The Reader Travels

San Francisco started out as one of many Catholic missions established in California by Spanish priests. The priests and the natives of the land flourished together with the father, the son and the holy ghost for many generations. Then in 1834, the Mexican government smashed the mission system in an attempt to secularize the country. Priests were persecuted and the natives scattered like Jews in the desert.

The fogs of San Francisco Bay were mirrored by the hordes of people flowing onto the land in search of gold. People of all languages, religions and nationalities confused the religious landscape, made it difficult for the Catholics to regain the control they had lost. But they kept their presence in California, even when they had to hide.

The same sort of thing is happening in The Mists of Avalon. The Christians are taking over the land, persecuting the Druids, who must create a shroud of mist to hide the practice of their faith. Their actions are defensive, grasping in the fog to maintain control, to keep from losing their faith, when finally they realize that the Madonna is just another incarnation of the goddess, and She is eternal.

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon books brought me to world of pagan appreciation for the beauty and power of nature. Churches with walls and roofs are an aberration, for the beauty of god is not inside a man-made structure, but outside with the earth and the sky.

In Lady of Avalon, priestess initiation happens on an ocean cliff described as one of the sacred places where earth meets sea meets sky. I visited San Francisco shortly after reading this novel, and I realized that the northern California coastline is also one of those sacred places.

As I sat along the shore and watched the waves crash into the craggy rocks, I couldn’t help but gasp in ecstasy. The rocks are hard, but the water is persistent, patiently molding the earth, crash after crash.

Divine.

Okay, so some people might think that visiting California is like stepping into an alternate universe anyway, but in The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick shows what California and the (former) United States of America might be like if history had taken a different turn back in World War II.

In his alternate history, the Allied forces lost the war to Germany and Japan. The United States was dissolved and the land split up between the winning countries, with the western states going to Japan. So in this alternate California, people speak Japanese, bow to each other and smoke Land-O-Smiles brand reefer. Woo hoo!

I love the concept of sidestepping into alternate universes. Didn’t Sliders take place in San Francisco, too? Think about all the different possibilities. What would life be like if the southern United States had successfully seceded from the Union? What would the world be like if Jesus had fought for his life and won, if Mohammed had died a martyr, if Buddha had eaten steak?

I love this word. I just want to say it again and again - echolalia, echolalia, echolalia. Okay, so today’s book was all about glossolalia, but echolalia is a much cooler word. Say it out loud. It’s fun.

Anyway, when I tried to come up with books I’d read that took place in California, I found that most everything was either present day or sci-fi futuristic. It’s probably because California has such a limited period of recorded history.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson took place in a futuristic southern California. Now, I’m not actually going to recommend this book because I had a hard time with the writing style, and I’m not sure I even finished it. But I’ve talked to lots of people who did like it, and I found it very thought provoking and funny.

The protagonist’s name was, originally enough, Hiro Protagonist, a programmer turned pizza delivery guy. He finds himself on this great adventure researching some bizarre religious cults, and he can’t understand a word they’re saying because it’s pure glossolalia (you know, speaking in tongues). And it’s all because the government’s a joke, and the corporations run the country.

I’ve never actually been to a charismatic church, so I don’t know what glossalia is really like. It’s quite fascinating to me how people can be overtaken by the spirit and go all spastic like that. That’s powerful stuff, right?

On the other hand, I have been around little kids who annoyingly repeat everything I say. Let’s say this lovely word one more time - echolalia (echolalia).

Sometimes I live vicariously through my friends’ travels. I look at their vacation pictures, listen to their stories, imagine myself there. One of my dearest friends is a huge fan of Stephen King. In fact I think she’s read everything except his memoir, On Writing (because she doesn’t really do memoirs).

So when the long-awaited final book of the Dark Tower series came out in 2004, she dropped everything to read it. It was the end of the series, but it sent her on a journey she never expected. And where did she go? Forward and backward in time, slantways and sideways, reading through all of King’s past works, following the threads and the clues that tie his body of work together.

It’s not just a matter of picking out the bad guys with the initials R.F. either. It’s way beyond that.

If you’re interested in the journey, check out The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King by Christopher Golden, Stanley Wiater and Hank Wagner. They’ll tell you all about it.

There’s this spooky ghost hotel resort called the Overlook, high in the Rocky Mountains near Estes Park, Colorado. So maybe it doesn’t physically exist, but it does exist in the minds of many. Like unicorns and Santa Claus and the boogey man, the Overlook Hotel is eternal.

There are two versions of the hotel. One has this incredible hedge labyrinth, a psychological horror of confusion and captivation. The other has a topiary instead, a bunch of big scary hedge animals that will f* you up if you don’t watch out. Boo!

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining was oh-so loosely based on Stephen King’s novel. I’m sure Mr. King was much more comfortable with the TV mini-series version done nearly 20 years later. Like the characters in the book, the mini-series actors were pretty and blond. But Kubrick didn’t go for pretty and blond. He picked Shelley Duvall instead. And of course, Jack Nicholson. How brilliant was that?

It’s not that I hated the book. I just loved the movie. And without the book there would have been no movie. Stanley Kubrick just made a good thing a whole lot better. Great art doesn’t happen in a vaccuum, but it does happen in Colorado.

In Stephen King’s The Stand, the ultimate battle between good and evil happens between the western US cities of Boulder, Colorado, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The good guys are in beautiful Boulder, surrounded by mountains and streams, Rocky Mountain National Park and the University of Boulder. The bad guys are in Las Vegas, home of lights and luxury, money and industry, a place where nature is tamed, desert turned to oasis and rivers turned to energy.

What do you think that’s about? Is this thinly veiled propaganda? Is there a judgment here? I can see why Las Vegas would bear the bad guys. I mean lots of folks have trouble with gambling and gangsters. But did he have to choose a hippie haven to house the good? Not that there’s anything wrong with hippies. I just think it’s a little strange that good and evil seem to swivel the same way as bipartisan politics.

Not that I care about politics. I’m just saying…

Sting’s song from The Dream of the Blue Turtles is, of course, a tribute to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. I enjoyed Interview, but I couldn’t finish The Vampire Lestat. I just couldn’t get past all that hokey rock star crap.

Interview takes us to the old mansions before they got too old, where we get to party with a couple of hot young aristocrats. And what would a vampire story in New Oreans be without a few trips through the cemeteries? I also love the homo-erotic undertones. They make me sweat.

I have friends who have nothing good to say about Anne Rice, but I enjoyed The Witching Hour, too. Yes, the descriptions drag on, and she gets a little preachy, but I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

I can’t really stomach all the spanking in her porn, though. It’s a shame too, because the erotic nature of her mainstream works would make her a natural for some more intense erotic writing. It doesn’t quite measure up, though, sorry to say.

I say, leave your clothes on and the lights down low, Ms. Rice. Savor the mystery and the allure of the dark.