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House Arrest by Francis Mont

September 25, 2018

A slightly different article for today. It’s not a review and it’s not an author interview. Yet in some deeper, symbolic way it is both, and it is neither; like the double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics – a simile that would perhaps make Francis Mont, a physicist, smile.

We’re not here to talk about physics however, but about literature. House Arrest, by Francis Mont, is a science-fiction novel taking place in a post-nuclear-war America in 2098. Let’s take a look at the description, as it’s given on Amazon:

The country is in ruin. Three cities in the Sacramento Valley, with relatively intact infrastructure, are trying to survive in drastically different ways. One is organized by its AI quantum computer and its sophisticated robots. It automates everything for maximum efficiency and human beings are left with no role in their city’s welfare. That leads to problems – without jobs to keep them occupied, people get bored, restless and destructive. Omega 1500, their computer, has to temporarily lock them up to protect them from each other. Once their problems are solved, they’ll have to deal with the other two cities. The big question is whether they learned from the past and understand what human happiness depends on.

As it becomes apparent, there are a lot of interesting elements here. Let’s take a closer look.

Francis Mont, House Arrest — Not all post-apocalyptic novels are the same

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Review of The Bell Jar

June 6, 2018

Book Review, Criticism

Bell Jar, book, criticism, depression, review, Sylvia Plath

I have a confession to make: I never liked Sylvia Plath’s poetry. Call me old-fashioned, but I have a real problem with modern poetry, and Sylvia Plath is no exception. Now comes another confession: I shamefully admit (the shame is double since I have a PhD in English literature) that I didn’t know that Sylvia Plath had written a novel. The Bell Jar is her only novel. Furthermore, it’s a semi-autobiographical* work.

*I don’t get the term “semi-autobiographical”. Deep down, all works are autobiographical, because they are based on the author’s subjective experience of the world. But if we want to make a separation between fictional autobiography and non-fictional autobiography, The Bell Jar is definitely a sample of the former category.

Review of The Bell Jar — Depression might appear peculiar from the outside – and that’s how The Bell Jar occasionally does, too

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Review of Elleander Morning

April 3, 2018

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, review, speculative, writing

Speculative fiction is a genre dealing with what-ifs. In this context, Elleander Morning belongs to what one might rightfully (and whimsically) call “WW2-whatif-fiction”. We’ve had several stories dealing with an alternative world where Nazi Germany has won the Second World War. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick probably remains the point of reference, though in recent years Fatherland by Robert Harris has also received quite a bit of attention.

Elleander Morning is indeed such a novel, with a sort of a twist: the Second World War has never happened. The reason? A young woman – Elleander Morning – travels to Vienna before the outbreak of the First World War and kills a mediocre artist called Adolf Hitler. Many decades later, in the early 1980s, Elleander Morning’s granddaughter, Lesley, discovers a book. It’s a complete history of World War Two, including marvelous photographs that cannot be dismissed as a forgery. Something odd is going on, but what? Well, that’s a damn good question. One that sadly not even the author, Jerry Yulsman, seems to have been able to answer.

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