I don’t read that much sci-fi , perhaps because I’m overly inclined to judge books by their covers and most in this genre have godawful artwork. I’m also disinterested in space sagas and tales of interplanetary conflict. I’m in the category of snobby readers who are more attracted by novels marketed as ‘speculative fiction’ as this has a more grown-up sound to it. I’ve just read and enjoyed one of these – Walter Tevis’ ‘Mockingbird’ which makes the Gollancz list of the SF Masterworks – a library of the “best SF ever written”.
Tevis is best known for the novels that have been adapted into successful movies with Paul Newman in ‘The Hustler’ & ‘The Color of Money’ and
David Bowie in ‘The Man Who fell To Earth’. Each of those stories focused on isolated individuals who were alienated from mainstream society. The ‘alien’ is literal in the case of the Bowie role.
Tevis described his ‘speculative’ work is an “extravagently imagined world peopled by real beings”. Mockingbird was inspired by the realization that less and less people are interested in reading, an alarming loss of literacy which has serious repercussions on the mental wellbeing of earthlings.
Tevis imagines a society where the invasion of privacy is treated as akin to a criminal act. Humans are served and increasingly dependent on a race of robots, existing rather than living on a diet of quick sex, trash TV and soft drugs. It is similar to the type of society John Lennon refers to in his song ‘Working Class Hero’ where people being “doped by religion, sex and TV”. No one reads and because the drugs and food products have fertility inhibiting content no children are born.
When Tevis wrote ‘Mockingbird’ he was a recovered alcoholic and he spoke of the novel as being about the process of sobering up and seeing the world for what it is free of the brain dulling substances and fear of closeness. In the novel Bentley shows how reading sustains the soul and liberates the mind from conditioned responses. When he reads the line : “only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods”, he doesn’t understand its meaning but the words fill him with sadness and longing. It is being able to feel and respond the the mystery of such emotions that seperates the human spirit from even the most sophisticated robots.
Recommended reading for those who think they don’t like Sci-Fi.
Where does the sentence “Only the mockingbird. . .” originate? Is it from a poem or novel, or did Tevis simply make it up?
Good question, Terry!
I think the line is one Tevis made up with the Mockingbird serving as a metaphor of hope for the human spirit. From this, I’d conclude that for Tevis the woods is where darkness and despair lurks.
Then again, I may be wrong – any scholarly types who know better please post a reply 🙂
Just finished reading it tonight. I was blown away. My review: http://villageidiotsavant.blogspot.com/2008/11/mockingbird.html
I’ve loved this book forever, I will always stand on the edge of the woods. Try ‘The Queens’s Gambit’ by Walter Tevis, ‘His words are true, his vision is inside, but he has the grace to bless us with his talent
I haven’t read The Queen’s Gambit -looks like one to check out. Thanks for the comment & recommendation, Mike.
I appreciate Boldray’s interpretation of “only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods”. I don’t attach much credence to it but no one has ventured a better interpretation. Boldray’s titbit of info that Tevis was coming out of alcohol rehab when writing this novel may be all the explanation we really need! The simplistic style of writing is very much in character for both the robots and the dumbed down humans but sometimes I wondered if that is a good enough excuse for the relentless cat-sat-on-the-mat writing style. And yet the profoundness of the novel shines through and to inject real suspense based on the outcome of processes of thought and newfound apperceptions is no mean feat. The ending is a bit tame but the real problem with the ending is that it offers no prognosis for the future. Still, it’s a whole lot better than Bradbury’s F451 with a bunch of sandalled organic food eaters wandering around trying to memorise books, which turned a brilliant hard-edged book into unadulterated goody-two-shoes slush. David Karp’s One is a perfect example of maintaining a novel’s hard edged integrity while offering a predicted resolution.
I thought this book was brilliant, and I will read Man Who Fell next. I have liked the movie since it came out.
If sci-fi were written this way, instead of mediocre prose wrapped around occasionally clever but mostly gimmicky ideas, I would read it. The sheer beauty of some of the writing was marvelous, as were the satirical social commentary, the insights into our culture, and the playful literary allusions.
The novel is a powerful love-letter to literature and the imagination, just wonderful!