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Title: Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick ISBN: 0-380-97444-4 Publisher: Avon Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.68 (19 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Swanwick yearns to be taken seriously
Comment: Maybe I came to this book with too many expectations -- Michael Swanwick is an author whose work I respect, and "Jack Faust" looked like an attempt to bring literary and moral values to the fantasy genre. The problem is that the story of Faust already has about as much moral and literary value as it is possible to have, thanks to Marlowe and Goethe. So what was Swanwick thinking?
The premise is eternally compelling, and Swanwick gives it a fun spin: what if Faust gains access to all the scientific knowledge in the universe, and is therefore able to compress every industrial and post-industrial revolution into a single generation, so that ultimately even atomic power will come to the 16th century. The joy of such alternate world stories is in the details: what are the political and social implications of the changes? What would the 16th century FEEL like with automobiles and mass production? Unfortunately, Swanwick is more concerned with keeping his plot moving, so the tale is a quick read but not a stimulating one. Swanwick shows us nothing we have not seen before, and by the second half of the book it is difficult to care about anything that is going on.
Even if you come to it with much lower expectations than I did, it would be hard to find "Jack Faust" any more than a mild entertainment disguised as an intellectual and literary exercise. For entertainment, read any of Swanwick's other works. For intellectual and literary exercise, try Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon". (Unlike Pynchon, Swanwick seems to have studied only the history of the era he chose to write about, not the literature. Despite the lugubriously descriptive writing in the first few pages, Swanwick's Wittenberg remains indistinct.) And if variations on the story of Faust are what most interest you, check out Klaus Mann's "Mephisto".
There is nothing wrong with science fiction and fantasy writers striving to be taken seriously as artists. Many have succeeded, including Swanwick. But "Jack Faust" is a specimen of such sloppy thought and construction that it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously as fantasy, never mind anything more.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful
Comment: Jack Faust was an incredibly ambitious story that, for me, was successful in avoiding the pitfalls that so much genre writing cannot. Michael Swanwick's re-telling the story of a man (and ultimately a society) corrupted by his desire for knowledge is not a slave to the common props and circumstances that frequent so much of recent genre fiction. The story and characters are the central issue here. This is a book that resists all classification, save one. Jack Faust is an important work. For me, the story possessed a real depth that provoked thinking and individual reflection. I look forward to re-reading it...after I finish the rest of Mr. Swanwick's work. I've even recommended Jack Faust to my mother. It doesn't get any better than that... :) Randy
Rating: 4
Summary: A Creative Reworking of the Faust Legend
Comment: While Swanwick may not ever achieve the status of a Thomas Mann, he has penned a quite creative reworking of the traditional Faustian myth. Casting his vision on the template of science fiction, Swanwick adds interesting dimensions to the already complex Faustian characters. Mephistopheles appears as an alien force; as arrogant and manipulative an extraterrestrial as he ever was a demon. Margarete still appears as the innocent caught in the crossfire of evil and eviler. Wagner, the fanatic sycophant, who never realizes that not only is he a pawn, but he's a pawn that neither side cares enough to either advance or gambit. And Faust, the perpetual megalomaniac. His desire to master thoughts ends up making thoughts his master. He creates and creates but with no purpose except the creation, much like a pathogen. Ultimately the purpose, as in the traditional legend, serves those who gave him the tools to create.
And in all this richness, Swanwick adds. This is a message to the future, our future, which is nightmarishly similar to Faust's reality. Ushering in an UltraIndustrial revolution, Faust overwhelms too many with too much and as Mehpistopheles knows, the gifts that mechanization brings to fruition are never used for benefit. For example, one of the first films produced after the invention of film (in the book) is no less than a pornographic movie (the title being a colorful four letter word starting with "f"). And in this uncontrollable momentum, this Newtonian nightmare, no end is in sight. Indeed, no end is possible. Like a vehicle out of control people will die because of the chaos. Mephistopheles is counting on the entire world to die. And he is not disappointed.
Swanwicks reason for the reworking. Knowledge doesn't make us more certain of a future. It could very well be the opposite. What makes us certain of a future is knowledge used properly. Knowledge used without greed, without vanity; knowledge used with humanity, with compassion. Creation for a higher purpose. Faust was like a child who desired a toy and once that toy was possessed, only desired another which he did not have. It is not how much one knows, but how one uses that knowledge which they already possess . . . to help others. All this can be gathered from the classical workings of the myth. What Swanwick adds is a slight, but significant twist. In giving Jack Faust the knowledge to create scientific wonders without end, Mephistopheles knew that WE, as a people, would misuse them, regardless of if Faust misused them or not (he did). And that is the beauty, that is the addition Swanwick gives us to the Faust legend. We are all Faust. We are all culpable. Because we all had a hand in our own damnation. And consequently, if we are all Faust, we can all stop this damanation. We have a choice to stop the "death instinct", as Freud called it. But guilty or innocent we will drag each other down or lift each other up. It is, in the end, a simple matter of choice.
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Title: Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick ISBN: 0441858767 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick ISBN: 0380730464 Publisher: Eos (HarperCollins) Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick ISBN: 0380730456 Publisher: Eos (HarperCollins) Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Ilium (SIMMONS, DAN) by Dan Simmons, Homer Iliad ISBN: 0380978938 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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