Friday, November 15, 2013

Victory At Any Cost

Triumph
by Philip Wylie
p. 1963





Something about Triumph feels really familiar to me... and I don’t think it’s because I just happen to read a lot of Cold War era post-apocalyptic fiction. The basic plot of Philip Wylie’s Triumph is almost exactly that of Mordecai Roshwald’s Level 7, the book that initially sparked my interest in this very specific genre some years back, so the comparisons in this review are inescapable. Both novels feature protagonists sequestered in a secure, deep, underground base following worldwide nuclear holocaust and their struggle to survive in a world they destroyed in an instant.

Triumph’s chief protagonist is Dr. Ben Bernman, a scientist who happens to be spending a weekend at Sachem’s Watch, the estate of millionaire, Vance Farr, when the world’s arsenal of nuclear technology is unleashed. Luckily for Ben, Vance Farr is The Man Who Thought of Everything, so when the sirens go off, Farr and his friends and family retreat to his vast underground shelter, where anything they could possibly need to survive a long nuclear winter awaits. Not much of import happens in the two years they spend underground; despite a lot of attractive young people of various races congregating in limited space, a few extramarital attractions, and one character’s rampant alcoholism, nothing really dramatic takes place amongst the ranks of the survivors of Sachem’s Watch. People learn to cooperate pretty quickly and—with the exception of one moment of insanity near the end of their internment—jealousy and racism are miraculously not issues.

I found this novel a bit dry, especially in comparison to Level 7, which is strange when you consider that Triumph focused on fourteen civilian survivors (including a billionaire who built a miracle bomb shelter, his alcoholic wife, his Italian-Irish mistress, and a wunderkind Japanese technowhiz, among others) whereas Level 7 was a vague narrative focusing on military personnel who lacked even first names. I think this is because where Level 7 maintained an air of mystery by being so stingy with the details, Triumph tended to overload us with facts, particularly with dry interludes on the remaining American military and their vengeful attempts to bring down the ‘Russkies.' If Vance Farr is The Man Who Thought of Everything in regards to bunker life (he even thought of providing roller skates for entertainment!) then Philip Wylie is The Author Who Thought of Everything in regards to surviving nuclear holocaust. However, I thought the most engaging parts of Triumph were the sporadic diary entries of one survivor describing daily bunker life in her words, and not the 'scientific' or philosophical rambling of the men. I tended to zone out when Ben and Farr were talking tech.

Then there were the jarring segments where the violence of the surviving outside world were described in shocking detail that was atypical of the rest of the book. I feel these were done for shock value and added very little to the story.

naïve.
My initial feeling towards Triumph was dislike. When I read Level 7, I was impressed by its progressiveness. The language was vague and provided no indicators of whose point of view we were getting; it could be ‘us’ or ‘them’ and in the end, neither side mattered because everyone perished at their own folly. Triumph, on the other hand, was not so subtle in their ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ attitude. The constant references to ‘Reds’ and ‘Russkies’ getting ‘what they deserved,’ the revenge-driven interludes with the military, and the obsession with being the ‘winners’ or the last men standing all left a bad taste in my mouth, as it seemed terribly naive.



However, I am willing to lend Wylie the benefit of the doubt and say that this opinion was presented solely as a contrast to the progressive peaceful stance taken by the survivors of Sachem’s Watch. Many times throughout the book, the characters discuss racial relations and how interesting it is that the survivors are so amalgamated—white, black, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, rich, poor—it’s a real 'We Are the World' down there. The attitudes presented may seem dated by today’s politically correct standards, but at the time, they were progressive. Everyone gets along and race is rarely, if ever, a matter of contention, so it seems fitting that in the end the fortunate, well-meaning survivors of Farr’s estate—and not the men whose revenge drove them to the inevitable murder-suicide of the entire northern hemisphere—seem to be the only living things to escape the ruins of America unscathed.
 

Superstud: Adventures in Embarrassment Empathy

Superstud
Or How I Became a 24-year-old Virgin
by Paul Feig
p. 2005


Here is a term I have just invented to describe my feelings about this book:
Embarrassment Empathy - when you're just so embarrassed for a character on page or screen that you have to hide your face until it's over because it's all too much to bear. (For TV fans, this may also be referred to as The Michael Scott Effect)




Superstud is the follow up to Paul Feig’s first autobiographical novel, Kick Me. Like Kick Me, it revolves around the comically awkward and often cringeworthy aspects of growing up that we all unfortunately experience. Feig, a native of my very own Royal Oak, Michigan, holds a special place in my heart, but I would have read this pair of novels regardless, as Feig’s is a career I have followed my entire adolescence, whether I realized it or not.


Superstud follows a lot of the patterns that its predecessor used, in that each chapter reads like its own anecdotal short story, but may be referenced in later chapters. I still laughed out loud, I still felt appropriately horrified at teenage Paul’s social missteps, and I still resonated with his awkwardness, but on the whole, I wasn’t as impressed with Feig’s sophomore novel as I was with Kick Me. Perhaps it was because Superstud covers the teenage to young adult portion of Feig’s youth as opposed to the earlier years. Watching someone stumble and fail hilariously is a lot easier to handle when they are a kid who probably doesn’t realize what they’re doing; watching that person repeat their mistakes on into young adulthood is so much worse because now you know they probably realize everything they’re doing wrong and still can’t get it together. I found myself cringing and sinking my face into my hands a lot more while reading Superstud than I did reading Kick Me. It just felt too uncomfortably aligned with my own awkward adolescence.


The content was a bit more alienating to me this time around, as nearly a third of the novel focuses on Feig’s misadventures in teenage masturbation and accidental boners, which I understandably lack familiarity with. It was a bit much, and all right up front, as the entire first section of the book is named after it, but I suppose male readers would find the whole ordeal a lot funnier than I would.


There were also some stylistic choices I thought fell a bit flat, namely Feig’s narration of finally losing his virginity, which is written out as if they are biblical passages. I got the intention, but I wasn’t feeling it the way it was written and got a bit tired of it a couple pages in.


That said, Feig’s super awkward comedy of errors that made up his youth would translate really well to the big screen. Someone really ought to snatch these books up and make a comedic film out of them. I’d watch it (even if I had to hide my face to bear the embarrassment empathy) because Feig’s torment is just too relatable, and if you can’t look back on that awkwardness and laugh about it (and Feig certainly has no problem doing this, as evidenced by his bare all attitude) then you’re gonna have a hard time moving forward.