Under the Skin - Michael Faber

If there's a category for sci-fi vegan satire, I suppose this would be the classic.  I went into this completely unaware of what this was about, and still wasn't quite sure after having read probably one third of the book.  Faber, who wrote  The Crimson Petal and the White, which is a fantastic, and very sexual, Victorian tale, does things quite differently here.  The protagonist, Isserley, is, in the beginning, very detached from anyone she encounters.  The writing is done in a very dispassionate manner.  On a side note, I did see the film version of this book not too long ago;  I didn't have too much faith in it going in, but it was actually a good film.  While the very basic story outline is the same, the details and the progression of the story are radically changed.  Given that the film is heavy on visuals, and sound, it worked on its own rather than trying to recreate the novel.


So, we have Isserley, a young woman who drives her car along the highways in remote Scotland searching for hitchhikers. Isserley, though not particularly attractive, has large breasts (this is important!!).  We soon learn that she subdues the hitchhikers, after finding out if they are suitable for her mysterious purpose. 




That purpose is to feed the starving population on her home planet.  Isserley is an alien, who through surgery, has been made to look like a human female.  Unused to walking on two legs, she is in constant pain, but she takes pride in her work.  The humans she captures are essentially treated like livestock - tongues cut out, castrated, fattened up and then slaughtered for food sent back home.   Initially Isserley regards humans, as well, sub-humans, as they are just a source of food.  However, she becomes gradually more sympathetic to them, and is horrified when she discovers all that actually happens to them.


She also begins to realize her lowly status among her own.  Condemned to appearing as a freak, toiling in gruesome work for the benefit of the upper class far away, who have destroyed the ecological balance on their own planet.  Faber goes after a lot of things here; sexism, corporate greed, consumerism and a host of others along the way. 

Zeroville Steve Erickson

 

“The Searchers is one wicked bad-ass movie whenever my man the Duke is on screen, evil white racist honky pigfucker though he may be.”


Plot: Ike Jerome (Vikar)  arrives in Los Angeles in 1969 just at the time of the Tate-LaBianca murders.  Vikar is obsessed with movies and will eventually parlay that obsession into work as a film editor.  As he travels through the 1970's and the emergence of a New Hollywood, Vikar encounters a wide range of Hollywood's movers, as well as others who share his fascinations to a varying degrees.  Near autistic, Vikar has a hard time comprehending the non-movie world, though he does develop into a fan of punk. 


Why read it: This is a movie lover's book, where you can have characters going into deep conversations on a whole range of movies going back to the 20's, arguing over what some may consider arcane aspects (there's a nice section on what film editors actually do).  Vikar has father issues (when your real name is Isaac, one might guess that to be the case).


A few years ago, I read Easy Riders and Ragin' Bulls, a history of Hollywood film from the late 60’s to early 80’s, when a group of new filmmakers, Scorcese, DePalma, Spelberg, Coppola, and the rest,  radically changed the ways films are made.  Zeroville follows roughly the same time period and involves many of the same characters, just in fictional, or thereabouts, mode.  However, Zeroville goes beyond that, regretting the loss of the old Hollywood and the movies that were made, despite the rigidity of making movies within the existing system that prevailed then.  If you have any love of 20^th Century film, this is a book for you – its filled with discussions, references, and criticisms of a vast catalog of movies, both from Hollwood and other places.  I was tempted to list them all at one point, but it was too daunting a task.

The hero of the story is Vikar, a strange man (“cineautistic”), who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 with a shaved head bearing a large tattoo of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift from A Place in the Sun.  A repressive childhood (“God hates children.  He killed his own child.”) has left Vikar with one passion in life, film.  He manages (after being considered a potential suspect in the Manson murders) to find work building sets and from there getting involved in editing.  He also comes across Viking Man (essentially a renamed John Milius), a member of the new Hollywood, who helps Vikar (and names him as well) understand the odd world he inhabits.  Vikar yearns for the magical Hollywood of old and has a hard time understanding the new – his tattoo is constantly mistaken for Natalie Wood and James Dean, which confounds him to no end; after all this is Hollywood, how could they not know?  Still, Vikar establishes himself as a success in the new Hollywood.  Vikar’s personal life is barebones; he has difficulties connecting to other humans in general, with some exceptions – there’s a rather Taxi Driveresque relationship with a young girl Vikar runs into off and on (her mother is an unstable actress with a fractured relationship with Vikar).  Vikar does also find something in 70's punk - "I Wanna Be Your Dog" touches him like nothing else.

The ending drifts off to its own ambiguous end.  At first, I was a bit put off, as it didn’t seem to fit well.  Much like the hero, the book seemed to just exhaust itself.  Maybe that’s the point.   But I can read about film until the cows come home, and when it is done intelligently and passionately, as many of the characters do here, I'm in literary heaven.

Fuck continuity.  Indeed.

I would imagine if you like this, Suspects would also be worth a try.

The Dirtiest Job

Franklin Roosevelt’s VP (John Nance Garner) made the famous statement of his job being “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”  That has been less true for the past few decades, starting mostly with Al Gore, as VP’s have been given a little more to do.

In an article today asking various Republican strategists about who they likes as a potential Republican VP candidate, Newt Gingrich came out on top, though, at 13%, it’s reminiscent of how Trump won primaries, for what that’s worth.  Rubio, Kasich, Rice, Jeff Sessions and Joni Ernst all had support. More interesting was their responses about people actually accepting this job (these are Republicans saying this):

“like being first mate on the Titanic.”

“No one should have to endure that.”

 “It won't matter, except for the poor unfortunate soul who will gain the world's worst resume line.”

“I don't see any rational political figure accepting this suicide mission except those with an exaggerated ego and self-inflated thoughts of political superego.” (This would definitely explain why Gingrich came in first)

“Anyone willing to share the ticket with Donald Trump is unfit for the office of the vice president.”

“There is no one Trump can pick that would make him palatable.”

And my personal favorite:

“No one remembers who Goldwater's running mate was,” (It was William Miller, btw), “but at least that person had some honor. The one who says yes to Trump will not.”

The idea that an intelligent person (Rice, Rubio, Kasich) would take the job is kinda ludicrous, but this has been a ludicrous year already.  The job is not only not worth a bucket of warm piss, it entails one being poured over your head, with the stench remaining for years.