The Song of the Earth

Rating:
Summary: Song of the Earth sings.
Review: Hugh Nissenson's new book, Song of the Earth, is hard to catogorize. In this work, Nissenson uses the written word, the visual image, and a non-narrative style to compliment each other, to produce a memorable picture of an artist and his art. The picture gradually emerging is of a man struggling with issues of existence and creativity made poignant by his enhanced capabilities, in the richly portrayed landscape of the future. It could be seen as sci-fi with its troubling vision of the future, plausably extrapolated from current scientific knowledge. It could be seen as an exploration of social developments where political, religious, and sexual preferences and practices are at once accepted and celebrated while the frictions of these varying life styles lead to bitter conflict. It could be seen as the exploration of the homoerotic life of his protagonist, as he pursues the yearnings of lust and affection. It could be seen as a chronical of artistic struggle and an exploration of the place art plays in the world. This last is developed using startling original art created by the author in his development of these themes seen through the eyes of his characters. Finally it can be seen as a skillful merging of artistic modalities, demonstrating the synergistic enhancement of expression. The result will satisfy those interested in any of these possible catagories.

Rating:
Summary: Ingenious
Review: I first read this book when it was first released and have returned to it frequently. It's a fully realized, haunting vision of the future with something to dazzle on every page. A meditation on art, sexuality, spirituality and technology, it transcends easy categorization. This is one of the finest modern novels I've encountered.

Rating:
Summary: a compelling novel
Review: I highly recommend this highly unusual novel. Nissenson is a brilliant writer who projects the reader into his richly textured, deeply disturbing vision of life in the mid-21st century. Everything is different, yet everything is the same. The outer conditions of life are sharply different, yet the reader recognizes the emotional lives of the novel's characters. This is in many ways a terrifying vision of the future, brilliantly and sensitively rendered.

Rating:
Summary: Life in mosaic
Review: In 2057, John Firth Baker, a 19-year old genetically engineered visual artist, is murdered. Katherine Jackson organizes his biography using excerpts from journals, emails, interviews, and Baker's own art, and calls it "The Song of the Earth", the title of one of Baker's favorite poems. Baker's life was a sometimes sad one, due to the experiments his mother conducted to try to ensure his artistic talents. The science fiction aspects of Nissenson's novel are fascinating: gender wars, technological and genetic advancements. There's also religious struggles with old religions vying with newly established ones. This is also a world where sexual diversity is rather commonplace as well. "The Song of the Earth" is more than a cautionary tale about the human desire to control evolution and destiny; it's also about a young gay man trying to find himself in the middle of personal chaos. And then, after Baker's death, everyone who knew him puts forth a different interpretation of his life and artworks (also included in the novel), and this makes for even more fascinating reading: how each person can interpret another person's life for her/his own ends. Humanity, indeed. Nissenson's "The Song of the Earth" is definitely one of the most arresting stories I've read this year.

Rating:
Summary: Just Around The Corner
Review: In this book, Nissenson has transcended to a new plane of current fiction. Not only is the subject matter bold, daring and temporally topical, but the treatment of the subject matter and the stylilistic aspects of the book, make this my selection for leading candidtate for the National Book Award this year.

The book, written in an epistolary style, which usually means letters, but in this case, are much closer to an "e-mail" format than a letter format. The style allows Nissenson to be alternatingly personal and intense versus removed and obscure, from message to message, giving him amazing stylistic versatility, which he utilizes to great advantage.

Additionally, the book is a "multi-media" piece in that it mixes the media of written text with artistic visual creations and the use of "e-mail" as an expositional vehicle all in one piece of literature, which he then uses to give the reader an extrapolation of what is to come just around the corner in today's society. Today cloning has just started. Tomorrow, there will be science that allows us to change "congenitally deleterious" genetic problems, but what other detrimental effects might those "genetic corrections" contain, and might those horrible effects be only known after 100 or 1000 generations? These are in fact the questions that we will have to wrestle with and who is to say, which is an 'OK' genome change and which is not legal?

As if this were not enough, Nissenson, may even be prescient in detecting the growing polarization of men and women in today's society. Not only are the viewpoints of these two necessary groups polarizing, but even the issue of self-sexual identity is becoming a problem for people in society today, no less 50 to 100 years from now. Nissenson leaves no issue unaddressed and all serious modern literature readers should look to read this book, just to keep current with issues, if not for Nissenson's incredible craftsmanship.

Rating:
Summary: Just Around The Corner
Review: In this book, Nissenson has transcended to a new plane of current fiction. Not only is the subject matter bold, daring and temporally topical, but the treatment of the subject matter and the stylilistic aspects of the book, make this my selection for leading candidtate for the National Book Award this year.

The book, written in an epistolary style, which usually means letters, but in this case, are much closer to an "e-mail" format than a letter format. The style allows Nissenson to be alternatingly personal and intense versus removed and obscure, from message to message, giving him amazing stylistic versatility, which he utilizes to great advantage.

Additionally, the book is a "multi-media" piece in that it mixes the media of written text with artistic visual creations and the use of "e-mail" as an expositional vehicle all in one piece of literature, which he then uses to give the reader an extrapolation of what is to come just around the corner in today's society. Today cloning has just started. Tomorrow, there will be science that allows us to change "congenitally deleterious" genetic problems, but what other detrimental effects might those "genetic corrections" contain, and might those horrible effects be only known after 100 or 1000 generations? These are in fact the questions that we will have to wrestle with and who is to say, which is an 'OK' genome change and which is not legal?

As if this were not enough, Nissenson, may even be prescient in detecting the growing polarization of men and women in today's society. Not only are the viewpoints of these two necessary groups polarizing, but even the issue of self-sexual identity is becoming a problem for people in society today, no less 50 to 100 years from now. Nissenson leaves no issue unaddressed and all serious modern literature readers should look to read this book, just to keep current with issues, if not for Nissenson's incredible craftsmanship.

Rating:
Summary: Strange And Disturbing New World
Review: In this strange, dark science fiction novel of the near future, Nissenson has created a disturbing new world--a world in which genetic engineering has made frightening advances, global warming has turned the streets of New York into canals, many people are now living in sealed habitats, new religions are sprouting, social and sexual mores have changed beyond recognition, and the gender war is more than a metaphor.

In this bizarre yet believable world he tells the story of John Baker, a genetically engineered artist, who is also a deeply troubled young man. The story is told in a rather unusual style--bits of correspondence, excerpts from interviews, newspaper headlines. There are no scenes, no dialogue. Adding an extra dimension the author supplies the actual art works of Baker--which, if not works of genius, are certainly striking.

Oddly enough, it all works! The story draws you in and races on toward its fore-ordained conclusion. This very novel novel does not portray a world I would care to live in or characters I could really empathize with, but it works as the author meant for it to work. Not for everyone but a good read!

Rating:
Summary: AN ORIGINAL, FASCINATING AND STRONGLY SEXUAL FUTURE VISION.
Review: It's the mid-21st. century. Genetic manipulation to produce desired talents is possible (but illegal in the U.S. ...shades of the current stem cell debate.) New York is like Venice, due to rising sea levels. Black Blizzards ravage the Midwest, which has shelters for "exodusters" (people never quite defined). Poor people live (and die) in the "weather", the reasonably well-off live (and die) in "keeps" (completely enclosed, air-conditioned residential communities). "Human" has become "Humin", female "femayle". Old people are "wrinklies". Men and women are divided, with an extremist feminist movement called the "Gynarchists". The religious right has more power than ever.

This is just a little of the rich background from "The Song of the Earth".

I like near-future novels. I read "1984" at a young age, and was very taken with Orwell's vision. (His spare, expressive prose influences me to this day.) "Neuromancer", too, fascinated me. Hugh Nissenson's vision was not quite what I expected, from a review in the New York Times. Actually, it was rather more.

Constructed with emails, interviews, diaries, poetry, images and other forms, it presents a portrait of John Firth Baker, an arsogenic metamorph, a manual artist (as opposed to digital), one of four human beings genetically (and in his case, socially engineered by his mother, see the book for details), to be an artist of renown.

And, it's not just prose. Mr. Nissenson has given us Johnny's art, too, in black and white, and 13 pieces ("Baker's Dozen") in color, a great idea, although I did find the quality of the art somewhat variable. But nevertheless, very impressive. (The dust jacket cover is one of Mr. Nissenson's images.)

This is a book I would unhesitatingly recommend, except for the fairly strong homosexual content. (Amazon would probably not allow me to quote some of the more explicit passages in this review.)

Johnny's mom is a lesbian, he's gay (as his genetic profile predicted he would be), and he grows breasts to ingratiate himself with his Gaian guru (his no-frills mastogenesis costs $7,040, paid for by a summer of sexual slavery in NYC). However, as a straight person, I was able to deal with the more graphic details; but that may not apply to everyone. If it helps at all, Mr. Nissenson seems to be an older and somewhat retiring man with a nice family who lives in New York City.

In short, on a lot of levels (linguistic, graphic, construction, as well as future visualization) this is a highly original work that I suspect will become a classic. However, at a deeper level, it's also a novel, that, like all the great novels, examines what used to be called (rather pretentiously), "the human condition".

Parent/child conflicts, the rebellious adolescent, the new generation, this is the stuff of myth. It tends not to change too much. And that's what this book, ultimately, is about.

Rating:
Summary: Speculative fiction with an original twist
Review: It's true, there are numerous ways one can read "The Song of the Earth" -- as biotech-cautionary tale, as post-postmodern sex & gender manifesto, as extrapolation on the future of identity politics. It's hard to say what the author had in mind when he wrote this book, but it was probably all of the above.

I don't think you need a Ph.D. in social science or theory or literature to enjoy Nissenson's dystopic vision or his fragmentary style. I love near-future fiction -- books like "Random Acts of Senseless Violence," "Parable of the Sower," and the like -- and this novel, with it's fully realized (and all-too-familiar) world of climate change, genetic engineering, and identity wars, slakes that particular thirst quite nicely.

I also like the diversity of the novel's characters. Since book jackets seldom warn about heterosexual content, I see no reason why any reader should feel the need to be "prepared" to encounter characters who are homosexual. In fact, it's very refreshing to see people of diverse backgrounds take center stage in a work of social science fiction.

Anyway, if near-future speculation keeps you awake at night, if you like challenging characters and can handle having your sexual envelope pushed at times (as much as a bunch of bound-together paper can do such a thing), then give "The Song of the Earth" a try.

Rating:
Summary: One sitting Profound Read
Review: Nissenson has written a passionate work that reminds me of great epic poems. Art, literature, imagination, and a profound interest in our deepest philosophical concerns illuminates this unbelievably interesting and valuable novel.

Do yourself a big favor and give Nissenson a few hours of your time.