Book Review and the Writing Process: 30 November, 2022

I’d like to focus on the writing process, both mine and other favorite authors- Andy Weir and Richard Powers. Andy Weir wrote The Martian in 2011 as a series on his blog which then was picked up and published in 2014. It then became a huge movie hit. The plot was simple: a lone astronaut stranded on Mars. Lots of ‘fucks’, dire situations to solve, in the first person. Lots of science problems. On its own, this book wasn’t going anywhere until someone thought it’d make a great movie, which it did. If you think this was pure luck, maybe that was part of it, but publishers and film companies are always on the lookout for a new exciting and novel ideas to produce. The Martian was such an idea.

He followed up with Project Hail Mary, Del Rey (Penguin Random House) published last year. Its style and voice are similar to the Martian as Weir obviously follows the mantra: Write what you know. He’s a science nerd who comes across in this novel. Formally a computer engineer, the novel focuses on solving life-threatening survival problems alone. How could you top The Martian for drama, irony and humor? Throw in a weird alien who’s also stranded and work out how to communicate. I wonder if it’s the drama or the humor that compels us to keep turning the pages? Weir’s style combines both in a quirky way that is unique. That’s the challenge for a second book. How does Weir top The Martian? Without any spoilers, he has to create something special (meaning more dangerous and life-threatening.) That’s how the story unfolds. Along with characters back on Earth who are even more quirky to give the story a sense of ‘believability’. I can’t wait to see who the movie producers pick to play the lead—Ryland Grace, a high school teacher turned astronaut.

The other novel I’m reading (just finished Bewilderment, by Richard Powers, Heinemann/Penguin,) released last year is a story of a university astrobiologist professor and his autistic son who is a nature lover. The son undergoes a new kind of treatment called Decoded Neurofeedback to help him deal with his anger about the loss of his environmental activist mother. This treatment inside an MRI machine also enables him to access the memories of his mother. The book follows The Overstory 2018- Penguin Random House, which won the Pulitzer Prize. I’m finding it hard to read this book because each chapter describes a different person in a different era, with trees playing a part in each. It’s like a series of short stories lumped together in a novel. I’m assuming they will be tied together somehow towards the end— they must be if the judges picked it.

Example:

She sits under the diseased mulberry. Wind slaps at the coarse-toothed leaves. Wrinkles score the bark, like the folds in the arhats’ faces. Her eyes sour with animal confusion. Even now, every square foot of ground is stained with fruit, fruit stained, the myths say, with the blood of a suicide for love. Words come out of her, crumpled and tinny. “Dad, Daddy! What you do?”

Then the silent howls…(p42)

It’s hard going! The language Powers uses is poetic and full of symbolism, metaphor and the juxtaposition of images. All I can say is it’s fascinating and, I wish I could write like this! I guess in the long run, it all comes down to what you, the reader, like. I read books now not for a good story, or a comfortable bedtime read, but to learn new writing techniques that will ultimately help me and my writing.

What do you read for??