I have a lot of thoughts here, although my basic thought about the podcast is "wow, I can't wait until the Aramini wrap-up"; this was, structurally, a prelude to that. I do love when you guys do a whirlwind tour through philosophy — and speaking as someone who did take a one-semester course just on Hegel in college, I gotta say, that as five-minute summaries of Hegel go, that was really quite good — but I thought that you didn't deal with the sheer strangeness of the book's direction and philosophy enough. But I suppose that will come in the next episode, and I must just be patient.
My basic thought on the novel: God, that's weird. It seems really strange on any level, what with its thematic incoherence, its odd plot balance, its adding things in at the end, etc. (I really wish we'd been able to get our hands on the uncut version!) One thing I did like, just reading it as an adventure story, was its unpredictability: over and over, some battle starts to happen (when the Martian lands besides the prisoner convoy, the battle in Arlington Cemetery here, lots of others) when Wolfe goes in an odd direction, usually in the direction of a loss.
On the other hand, I found the romance at least as unconvincing as you both did. And I thought that the politics of the novel are weirdly incoherent — or at least not well presented. But I will certainly wait until I hear your next discussion until I finalize my judgment on that score.
A number of briefer thoughts:
• You never brought up the possibility of the novel being, in any way, a Vietnam metaphor. Given the use of the US as a proxy war by two sides towards the end, and the fact that the novel was written in 1967 or so, I find it almost impossible to believe that that wasn't part of what's going on. But then, I'm not sure what to do with that notion. I can't make it work as a metaphor.
• You mention that the Universal Basic Income is a leftist idea. It certainly is usually heard about in those circles today. But, as you may well know and just didn't mention, it has a long history of support on the right — Milton Friedman favored it, for instance. I believe Charles Murray has come out in favor of it also. (I would add, as a leftist, that the left and the right versions tend to be very different: the right tends to want to use it to replace all current social insurance, and to keep it at a level that work would still be required; leftists think that it either needs to be a genuine living wage, or to supplement existing programs without replacing them.) I think Wolfe, at least filtered through your interpretation, had some interesting things on why it's better than welfare — things, FWIW, that a leftist might agree with!
• On the riots: in addition to the Watts riots of 1965, there were major riots in the summers of 1966, 1967, and in April 1968 after the assassination of King. (Maybe 64 too? I'd have to double-check.) At the precise historical moment that Wolfe seems to have written this book, it wasn't a bad extrapolation for a social collapse. Although by the time it was published it was already out of date on that score.
• I could not make sense of how the gold-theft plan was supposed to work. Why would that have gotten Castle a meeting with the PG's head? Or had any other significant bad effects?
• There is some imagery/symbolism in the novel that you pointed out, which I like, but which doesn't seem to cohere for me. You pointed out the Lee/Grant imagery, and I really, really liked that (and that it was just slightly hidden by the "Lee" being the Chinese name (often spelled "Li")). You also pointed out the imagery of fighting on the graves of dead soldiers, which I also liked; you might have further pointed out that they were specifically Civil War soldiers (at least initially), and that the cemetery itself used to be Robert E Lee's plantation (seized in wartime by the government and made into a cemetery). It feels like it should add up to something. But I'm not sure what, or even sure that it does — at this stage in his career, maybe Wolfe is just flinging things at the wall to see what sticks.
• One small note that I have to assume is unintentional, although if it occurred in a later Wolfe work I'd assume was intentional: General Lee mentions "Kuo-yu, the national language", But "the national language" — "Guóyǔ" in the currently common transliteration system, pinyin, but "Kuo-yu" is how it was written in Wade-Giles transliteration, which was common in the U.S. when this novel was published — is the Taiwanese name for Mandarin. In Communist China — the one that turned into the one in the book — it's called Pǔtōnghuà, or "Common Speech". Probably Wolfe just looked it up and saw the Taiwanese name? That's what would probably have been available in the U.S. in 1967 (Communist China, of course, was still closed to the West then; Chinese materials were from Taiwan or Hong Kong). But I thought I'd point it out.
• You mentioned Wolfe's "Hey, I thought you were my friend" comment; that might have been from me — at least, a friend of mine told me that Wolfe said that to him when he mentioned OA.
Well, to paraphrase what Jews say at the end of the seder: "Next Week With Aramini!"!
Also I didn't know until today my political orientation is Hobbit Anarchist.
It's also going to be the name of my bluegrass hip hop band. So thanks for that.
Having powered through all of you podcasts on this except the wrap up, I really enjoyed your discussions. Great job.
Oh, you've just come up with a great dissertation project for somebody, Stephen!
And you're definitely not reading the room wrong. We love getting your comments. If anything, we feel bad that we're taking so long getting to the stories that people actually want to talk about so that you aren't the only one here! But at least we're counting down to The Fifth Head of Cerberus.
And thanks for your kind comments about my comments — I always worry I'm posting too much, not reading the room right, etc. I hope not.
The thought that Wolfe must have been thinking about Korea, but also can't have avoided thinking about Vietnam, makes me wonder if anyone's written about what Korean vets, specifically, thought about the Vietnam war. If not someone should.
Really quite looking forward to the Aramini conversation — and, yes, to more first-rate stories coming up!
Hi Stephen. As always, thank you for your kind words and incredible insights. It was very difficult for me not to belabor how this book is all over the place during the chapters 9 & 10 episode. I still struggle with what John Castle is really about.
We really do often miss important cultural events when we discuss context of Wolfe. I'm always grateful for your knowledge of our recent past. I'm often so focused on Wolfe's experience as a soldier in the Korean war that I completely missed the potential for this story to have something to say about Viet Nam.
Thanks also for bringing up the differences in Universal Basic Income as it's understood by the left and the right. It's a very helpful elucidation. Though I don't always respond, I eagerly read your comments on our episodes.
Finally, I think you're going to enjoy our conversation with Aramini. He is able to make sense of this novel in a way that neither Glenn nor I was fully capable of because of its being so out of step with much of what Wolfe writes later. The next batch of short stories we cover are also fantastic.
Yes, we must have gotten that story from you! I'm sorry that we forgot and didn't credit you properly. That story really colored my reading of the whole text, and the extent to which Wolfe dislikes it was always on my mind.
"Strange" is definitely the right word for how this book ends. "Wait, what?" was my immediate sentiment. I really thought that I must have accidentally skipped something. I'm certainly glad to be leaving this behind and I'm excited to get to the great stories that are coming up.
Just some quick comments on your excellent points:
Vietnam: Of course, but I wonder if Wolfe wasn't thinking also of his own experiences in the Korean War. Like you, though, I'm not sure what to do with this other than to say that he was skeptical of proxy wars.
I really don't know much about the intellectual heritage of American political ideologies, so I'm grateful to hear about Milton Friedman et al. Frankly, I'm not really sure that I've heard or read anyone involved in politics or government discuss this as a matter of public policy, and have largely encountered it in SF where it has always seemed like a progressive idea. And I certainly agree with you that it feels progressive here when Wolfe promotes it, and did for me as well in "Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee." That said, Wolfe's fundamental premise is that a bureaucratic state is a parasite.
Yes, I feel like the gold plot was written specifically for Ron Paul and will only make sense to him.
That's an awesome reading of the symbolism of Arlington Cemetery. I had no idea that Lee had owned that land. These Kamikaze memorials are also really interesting. The commemoration of war in the early Middle Ages is part of my research. While we don't have any of the monuments left, I'm fascinated by how other cultures remember their wars and what monuments they erect.
This is a very cool catch about Chinese languages. I wonder if, as you say, Wolfe simply didn't have access to the best information because of Cold War politics, or if he did this intentionally. It would seem strange for it to be intentional given that China's communist ideology is a part of the novel, but he might have been playing a bit of a game there.
As always, thanks for your insightful comments. I look forward to getting back to Wolfe at his best!
PS: You mentioned there not being statues to suicide bombers. Well, they weren't bombers — I don't know if that makes a difference — but in WW2 Japanese kamikaze pilots certainly did suicide attacks. According to this site — http://www.kamikazeimages.net/monuments/index.htm — "Japan has many monuments dedicated to special attack force members who died in suicide attacks during World War II". Some of those memorials are to statues of pilots (as opposed, e.g., to plaques). For what it's worth.