Wisconsin Library Association Recognition for Outstanding Achievement: Heraclix & Pomp

Holy cow. My publisher just forwarded me the email below: Subject: Wisconsin Library Association Recognition for Forrest Aguirre Dear Mr. Forrest Aguirre: It is my pleasant task to inform you that your book Heraclix & Pomp has been selected for Outstanding Achievement recognition for a 2014 publication by the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Awards Committee. Every year the Committee reviews over 200 books written by Wisconsin authors which were published during the previous calendar year and selects ten to be recognized as outstanding books. The books are  judged on their literary merit as well as the quality of the writing, editing, printing, and publishing. WLA will issue a press release to state newspapers naming all the award winners, and I  will be sending you a certificate for Outstanding Achievement. Sincerely, Kate Hull Chair, Literary Awards Committee 2015 Kate Hull Adult and Technical Services Manager Fitchburg Public Library To say that I'm humbled and honored is an understatement. Wow! Work's going to be rough tomorrow - I don't know if I can sleep now . . . PS: Sorry for the crappy formatting. It's seriously way past my bedtime and I don't have time to properly fix it. Here is the announcement! ________________________ If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Microdiscectomy, 16 Months Later

It's surprising to me, downright shocking, that one of the most read blog entries at Forrest for the Trees is my entry: Microdiscectomy: WARNING: not for the squeamish! I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised - when I was researching the procedure, in order to make an informed decision about what course I should take, I found that most of what was out there on the interwebs was either (appropriately) clinical descriptions of the procedure or people in comments about the procedure sharing their horror stories.

But, while my story did have it's share of horrors, most of them were not related to the surgery itself, but the things that happened before and immediately after the surgery, mostly due to infections that had nothing to do with the surgery and everything to do with conditions I had before the surgery and their treatment. Given all the negative press that I read out there, I wanted to provide an update on how I'm doing, how I'm feeling, and a few limitations that I'm experiencing, in an effort to give a balanced view to the whole thing.

Now, as I said in the original Microdiscectomy entry, I had a fantastic surgeon. I can't speak for your surgeon, hospital, or attendant staff. But I can speak to my own experience. As with any assessment, this is highly personal - you are not me, I get that. But you are also not that guy who complains about every little pain and wants to blame his back surgery for all of his problems. Or maybe you are, I don't know. Yes, some people encounter complications - I did - but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of these operations are safe and successful as long as you temper your expectations of success with a little reality. So here's my reality.

People are most shocked when I tell them that, after my injury and surgery, I am running again. I was lucky to have a physical therapist before and after the surgery (same guy) who is a running expert. He slowly helped me build back my leg strength, which took about nine months, until I was able to begin running again. And I mean begin only. We started off with simple things like leg lifts and stretches. I've learned, through all of this, that stretching is one of the most critically important things you will do or not do in your recovery. I guarantee that you will cramp up when working your way back to health, and you'll want to have your muscles as pliable as you can have them so you can work out those incredibly painful kinks. For months after my surgery, I would wake literally screaming in the night from a painful leg or foot cramp. Every once in a while, I still do, though it only happens every month or so now, whereas it was happening every other night or so at the beginning. If you take nothing else away from this post, take this: stretch and stretch and stretch some more and don't skip stretching! Believe me, you'll hate it at the time, but you'll thank me for it later. Or you won't take my advice and you'll pay the price. Your choice.

Stretching was followed up by toe raises, which probably did more than anything else to prepare me for running. After being more or less bed-ridden for a month, your leg muscles will become weaker. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're going to spring out of bed at the "end" of your recovery and be walking like you used to. You won't. It takes time. And in that time, you're going to have to push yourself a bit - not too much, but a bit. Be patient. I know, it sucks. I'm not patient, either. But push through it, grit your teeth through the pain of toe raises (and they will hurt way more than you think they ought to), and make . . . it . . . happen. Do it!

Beginning running meant that I worked on a schedule to get back to running not only as long and far as I had before my injury, but longer and farther. And keep in mind that my herniation was significant. An orthopedic surgical resident friend of mine, who had seen the MRI of my back, asked me "what the heck did you do to your back?" To which I replied: "I herniated my disk". "I know," he said, "but that's seriously one of the worst herniations I've ever seen!" So, we're not talking about a routine snip and scoop here, there was some serious tissue to remove in this process.

Before my injury, I was running around 2 1/2 miles two days a week, taking about 25 minutes to run that far. Now I'm running over 3 miles (maybe a touch more than 5K) in 30 minutes. I'm no speedster, but I can make it the whole way. I did this, post-injury, by acclimatizing myself to running again. For the first two runs, I ran for 30 seconds, then walked for 4.5 minutes, repeated 6 times. The next two, I ran for 1 minute, then walked for 4, repeated 6 times, and so forth. It wasn't a steady progression. There were a couple of times where I had to go "back" to a more limited run time. There were other times when I skipped a run and walked instead, then fell "back" again a step. But, over time, I was regularly running 4.5 minutes and walking 30 seconds, then running a full 15 minutes, then walking 30 seconds, then running another 15 minutes. Now I'm able, most of the time, to run the full 30. There are exceptions when my leg just can't do that, but it's usually my lungs that give out way before my legs (I'm asthmatic, so that doesn't help much).

In all honesty, if I could run ALL the time, I would. Running gets my endorphins going, and my body really likes endorphins. I don't get a "runner's high" like some runners - I'm never running long enough for that to happen - but my pain is dramatically LESS when I'm running than when I'm not. Seriously.

The thing that hurts the most on a consistent basis is driving. Yes, I get sharp pains in the foot every once in a while, really sharp, stabbing pains in my toes, on the sole of my foot, on my heel - anywhere, really. But I figure this is just my nerves recalibrating and trying to re-establish some form of communication with the brain. I don't look at it as a bad thing. In fact, I think it's good. It just hurts like heck. But that pain is intermittent, not regular. It will strike when it wants to (which can be pretty inconvenient when I'm, say, driving). Oh, and it never strikes while running, ever. But driving is painful over long periods of time. I can hold up for a couple of hours and deal with it, if the car is "right". Our minivan is way more comfortable for me to drive than our Buick. Something to do with the way my legs are positioned. The minivan kind of forces me to sit more upright and that's better than the slouching, on one extreme, and the folding over, on the other, that I get in the car.

Which brings me to sitting. Sitting of any kind, over long periods, is not good. I have a standing desk at work and my writing area has a standing desk, as well. I'm glad for both. I experience far less pain standing and I burn a few calories, too. Of course, I get tired, and it's okay to sit, but if I'm sitting for more than a half hour or so, I can feel it, and it hurts. Not excruciating pain, but it gets your attention.

Which brings me to the last thing: I've learned that being healed doesn't mean being pain free. I hurt every day, 24/7. It's just a question of how much I hurt at any given time. But I hurt far less than I did before I got my surgery - FAR less! I'm really blessed. I know that some people don't recover as well as I have. And some recover even more quickly. The thing with backs is that they're really tricky, winsome things. My back isn't your back. My surgeon (probably) isn't your surgeon. There are surgical mishaps and some people are worse off after surgery than they were before surgery. But that hasn't been my experience. Is my back perfect? No. I'll never rake the lawn again, never pull a lawn-mower starter (yeah, I'm super sad about that one, let me tell you. Ha!), never golf (which is okay, I hate golfing - it's not a real sport, anyway), and might not participate in some physical activities that I could in my more youthful days (incidentally, THAT physical activity, the one you really want to know about; nine times out of ten, it's just fine, so long as I'm careful. Again endorphins are wonderful things. And, again, stretch!). But my quality of life isn't diminished too much. A smidge, yes, but not terribly so. The real trick is managing the pain (and narcotics are not the way to go - if nothing else, get yourself addicted to Ibuprofin, not hydrocodone), and it's doable. You will hurt. You've screwed up one of the most critical parts of your body and the resultant nerve damage may never heal. But you can manage it.

Alright, I've been sitting at my computer long enough. Time to stretch and then hit the sack. Oh, yeah - sleep. You'll be fine most of the time. If not, roll over. You may have to get used to sleeping longer in positions that used to be not as comfortable before your injury. Don't worry. You'll adjust. Humans are amazingly malleable beings!

If you have any specific questions about any of this or about my experience, feel free to post them in the comments below. I don't have all the answers, but I have mine!

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Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey

Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey by G.B. Tran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I connected with Vietnamerica on a couple of levels, emotionally.

First, my earliest recall-able memories are from my time spent as a child in the Philippines, at Clark Air Force Base, 1973-75. Take a careful look at those years - yep, I was there when South Vietnam fell to the Vietminh. I clearly remember driving past the flight-line to go with my mother to the commissary for groceries and seeing a pair of Chinooks landing. One sported a big white square with a red cross emblazoned on it. I saw the troops getting off of the helicopter - some of their faces were covered with bandages, others were being carried on stretchers, several used crutches. I asked Mom what was wrong with these men. All I remember of her reply was something like "they're hurt, honey. They're going home." It wasn't long before we watched on TV as overloaded helicopters dropped civilians off onto U.S. ships before ditching in the ocean because there was no room to land on the ships anymore. Of course, it was all very exciting - I was five years old at the time and didn't really have a clue what was going on.

Second, as a graduate student, I had the good fortune of being a teaching assistant for Dr. Al McCoy, Professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Go Badgers!). I taught about 120 students in breakout sessions that were, students told me, the funnest part of the class. We had a great time with discussions that would probably be illegal post-911, like the exercise where I "armed" the students with 5; 500 lb HE bombs and a Piper Cub and had them plan how they would bring the city of Madison to its knees with only those five bombs. Yeah, I'd probably get arrested for teaching that now.

I'll be honest - my background in Southeast Asian history was extremely limited and my background in U.S. history was close to nil. But I did have a very good grasp on guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and counter-insurgency, especially in Africa (my MA was in African History), and a good grasp on the rise of nascent nationalism in the colonial state, so I got the gig with Al. I remember late nights furiously reading ahead of the students, brushing up on my own country's history, which I probably should have already known. Hey, it worked out okay.

But that lack of knowledge on US history was a bit of a shame to me. It still is, really. I had to work diligently to catch up and pass my students enough to be prepared for their inevitable questions. Thankfully Doctor McCoy was an excellent lecturer, possibly one of the best I've ever heard, and he did an outstanding job of covering those sections. He was always very understanding when I would come to him with dumb questions about U.S. history. In exchange, I supplied him with plenty of banter about our sometimes conflicting theories on insurgency and counter-insurgency, as well as a few shared anecdotes about the FBI, CIA (his realms of expertise) and the OSI (mine - but that's a story I can't tell you). All-in-all, it was wonderful.

That lack of knowledge of one's own history provides the driving force behind Vietnamerica, which is really a sort of confessional on the part of G.B. Tran. His parents - father and stepmother, actually, but that is an entire story within the story - fled Vietnam when Saigon fell, and he was born after they arrived in the U.S. When his grandfather and grandmother pass away, he reluctantly goes back to Vietnam with his parents, who haven't been there for 30 years.

This, I can relate to, in some smaller degree. As a military brat, I only saw my grandparents every couple of years or so. I never really knew my maternal grandfather as I would have liked, and only got to know my maternal grandmother when we lived with her for a year in 1979, when my dad was in cross-training and we couldn't live where he was at the time (though I suspect that Mom and Dad needed some time away from each other and were frankly in more debt than they cared to admit, so Mom and my brother and I stayed with Grandma - then again, I could just be inadvertently spreading false rumors). My paternal grandparents I got to know only when I moved out of my parents' place, while we were in England, and moved to Wyoming to live with them for a few months (an even longer story - you might read about it before I die, or not . . .).

Where I did not connect with Tran was with his resistance to wanting to go to Vietnam to connect with relatives he had never met. I've always been fiercely loyal about family, quirks, problems, dark closets, and all. I am very proud of my family name and my ancestry. People ask where "Aguirre" comes from and I have to respond "It's Basque". Some people have asked "You mean Spanish?". "No, I mean Basque. You never called Grandpa Spanish. He'd blow up your post office and police station if you did!" Then there's the inevitable "Do you speak Spanish?" No. I speak English, some German, and some Swahili. No Spanish. "Well you don't look Spanish." "That's because my dad was adopted." "That's sweet." "No, not really. Dad and my aunt, his twin, were both beaten black and blue and left for dead on the side of a highway in Wyoming by my biological Grandmother and her then boyfriend. Her husband was in prison at the time. My grandparents - MY Grandparents - picked my Dad and aunt up from the side of the road and took them into the police. Two weeks later, the state called them and explained that no one had claimed them and asked if they would like to adopt the twins. Grandma and Grandpa had been trying, unsuccessfully, to have children since their only child had died as an infant. So they adopted my father and my aunt. So, no it didn't start out sweet, but I guess it ended up that way."

These experiences of mine are what was evoked as I read Vietnamerica. It hit me on a deeply personal level. It will likely not have the same effect on you, though it might. If it does, I empathize, and I'm a touch sorry.

From a purely critical viewpoint, the book is a little emotionally distant, mainly because Tran himself is trying to put his parents' and his family's story at the forefront, rather than his own. It's a little difficult to connect with the author, to be honest, though he portrays his family history with honesty and sympathy. I just couldn't get into Tran's own head.

The artwork is merely good, but the cinematic structuring of the narrative is nearly perfect. Tran is a wonderful composer of the comic medium. The man should be writing storyboards for movies, then turning them into animated films. I bet he'd be fantastic at it.

The story of the structure itself is a little choppy and it's difficult to follow, at times. Be sure to refer to the illustrated family tree that Tran provides - it's a lifesaver when you're feeling a bit lost.

And we all need a lifesaver, from time to time. Or several live's savers. So many stories. So many lives. So many saviors. It's really a wonder that any of us are alive to tell our tales at all. It really is.

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Jinchalo

Jinchalo by Matthew Forsythe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With a bit more linearity than Forsythe's Eisner-nominated Ojingogo, Jinchalo still delivers most of the goods, including the giant egg that contains . . . well, I'm not going to spoil that for you. Just note that I said a "bit" more linearity than its predecessor. You'll be caught in a surreal loop again by the time you're done. This time through, Forsythe introduces three English words into the graphic novel which, while spoiling the innocence of the completely wordless Ojingogo, intentionally decontextualizes the words "dog", "apple", and "ogre" in a way that would make Saussure proud. While it is a titch muted from it's younger sibling, Jinchalo is still a vibrant un-voice in the graphic novel choir.

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Henry Darger

Henry Darger by Klaus Biesenbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Henry Darger, recluse, artist, obsessive, crazed man-child, is one of the more intriguing figures I've encountered in my limited exposure to "outsider" art. Darger was an outsider in several ways. Socially, he was a recluse, choosing to spend most of his non-working hours (working as a dishwasher and janitor in different hospitals through his adult life) working on a history, of sorts, of a series of wars and events in a world whose only visitor was Darger himself, until he requested to be admitted to St. Augustine's Home for the Aged in 1972, about a year before his death. The man assigned to clear out Darger's "trash" was stunned to find a 5-decade-in-the-making collection of art and writings that the old man had left behind.

Darger was obsessive, crazed, even. This becomes clear upon reading both the essays about him contained in Henry Darger and in his own autobiographical writings, a section of which is contained in the book in the form of facsimiles of his own typewritten manuscript. Darger had suffered several tough breaks in his younger days, his mother died giving birth to his sister, who was immediately put up for adoption, he was an antisocial young man and was institutionalized at the Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children upon the death of his father. Three times he ran away from the asylum, finally succeeding in his escape by walking most of the way from central Illinois to Chicago, where he disappeared into anonymity until the year before his death.

Darger hardly mentions his own art in his autobiography. But his art is what fascinates me about the man.

I'm not much of an artist. I like to draw, but I'm not great at it. Writing is my creative outlet.

I have a great deal of respect for those who toil over their visual artwork, and toil Darger did. His works were vast, some of them twelve feet wide, multimedia compositions using carbon pencil tracings of cartoons, watercolors, and collage, all mashed together in a style unique to the man. His drawings record the events of several wars in which the "Vivian Girls," quasi-angelic young girls, assist a child-slave uprising against their adult masters, who are in the midst of a war among themselves. Time is cyclical, though, and attempts to provide a timeline from one painting to the next are problematic, at best. Geography is also laden with difficulties, though Darger did draw maps that make Tolkien's seem uncomplicated, even cursory, in comparison. There is no plot, per se, and though key characters might have unique names, it is frankly difficult to distinguish all but a few key players from one another.

If this sounds like a mass ball of confusion, that's because it is. Darger's own autobiographical sketch is fraught with issues - geography "slips", portions of incidents repeat themselves in other incidents, and the autobiography ends in a thousands-of-pages long (no one seems to know exactly how many) narrative about a tornado named Sweetie Pie that sweeps the midwest with destruction (fires and toxic smoke, as well as the "normal" damage one would expect from a super-tornado) ending only when Sweetie Pie is put on trial.

Yes, on trial . . .

Confused yet?

And yet, there is an underlying unity, a crazily-sewn thread that seems to tie all of this together, the essence of the man Henry Darger. This is what I admire so much about the man and his work - it is so uniquely his. He didn't create for any audience, received no financial remuneration for his work (though all indications point to his work being worth quite a lot of money), he was never lauded for his work during his lifetime - he simply did what he was possessed to do, create an imaginary world in which he lived for five decades, only coming out to visit our world for the necessity of a job that paid the bills.

The man was absolutely insane.

I admit it - I am more than a touch jealous of him, and terrified that, if things had been just a little different in my life, I might have, through my own creative endeavors, become like him. I find this tug between jealousy and horror not just a little invigorating.

Sometimes, towing that line between the sane stability of a family and a day job and the wild excursions my imagination takes while I am locked away writing is a tough thing to do. And while I don't anticipate losing hold of my sociality and reason, as Darger did, still, I feel a sort of affinity to the man.

Then I look at his art, which has a decidedly dark twist to it, and I feel a sense of revulsion at the many depictions of disemboweled, crucified children, along with the representations of adults strangling young girls, and I realize that I just can't relate.

I am paralyzed by ambiguity.

Why, then, does this book not receive my highest rating? Simply put, in the introduction, Biesenbach's pomposity knows no bounds. He engages in academic grandstanding that stretches the limits of believability, attributing other artist's motivations to Darger when there is no evidence that this was the case, though he does cite several instances where artists do explicitly acknowledge Darger's influence, as well. Still, Biesenbach's opening essay could easily have been cut in half, and the book would have been much better for it.

Let the art speak for itself!

But don't let my distaste for Biesenbach's essay stop you from reading this beautiful book. Be warned that there is a dark patch in the middle, and those who can't stomach some violence and gore will be hard-pressed to contain their unease - though Darger's art is mostly about children, this is NOT a children's book! These are the strangely-structured dreams of a disturbed mind, in all their horror and beauty, and I recommend them highly.

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A Philosophy of Walking

A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was almost born on the autobahn. Had it not been for my dad being pulled over by the Polizei, and the officer seeing my mother in labor, Dad would have been stuck in traffic about the time I came on the scene. The officer, on assessing the situation, thought it better to give my dad an escort to Wiesbaden, rather than helping deliver me on the road.

Since then, I've wandered. I was born to wander. My father's job with the US Air Force facilitated, nay, forced this. We moved from Germany to Texas to The Philippines, back to Texas, to Italy, Minnesota, Nebraska, England. Then I moved to Wyoming, Pennsylvania, California (where I met my wife), Utah, and, finally, here to Wisconsin. Each of these stays was at least a year - I wasn't a mere tourist in these places, I lived there. Of course, getting from point A to point B and living abroad gave plenty of opportunity to see other places, as well. My feet have also fallen on Austria, Switzerland, Greece, the Netherlands, San Marino, Mexico, Canada, and most of the contiguous 50 states, as well as Hawaii. I've gotten around. And as convenient as modern transportation is, my preferred way of getting around was always walking.

Before the internet, before cable television, even, before VCRs, I walked. My feet have taken me places vehicles can't get to. Walking, for me, has been a spiritually awakening experience, a vital part of my life. For a time, a little over a year ago, I wondered if I'd ever be able to walk again as I used to.

Ironically, running led to an injury that set up my hips and back for a catastrophic failure in November, 2013. After tearing the fascia in my right calf and re-injuring it several times (running after I thought I had healed and walking some long distances on my bad leg), the damage finally manifested in a herniated disk, L5-S1 (at the top of the tailbone). I had never felt so much agony in my life. When the emergency room nurses asked me to rate my pain 1-10, I told them "11". I've had some pretty painful things happen to me (broken a rib from coughing while fighting pneumonia, dry-socket in two pulled tooth cavities, as a couple of examples), but this was a whole new level of pain. I was given a dose of hydromorphone at the ER, and it did absolutely nothing for the pain. Nothing. They gave me two more doses on top of that, and that seemed to do the trick nicely. When the nurse came in to check on me after that, she asked how I was doing. "Can you put on some Pink Floyd?" I asked. "So, it's working," she said with a smile. "Yeah, it's working." My son and I later figured out that this was about the equivalent of 1.5 hits of heroin, and this in a guy who hasn't touched drugs or alcohol since high school. That, my friends, is a LOT of pain!

I walked, haltingly and in extreme pain, with a cane for the next four months. I seriously doubted I would ever walk normally again. I took enough ibuprofin on a daily basis that both my doctor and I were concerned about the possibility of stomach ulcers.

Then, in February 2014, I was given a microdiscectomy. There were complications. I spent 24 hours in the hospital on 2 mils of morphine every 2 hours for pain. 48 mils of morphine in 24 hours after surgery. When I got home the next day, I started shaking and wanting to vomit so violently that I thought I had contracted an infection, but knew that was next to impossible, given the amount of antibiotics I had been on before and during surgery.

It was withdrawals.

Now I know why junkies keep going. It's not because they feel good when they've dosed, it's because they feel like they might just die when they don't.

Fast forward through several months of recovery and great physical therapy, and I am walking fine now. In fact, I'm running, usually a couple of times a week. Now, honestly, I hate running. I really do. But I do it to keep my weight and blood pressure down. It works. I hate it, but it works.

Walking, on the other hand, never felt sweeter. Having faced the prospect of never walking normally again, I feel blessed with the miracle of having one of the best back surgeons in the nation work on my back and having a fantastic physical therapist who taught me how to walk and run again.

I come to this book with some history . . .

But when I am walking, I am not "me". That is to say, I am not focused on myself. On a truly "good" walk, I lose myself entirely. Gros understands this:

What I mean is that by walking you are not going to meet yourself. By walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and a history. Being someone is all very well for smart parties where everyone is telling their story, it's all very well for psychologists' consulting rooms. But isn't being someone also a social obligation which trails in its wake - for one has to be faithful to the self-portrait - a stupid and burdensome fiction? The freedom in walking lies in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life.

True, I lose myself when walking. But it is also true that I measure the world as I do so, I feel its weight, gravity, vastness. I am grounded in my explorations:

. . . the feet as such are small pieces of space, but their vocation ("walking") is to articulate the world's space. the size of the foot, the gap between the legs, have no role, are never lined up anywhere. But they measure all the rest. Our feet form a compass that has no useful function, apart from evaluating distance. The legs survey. Their stride constitutes a serviceable measurement.

In the end, to say that it's through what remains to me of the journey that I can walk makes obvious reference to the Taoist void: that void that isn't empty nothingness but pure virtuality, a void creating inspiration and play, like the play of letters and sounds that makes the life of words. Walking in that way articulates the depths of the space and brings the landscape to life.

It is that same void that was unfilled, unexplored, when the poet Rimbaud lost his ability to walk due to amputation. Rimbaud not only loved to walk, walking was a part of his identity from a very young age, when he ran (i.e., walked) away from home not once, but several times. In time, however, the walking, along with his rambunctious lifestyle, caught up with him (I use the term purposefully).

He was confined to bed, his upper body increasingly paralyzed. Soon the heart would be affected. he was hallucinating: he saw himself walking, departing once again. He was in Harar, and had to leave for Aden.

"Let's go!" How many times had he said that? The caravan had to be organized, camels found and hired. He dreamed that his prosthetic leg was a success, that he "walked very easily". He was running, desperate to be on his way. "Quick, quick, fasten the valises and let's leave." His last words: "Quick, they're expecting us." He complained that he shouldn't be allowed to sleep so much, for it was late. It was too late.

The inability to walk drove the poet mad.

I can't think about what would have happened had my surgery not been successful. It would be difficult, to say the least, to maintain hope. It might well have pushed me over the edge, as it did Rimbaud.

For now, though, I walk on. And I will keep walking on until I cannot. Though I feel the "need for speed" once in a while, like any person, I don't dwell there. Let the speed demons have their fast cars and autobahns - I already made my escape from the autobahn years ago. Rather, give me the slow ambulations, the mental space for creativity and appreciation that I inhabit while I walk. Let me own everything I see, own it in my heart. Because when I am walking, the world is mine.

They tell this story about a wise pilgrim: he was following a long road, under a dark stormy sky, down a valley in whose dip was a small field of ripe wheat. The well-defined field, among rough scrub and under that black sky, was a perfect square of brightness rippling gently in the wind. The pilgrim enjoyed the beautiful sight as he walked slowly along. Soon he met a peasant returning home with downcast eyes after a hard day's work, accosted him and pressed his arm, murmuring in a heartfelt tone: "Thank you." The peasant recoiled slightly: "I have nothing to give you, poor man." The pilgrim replied in a gentle voice: "I'm not thanking you to make you give me something, but because you have already given me everything. You have cared for that square of wheat, and through your labour it has acquired the beauty it has today. Now you are only interested in the price of each grain. I've been walking, and all the way I have been nourished by its goldenness," the old pilgrim ended with a kindly smile. The peasant turned away and walked off, shaking his head and muttering about mad people.

Perhaps I am already mad . . .

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House of Suns

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Others have covered the plotline and central conceits of the novel very well, so I will forbear. The plot is excellent, as are the ideas. What sets House of Suns far apart from other space operas is the sheer scope and scale of the thing and the fact that the immensity of it all does not drown the beautiful humanity displayed by the main characters, Campion and Purslane, two clones of the Gentian line who have been illicitly involved in a forbidden relationship with one another.

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the game Traveller (I still am . . . a kid and a fan). One of the constraints of the game was that any given planet could have a "technology level" that indicated how far technology had advanced on that planet, whether from native growth or from outside colonists. The entries for very advanced tech levels were rather obtuse and never really given much detail as to how the technology worked or what it enabled. It was all extremely vague.

House of Suns posits, in the beginning, technology beyond many of the most forward thinkers' wildest imaginations. His science is very clear (he is, by training, an astrophysicist) and well-justified, and he clearly articulates concepts and technologies where other writers resort to hand-waving. In the end, though, Reynolds makes it clear that he has only scratched the surface.

I'm also familiar with relativity and am fairly comfortable, as a historian, with the concept of "Longue Duree" history. Time is vast, more vast than we can comprehend. And faced with concepts and events that span long stretches of millennia, the human mind tends to withdraw, to recoil, at the mere thought of too much time.

Reynolds somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, eases the reader into the comfort zone where years pass in a sentence, and the reader doesn't feel that anything was missed. He also guides the reader to understand the immense timescales that these characters deal with (many of them are millions of years old) without being boring or redundant. Yes, some of this is done with the technology of stasis cabinets and "Synchromesh," a time-altering drug that allows the subject to speed up or slow down their mind and body to match another who is phased out of "real" time. But these technologies are not abused by the writer, and they make perfect sense, given their use in various situations. No, Reynolds, because he is so excellent at pacing the novel, makes it feel perfectly reasonable that, for example, a deep-space chase scene should take thousands of years or that a character can live for millions of years without becoming cosmically bored out of her skull.

Partly, he does this by helping the reader connect to the human feelings that his characters feel, which would be similar regardless of how long one had been around or how far the future extended ahead of them. This conversation between Purslane (the narrator, at this point) and her companion Campion, is telling:

After a silence, Campion said, "You know what I keep coming back to? We'd never have visited this world unless something bad had happened to us. Never have heard those singing sands, seen this beautiful city . . .We might have travelled here eventually, I know, but it wouldn't be Neume the way it is now. We'd probably be seeing it half a dozen civilisations down the line, when the Ymirians will just be a memory."

I drank the wine, wantint it to go to my head as quickly as possible. "If you're trying to see good in this, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to make that leap."

"I'm just saying . . . it's a strange universe. It can still surprise us. That's why it's worth carrying on, I suppose. If I felt that all we were doing was reliving a fixed set of experiences in different permutations-"

"That wouldn't be so bad, if those experiences were pleasant ones. Do you ever get tired of sunsets?"

"No," Campion said.

"Do you ever get tired of waterfalls, or beaches?"

"No."

"Then there's always hope for us."

This is the kind of human beauty anyone can relate to, in a relativistic way or otherwise.

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