/lit/ - Literature

>>22328631
Press Enter - John Varley (1984)

Victor Apfel is a fifty year old Korean War veteran recluse who has mostly shunned the world. His landline phone won't stop ringing from what he believes to be an automatically dialed phone call. Eventually he answers and visits his neighbor, who he finds dead from an apparent suicide. Was it though, and why call him? The mystery begins.

This beautiful mess of a novella won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SF Chronicle, and Seiun awards. I call it a mess because the story is a science fiction horror murder mystery slice of life romance. Almost forty years have passed since its publication which now provides a different perspective that both weakens and strengthens the story. The popular view at the time surely was "I never thought of that. Could this really happen someday? How terrifying." Now instead it'd be "I think about this all time. Not only will it happen, it probably already has. I'm terrified." Though the latter may be alarmist. What it loses in surprise is balanced by how much more credible it now seems, which allows it to retain its horror.

A funny thing with technology is that people may start by underestimating its capabilities and then as it becomes more and more familiar they begin to overestimate what it can do. It's entirely possible that people in 2024 will be more likely to believe the key premise of this story than in 1984 despite it being ridiculous, though fun, regardless of the year. I say knowing that some would say, "In 2084, it's an integral part of society and not ridiculous in the slightest." Yeah, sure it is.

Romance is considerably more prevalent than I thought it'd be and it's difficult to tell what Varley was going for with it at the time. The love interest is literally presented as physically being a racist and sexist caricature. The story is self-aware about that and states that it's irrelevant compared to the inner beauty of a person, which I don't know what to say in relation to a current day context. The concept of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl was popularized in 2005, 21 years later, but the love interest meets the criteria for that and then some. It's somewhat weird to read considering how many other depictions I've seen of it.

The ending gave me tonal whiplash and that was undoubtedly intentional. In terms of the story it's simply following a sequence of events to its logical conclusion, but even so I can't help but feel dissatisfied about it. The resolution does seem more relevant to the feelings of people today than then, though not so much their behavior. As to why it won its awards I believe it's because the core of the story is a neat idea that was highly speculative at the time and provoked a lot of thought while the rest is varying types of fanservice. By the end, the book I was reminded of most was Welcome to the NHK!, which is a strange feeling, and has me yearning for a modern retelling.

Rating: 4/5