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I: Philip José Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) [London: Panther, 1974]
Expanded from two 1960s novellas, and taking its title from John Donne's "Holy Sonnet VII", in which Donne asks for the Final Judgement to come, only to realise he is still a sinner and needing time to repent. Riverworld is the location for everyone who has ever died to awake - from Neolithic times to about 1982 - and to live again. Nineteenth century explorer Richard Burton finds himself in this strange world, along with Lewis Carroll's inspiration for Alice and someone with the initials PJF. They decide to head north along the river, in search of its source, and meet many struggles along its away, including Goering. When Burton is killed and finds himself downriver, he sets off again, via suicides.
The heart of the novel is the purpose of the planet, with its perpetually flowing river that zig zags the longitudes - is gravity such that this is always downhill? If a planet has been so made, what is its purpose. The novel ends with two explanations, one discounted, and the other nonsense. Disposable fun - and there are far too many famous people for my taste.
II: Emma Tennant, The Bad Sister (1978) [London: Picador, 1979]
Typically surreal and opaque Tennant novel, the bulk of which is a manuscript edited for publication in 1986. Jane is either a film critic and mass murderer - a female Jerry Cornelius perhaps - or schizophrenic, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, linked to a murder. The ironic moment for me - aside from a meditation on muses - was her description of a seventies film: "One of the men leaves the lorry and squatpees on a mound of industrial waste" Well, he poos really. I assumed it was sand, but I guess it was byproduct.
Expanded from two 1960s novellas, and taking its title from John Donne's "Holy Sonnet VII", in which Donne asks for the Final Judgement to come, only to realise he is still a sinner and needing time to repent. Riverworld is the location for everyone who has ever died to awake - from Neolithic times to about 1982 - and to live again. Nineteenth century explorer Richard Burton finds himself in this strange world, along with Lewis Carroll's inspiration for Alice and someone with the initials PJF. They decide to head north along the river, in search of its source, and meet many struggles along its away, including Goering. When Burton is killed and finds himself downriver, he sets off again, via suicides.
The heart of the novel is the purpose of the planet, with its perpetually flowing river that zig zags the longitudes - is gravity such that this is always downhill? If a planet has been so made, what is its purpose. The novel ends with two explanations, one discounted, and the other nonsense. Disposable fun - and there are far too many famous people for my taste.
II: Emma Tennant, The Bad Sister (1978) [London: Picador, 1979]
Typically surreal and opaque Tennant novel, the bulk of which is a manuscript edited for publication in 1986. Jane is either a film critic and mass murderer - a female Jerry Cornelius perhaps - or schizophrenic, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, linked to a murder. The ironic moment for me - aside from a meditation on muses - was her description of a seventies film: "One of the men leaves the lorry and squatpees on a mound of industrial waste" Well, he poos really. I assumed it was sand, but I guess it was byproduct.
