Somewhere East of Life

I should say up front that Brian Aldiss connects with me in a way that no other author does. His observations seem to me sharper and his conclusions spot-on. In his Squire Quartet he takes a far more meandering approach which I found most rewarding in this novel. The action is sparse and rarely truly exciting and yet it is a real page-turner. As usual, Aldiss paints an all-too familiar picture of all our lives and hopes and dreams amidst a selfish, uncaring world yet manages to make us feel profoundly good to be a part of it. I've read most of his numerous works and find this to be right near the top of my favourites list, despite being altogether different from the kind of science fiction I generally enjoy.

Generally when you go to read books by authors who are years past their absolute peak works you're not expecting much. Thus far Aldiss has wowed me with NonStop and the Helliconia Trilogy and while this book didn't make me proclaim it as the savior of literature, it's a darn fine novel and can easily go toe to toe with most of the new authors that show up every year or so. The idea here is that poor Roy lives in a very near future in a world much like ours, where he acts as a preserver, taking pictures and documenting old churches and the like before the civil unrest in the area reaches it and it gets bombed into oblivion. In any event, Roy unfortunately gets ten years of his memory stolen by folks who package them into "bullets" and sell them to people who want to experience the lives of other people, currently the newest illegal craze. Roy, adrift and confused, now has to try and put his life back together while dealing with the fact that not only does he have an ex-wife but he doesn't even remember being married at all, while at the same time trying to find his memories so he can get them back. The plot takes a bit of an episodic spin at that point, which is probably the best way to go since it gives Aldiss a chance to show his world off and make some comments about the world we live in. Roy travels from danger spot to danger spot, running into violence and warlords, armies and relics, all the while trying to figure out just what effect the last ten years had on him and just what went wrong with his ex-wife. Definitely engaging, always thought-provoking, this is all too often overlooked in his list of decent books, don't make a mistake and miss this.

Having first read this book in December 1994 during a period of darkness in my life, I was pleased to find that upon re-reading it, my initial response to the book was not hampered by my (then) situation. The concept of a man dealing with memory loss is interesting to say the least, and even more provoking when the possibility exists where it may be retrieved. Roy Burnell is a comlicated person, many friends, many possiblities, but many regrets and losses as well (does this sound like you? me too), making him a well rounded, very real person. Through an act of his own kindness, ten years of his life are removed, thus making him ignorant of his status in life, and more importantly, his divorce, which preys upon him constantly. Narrowly escaping death more than a few times and in locales that are even more real today than they were when the book was published, Burnell traveses the remains of former Soviet states hoping to catalogue churches, monastaries (where's my spell-checker?), or just about any religion-oriented artifact or structure. Reading the passage about Burnell travelling by train made me think that perhaps the writer Paul Theroux had jumped into the future to make sly observations. I sometimes felt that I had to plod through some descriptions just to make it to the next page, but I always felt rewarded in the end, for it was in Burnells' observations that I was able to see parts of myself. A highly enjoyable book that, while dark and truly depressing at times, will reward the reader literally on the last page.