EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince

[Max e^{i pi}]

Something else that nobody else seems to have commented on is that Prince, to my ears, is obviously an unreliable narrator. For example - none of the evacuees mentioned the people left behind? Seriously? That sounds much more likely to be a reflection of Prince's attempt to block out the people he left behind.

Of course.
Have you ever heard of objective reporting? Me too. Have you ever actually seen it? Me neither.
It looks like I take it so much for granted that I didn't notice until you pointed it out. You are of course, absolutely correct.

[matweller]

I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote. 

I think I get what you are saying. Those bits did come across as a little ham fisted. But, I also get that they were somewhat necessary to making the biographical part of the story work. We don't tend to write biographies about nobodies and so the story had to make some effort to establish that Prince was a somebody. Perhaps this could have been done with more subtlety.

I guess I didn't think much about it because historically, those people have always been pretentious. I mean, the real discoveries happen by people doing the work, but history books get filled by people who write press releases, and dandies write press releases. Even think of someone more in Prince's line like a Hemmingway or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension.

[Unblinking]

I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote. 

I think I get what you are saying. Those bits did come across as a little ham fisted. But, I also get that they were somewhat necessary to making the biographical part of the story work. We don't tend to write biographies about nobodies and so the story had to make some effort to establish that Prince was a somebody. Perhaps this could have been done with more subtlety.

I guess I didn't think much about it because historically, those people have always been pretentious. I mean, the real discoveries happen by people doing the work, but history books get filled by people who write press releases, and dandies write press releases. Even think of someone more in Prince's line like a Hemmingway or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension.

Yeah, I wouldn't say the tone of the story wasn't pretentious, but I think that pretention is appropriate for the format (though still not endearing to me).

[Sgarre1]

or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension

That doesn't sound anything like the Warhol I know.  But then, as a qualifying statement, I struck pretentious from my vocabulary many decades ago and have been much the happier for it.  It's all just work, people producing work.

[Devoted135]

Something else that nobody else seems to have commented on is that Prince, to my ears, is obviously an unreliable narrator. For example - none of the evacuees mentioned the people left behind? Seriously? That sounds much more likely to be a reflection of Prince's attempt to block out the people he left behind.

I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.

[Varda]

I'm going with the minority to say that I straight-up loved this story. The lecture-y, literary format reminded me of my English major days, so wasn't a barrier to me getting into the story. I could see how this might be very alienating for people not acclimated to it, the same way scientific papers are hard to read for people not used to that format. Jargon does come across as pretentious if it's not your jargon, but I thought it was used quite cleverly in this story.

The jargon worked for me because the story’s about an author who has recently entered the literary canon because of the unique way he captured the experience of a generation. Sure, you could have written the story as one of his books, but you'd miss out on the nifty way an SF lens has been applied to literary criticism. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done in an SF story before.

But what I really fell in love with was the exploration of expatriation, and what it means to be without a home. That really struck a chord with me. I’m American, but spent the lion’s share of my childhood in Europe. While I wasn’t a refugee like the people in this story, I remember the feeling of being a perpetual guest in someone else’s home, except that home was a whole country. And the United States took on a sort of mythic quality. It was where I was “from”, and yet it wasn’t my “home”. But neither was Europe. When I finally came back to the US, it didn’t feel like “home” either, and certainly wasn’t at all like it had been in my head. So you’ve got a contrast between Prince’s first book, the optimistic “Coming Home” and the attitude of acceptance by the nations of Africa, and his pessimism at the end of life when the Americans want to go “home” but don’t recognize that “home” is where the people who have accepted and loved you are, not where you were born or where you grew up. The pessimism comes from an understanding that the place they were returning to was dead and changed from what they knew. That’s really sad.

Given that, the bit where no-one claims to have “lost” anyone is quite realistic, too. That’s a coping mechanism to deal with loss and grief. You see that sort of behavior in the families of the terminally ill, where you withdraw from the person before they’re even dead because you’re already protecting yourself from the pain. It’s a common pattern in people who move a lot, too, for similar reasons. I remember very consciously choosing to do this with my old friends whenever we went to the next “home”. I reasoned that I would never see my old friends again (this was pre-internet), so it was easier just to let contact fade over the course of a few months and throw myself at my new life instead. It doesn’t come from a place of heartlessness - just a coping mechanism to protect yourself from repeated loss. If you knew that most of your country was about to go up in flames, you might rather pretend you’re on a long, indefinite African vacation and just try not to think about the fact that they place and people you left behind aren’t there anymore.

[InfiniteMonkey]

Well, THAT certainly was bleak.

I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.

But be that as it may, it was a good character piece, a good description of a grief-stricken man's evolving mindset.

I would have liked to have heard more about the "new optimism"; I couldn't really figure it out in my head.

[adrianh]

I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.

That was absolutely the point that Prince was trying to make. However I doubt that in "reality" everybody would deny the existence of knowing people who were left behind. For me it beggars belief. Some certainly - but not everybody.

I took this, and other elements of the story like the sketched out neo-optimism movement, that Prince's perspective wasn't universal or necessarily accurate. Impactful and important certainly - but not necessarily "truth".

[adrianh]

I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.

You can fit almost four Australia's into Africa - it supports more that forty times the population. Very little of the free space in Australia is particularly conducive to supporting large populations of folk.

Africa is a much better choice than Australia!

[DerangedMind]

You can fit almost four Australia's into Africa - it supports more that forty times the population. Very little of the free space in Australia is particularly conducive to supporting large populations of folk.

Africa is a much better choice than Australia!

As well, in a mass evacuation scenario, Africa is also much closer than Australia... 

[Prophet]

I'm going with the minority to say that I straight-up loved this story. The lecture-y, literary format reminded me of my English major days, so wasn't a barrier to me getting into the story. I could see how this might be very alienating for people not acclimated to it, the same way scientific papers are hard to read for people not used to that format. Jargon does come across as pretentious if it's not your jargon, but I thought it was used quite cleverly in this story.

Ditto, though for me it was History not English.

Loved it, from the format to the story to the production. I really like aftermath stories, and this one felt more realistic than most. I also liked that it wasn't the end of the whole world. Just the end of North America as we know it.

[littlepossum]

I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.

*cough* And while I don't particularly want to get too political Australia isn't super great at accepting refugees. Our current intake of refugees is something like 30,000 a year. So, we could take in, one small American city...assuming there were no other refugees in the world at that time. Which there absolutely would be.

[benjaminjb]

This is the kind of thing I should love--it's like one of Borges's essay-reviews of fake books, with a touch of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (Specifically the part of the documentary where the narrator tells us that the concentration camps are places of permanent death and darkness while the camera shows grass and trees in an almost bucolic scene, which is a sort of horror/hope mix: life goes on past trauma, which is great, but on the downside, life goes on past trauma.)

And yet, while I like the experimental form and the investigation of cultural survival post-(limited-)apocalypse, so much of this leaves me cold, and I think it's because Julian Prince's representation doesn't work for me, primarily because what we see dramatized and what we hear doesn't quite match up. I mean, we hear that he's so great and interesting, and then we get fragments of his work, and it's OK but not mind-exploding. Or take the talk show scene, where we hear his banter, which is OK, and then we hear how the audience laughed at the things he says that aren't actually all that funny or interesting.

It reminds me of the end of Napoleon Dynamite, where we see the kid dance awkwardly and then see the crowd go wild. It seems more like fantastic wish-fulfillment than reality.

The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)

[Unblinking]

The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)

And more than just literary fiction, I think the title length fits very well with the research paper nonfiction format this particular fiction is mimicking.   Googled for reasons for that, found this list which I glanced at:
http://augmentedtrader.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/how-to-compose-a-title-for-your-research-paper/

[Devoted135]

The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)

And more than just literary fiction, I think the title length fits very well with the research paper nonfiction format this particular fiction is mimicking.   Googled for reasons for that, found this list which I glanced at:
http://augmentedtrader.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/how-to-compose-a-title-for-your-research-paper/

Great reads, and a possible explanation for why I generally can't handle literary fiction. Nothing happens!

I guess I can't say much though, since two of my recent author creds have the following titles:
"Impact of immune escape mutations on HIV-1 fitness in the context of the cognate transmitted/founder genome."
"Transmitted/founder and chronic subtype C HIV-1 use CD4 and CCR5 receptors with equal efficiency and are not inhibited by blocking the integrin α4β7."

[Devoted135]

I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.

That was absolutely the point that Prince was trying to make. However I doubt that in "reality" everybody would deny the existence of knowing people who were left behind. For me it beggars belief. Some certainly - but not everybody.

I took this, and other elements of the story like the sketched out neo-optimism movement, that Prince's perspective wasn't universal or necessarily accurate. Impactful and important certainly - but not necessarily "truth".

Ahh, now I see what you are getting at. I agree, there were many hints that Prince didn't speak for everybody, especially as people began to rebuild.

[evrgrn_monster]

This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer and Behind the Music on VH1. I couldn't get either out of my head the entire story, and unfortunately, I think that worked against this story because it didn't really work for me. The story itself was alright, and the character well realized, but as well fleshed out and believable Prince was, I just found him boring and somewhat predictable. I only really perked up at the mention of a possible past family, but since that was so lightly touched upon, I didn't really find myself wanting to know anything about this sad, depressed writer who refuses to feel joy. Given the ending of the piece, which was lovely, actually, I believe the point was to walk away seeing Prince as a sad guy who couldn't get out of the past, and the only way to live is to see and accept the world for what it is and try to enjoy what life has to give, even if it isn't what it used to be.

So, basically, not a huge fan of this story, but I did like the ending leaving the world acknowledging the work that Prince did, but also admitting he may have been wrong.

[flashedarling]

I can't argue with the criticisms of the story. The faulty science (how could an asteroid destroy ALL north america and not also cause a global ice age?), the someone unrealistic geopolitical situation (If the USA was threatened by an extinction level event I'd be a little shocked if we didn't go a bit crazy and try to conquer Australia or something), and the "inspiring" quotes that weren't actually that inspiring. I considered giving up on it several times

And yet I decided to stick through the story and for some reason I liked it. The story of this one man shifting between nihilism and optimism without condoning either was somehow potent. I think what might be important is that everything he does is in reaction to outside forces. His work is a reaction to this cataclysm, his attitude shifts to be more negative in order to counter a public opinion that is optimistic. When I realized this I saw that he was very literally a reflection of the times and that made it better for me at least.

[AM Fish]

This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer and Behind the Music on VH1.

Yes!  Although, I am unfamiliar with the "Behind the Music."  The second thing this episode reminded me of was PodCastle 286: The Calendar of Saints by Kat Howard.  I felt that both "Selected Program Notes" and "The Calendar of Saints" were stronger stories than the "Julian Prince" story.  Perhaps this is because the narrative-through-archives is a better fit with stories that touch on the unknowable.  But the "Julian Prince" story was well done and a worthy listen.

[Myrealana]

This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer

That is exactly the first thing that came to my mind from the opening of the story.

I like the kind of distanced narration telling the story of an asteroid impact. I love the idea that the world went on, even though the US got blown up. I love the idea of a writer using the tragedy for fiction, since that's what writers do. I really enjoyed the narration/radio play. I likd that he started with one viewpoint, then became more cynical and got left behind by the masses as people pressed on.

Thums up.

[SF.Fangirl]

Thumbs up from me too.  While I don't think this format could have supported a longer story the telling of a post-apocalyptic story by providing snippets from the life of a famous survivor worked for me.  I didn't particularly care for Prince - I don't know if anyone could because the story was told from a certain distance where you never got to know anything about him for sure and he wasn't heroic.  But a short story did not require that I like him to like the story.  (That might have been required for me to love the story.)  It was short enough that I did not to get tired of his nihilism before the end and the sketch of the cultural impact of the apocalypse was interesting enough for me to enjoy it.

[LaShawn]

Coming late on this one.

Add me to the list of those who made comparisons with with Podcastle's 269 story. Ultimately I found the story more removed, more cold. In the Podcastle story, Theresa Rosenberg Latimer's depression and subsequent longing to see old friends revealed through her work and her art. You don't get that revelation with this story; you only get sound bites from interviews, which is not as interesting as the work itself.

There was also one thing that really bugged me. You have North Americans being evacuated to Africa and being welcomed with open arms. Really? No really? No outcry? No pushback? Considering America's history with Africa, I found that to be really unbelievable. More likely there would be demonstrations and anger, and even when the Americans do come, there would be a lot of resentment, prejudice and arguments over settlement vs occupation vs colonization. Things would definitely blow up.

Then I thought, actually, I would love to see. Would there be civil war? Would all the African countries band into one against the American 'colonists'? Would there be factions of Americans who would attempt to become African citizens? How would a culture that sees itself as a singular democratic entity exist among dozens of countries, each with their own democratic process?

Dang. That's the story I want to see. Not this. It's too remote.

[CryptoMe]

Well, I wish I had gotten to this story sooner. There was so much that needed to be said about the science here!

1) As several have already mentioned, an impact that annihilated all of North America would have resulted in a global catastrophe.
     a) Large impacts wreak havoc on the atmosphere, creating a hole at the impact site and turbulence globally
     b) Material ejected from the impact site travels ballistically and heats up the atmosphere on re-entry causing global wildfires
     c) Dust created at the impact site is lofted into the stratosphere and distributed globally in a matter of days, reducing the total amount of sunlight reaching the surface and causing a "global winter".
So, the actual kill mechanism is not getting hit by the impactor or even the materials it ejects to the immediate vicinity, but rather all these global effects, which make your distance from the impact site irrelevant.

2) A globally catastrophic impact can be caused by a meteorite about 15 km (~10 miles) in diameter. The resulting crater would be about 200 km (~125 miles) in diameter and the area affected by thick deposits of ejected material would extend to about 1000 km (600 miles) in all directions from the impact point.  Everything beyond that would get pretty much the same effects as anywhere else on the globe (see point 1 above). For the catastrophe to be local instead of global, these numbers would all be correspondingly smaller - so we can consider these a maximum. For reference, the distance between New York and LA is about 4500 km, so there would be an awful lot of North America that was no worse off than Europe, Africa, or even Australia. If an evacuation is organized properly, people can easily drive out of the danger zone.

3) Once the global winter is resolved, there is no reason why the impact site and it's immediate surroundings would be unsuitable for farming (it's not a nuclear explosion with radioactive fall-out, after all). Also, impact ejecta deposits should make excellent soils. They resemble volcanic ash or glacial tills, which are both very good growing substrates. Organic fertilizer would be required to speed up recovery, but all animals produce that on a daily basis.

4) A 200 km impact crater is not like a sudden hole in the ground. There's a rise towards the crater rim, then a descending slope inside, then probably another rise towards some kind of central structure, probably a peak ring. The slopes are mostly on the order of 20 degrees or less, so certainly walkable with care. Of course, that's an average and there will be the occasional very steep section, but if you can avoid those on the way in, you can avoid those on the way out, too.

5) There is nothing "unnatural" about an asteroid impact. It is a very natural process that has been going on in our Solar System for at least 4.2 billion years.

Now that I have that out of the way, I can honestly say I liked this story. It was very interesting to see the human aspect of a recovery from global disaster, even though the details of that disaster were way off.

[bounceswoosh]

I liked this story a lot - and a lot better than Selected Program Notes. But to be honest, that one didn't work for me - I think I missed some key element of the story.

[Windup]

3) Once the global winter is resolved, there is no reason why the impact site and it's immediate surroundings would be unsuitable for farming (it's not a nuclear explosion with radioactive fall-out, after all). Also, impact ejecta deposits should make excellent soils. They resemble volcanic ash or glacial tills, which are both very good growing substrates. Organic fertilizer would be required to speed up recovery, but all animals produce that on a daily basis.

Volcanic ash and glacial till are good starter materials, but it requires centuries (maybe millennia) of weathering, organic matter and the action of soil insects and bacteria to turn into fertile topsoil.  That's why soil erosion is such a big deal.