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A review by casbah
Secret Life by Jeff VanderMeer
3.0
First off, I read the "Select Fire Remix" of this short story collection and the "Select Fire Remix" is not a short story collection, it is a terrible novel that drags you through all sorts of scary things and then leaves you cowering in a mess of story notes that do not reassure you in anyway at all. I don't mean terrible in the modern sense, I mean it the way the OED means it:
1. Causing or fit to cause terror; inspiring great fear or dread. Also: awe-inspiring, awesome.
As someone who has never read any other Jeff VanderMeer novel and is actually only reading this one for class AND EVEN THEN had a different edition from the professor and one other student, effectively destroying the professor's lesson plans and the syllabus for the week and also our sanity as well as we tried to figure out how the Vandermeer got from Secret Life to Secret Life The Select Fire Remix, I must say this book made me very nervous. If were a short story collection, it would make sense, but I cannot bring myself to look at this book, in its current format, as a short story collection. It isn't! It all runs together too well. I really do feel like I have been dragged by something, possibly by a flesh dog or a familiar, through several different lives and several different worlds and all the worlds and lives are connected but I don't know how and never will. If this were a short story collection, I could pick and choose and say well, this story is better executed than this or that story falls apart at such and such scene. And then I could say, that's why I feel so disconcerted and nervous right now, because some of the stories did not hold together for me and contained things I didn't like very much. But I can't, because this isn't a short story collection anymore.
If Twin Peaks is a place both wonderful and strange, than Secret Life The Remix is a book both terrible and strange. That's basically all I've got.
As a side note, Jeff VanderMeer makes me very nervous as an author too, but for different reasons. The remix of his short story collection makes it clear to me that he is the sort of author who is dangerous not for his politics but for his content. His ability to create a world and whisk it away in the very next sentences, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened to you, is well-honed and sharp. That's scary. God knows what he might do in meatspace. I am excited but also very nervous about reading his other books.
Also, why the hell is the hardcover edition of this book still in print but not the paperback? Quite aside from ruining my professor's week, it is strange that the older edition is available and the newer one not. I picked this edition up on accident, bought it second-hand on Amazon.
1. Causing or fit to cause terror; inspiring great fear or dread. Also: awe-inspiring, awesome.
As someone who has never read any other Jeff VanderMeer novel and is actually only reading this one for class AND EVEN THEN had a different edition from the professor and one other student, effectively destroying the professor's lesson plans and the syllabus for the week and also our sanity as well as we tried to figure out how the Vandermeer got from Secret Life to Secret Life The Select Fire Remix, I must say this book made me very nervous. If were a short story collection, it would make sense, but I cannot bring myself to look at this book, in its current format, as a short story collection. It isn't! It all runs together too well. I really do feel like I have been dragged by something, possibly by a flesh dog or a familiar, through several different lives and several different worlds and all the worlds and lives are connected but I don't know how and never will. If this were a short story collection, I could pick and choose and say well, this story is better executed than this or that story falls apart at such and such scene. And then I could say, that's why I feel so disconcerted and nervous right now, because some of the stories did not hold together for me and contained things I didn't like very much. But I can't, because this isn't a short story collection anymore.
If Twin Peaks is a place both wonderful and strange, than Secret Life The Remix is a book both terrible and strange. That's basically all I've got.
As a side note, Jeff VanderMeer makes me very nervous as an author too, but for different reasons. The remix of his short story collection makes it clear to me that he is the sort of author who is dangerous not for his politics but for his content. His ability to create a world and whisk it away in the very next sentences, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened to you, is well-honed and sharp. That's scary. God knows what he might do in meatspace. I am excited but also very nervous about reading his other books.
Also, why the hell is the hardcover edition of this book still in print but not the paperback? Quite aside from ruining my professor's week, it is strange that the older edition is available and the newer one not. I picked this edition up on accident, bought it second-hand on Amazon.