Distraction: Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hyperion, the 1990 Hugo Award winner, qualifies as a Distraction because it’s definitely not older than me. It’s not so much a Distraction, however, as a holdover from last year’s reading. I had put it aside for some reason I can’t remember, and I finally just got around to finishing it.

You see, here’s where I qualify as a bit of an oddball. I love this book. It’s one of the most satisfying science fiction stories I’ve ever read. It qualifies as literature, not just entertainment. Simmons’s writing is superb. His story-telling style is brilliant. The future universe he created is fascinating. The suspense is thrilling. And yet I took months to read Hyperion this time around.

Perhaps it is because of all those good qualities that I linger over wonderful pages such as these. I don’t really want such a story to end. Most of this novel consists of stories told by the individual characters embarking on a pilgrimage. They are each on their way to the backwater world of Hyperion where the elusive and terrifying Shrike, a creature of lethal blades and no mercy, makes its home. Each has his or her own reason for being there and each tells his or her story on the way, Canterbury Tales-style.

It’s the fantastic science fiction setting that makes this novel’s invitation to escape into its pages irresistible, but it’s the different voice of each character that makes Hyperion something to truly appreciate as literature. Since each character is so different from his companions, each voice is pleasantly unique and allows the author to demonstrate significant talent as a story-teller.

I can’t tell you too much about what happens and/or why without giving away enough to spoil the fascination and suspense of this novel. I will tell you, however, that this reading confirmed that Hyperion is one of my favorite books of all time and of all sorts. I’ll also tell you that the end of the novel is not by any means the end of the story, or of any of the stories. There is a sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, which I’ve read but don’t remember much about. I wonder how long I’m going to be able to stick to Books that are Older than Me before I cave in to that Distraction.

A Year of Books that are Older than Me

Favorite Lines Friday

I quite liked this little philosophical bit from Hyperion by Dan Simmons, a Distraction I finished recently:


It might be argued that the Siamese twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the raveling cosmos. (...Yes we weave real-fabric things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arithmetic. Scratch a circle and π peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tycho Brahe's formulae lie waiting under the black velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the universe hidden a word under its outer layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?)




I hope to have a few more thoughts on this delicious Distraction soon.






A Year of Books that are Older than Me

Wednesday Word

baching: Well, okay, there's enough slang in this term to keep it out of my Webster's dictionary, but I know I heard it before reading it recently in The Long Winter, where Almanzo and Royal Wilder are "baching it," that is, living a bachelor's life through the winter.

Of course, not too many young men would even blink an eye anymore when faced with living by themselves or with a few guy roommates, let along give a name to their lifestyle. I have a hunch they might just agree with Royal Wilder, however, when he says: "We eat when we get hungry...That's the advantage of baching it. Where there's no women-folks, there's no regular mealtimes."

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

This has been either a really great or really terrible winter to read The Long Winter. On one hand, it’s easy to get into the spirit of the novel when one is in the midst of some of the coldest stretches on the calendar in many (many!) years. On the other hand, when one is already cold, this book can only make one feel colder. I hate to admit that I stopped reading The Long Winter in bed just before sleeping because it seemed like I just couldn’t get warm afterward.

 

 

 

I actually hadn’t read this book before, which is probably considered somewhat of a moral failing by the rest of my regional community. (I’ve lived in the upper Midwest most of my life and currently live in southeastern Minnesota.) It’s hard not to be somewhat familiar with the story, however, since just about everybody seems to know something about it. “They had to twist hay because there was nothing else to burn for warmth!” was something I remember hearing about the Ingalls family when I was a kid. I also toured De Smet, South Dakota when I was about 20 years old (and therefore about 50 years younger than most of the other folks on the tour), so I had picked up a good chunk of the story from the tour guide: “This is the building Laura brushed against when they all were lost in a blizzard while walking home from school.”

This novel is about enduring cold on the frontier, but it’s also about family and discipline and endurance. Laura has always been a positive, energetic and optimistic heroine, a character that so many little girls want to be. In The Long Winter, however, her limits seem to be tested. There are more instances than I can remember in any other book in this series where Laura is crabby and impatient. Of course one cannot blame her, especially when her point of view is described as so near the end of the story:

 

            There were no more lessons. There was nothing in the world but cold and dark and work and coarse brown bread and winds blowing. The storm was always there, outside the walls, waiting sometimes, then pouncing, shaking the house, roaring, snarling, and screaming in rage.

            Out of bed in the morning to hurry down and dress by the fire. Then work all day to crawl into a cold bed at night and fall asleep as soon as she grew warm. The winter had lasted so long. It would never end.

 

Of course (spoiler alert!) the Long Winter did end eventually. The near starvation and boredom lasted a little longer than the cold weather, however, since the folks on the frontier could get nothing new until the trains could run through the snow-packed cuts. One cannot burn coal or make bread when there was no train to bring either.

Some of this story is also told from Almanzo Wilder’s point of view, since he also endured the winter in the same place Laura Ingalls did. Almanzo is quite the heroic figure in this novel, which is amusing when you know how Laura Ingalls got her married name. Somehow, he and his brother, Royal, don’t seem to have suffered as much from lack of supplies as did the Ingalls family, but I don’t know if that was a better estimation of need or simple luck.

It’s hard for us with a complete lack of remaining frontier and modern technology and weather satellites to really understand why most of the folks in this story were not able to better prepare for such a miserable winter out in the middle of nowhere. I guess pioneering is all about figuring out what needs a new environment will demand. And part of being a pioneer is not really knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

A Year of Books that are Older than Me