The Great American Read--The Book of Books

by PBS

  In some cases, people look to fiction for inspiration. An Italian neurosurgeon is currently trying to undertake the world’s first full-body transplant on a human, using Frankenstein (1818) as a muse. Along with launching modern science fiction as a genre, that novel posited important questions about proper motivation and methods for scientific inquiry, questions that form the core of the contemporary philosophy of bioethics. Despite the fact that the plot of The Martian (2011) kicks off after NASA makes a mistake and leaves behind an astronaut, the US space program hasn’t shied away from its connection to the novel and related movie directed by Ridley Scott. Along with explaining the relative merits and possibilities of technologies predicted by author Andy Weir, NASA often relies on the popularity of the story to shore up support for its goal of sending astronauts to the Red Planet in 2030. And with a nod to Jurassic Park (1990), “some paleontologists are exploring another way to revive dinosaur traits, by reverse-engineering birds to look more like their dinosaur ancestors,” according to a 2015 article in National Geographic. Lucky for us, however, DNA from fossils older than about seven million years doesn’t last long enough to yield useful specimens, making dino cells too old to clone.

  Like science fiction, dystopian novels seem to have a knack for knowing what’s to come. In its portrayal of an authoritarian society, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) described computer screens that could watch your every move, as well as other means of mass surveillance that are likely familiar to 21st-century readers. Ready Player One (2011) may feel prescient to anyone who would rather play video games—which are getting increasingly immersive—than hang out in real life. Sales of The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) shot up in 2017, in part because of perceived, and unnerving, parallels between the theocratic totalitarian regime portrayed in the novel (and the affiliated Emmy Award–winning television series) and the actions of some governments around the world. In an interview, Margaret Atwood cautioned people about making too much of her prognostic powers: “I did not predict the future because you can’t really predict the future. There isn’t any ‘the future.’ There are many possible futures, but we don’t know which one we’re going to have. We can guess. We can speculate. But we cannot really predict.” That said, novelists like Atwood can help show us where not to go, what not to invent, how not to be.

  Author Isaac Asimov became a spokesperson for technology retailer Radio Shack after getting a tutorial on word-processing software. Here he appears in a Radio Shack print ad in 1980 for the TRS-80.

  Protesters dressed as handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale began appearing in protests in 2017. The group pictured here is at the capitol in Austin, Texas.

  Cover from the first printing of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, published in 1979.

  Douglas Adams photographed with a cover of the book in 1978. Adams first had the idea for the book as he fell asleep in a field in Austria, staring at the sky.

  A still from the movie adaptation starring Martin Freeman and Mos Def, released in 2005.

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  THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

  Douglas Adams · 1979

  Don’t panic.” This excellent advice from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) resonates with readers. We’ll likely never lack for reasons to feel anxious about the states of our lives or the state of the world, whether we live on Earth or Magrathea, now or decades in the future, but, as this novel proves, humor and escapism in literature make for excellent coping tools.

  Arthur Dent—an average Joe in the West Country of England—learns of the imminent end of the world when his friend Ford Prefect comes to save him. As an alien race known as the Vogons arrives to smash Earth to smithereens, Arthur and Ford sneak onto a Vogon ship and embark on a series of absurd adventures. Ford, as it turns out, is actually an alien writer who landed on Earth to research the planet for an encyclopedic reference book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The friends get sent into space, where they meet a depressed robot and a woman traveling with the president of the galaxy. In addition to both discovering Earth’s origin story and battling for Arthur’s brain, they learn the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Oh, and there are superintelligent, pandimensional mice.

  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a sci-fi novel filled with comedy, and it stands out for its mash-up of these two genres. Jokes abound. The Vogons force Ford and Arthur to listen to their poetry as a form of torture. The president of the galaxy rides around in a ship known as the Heart of Gold. Arthur is satisfied enough with zooming about, looking for the meaning of life, but what he’d really like is a nice cup of tea. Perhaps the biggest gag of them all, however, is “42”—the answer produced by supercomputer Deep Thought after 7.5 million years of calculating. The trouble is that no one knows the question, which is partly the point. In our quest for answers, we sometimes forget that the question matters as well; we can’t get so fixated on results that we forget about method, or so obsessed with the destination that we forget about the journey.

  Douglas Adams created the story as part of a radio play for the BBC in 1978. But he’d had the idea much earlier, while traveling around Europe. One night, before passing out in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, he stared at the stars and thought that someone should write a travel guide for the whole universe. Then, as he recalled, “I fell asleep and forgot about it for six years.” Despite writing and acting in some episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Adams’s career as a sketch writer for television and radio had stalled by the late 1970s when he revisited the concept. Following the radio program and release of the novel the following year, the story became a 1981 BBC television series and a 2005 film, along with comic-book adaptations and computer games. Adams also expanded on his original vision, publishing four subsequent novels about the galaxy as he envisioned it, as well as other novels and screenplays.

  Every year on May 25, Adams’s fans around the world carry towels. “Towel Day” began in 2001, just two weeks after Adams died at age 49. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy recommends carrying a towel with you at all times—to use as a blanket, a sail, a cover-up, a flag, or a weapon. And “of course [you can] dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.” To keep your towel with you shows that you’re ready for anything. As Adams and his novels imply, in times of great strife (i.e., always), sometimes all you can do is grab your towel and laugh.

  First edition of The Hunger Games (2008), the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

  Author Suzanne Collins. She generally shies away from media interviews, citing the books’ critique of the media.

  The successful book series spurred a successful movie series, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen. Lions Gate created this promotional poster for The Hunger Games 2012 movie release.

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  THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY

  Suzanne Collins · 2008–2010

  Set in the fictional country of Panem, the Hunger Games trilogy traces the fate of Katniss Everdeen as she does what she needs to do to survive in a futuristic dystopian universe. Every year, 12 boys and 12 girls—one of each from Panem’s 12 districts—are sent as tributes to the wealthy, corrupt Capitol to compete in a televised fight to the death. This is the world of the Hunger Games, and it’s intense.

  As the young-adult series begins, 16-year-old Katniss lives in the poorest, least populated district in Panem. When her sister, Primrose, known as Prim, gets randomly selected to fight, Katniss volunteers to go in her stead. A talented hunter and archer, Katniss uses her survival skills and her wits to outfox her fellow tributes and outsmart the rules of the Hunger Games. She is forced to adhere to the “kill or be killed” philosophy of her society, but nevertheless manages to develop strong relationships with other participants, including a gentle young competitor named Rue as well as her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark. They are trained, coiffed, and costumed in order to be rendered fit for competition and television.

/>   Witnessing other people’s misery as a form of entertainment has a long history in human culture. Suzanne Collins’s books update the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In that tale, after defeating Athens in war, Crete decided to enact a particularly painful punishment. Every few years, Athenians were required to send 14 young adults. These souls were thrown into a labyrinth, home to a half-man, half-bull monster. Theseus volunteered to go, then used brainpower and brawn to defeat the Minotaur. Another inspiration for The Hunger Games (2008) came from the gladiatorial combat of the Roman Empire. Collins also uses the books to critique the modern-day phenomenon of reality shows, which often spotlight participants’ suffering and humiliations. For example, Peeta reveals a long-standing crush on Katniss during the Games, partly as a way of generating sympathy and heightening his storyline for Capitol viewers—a strategic move, as the audience can provide assistance to tributes. Popularity has life-or-death consequences.

  The subsequent books, Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010), track the repercussions of Katniss’s upending of the Hunger Games, which forms the climax of the first novel. The trilogy earned comparisons to the chilly politics of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), the ingenious plotting of the Harry Potter books (1997–2007), and the fully imagined fantasy world of The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). Collins makes Katniss a complicated protagonist. Moody and guarded, she’s never entirely likable, and that’s part of her appeal; the authenticity of her feelings for Peeta remains questionable, even through her honest first-person narration. Despite their violence and grim outlook, the books keep their contemporary YA audience in mind; they are pointed and descriptive without being gratuitous. Readers were hooked, rocketing the trilogy to one of the most popular series of all time, and the four films made from the books were all blockbusters.

  Collins largely refuses to give interviews, pointing to the Hunger Games novels, with their damning critique of the media, to explain why. She was born in 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of a US Air Force pilot who served in Korea and Vietnam. She drew on her dad’s stories of deprivation and persistence to create her books. Before writing novels, she wrote for children’s television shows.

  Many aspects of Panem are, thankfully, far from our own world. Collins’s purpose, though, isn’t to show us as we are, but rather to show us as we could be—both the depths to which we might sink as a society and the heights to which we might rise in resistance.

  Cover for The Hunt for Red October, first published in 1984.

  Author Tom Clancy, pictured at his desk in 1985, wrote at night and on the weekends, spending his days running an insurance agency.

  Clancy pictured with President Ronald Reagan. The president loved The Hunt for Red October so much that he invited the author and his wife to the White House.

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  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

  Tom Clancy · 1984

  The Hunt for Red October (1984) launched the Jack Ryan military-thriller series—as well as the career of debut author Tom Clancy. Before his bestselling novel, Clancy’s literary output consisted of exactly one letter to the editor and a short article about a missile.

  Stealthily slicing through water, the experimental Russian nuclear submarine Red October uses a pioneering propulsion system. Curiosity piqued, CIA analyst Jack Ryan begins to investigate. What he doesn’t yet know is that the submarine’s captain, Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius, intends to defect to the United States, and has already killed at least one member of his crew to ensure the success of his plan.

  It’s the height of the Cold War. When Ryan figures out what’s really happening on board the sub, he must convince his superiors of Ramius’s integrity, protect the vessel and its crew from the Russians, who don’t want to lose the technology on board, and basically prevent a conflict that could lead to World War III. As Clancy continued the series, Ryan’s brave efforts on behalf of the defectors enable him to bargain with the KGB and to earn accolades and respect at the CIA. Eventually Ryan, an ex-marine with a strict conscience, rises to the highest level of government service: president of the United States.

  The combination of fast-paced drama and intricate technical details attracted a slew of readers, including Ronald Reagan, who loved the book enough to invite its author and his wife to the White House. He called it a “perfect yarn,” a compliment that helped shoot the novel up the bestseller lists. Clancy was also questioned by then Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who wondered, “‘Who the hell cleared it?’”

  The answer, surprisingly, was no one: despite his seemingly insider knowledge, Clancy never served in the military. He took ROTC classes as a student at Loyola College, but poor eyesight prevented him from joining the armed forces. After graduating with a degree in English in 1969, he worked in insurance, eventually taking over an agency founded by his wife’s grandfather; he wrote at night and on weekends. He didn’t even visit a nuclear submarine until he was almost finished with the manuscript for The Hunt for Red October. He just had a strong interest in the military and intelligence communities and an unmatched ability to relate their intricacies in an accessible way.

  His first novel was inspired by a couple of real-life incidents. In 1961, a Soviet naval officer aimed his ship to Sweden, where he defected. Another Soviet officer mutinied in 1975. In that case, however, his actions weren’t motivated by a love of the West or desire to leave the USSR. Rather, he wanted his homeland to become even more socialist.

  Jack Ryan’s world is one in which the United States faces dire threats both foreign and domestic, threats that can be met only by the rectitude and ingenuity of individual Americans. Born in Baltimore in 1947, Clancy closely observed the changing political landscape of the late 20th century, from America’s involvement in Vietnam to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He often dedicated his books, which also included nonfiction accounts of history and biography, to notable American conservatives like Reagan.

  To date, Dr. John Patrick “Jack” Ryan Sr., has appeared in 24 Clancy novels and has been portrayed by Harrison Ford, Chris Pine, John Krasinski, and Alec Baldwin, among others, on the big screen, on television, and in video games. Ryan’s son—who shares his dad’s name, sense of ethics, and unshakable patriotism—carries on the family legacy, featuring in a number of novels that depict the post-9/11 world. Clancy passed away in 2013, but thanks to authors like Mark Greaney and Grant Blackwood, who took up Clancy’s mantle, his characters continue to find new life.

  A first edition of The Intuitionist, published in 1999.

  Colson Whitehead attending a literature festival in Cologne, Germany, in 2014. Whitehead was writing about TV for the Village Voice as he worked on The Intuitionist.

  A sketch of the Otis elevator, the first elevator with a safety catch to prevent cables from breaking. Lila Mae, the heroine of The Intuitionist, is an elevator safety inspector.

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  THE INTUITIONIST

  Colson Whitehead · 1999

  Colson Whitehead counts among his influences The Twilight Zone, the Misfits, Stephen King and likeminded masters of horror, and comic books—maybe not exactly what you’d expect from a novelist who has garnered a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as a “genius grant”), a National Book Award, a Whiting Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

  Reviewers hailed the arrival of a great new talent when The Intuitionist was published in 1999. The speculative, noir-ish novel about machinations in the world of elevator inspection received almost universal praise, with one critic noting that Whitehead’s debut marked him for the upper floors of the literary establishment. Punny as that may be, said critic wound up being dead right.

  The Intuitionist reads like a hard-boiled detective novel. Described as “the first colored woman in the Department of Elevator Inspectors,” Lila Mae Watson adheres to the “Intuitionist” method of using instinct and perception to assess the state of the machine. She has a perfect safety record. The other school of elevator inspection, practiced by
the “Empiricists,” relies on instruments to diagnose problems and check systems. When an elevator she recently examined crashes, Lila Mae needs to figure out who set her up—and why.

  So she sets off into the unseemly underbelly of a city very similar to Dashiell Hammett’s or Mickey Spillane’s New York, one that demands ever-taller buildings in order to function. What she uncovers threatens to destroy her very sense of self. Whitehead stops the novel from tipping over into a parody of pulp fiction through the sheer power of his language. He handles sentences with a facility and deftness most writers can only dream of, and his word choice practically shoots off the page and sends firecrackers around your brain. He’s a master of the alliterative phrase.

  Born in 1969 and raised in Manhattan, Whitehead concentrated in English at Harvard, graduating in 1991. He was reviewing TV shows for the alt-weekly Village Voice when he began working on The Intuitionist. The first novel he wrote, loosely based on child actor Gary Coleman, was rejected by 25 publishers.