Effabling the Ineffable in 2001: A Space Odyssey
The most memorable moments of the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey are the opening, with the rendition of Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and the monkeys wielding lethal porcine femurs, followed by the exchanges between the self-aware robot HAL 9000 and the crew of the spaceship Discovery. What makes these moments so familiar is the … Continue reading
The Mediocre Prose of 2001: A Space Odyssey
There is a peculiar pleasure in reading science fiction a decade after the “events of the future” were intended to have taken place. Remember, the fictional events of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are entering their tenth anniversary. I won’t go into a labor-intensive compare and contrast of what Clarke got right and wrong (briefly, … Continue reading
2001’s Opening, millions of years ago
Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been invariably read since its publication as a companion piece or even, horror of horrors, a novelization of the like-named film. It is impossible to separate the two since they were created in tandem, with the film being released a few months before the book. I don’t like … Continue reading
2001: A Space Odyssey
The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended. So we jump forward a century or so in writing history, leaving behind the soap opera costume drama of George Eliot’s Middlemarch for the space opera psychodrama of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The … Continue reading
Finishing Middlemarch
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, my dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. I’m at fault for not having the maturity and commitment to continue blogging about Middlemarch though I was not enamored with it. But so what? The list goes on and I am still reading so … Continue reading
Letters Republic 