To Read & To Write

I could only stand to read the first few pages of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1984) before feeling that slight creeping of an oncoming panic attack spreading throughout my body. I closed the book. The scenes were too incongruous; something too familiar mixed with   an extreme injustice: a school gym, familiar with its polished wood floors and basketball nets, made into a sparse bunker for women, beds lined up as in an orphanage or hospital. It was late when I peered into this dystopia and that night I had nightmares. I don’t remember what they were. But I knew that I would read the book in full this year (I had tried four years ago and failed to finish), and I knew that the next time I would open it to read I would, like the main character Offred, have to * steel myself * as she does to continue allowing myself to take in the story. Disclaimer: I haven’t watched the new TV series based off of this book and I don’t intend to. The story is told from the perspec...

Some are familiar with Gibson's science fiction novel, "Neuromancer", now a classic (see the new, gorgeous 2016 edition from Penguin, complete with an inspiring introduction from Neil Gaiman), because it predicted the internet before the internet was invented. "Neuromancer", published in 1984, is a text that also depicts humanity's addiction to technology, a relationship that becomes indistinguishable from what is known as reality. These are two great reasons why the novel should be highly noted, but not the reason why the book should become, in my eyes, a Great Book, a Classic, a Literary Masterpiece, that should, perhaps, be required reading centuries from now, taught by professors and doctors hired by universities.  My Goodreads review gives "Neuromancer" four stars, and not the highest, five, because it is, I believe, not entirely accessible. The book is not easy to read, and I don't think it should be, even to the expense of less com...