D_Davis
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2008
- Messages
- 1,348
Over the last couple of years, Michael Cisco has become my favorite author. His work is stunning, mature, brave, and literary. The Divinity Student is a masterpiece of the bizarre; I've read it multiple times, and each time I discover something new. His latest, however, trumps anything else I've ever read - from any author, in an genre. I think it's destined to become a classic of American Literature.
The Great Lover is like nothing I've ever read. It's basically Cisco's treatise on modernism. It's not post-modern, although he uses post-modern techniques, but instead it's more anti-modern; or at least I think it is, that's what I took away after my first read. The book examines the fact that so many things in our lives are artificial, and as metaphors he creates the idea of a Prosthetic Libido and a Prosthetic Death, in which people can discard their unwanted desires and life, but then these simulacra continue to live while so many of the people in the world live their lives completely oblivious to the things going on around them.
Cisco also examines the relationship between the author and the reader, the reader and the book. The very physical aspect of holding a book whilst reading, and the feeling one gets when nearing the end of a story are called out; Cisco implores us - the readers - to cherrish that feeling, to bask in it, to allow ourselves to be absorbed into the book. The idea here is that the fantastic world of the book has been created to make the reader view his or her own reality in a more meaningful way. We are not supposed to escape into a world of fiction, but conversely the world of the fiction should be used as a way to more intensely focus our attention on our own lives.
I haven't checked yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Cisco's books - at least the ones he's already written - are not and never will be available as e-books. And without giving anything away (although saying even this may be too much), I wouldn't read The Great Lover without first reading The Divinity Student, The Traitor, The Tyrant, and The Narrator.
It is, ultimately, about itself. The book. The characters. The "plot." Everything is about The Great Lover - the book I was holding while reading. It's not telling a story, it is a story. It exists in my world, as do I.
The Great Lover is like nothing I've ever read. It's basically Cisco's treatise on modernism. It's not post-modern, although he uses post-modern techniques, but instead it's more anti-modern; or at least I think it is, that's what I took away after my first read. The book examines the fact that so many things in our lives are artificial, and as metaphors he creates the idea of a Prosthetic Libido and a Prosthetic Death, in which people can discard their unwanted desires and life, but then these simulacra continue to live while so many of the people in the world live their lives completely oblivious to the things going on around them.
Cisco also examines the relationship between the author and the reader, the reader and the book. The very physical aspect of holding a book whilst reading, and the feeling one gets when nearing the end of a story are called out; Cisco implores us - the readers - to cherrish that feeling, to bask in it, to allow ourselves to be absorbed into the book. The idea here is that the fantastic world of the book has been created to make the reader view his or her own reality in a more meaningful way. We are not supposed to escape into a world of fiction, but conversely the world of the fiction should be used as a way to more intensely focus our attention on our own lives.
I haven't checked yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Cisco's books - at least the ones he's already written - are not and never will be available as e-books. And without giving anything away (although saying even this may be too much), I wouldn't read The Great Lover without first reading The Divinity Student, The Traitor, The Tyrant, and The Narrator.
It is, ultimately, about itself. The book. The characters. The "plot." Everything is about The Great Lover - the book I was holding while reading. It's not telling a story, it is a story. It exists in my world, as do I.
