Light Years by James Salter – this is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read – James Salter also has The Hunters on the same list - 8 out of 10

 

Light Years by James Salter – this is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read – James Salter also has The Hunters on the same list

8 out of 10

 

 

I have read The Hunters by James Salter and enjoyed it so much that I though Light Years will bring about the same buoyancy, exhilaration, halcyon days, but alas, I did not get it, there is the issue of coming with too high expectations (some positive psychology book recommends that we lower the expectations, only I forgot which one is it) and then I thought of some criteria, even a standard introduction for such cases

 

Maybe first of all, Blink -The Power of Thinking Without Thinking http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/blink-power-of-thinking-without.html by Malcolm Gladwell and The Thin Slicing Theory come to mind – we form opinions in less than a minute, without thinking, and you get from Blink the explanations, situations, The Harding Effect and so much more- if applied to Light Years and other works of art, one gets to the conclusion quickly, if one will like the book or not, just as the example of the kouros statues is mentioned in Blink, experts came to the verdict that they were false, instantly

In the same way, The Hunters was clearly a novel for my liking, with an outstanding hero, Captain Cleve Connell, based on James Salter himself – he had been a pilot in the Korean War and used his experience to get us into fights, explore fabulous venues, we have the Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Good is Cleve Connell aka James Salter, The Bad is Lieutenant Pell and maybe The Ugly would-be Colonel Imil…

 

The Hunters reads like a sophisticated Top Gun, which brings you all the excitement, the exhilaration of the fights between the Americans and the MIG pilots, the free world against the dark, vile commies – I hate those god damn bastards, they have kept my realm under their boot for over forty years, and I took part in the Revolution that has sent them packing, there will be a link at the end for you to explore, if you will

On top of that, we have psychological insight, the drama, and also the futility of all that excitement, Captain Cleve Connell does not encounter the enemy, until he gets face to face, metaphorically and literally, with the best that the foes have, and he brings him down, but all the while, it is the Confidence Man http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/confidence-man-making-of-donald-trump.html who gets credit

 

Another important element in the evaluation of a new novel is from To The Hermitage http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-hermitage-by-malcolm-bradbury-author.html by Malcolm Bradbury, and there is a rather long quote from this at the bottom of this note, for now, I would just say that we have so much more enchantment from the books we read, but that is if we make the connection, and alas, I did not have a good signal, a straight line with Light Years, though it seemed promising

 

It reminds me of The Ice Storm http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-ice-storm-written-by-rick-moody-and.html an arcadian motion picture, in which we have swinging, death, destruction, The Coolidge Effect and so much more – at one point, they put the keys to their cars in a bowl, and when they leave, the couples pick different partners, because one (was it only the women, I can’t remember, but we have had the stupendous Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver in the cast) about to get out of the guest house, will just put the hand in, and extract a key, which was designating the man she would fuck with next

On the one hand, Viri the architect and his wife, Nedra, seem enticing enough, they both have affairs, when they get the visit of friends, Peter is infatuated with the host, when they get out, his spouse, Catherine, is so aware of that that she says ‘next time you marry, you should marry someone like that…’

 

To which Peter says that ‘she is so generous’, only his partner feels ‘she has not seen anyone so selfish’…this is all well and good, but then we come to the third factor, which is Flow, or Being in The Zone, aka Maximum Experience, which is analyzed in the classic of psychology Flow http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html by the co-founder of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, where you find the conditions for Engagement, Carpe Diem

You must be in control, the experience has to be autotelic, you need clear goals – a look at Victor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning might help –nothing else matters, time becomes relative – Albert Einstein said ‘Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour…Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute…’- challenges meet skills, the example of a game of tennis helps, if you play against one that is a pro, it becomes a burden, if the opponent is way less efficient, then you get bored

 

The Time factor becomes paramount and Seneca http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/05/on-anger-aka-despre-manie-by-seneca-one.html stated that ‘we have enough time in our lives, it is just that we keep wasting it, we do not do what is important and act as if it is a worthless currency, when in fact, it is the most important thing we have’…well, words to that effect, I hope, and the point is that we need to select the books, films, chefs d’oeuvre that would maximize our pleasure, benefit, cultural and in felicity

On the other hand, the classic of psychology The Paradox of Choice http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-paradox-of-choice-by-barry-schartz.html by Barry Schwartz distinguishes between the Maximizers and Satisfizers, the former are the ones that are never happy, they want the maximum, by which they mean perfection, which does not exist, while the latter are reasonable and they make do with just the best possible available, they are not similar to Pangloss from Candide

 

Now for my standard closing with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world   – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Some favorite quotes from To The Heritage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”