Shatterday

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book
Review: It's great to see that this edition is now available for download, and affordable, too.

This book contains "Jeffty is Five" and many other classic stories. Reading it today, I'm carried back to high school when I realized that "The Yellow Wallpaper" wasn't the end-all or be-all with short fiction. As popular as Harlan is, I don't think he's really "understood" as a writer. He's beyond a unique voice. I put my money on him, along with a few other writers, to "last" beyond the moment into the future. Much of the other fiction written at or about the time of Shatterday (late 70's) seems appallingly dated today. This can't be said for Shatterday, even though nearly all of these stories are time- and world-specific. I guess these stories remind me of the Nirvana concert I attended, not knowing it was nearly the last one for this band and Kurt Cobain. The audience -- the supposed "wild youth" of the grunge era -- were so timid and calm. Nirvana was a great band, but they were blown away by their opening band, the Butthole Surfers. The weepy NirvanaYouth didn't know what to do. A wall of sound, rough, violent, carrying you away to psychobillyland. Now, that's not directly one-to-one correspondent with Harlan, but he blows you away all the same. Like, you're sitting there and your hair slicks back and your eyelids won't close and you can't breathe. I'm not going to say "the Butthole Surfers are a better band than Nirvana," but they are a better live band. And reading Harlan's kind of like listening to that kind of overpowering great live band. You just can't compare. You can't compare him to weepostat "critically acclaimed" fiction. I think he scares people. It's just in "poor taste" in some people's estimation. But I have good manners, you know, and sometimes things others perceive are "in poor taste" are not done merely for shock value, but for the sake of insight and illumination. And to move readers to think, feel and look at the world around them. Or you could just go read something by somebody who really can't write and tell yourself it's "good." As opposed to being moved, interested, engaged, or have your hair blown back and breath taken away.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book
Review: It's great to see that this edition is now available for download, and affordable, too.

This book contains "Jeffty is Five" and many other classic stories. Reading it today, I'm carried back to high school when I realized that "The Yellow Wallpaper" wasn't the end-all or be-all with short fiction. As popular as Harlan is, I don't think he's really "understood" as a writer. He's beyond a unique voice. I put my money on him, along with a few other writers, to "last" beyond the moment into the future. Much of the other fiction written at or about the time of Shatterday (late 70's) seems appallingly dated today. This can't be said for Shatterday, even though nearly all of these stories are time- and world-specific. I guess these stories remind me of the Nirvana concert I attended, not knowing it was nearly the last one for this band and Kurt Cobain. The audience -- the supposed "wild youth" of the grunge era -- were so timid and calm. Nirvana was a great band, but they were blown away by their opening band, the Butthole Surfers. The weepy NirvanaYouth didn't know what to do. A wall of sound, rough, violent, carrying you away to psychobillyland. Now, that's not directly one-to-one correspondent with Harlan, but he blows you away all the same. Like, you're sitting there and your hair slicks back and your eyelids won't close and you can't breathe. I'm not going to say "the Butthole Surfers are a better band than Nirvana," but they are a better live band. And reading Harlan's kind of like listening to that kind of overpowering great live band. You just can't compare. You can't compare him to weepostat "critically acclaimed" fiction. I think he scares people. It's just in "poor taste" in some people's estimation. But I have good manners, you know, and sometimes things others perceive are "in poor taste" are not done merely for shock value, but for the sake of insight and illumination. And to move readers to think, feel and look at the world around them. Or you could just go read something by somebody who really can't write and tell yourself it's "good." As opposed to being moved, interested, engaged, or have your hair blown back and breath taken away.

Rating:
Summary: Ellison disturbs; it's what he does best
Review: Shatterday is Harlan's tribute to the sometimes symbiotic (but usually parasitic) relationship between an author and his stories. He uses the book to lay out the philosophy of writing he's been hinting at and refining after almost half-a-century as one of America's finest writers.

Ellison contends that the two are locked in something of a struggle for dominance, and if the writer can make the story work before the story totally crushes him under its own weight, that means he's succeeded. He also makes some very good points, such as anything more than twelve minutes of personal pain is just wanton self-pity. In the end, it's a guide for thinking, a new viewpoint or perspective; a bit disturbing, a bit dark, a bit pessimistic...but then, we certainly wouldn't have Harlan any other way.