
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The thing I admire about Clute's work most of all, which, admittedly, I don't always get (often not his fault but mine) or agree with, is his earnestness. He's really thought deeply about the works he reviews, cares about the ideas and craft embodied within, for better or worse, and is always honest in his assessment. I just dont see a lot of that from others.
Jeff Ford
I have this notion that when Clute doesn't know what to say, he just writes a parody of himself that's indistinguishable from his actual prose style. Just as often, though, I think he brings far more to the table than the original works he examines do. This was a great reminder to appreciate him while he's still doing his thing.
You've also made me miss John Leonard all over again. I went back to your eulogy of (can it be?) nearly two years ago and found myself doing the same thing I did at the time, corralling the spouse and reading his sentences aloud to her. I'd skip a mortgage payment if the Library of America put out a volume or two of his complete works.
there are so many taught that Clute's want to do. if he desire, he get it.
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