I wish slipstream well. I wish it was an acknowledged genre and a workable category, because then it could offer some helpful, brisk competition to SF, and force “Science Fiction” to redefine and revitalize its own principles.
But any true discussion of slipstream’s genre principles is moot, until it becomes a category as well. For slipstream to develop and nourish, it must become openly and easily available to its own committed readership, in the same way that SF is today. This problem I willingly leave to some inventive bookseller, who is openminded enough to restructure the rackspace and give these oppressed books a breath of freedom.
THE SLIPSTREAM LIST
ACKER, KATHY - Empire of the Senseless
ACKROYD, PETER - Hawksmoor; Chatterton
ALDISS, BRIAN - Life in the West
ALLENDE, ISABEL - Of Love and Shadows; House of Spirits
AMIS, KINGSLEY - The Alienation; The Green Man
AMIS, MARTIN - Other People; Einstein’s Monsters
APPLE, MAX - Zap; The Oranging of America
ATWOOD, MARGARET - The Handmaids Tale
AUSTER, PAUL - City of Glass; In the Country of Last Things
BALLARD, J. G. - Day of Creation; Empire of the Sun
BANKS, IAIN - The Wasp Factory; The Bridge
BANVILLE, JOHN - Kepler; Dr. Copernicus
BARNES, JULIAN - Staring at the Sun
BARTH, JOHN - Giles Goat-Boy; Chimera
BARTHELME, DONALD - The Dead Father
BATCHELOR, JOHN CALVIN - Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica
BELL, MADISON SMARTT - Waiting for the End of the World
BERGER, THOMAS - Arthur Rex
BONTLY, THOMAS - Celestial Chess
BOYLE, T. CORAGHESSAN - Worlds End; Water Music
BRANDAO, IGNACIO - And Still the Earth
BURROUGHS, WILLIAM - Place of Dead Roads; Naked Lunch; Soft Machine; etc.
CARROLL, JONATHAN - Bones of the Moon; Land of Laughs
CARTER, ANGELA - Nights at the Circus; Heroes and Villains
CARY, PETER - Illywhacker; Oscar and Lucinda
CHESBRO, GEORGE M. - An Affair of Sorcerers
COETZEE, J. M. - Life and rimes of Michael K.
COOVER, ROBERT - The Public Burning; Pricksongs & Descants
CRACE, JIM - Continent
CROWLEY, JOHN - Little Big; Aegypt
DAVENPORT, GUY - Da Vincis Bicycle; The Jules Verne Steam Balloon
DISCH, THOMAS M. - On Wings of Song
DODGE, JIM - Not Fade Away
ELY, DAVID - Seconds
ERICKSON, STEVE - Days Between Stations; Rubicon Beach
FEDERMAN, RAYMOND - The Twofold Variations
FOWLES, JOHN - A Maggot
FRANZEN, JONATHAN - The Twenty-Seventh City
FRISCH, MAX - Homo Faber; Man in the Holocene
FUENTES, CARLOS - Terra Nostra
GADDIS, WILLIAM - JR; Carpenters Gothic
GARDNER, JOHN - Grendel; Freddy’s Book
GEARY, PATRICIA - Strange Toys; Living in Ether
GOLDMAN, WILLIAM - The Princess Bride; The Color of Light
GRASS, GUNTER - The Tin Drum
GRAY, ALASDAIR - Lanark
GRIMWOOD, KEN - Replay
HARBINSON, W. A. - Genesis; Revelation; Otherworld
HILL, CAROLYN - The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer
HJVRTSBERG, WILLIAM - Gray Matters; Falling Angel
HOBAN, RUSSELL - Riddley Walker
HOYT, RICHARD - The Manna Enzyme
IRWIN, ROBERT - The Arabian Nightmares
ISKANDER, FAZIL - Sandro of Chegam; The Gospel According to Sandro
JOHNSON, DENIS - Fiskadoro
JONES, ROBERT F. - Blood Sport; The Diamond Bogo
KINSELLA, W. P. - Shoeless Joe
KOSTER, R. M. - The Dissertation; Mandragon
KOTZWINKLE, WILLIAM - Elephant Bangs Train; Doctor Rat, Fata Morgana
KRAMER, KATHRYN - A Handbook for Visitors From Outer Space
LANGE, OLIVER - Vandenberg
LEONARD, ELMORE - Touch
LESSING, DORIS - The Four-Gated City; The Fifth Child of Satan
LEVEN, JEREMY - Satan
MAILER, NORMAN - Ancient Evenings
MARINIS, RICK - A Lovely Monster
MARQUEZ, GABRIEL GARCIA - Autumn of the Patriarch; One Hundred Years of Solitude
MATHEWS, HARRY - The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium
McMAHON, THOMAS - Loving Little Egypt
MILLAR, MARTIN - Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation
MOONEY, TED - Easy Travel to Other Planets
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL - Laughter of Carthage; Byzantium Endures; Mother London
MOORE, BRIAN - Cold Heaven
MORRELL, DAVID - The Totem
MORRISON, TONI - Beloved; The Song of Solomon
NUNN, KEN - Tapping the Source; Unassigned Territory
PERCY, WALKER - Love in the Ruins; The Thanatos Syndrome
PIERCY, MARGE - Woman on the Edge of Time
PORTIS, CHARLES - Masters of Atlantis
PRIEST, CHRISTOPHER - The Glamour; The Affirmation
PROSE, FRANCINE - Bigfoot Dreams, Marie Laveau
PYNCHON, THOMAS - Gravity’s Rainbow; V; The Crying of Lot 49
REED, ISHMAEL - Mumbo Jumbo; The Terrible Twos
RICE, ANNE - The Vampire Lestat; Queen of the Damned
ROBBINS, TOM - Jitterbug Perfume; Another Roadside Attraction
ROTH, PHILIP - The Counterlife
RUSHDIE, SALMON - Midnight’s Children; Grimus; The Satanic Verses
SAINT, H. F. - Memoirs of an Invisible Man
SCHOLZ, CARTER & HARCOURT GLENN - Palimpsests
SHEPARD, LUCIUS - Life During Wartime
SIDDONS, ANNE RIVERS - The House Next Door
SPARK, MURIEL - The Hothouse by the East River
SPENCER, SCOTT - Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball
SUKENICK, RONALD - Up; Down; Out
SUSKIND, PATRICK - Perfume
THEROUX, PAUL - O-Zone
THOMAS, D. M. - The White Hotel
THOMPSON, JOYCE - The Blue Chair; Conscience Place
THOMSON, RUPERT - Dreams of Leaving
THORNBERG, NEWTON - Valhalla
THORNTON, LAWRENCE - Imagining Argentina
UPDIKE, JOHN - Witches of Eastwick; Rogers Version
VLIET, R. G. - Scorpio Rising
VONNEGUT, KURT - Galapagos; Slaughterhouse-Five
WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER - The Broom of the System
WEBB, DON - Uncle Ovid’s Exercise Book
WHITTEMORE, EDWARD - Nile Shadows; Jerusalem Poker; Sinai Tapestry
WILLARD, NANCY - Things Invisible to See
WOMACK, JACK - Ambient; Terraplane
WOOD, BARI - The Killing Gift
WRIGHT, STEPHEN - M31: A Family Romance
CATSCAN 6 “Shinkansen”
Let me tell you what the 21st Century feels like.
Imagine yourself at an international conference of industrial designers in Nagoya, Japan. You’re not an industrial designer yourself, and you’re not quite sure what you’re doing there, but presumably some wealthy civic-minded group of Nagoyans thought you might have entertainment value, so they flew you in. You’re in a cavernous laser-lit auditorium with 3,000 assorted Japanese, Finns, Germans, Americans, Yugoslavs, Italians, et al., all wearing identical ID badges, except for a trenchant minority, who have scribbled “Allons Nagoya” on their badges so that everybody will know they’re French.
There’s a curved foam plug stuck in your ear with a thin gray cord leading to a black plastic gadget the size of a deck of cards. This is an “ICR-6000 Conference Receiver.” It’s a five-channel short-range radio, with a blurry typed serial number stuck to it with a strip of Scotch Tape. You got the receiver from a table manned by pol
ite young hostesses, who were passing out vast heaps of these items, like party favors. Of the five channels offered, Number 1 is Japanese and Number 2 is, purportedly, English. You get the strong impression that the French would have preferred Number 3 to be French, but the Conference offers only two “official languages” and channels 3, 4 and 5 have static.
Muted festivities begin, in the best of taste. First a brief Kabuki skit is offered, by two expatriate Canadians, dressed in traditional robes. Ardent students of the Kabuki form, the two Canadians execute ritual moves of exacting precision, accompanied by bizarre and highly stylized verbal bellowing. They are, however, speaking not Japanese but English. After some confusion you realize that this piece, “The Inherited Cramp,” is meant to be a comic performance. Weak culture-shocked chuckles arise here and there from the more adventurous members of the audience. Toward the end you feel that you might get used to this kind of thing if you saw enough of it.
The performance ends to the warm applause of general relief. Assorted bigwigs take the stage: a master of ceremonies, the keynote speaker, the Mayor of Nagoya, the Speaker of the City Council, the Governor of the Prefecture. And then, accompanied by a silverhaired retainer of impressive stolid dignity, comes the Crown Prince of Japan.
Opening ceremonies of this kind are among the many obligations of this patient and graceful young aristocrat. The Crown Prince wears a truly immaculate suit which, at an impolite guess, probably costs as much as a small car. As a political entity, this symbolic personage is surrounded by twin bureaucracies of publicity and security. The security is not immediately evident. Only later will you discover that the entire building has been carefully sealed by unobtrusive teams of police. On another day, you will witness the passage of the Prince’s motorcade, his spotless armored black limousine sporting the national flag, accompanied by three other limos of courtier-bodyguards, two large squads of motorcycle policemen, half-a- dozen police black-and-whites, and a chuttering surveillance helicopter. As you stand gawking on the sidewalk you will be questioned briefly, in a friendly fashion, by a plainclothes policeman who eyes the suspicious bag you carry with a professional interest.
At the moment, however, you are listening to the speeches of the Nagoya politicians. The Prince, his posture impeccable, is also listening, or at least pretending it with a perfect replica of attention. You listen to the hesitant English on Channel Two with growing amazement. Never have you heard political speeches of such utter and consummate vacuity. They consist entirely of benevolent cliche’. Not a ripple of partisan fervor, not a hint of ideological intent, colors the translated oratory. Even the most vapid American, or even Russian, politician cannot resist a dig at a rival, or an in-crowd reference to some partisan bit of political-correctness—but this is a ritual of a different order. It dawns on you that nothing will be said. These political worthies, sponsors and financiers of the event, are there to color the air with harmless verbal perfume. “You’re here, we’re here”—everything that actually needs to be said has already been communicated nonverbally.
The Prince rises to deliver a brief invocation of even more elevated and poetic meaninglessness. As he steps to the podium, a torrent of flashbulbs drenches the stage in stinging electrical white. The Prince, surely blinded, studies a line of his text. He lifts his chin, recites it, and is blinded again by the flashes. He looks back to the speech, recites a paragraph in a firm voice with his head lowered, then looks up again, stoically. Again that staccato blast of glare. It dawns on you that this is the daily nature of this young gentleman’s existence. He dwells within a triple bell-jar of hypermediated publicity, aristocratic decorum, and paramilitary paranoia. You reflect with a mingled respect and pity on the numerous rare personages around the planet who share his unenviable predicament. Later you will be offered a chance to meet the Prince in a formal reception line, and will go out of your way to spare him the minor burden of your presence. It seems the least you can do.
Back in your hotel room, the vapid and low-key Japanese TV is interrupted by news of a severe California earthquake. By morning swarms of well-equipped Japanese media journalists will be doing stand-ups before cracked bridges in San Furansisko and Okran. Distressed Californian natives are interviewed with an unmistakable human warmth and sympathy. Japanese banks offer relief money. Medical supplies are flown in. No particular big deal is made of these acts of charitable solidarity. It’s an earthquake; it’s what one does.
You leave Nagoya and take the Shinkansen bullet-train back to Tokyo. It’s a very nice train, the Shinkansen, but it’s not from Mars or anything. There’s been a lot of press about the Shinkansen, but it looks harmless enough, rather quaint actually, somewhat Art Deco with lots of brushed aircraft aluminum and stereo ads featuring American popstars. It’s very clean, but like all trains it gets too cold inside and then it gets too hot. You’ve heard that bullet-trains can do 200 miles an hour but there’s no way the thing tops 130 or so, while you’re aboard it. You drink a ten percent carbonated peach soda and listen to your Walkman. The people inside this purported technical marvel demonstrate the absolute indifference of long habit.
A friend meets you in Tokyo. You board a commuter subway at rush-hour. It is like an extremely crowded rolling elevator. Everyone hangs limply from straps with inert expressions suggesting deep meditation or light hypnosis. Impetus rolls through the tightly-packed bodies like currents through a thick stand of kelp. It occurs to you that this is the first time you have been in Japan without attracting vaguely curious glances as a foreigner. Nobody is looking at anybody. Were any physical threat or commotion offered on this subway, the situation would swiftly be nightmarish. But since nobody stirs, the experience is actually oddly soothing.
You have a dinner appointment with a Japanese rock band. You meet in a restaurant in a section of Tokyo somewhat akin to, say, Greenwich Village in 1955. Its narrow, crooked streets are full of students, courting couples, coffee-shops. There’s a bit of graffiti here and there—not the lashing, crazed graffiti of American urban areas, but enough to convey a certain heightened sense of dissidence.
You and your friend meet the two rock stars, their A&R man, and their manager. The manager drifts off when he realizes that there is no threat of any actual business transpiring. You’re just a fan. With some translation help from your friend you eagerly question the musicians. You long to know what’s cooking in the Tokyo pop-music scene. It transpires that these particular rockers listen mostly to electronic European dance music. Their biggest Japanese hit was a song about Paris sung in English.
One of the rockers asks you if you have ever tried electronic brain stimulation. No, you say—have you? Yes, but it wasn’t much good, really. You recall that, except for occasional problems with junior yakuza bikers high on cheap Korean speed, Japan hasn’t much of a “drug-problem.” Everyone sighs wistfully and lights more cigarettes.
The restaurant you’re in offers an indeterminate nonethnic globalized cuisine whose remote ancestry may have been French. The table is laid like, say, London in 1880, with butterballs in crystal glass dishes, filigreed forks as heavy as lead, fish-knives, and arcanely folded cloth napkins. You ask the musicians if this restaurant is one of their favorite dives. Actually, no. It’s ‘way too expensive. Eating in posh restaurants is one of those things that one just doesn’t do much of in Japan, like buying gift melons or getting one’s suit pressed. A simple ham and egg breakfast can cost thirty bucks easy—thirty-five with orange juice. Sane people eat noodles for breakfast for about a buck and a half.
Wanting to press this queer situation to the limit, you order the squid. It arrives and it’s pretty good. In fact, the squid is great. Munching a tentacle in wine-sauce you suddenly realize that you are having a really good time. Having dinner with a Japanese rock band in Tokyo is, by any objective standard, just about the coolest thing you’ve ever done!
The 21st Century is here all around you, it’s happening, and it’s craziness, but it’s not bad craziness, it’s an
adventure. It’s a total gas. You are seized by a fierce sense of existential delight.
Everybody grins. And the A&R man picks up the tab.
Shinkansen Part Two: The Increasingly Unstrange Case of Lafcadio Hearn and Rick Kennedy
I was in Japan twice in 1989—two weeks in all. Big deal. This jaunting hardly makes me an “Old Japan Hand.”
But I really wanted to mimic one in this installment of CATSCAN. So I strongly considered beginning with the traditional Westerner’s declaration that I Understand Nothing About Japan or the Japanese: boy are they ever mystical, spiritual and inscrutable; why I’ve been a-livin’ here nigh twenty year with my Japanese wife, Japanese job, Japanese kids and I’m just now a-scratchin’ the surface of the baffling Yamato kokutai …
These ritual declarations by career Nipponologists date ‘way back to the archetypal Old Japan Hand, Lafcadio Hearn (aka Yakumo Koizumi) 1850-1904. Not coincidentally, this kind of rhetoric is very useful in making yourself seem impressively mystic, spiritual and inscrutable. A facade of inscrutable mysticism is especially handy if you’re anxious to hide certain truths about yourself. Lafcadio Hearn, for instance—I love this guy Hearn, I’ve been his devotee for years, and could go on about him all day—Hearn was your basic congenital SF saint-perv, but in a nineteenth century environment. Hearn was, in brief, a rootless oddball with severe personality problems and a pronounced gloating taste for the horrific and bizarre. Born of a misalliance between a British officer and a young Greek girl, Hearn passed a classically miserable childhood, until fleeing to America at nineteen. As a free-lance journalist and part-time translator, penniless, shabby, declasse’ and half-blind, Hearn knocked around all over for years— Cincinnati, New Orleans, the Caribbean—until ending up in Japan in 1890.
There Hearn made the gratifying discovery that the Japanese could not tell that he was a weirdo. At home Hearn was alien; in Japan, he was merely foreign. The Meiji-era Japanese respectfully regarded the junketing Hearn as an influential man of letters, an intellectual, a poet and philosopher, and they gave him a University position teaching literature to the rising new generation. Hearn (a man of very genuine talent, treated decently for perhaps the first time in his life) responded by becoming one of Japan’s first and foremost Western popularizers, emitting reams about Shintoism and ghosts and soul-transference and the ineffableness of everythinghood.