Yesterday’s fiction is too limited…
While I empathize with the main point that NY Times’s editorial columnist Maureen Dowd makes in her article “Attention, Men: Books are Sexy!” summarized in her column’s title (I certainly read a lot more than I write, so I’m not guilty as charged), I disagree with her implication that men should be reading irrelevant and obscure classics (especially not Jane Austen’s novels, the best cure for insomnia that I know of). I’ll also point out that on the whole neither women nor men read much anymore—the younger they are, the less they read!—because streaming video and computer games have stolen their souls.
What all people need to be doing in these troubled times is reading the non-fiction books that expose the fascist takeover in the US, including the war on culture, and the fiction books that treat variations on that theme. We learn about ourselves not by reading Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or other “classic authors” unless we translate their lessons about the human condition into modern contexts. It is far easier to read and relate to modern works that already make that translation for us.
We have to be a bit broad-minded—more so than Ms. Dowd, obviously—about what we mean by “modern,” of course. Gabo’s Autumn of the Patriarch isn’t modern, but his amalgam of banana-republic-like autocrats describes the man in the White House well. The double-speak of 1984 isn’t modern either; now we call that “alternate facts.” And we haven’t even had our Kristallnacht yet, but January 6, 2021 came awfully close.
Current fiction can remind readers about how easy it is to lose democracy, freedom, and our individual rights. It continues to provide valuable lessons and warnings that are educational, anti-fascist, and informative. Sometimes the NY Times and other news outlets can help in that process. But sorry, Maureen, you and that venerable rag blew it this time! Jane Austen isn’t going to solve any of our current problems! And, if you and they can’t see that, you’re part of the problem.
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“The Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” This trilogy of novels, Muddlin’ Through, Silicon Slummin’,,,and Just Getting; By, and Goin’ the Extra Mile, illustrate what I mean in the post above: Ex-USN Master-at-Arms Mary Jo Melendez fights dangerous various criminal groups and fascists in these tales, fascists from China, Russia, and the US, setting an excellent example in fiction for anti-fascism warriors everywhere. Way to go, Mary Jo! (Okay, at times the MECHs help her. They’re Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans.)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
