Customer Reviews

The Song of the Earth

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Hugh Nissenson's new book, Song of the Earth, is hard to catogorize. In this work, Nissenson uses the written word, the visual image, and a non-narrative style to compliment each other, to produce a memorable picture of an artist and his art. The picture gradually emerging is of a man struggling with issues of existence and creativity made poignant by his enhanced capabilities, in the richly portrayed landscape of the future. It could be seen as sci-fi with its troubling vision of the future, plausably extrapolated from current scientific knowledge. It could be seen as an exploration of social developments where political, religious, and sexual preferences and practices are at once accepted and celebrated while the frictions of these varying life styles lead to bitter conflict. It could be seen as the exploration of the homoerotic life of his protagonist, as he pursues the yearnings of lust and affection. It could be seen as a chronical of artistic struggle and an exploration of the place art plays in the world. This last is developed using startling original art created by the author in his development of these themes seen through the eyes of his characters. Finally it can be seen as a skillful merging of artistic modalities, demonstrating the synergistic enhancement of expression. The result will satisfy those interested in any of these possible catagories.

Where the PW review states the style, one of culled ficticious emails, web page posts, historical records & interviews as eventually becomming "distracting," I felt that the style was the main thrust of Hugh Nissenson's "The Song of the Earth." This style helped keep the story fresh & moving quickly, as I could see a "straight" narrative covering the same subject matter drone on & be quite preachy. Nissenson's style never approaches this & yet is quite chilling & a fantastic warning of where our collective gobal village future is headed.

I was initially drawn to the book due to its haunting cover & Cynthia Ozick's strong review who stated: "Any reader who believes that, after Joyce, the novel can no longer give rise to the absolutely innovative and the absolutely astonishing will be shocked into revelation by...Song of the Earth."

Indeed, the one quip I have is that there is a lot of homosexual content, something you do not get from the jacket and something I was not expecting due to that fact. In retrospect, I believe it served me better as I quickly became enveloped by Nissenson's world and the various plots at hand.

In all, from a tried & true Gene Wolfe lover, I really enjoyed this book. I love books that inspire new thinking & this is one. Its engaging & spirited and better yet, "light" and "dark" at the same time. A true song of earth's not-so-distant future.

In this book, Nissenson has transcended to a new plane of current fiction. Not only is the subject matter bold, daring and temporally topical, but the treatment of the subject matter and the stylilistic aspects of the book, make this my selection for leading candidtate for the National Book Award this year.

The book, written in an epistolary style, which usually means letters, but in this case, are much closer to an "e-mail" format than a letter format. The style allows Nissenson to be alternatingly personal and intense versus removed and obscure, from message to message, giving him amazing stylistic versatility, which he utilizes to great advantage.

Additionally, the book is a "multi-media" piece in that it mixes the media of written text with artistic visual creations and the use of "e-mail" as an expositional vehicle all in one piece of literature, which he then uses to give the reader an extrapolation of what is to come just around the corner in today's society. Today cloning has just started. Tomorrow, there will be science that allows us to change "congenitally deleterious" genetic problems, but what other detrimental effects might those "genetic corrections" contain, and might those horrible effects be only known after 100 or 1000 generations? These are in fact the questions that we will have to wrestle with and who is to say, which is an 'OK' genome change and which is not legal?

As if this were not enough, Nissenson, may even be prescient in detecting the growing polarization of men and women in today's society. Not only are the viewpoints of these two necessary groups polarizing, but even the issue of self-sexual identity is becoming a problem for people in society today, no less 50 to 100 years from now. Nissenson leaves no issue unaddressed and all serious modern literature readers should look to read this book, just to keep current with issues, if not for Nissenson's incredible craftsmanship.

I highly recommend this highly unusual novel. Nissenson is a brilliant writer who projects the reader into his richly textured, deeply disturbing vision of life in the mid-21st century. Everything is different, yet everything is the same. The outer conditions of life are sharply different, yet the reader recognizes the emotional lives of the novel's characters. This is in many ways a terrifying vision of the future, brilliantly and sensitively rendered.

This is the second novel I've tackled by Hugh Nissenson. The first, "The Tree of Life: A Novel," is a remarkable work of imaginary historical fact, blended with reality (for example, Johnny Appleseed is a key character). That deceptively simple story, told through a series of journal entries and sketches, has a power far beyond its simplicity.

Nissenson takes the artificial reality concept a huge leap forward in "The Song of the Earth." Also presented as "historical fact," down to footnotes from works "published" in the future, this novel paints a riveting, unsettling portrait of culture and life in the 22nd century. The story is told through a series of short "factoids" presented by a number of players in the tale. There are no shocking plot twists; we are told from the beginning that the main character, John Firth Baker, is dead. Bit by bit we learn the remarkable story of this genetically-engineered artist.

It is fascinating to see Nissenson's future-word view. He artfully blends imagined geographic, political, religious, gender, sociological, technological, artistic, sexual, and poetic visions into a rather chilling world. I love the "non gender biased" grammar that peppers the work ("wimin" for "women") and the non-standard turned standard ("She was like..." and "She went..." used in place of "She said...").

John Firth Baker is used and abused from the moment of his conception. He is in many ways despicable, yet I found myself caring deeply for this young, lost talent. His life is tragic and his loss is heartbreaking.

The bombardment of perspectives (imagined e-mails, web info, diaries, interviews, etc.) works for me, and fits the world culture Nissenson has imagined. Integral to plot is the art of John Firth Baker, all created by Nissenson. Through the art, the evolution, development, and maturing of the young artist takes place before your eyes. And in the tragic tale of John Firth Baker, even his art is used and abused.

I highly recommend this book. Hats off to Hugh Nissenson for creating an innovative, compelling, haunting masterpiece of art.

It's the mid-21st. century. Genetic manipulation to produce desired talents is possible (but illegal in the U.S. ...shades of the current stem cell debate.) New York is like Venice, due to rising sea levels. Black Blizzards ravage the Midwest, which has shelters for "exodusters" (people never quite defined). Poor people live (and die) in the "weather", the reasonably well-off live (and die) in "keeps" (completely enclosed, air-conditioned residential communities). "Human" has become "Humin", female "femayle". Old people are "wrinklies". Men and women are divided, with an extremist feminist movement called the "Gynarchists". The religious right has more power than ever.

This is just a little of the rich background from "The Song of the Earth".

I like near-future novels. I read "1984" at a young age, and was very taken with Orwell's vision. (His spare, expressive prose influences me to this day.) "Neuromancer", too, fascinated me. Hugh Nissenson's vision was not quite what I expected, from a review in the New York Times. Actually, it was rather more.

Constructed with emails, interviews, diaries, poetry, images and other forms, it presents a portrait of John Firth Baker, an arsogenic metamorph, a manual artist (as opposed to digital), one of four human beings genetically (and in his case, socially engineered by his mother, see the book for details), to be an artist of renown.

And, it's not just prose. Mr. Nissenson has given us Johnny's art, too, in black and white, and 13 pieces ("Baker's Dozen") in color, a great idea, although I did find the quality of the art somewhat variable. But nevertheless, very impressive. (The dust jacket cover is one of Mr. Nissenson's images.)

This is a book I would unhesitatingly recommend, except for the fairly strong homosexual content. (Amazon would probably not allow me to quote some of the more explicit passages in this review.)

Johnny's mom is a lesbian, he's gay (as his genetic profile predicted he would be), and he grows breasts to ingratiate himself with his Gaian guru (his no-frills mastogenesis costs $7,040, paid for by a summer of sexual slavery in NYC). However, as a straight person, I was able to deal with the more graphic details; but that may not apply to everyone. If it helps at all, Mr. Nissenson seems to be an older and somewhat retiring man with a nice family who lives in New York City.

In short, on a lot of levels (linguistic, graphic, construction, as well as future visualization) this is a highly original work that I suspect will become a classic. However, at a deeper level, it's also a novel, that, like all the great novels, examines what used to be called (rather pretentiously), "the human condition".

Parent/child conflicts, the rebellious adolescent, the new generation, this is the stuff of myth. It tends not to change too much. And that's what this book, ultimately, is about.

It's true, there are numerous ways one can read "The Song of the Earth" -- as biotech-cautionary tale, as post-postmodern sex & gender manifesto, as extrapolation on the future of identity politics. It's hard to say what the author had in mind when he wrote this book, but it was probably all of the above.

I don't think you need a Ph.D. in social science or theory or literature to enjoy Nissenson's dystopic vision or his fragmentary style. I love near-future fiction -- books like "Random Acts of Senseless Violence," "Parable of the Sower," and the like -- and this novel, with it's fully realized (and all-too-familiar) world of climate change, genetic engineering, and identity wars, slakes that particular thirst quite nicely.

I also like the diversity of the novel's characters. Since book jackets seldom warn about heterosexual content, I see no reason why any reader should feel the need to be "prepared" to encounter characters who are homosexual. In fact, it's very refreshing to see people of diverse backgrounds take center stage in a work of social science fiction.

Anyway, if near-future speculation keeps you awake at night, if you like challenging characters and can handle having your sexual envelope pushed at times (as much as a bunch of bound-together paper can do such a thing), then give "The Song of the Earth" a try.

Nissenson has written a passionate work that reminds me of great epic poems. Art, literature, imagination, and a profound interest in our deepest philosophical concerns illuminates this unbelievably interesting and valuable novel.

Do yourself a big favor and give Nissenson a few hours of your time.

Not exactly what you might call a conventional novel, this is a haunting, near-future portrait of an artist as a young man in the 21st century. Johnny Firth Baker's life is in danger, even before his birth, because his mother has illegally endowed her fertilized egg with genes that will give her son the potential to become a visual artist. Born in 2038, John Firth Baker is the first genetically engineered artist, who then, at the age of nineteen, and at the threshold of his career, is tragically murdered. Now, ten years after his death, Baker has become famous. An art curator has organized a show of his work, and his biography -- culled from journals, e-mails, and interviews with those who knew him best -- is published: The Song of the Earth. Nissenson presents a world transformed by technology: genetic profiles, space travel, and controlled housing communities are commonplace. Global warming has altered the environment. A planetary gender war is raging, familial structures are shattered, and new religions contend with the old. Yet human needs remain the same: the search for love, the desire for approval, the longing for fame, and the quest for knowledge. With prose, poetry, and full-color inserts (of JHB's art/original pieces by Nissenson himself, which have an outsider art quality), Nissenson tells an original tale that brilliantly captures the experience of another time and place. This is a high-concept work of great originality and verve -- precisely why this will fall into the oblivion of obscurity, unless you read it and pass it on.

In 2057, John Firth Baker, a 19-year old genetically engineered visual artist, is murdered. Katherine Jackson organizes his biography using excerpts from journals, emails, interviews, and Baker's own art, and calls it "The Song of the Earth", the title of one of Baker's favorite poems. Baker's life was a sometimes sad one, due to the experiments his mother conducted to try to ensure his artistic talents. The science fiction aspects of Nissenson's novel are fascinating: gender wars, technological and genetic advancements. There's also religious struggles with old religions vying with newly established ones. This is also a world where sexual diversity is rather commonplace as well. "The Song of the Earth" is more than a cautionary tale about the human desire to control evolution and destiny; it's also about a young gay man trying to find himself in the middle of personal chaos. And then, after Baker's death, everyone who knew him puts forth a different interpretation of his life and artworks (also included in the novel), and this makes for even more fascinating reading: how each person can interpret another person's life for her/his own ends. Humanity, indeed. Nissenson's "The Song of the Earth" is definitely one of the most arresting stories I've read this year.