You Want HOW Much For a Copy of Scott’s GRS Biography? A brief note.

The GRS biography is expensive.  The publisher, a small independent press of impeccable reputation, has an excellent marketing approach:  They sell to universities and libraries, with  “the trade” – that’s you and me – being a distant secondary market.  They don’t expect to sell many copies, and their books are of the highest quality, so the prices are high.  The book sells for $55.00, retail.  $55.00 is a lot for a paperback book, even if it is an authorized biography, and of high quality.

But it’s a bargain when you consider the price being asked for used copies. I did some checking recently, on Amazon:  $61.00, $101.00, and … Are you ready? $166.00 So when you buy your copy, and pay what seems a high price, remember – you aren’t paying $166.00 for it. On the other hand, the fact that a good seller considers it worth that much is a compliment to the book , and I wish them luck in the selling.

Vigilantes – Heros or Terrorists?

In Earth Abides, Stewart’s human protagonist Isherwood Williams faced the biggest crisis in his small post-apocalyptic community when “Charlie” entered the story.  Two of the teenagers had been sent on a trans-American journey about 17 years after the founding of what Ish called The Tribe.  They found Charlie along the way, and brought him back with them.   Ish and his old “American” friends were deeply concerned, because Charlie had all the characteristics of a syphilitic alcoholic; and he packed a gun.  When he began to woo the teenage girl who was retarded, and she began to respond, the old men of the community met secretly do decide what to do about Charlie.  The decision was execution, since banished, he might return.

GRS, I think, was troubled by this part of his tale.  It was inevitable, given the truth of the events dramatized; but no enlightened author wants blood on his hands – or those of his “good” characters.  He apparently thought about this for years; then, in 1964, he wrote a history of the 1851 Committee of Vigilance in San Francisco which dealt with the issue of capital punishment meted out in an extra-legal way.

Committee of Vigilance is subtitled “Revolution in San Francisco, 1851.”  The implication is that, at least in the case of that particular group of vigilantes, they were exercising their American Right of Revolution to deal with a crisis that the formal government was ignoring.  Eventually, after a fair and public trial, they did condemn some of the criminals to death, and hung them in a public square.  Others were transported to Australia or otherwise punished.  The City’s crime wave, for a time, ended.

The Committee re-formed in 1856, and acted similarly.  But Stewart, who always wanted precision in his work, knew that he must focus on only one episode if he was to do the thorough research and writing the subject demanded.  Since it was the first, he chose the 1851 event.

His conclusion, very carefully thought through and written, is that the Committee of Vigilance of 1851 was, in the best American sense, legal, proper, and well-run.  One of the facts he emphasizes is that the Committee disbanded itself after three months.  It did not become one of those small nations’ permanent juntas.  The members did not want to be political leaders; like the farmers who fought in the American Revolution, they wanted to return to their farms as soon as they’d completed their work.  They were followers, in style if not in name, of Cincinnatus, Roman leader who became dictator just long enough to defeat an invasion of Rome, and then returned to his farm.

Committee of Vigilance lacks the writing flair of Stewart’s great novels,  but is compelling reading none-the-less.  In this day of constant ignoring of Constitutional, international and local laws by national and local governments, it reminds us that ultimately we are the ones – and the only ones – who can protect society.  The ideas of Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Madison, Hendry, and Paine are reflected in the work and history of Committee of Vigilance.  Every American is well-advised to read it.

Frank Brusca’s U.S. 40 Rephotography Project

Frank Brusca is a George R. Stewart Scholar with a special interest:  U. S. 40.  He discovered the book when he was a boy, and it has shaped his life since.  Frank’s goal is to re-photograph as many of the places Stewart photographed in 1949 and 1950 as he can, to record the changes over time.  Geographers Tom and Geraldine Vale did that for their 1983 classic U.S. 40 Today, which tracked changes over the 30 years since GRS published his book.  Brusca has more elaborate plans – he’s including color and virtual panoramas of some sites.

His love affair with U. S. 40, highway and book, helped Brusca connect with author William Least Heat Moon, who wrote the classic Blue Highways. Eventually  Least Heat Moon and Brusca traveled the old highway together.  Those journies are the meat of four chapters about Brusca and GRS and his road book in Least Heat Moon’s Roads to Quoz. (Least Heat Moon is also a fan of GRS’s other work, and so there’s more GRS influence in  Blue Highways.)

Last Sunday, Frank held a web meeting for a small group of road scholars, describing his project in detail and showing his photos of the GRS sites on the old highway.  It was impressive to see how much he’s done so far.  His work, like that of the Vales, expands Stewart’s ground-breaking book.

Brusca has a deep understanding of Stewart’s book.  During the web session, Brusca revealed how to identify a first first printing of U.S. 40 – one photo is a mistake, so the book was pulled and corrected.  (The photo, from a Hogback ridge west of Denver, was supposed to show the town and valley to the west of the ridge, but a photo from the ridge showing the eastern view was printed.)  If you have a copy with the wrong photo, you have an early first printing.

His knowledge of the book and the highway helped my GRS biography.  Brusca directed me to German Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky, whose U.S. 40 West was inspired by Stewart’s book. Bitomsky agreed to a long interview about the film and Stewart’s influence on the work; much of that interview is in my book.

Frank is off on a road photographing trip this summer.  He drives from Massachusetts to San Francisco, and then zips back, photographing as he goes.  (I hope to join him for one or two days in Calfornia.)  He will also copy some of the original negatives for U.S. 40, in the Bancroft Library.

All of this is expensive. Just copying the Stewart photographs in the Bancroft would cost more than $5,000.   So far, it’s been self-funded.  But now Brusca has a Kickstarter proposal to help fund the effort.  If you’d like to help, you can do so here.  A small 30 dollar pledge gets you an ebook with all of the 120 photos he’s planning to put in the book.  More important, you become a patron of continuing the U.S. 40 work of GRS, the Vales, William Least Heat Moon, and Frank Brusca.

Christopher Priest and George R. Stewart

The last few weeks have brought some interesting comments and communications from several places.  A student in Germany who’s doing a dissertation on science fiction and GRS, an academician who wants to translate one of GRS’s books into an Asian language, a professor in Philadelphia who sent his students’ reviews of Earth Abides, and the Keeper of one of the Disney blogs (THE Disney Blog, in fact), asking to mention the posting about GRS and Disney.  But the most interesting of all popped in just a few days ago – Christopher Priest, sending a link to his article about the influence George R. Stewart had on his work.

I knew Priest’s name, but went to the web to find more detail.

Christopher Priest is a distinguished, award-winning author of complex, literary science fiction written with a light touch.  One of his novels, The Prestige, was made into a film  by Christopher Nolan.  (The ending of the film differs from that of the book,  and seems to weaken the effect Priest so skilfully created in the novel.) Priest’s other novels get excellent ratings from readers and critics.  Here‘s a list.

Priest’s comment to the EA/GRS weblog was short, a link to a review of another author’s book.   “Standing On Shoulders” refers to Newton’s comment that he was merely standing on the shoulders of the great minds who preceded him.  In his case, Priest writes that he stands on the shoulders of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and George R. Stewart.

As a young man, Priest saw four of Bergman’s films in two weeks – “Sawdust and Tinsel”, “Summer With Monika”, “Wild Strawberries”, and “The Seventh Seal” — and, he writes, the films transformed him.  Having seen three of those four myself, and at about the same age, I second his statements about their power.  (Years later, when I taught Film as Art in high school in San Francisco, I showed “The Seventh Seal”.  The students were so affected that they did not stir when the film – and the period – ended.  It was several minutes before anyone got up to leave, in complete silence, with none of the typical high school bantering back and forth as they left.)

At about the same time, Priest discovered Earth Abides; and, thus, George R. Stewart.  I”ll not go into detail here – read his article if you will – but I’ll say that in our brief conversations since his first comment to the web logwe’ve had some interesting talk about GRS and his brilliance.

Priest and I also had an interesting back-and-forth about the definition of “science fiction.”  Stewart’s best novels are all, in the purest sense, science fiction – that is, fiction based on and about solid science. But few readers would see Storm or Fire as conventional science fiction. Only Earth Abides qualifies.  Does that mean we need to come up with a new term to describe the type of fiction which is set in the future, or a parallel universe, or on an alien world?  Priest has proposed “visionary realism,” an excellent term but not yet popular with fans of the literature.  Maybe one of the readers of this post will have an idea?

If you’re on this page as a Stewart reader, I  strongly encourage you to pick up one of Christopher Priest ‘s novels. (I’m ordering a couple on payday.)  If you’re here as a Christopher Priest reader, welcome – and I suggest you read Earth Abides.

I also suggest GRS’s  Sheep Rock.  That novel has some of rich complexity and layers of truth which are the hallmarks of Christopher Field’s work.

It was a pleasure to learn that Christopher Priest found this weblog interesting, and I’m honored that he’s joined this conversation.   The circle of George R. Stewart is growing; and in the best sense of the STEAM movement, connecting art and science.  A small interdisciplinary fellowship of GRS followers is building, and that’s a good thing.