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SL Days 33-36
Curiously, a couple of days away in Chichester gave more reading opportunities than staying at home - three hours on a train with nice, ten minute connections one way (a train waiting at Tonbridge), three and a half hours back (a generous half hour at Redhill, and a nerve wracking four minutes at Tonbridge).
If I were really insane, I could do it as an offpeak day trip even in the week - in Chichester for just gone one, lunch in The Fountain, peruse of Kim's Bookshop, two hours in the gallery, maybe a circumambulation of the walls, back to the station for about six. A Saturday would add hours according to how early I could rise. Return fare avoiding London, with Network Card £13.20. Bargain.
I note that I've never really read Robert Silverberg. I can think of no reason why - I am rereading Lord Valentine's Castle, which I see I was bought for my sixteenth birthday for reasons which escape me, but I never got on with the subsequent volumes. I might have tried his novel of Nightfall. Which may be reason enough. Oddly, a couple of times I thought "How heteronnormative", only for a reference to homosexual to occur. Still, the plots are about men, and there's a quivery attitude to race.
LXXXII: Robert Silverberg, Dying Inside (1972)
Mostly first person account (sometimes he writes about himself in the third person) about a telepath slowly losing his powers. Fascinating, but it doesn't pack the emotional punch of "Flowers for Algernon". There's some interesting stuff on Jewishness here, the black character is less successful in his depiction.
LXXXIII: Robert Silverberg, The World Inside (1971)
Novel mostly set in a tower block, several hundred storeys tall, in a future where abortion and contraception is taboo. Thus a society has evolved where everyone has sex with everyone (of the opposing sex, natch, with rare exceptions). Women stay at home, men roam. Two people are disatisfied, but the alternative seems worse.
LXXXIV: Robert Silverberg, Tower of Glass (1970)
Billionaire inexplicably builds tower ofBabel glass, in order to transmit a message to aliens. The building is constructed by an android army - for which read slaves - who worship the billionaire and want emancipation. I suspect it seemed a good idea at the time, but there are some odd attitudes which end up racist. I think there are two women in the novel - one a neglected wife, the other an android seductress named Lilith. Nope, can't see any symbolism there then.
If I were really insane, I could do it as an offpeak day trip even in the week - in Chichester for just gone one, lunch in The Fountain, peruse of Kim's Bookshop, two hours in the gallery, maybe a circumambulation of the walls, back to the station for about six. A Saturday would add hours according to how early I could rise. Return fare avoiding London, with Network Card £13.20. Bargain.
I note that I've never really read Robert Silverberg. I can think of no reason why - I am rereading Lord Valentine's Castle, which I see I was bought for my sixteenth birthday for reasons which escape me, but I never got on with the subsequent volumes. I might have tried his novel of Nightfall. Which may be reason enough. Oddly, a couple of times I thought "How heteronnormative", only for a reference to homosexual to occur. Still, the plots are about men, and there's a quivery attitude to race.
LXXXII: Robert Silverberg, Dying Inside (1972)
Mostly first person account (sometimes he writes about himself in the third person) about a telepath slowly losing his powers. Fascinating, but it doesn't pack the emotional punch of "Flowers for Algernon". There's some interesting stuff on Jewishness here, the black character is less successful in his depiction.
LXXXIII: Robert Silverberg, The World Inside (1971)
Novel mostly set in a tower block, several hundred storeys tall, in a future where abortion and contraception is taboo. Thus a society has evolved where everyone has sex with everyone (of the opposing sex, natch, with rare exceptions). Women stay at home, men roam. Two people are disatisfied, but the alternative seems worse.
LXXXIV: Robert Silverberg, Tower of Glass (1970)
Billionaire inexplicably builds tower of