I appear to have sort of organically developed a new tradition for myself: rereading favorite old books in election years. Every so often I need a distraction from the grim horror that is contemporary American electoral politics: am I hallucinating, or is the biggest issue in the election right now actually quibbling over the military service of the candidate who actually served? See, if I don't distract myself occasionally, I'm going to be ranting about stuff like that all the time, and I really don't see what the point would be of yet another beyond-the-pale lefty trying to convince the world that he's actually a convincing Democrat. I'm much more comfortable when I realize that I'm basically living in an Old Testament world where the point is not to ennoble the great, but to punish Bush for making, and being, a mockery of everything I actually believe in.

So anyway, I kicked off my political reading for the year by going back and rereading Hunter S. Thompson's entertaining and still-relevant Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, which discusses the anybody-but-Nixon coalition's heroic efforts to find somebody "electable" to beat Nixon, and how, in a development that surprises nobody except George McGovern's more hardened supporters, they get their asses beaten like a drum (to use a Thompsonian turn of phrase). Hmm.... That doesn't sound at all timely or relevant or anything.

Thompson's strength is that he's passionate and committed — by the end, he's a true believer for McGovern — and he's a political junkie / operative who can write concisely and clearly about the insane world of big-time politics. There's a 10-page chunk where he dissects, with the aid of several McGovern staffers, the arcane, overcomplicated strategy they used to ensure that McGovern got safely nominated by the Democrats. The staffers in question were probably the only people at the convention who thought something that baroque was necessary, but the explanation of the process is extremely eye-opening. And the entire book is like that — it's a crash course in the cynical realities necessary to get a president elected, and if you read it now you'll be creeped out by the parallels between 1972 and 2004. I guarantee it. Not the most comforting reading, but it's got the pulse and flow of a thriller and Thompson, loon, liar, and substance abuser that he was, had his heart in the right place.

Speaking of distractions, the other book I've read so far is Bruce Sterling's loose and intermittently brilliant ramble through biotechnology, proto-Viridian futurizing, and Southern politics, Distraction. It's kind of painful trying to summarize the plot, but basically it's about Oscar Valparaiso, a not-quite-human campaign manager, and how he ends up starting a revolution by trying to reform a pork-barrel biotech research lab in East Texas. It's vintage Sterling: hilarious, completely unbelievable dialog; more raw ideas per paragraph than just about anyone else in science fiction; an acidly keen grasp of American politics used to dissect the present, which he has cleverly disguised as the future; a plot so loose it barely deserves the name. Strangely, even though his books are much more shambling and loose than Neal Stephenson's, he's a lot less discursive and his books actually end. All of the comedy in the book — it's very funny — is rooted in gently chiding satire. Sterling really believes in his idea of America, and he wants to chivvy us into pursuing it with him, but he's not going to get all bent out of shape if we don't fall in line, because that's part of being American too.

The sad part is, the completely dysfunctional, broken down America he portrays in Distraction is a more attractive and appealing place than the America we live in. Whether they're overclass political operatives, midlevel drones in prole mobs, or spooks, people all seem to have a genuine idea of who they are, regardless of whether they like themselves or not. That's very different from the world that we inhabit today. Given that one of the other books I've read recently (John Nathan's Japan Unbound) concerns the attempts of the Japanese people to figure out who they are, after having their national identity suppressed first by defeat in war, and then in a collective effort to rebuild their economy, the self-confidence and sureness of the players in Sterling's leapt out at me. It seems that loss of identity is an endemic condition in post-industrial societies. I don't know how different America is from Japan in that regard, really.

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I read _Distraction_ in one sitting one day. Yes, I really liked it. Since then, it hasn't really stuck with me. When it comes down to it, none of Sterling's longer work sticks with me. This isn't to say that I don't like it, because I do, quite a bit, but for some reason I enjoy them right up until the last page, then they're done.

Posted by: Jesse on August 24, 2004 02:37 PM

I think that's because Sterling is a gestalt writer, not a plot or idea writer. His books are kind of analogous to some of the more elaborate ambient electronic music: they take a lot of work to make, there's endless detail if you choose to pay attention, but mostly they just set up a mood and move on. Bruce Sterling is no Gene Wolfe, but then again, I've read "Bicycle Mechanic" maybe 20 times, and it makes me smile every time.

Posted by: forrest on August 24, 2004 03:05 PM

His short stories have plenty of sticking power. Maybe it's because he can wrap a story around a small set of conceits and give it some spikes, rather than be bothered with plot arcs, multiple characters, etc.

Posted by: Jesse on August 24, 2004 06:21 PM

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