Oh, dear God how I love Harlan Ellison. . . The man, the machine, the bus driver. Who can ever get enough?

As fuggly was poking around Epinions one day -- snooping really, checking things out, getting the feel for the place, analyzing the racket – he stumbled upon some reviews of the work of the American author with the most rewards (I mean awards, you know I mean awards) for his writing: you guessed it, Harlan Ellison. So fuggly read the reviews of Trismegistos, james hess, and jordan tar, and discovered that one as-yet-unread-by-fuggly Ellison book was getting lots of Epinions attention. How dare these people read Strange Wine before fuggly?

So fuggly decided to get the book. In his review of the book, jordan tar says, "’Strange Wine’ is well-nigh impossible to find - but if you find a copy, buy it!” fuggly found a copy. In the library. After being checked out, the book was subsequently lost, officer: “I don’t know what happened to it, honest I don’t.”*

These Epinionaters (at least the one) were claiming Strange Wine to be Ellison’s strongest collection, and fuggly just had to know. . .

The Reading

The best part of any Ellison book is the Introduction, an often hilarious, sometimes cruel, sometimes crude, and utterly amazing editorial about the life of one of America’s greatest living authors. Strange Wine’s intro, “Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosours! And You Don’t Look so Terrific Yourself.,” was no exception. Here Ellison meanders through the avenues of his intellectual landscape: if you pay attention you might learn something about loving and caring.

In this intro, Ellison pulls the reader along on a journey through the suicide of Chris Chubbuck, who killed herself on the local news channel during broadcast, to the strange life of Dan Blocker, who played Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza, to his own The Glass Teat columns, to Orwell’s 1984, on a sidetrack to his own writing life, and on to the time you, yes YOU, spend watching tv every day. And he doesn’t stop there; at one point, he actually gets around to talking about writing, but only after 13 pages of other stuff – much like a wittier, and less funny (but more darkly comic, maybe), Dennis Miller rant. fuggly loves this stuff.

But, wiggling around in the lower reaches of fuggly’s brain lies the faint idea that this intro -- this beautifully titled if a little too rambling intro – just doesn’t rank with some of Ellison’s other stuff. Namely, the intros to The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, Deathbird Stories, and especially Angry Candy. Actually, the intro to Angry Candy ranks as the best piece of writing by Ellison ever read by fuggly. Ever. And fuggly’s read a couple of Ellison’s pieces. That intro rips you up, makes you question being human, being loved, loving, hating, death, and the whole point of existence. And it makes fuggly cry. (Note: fuggly is a Southern, stoic-type creature for whom tears are a rare and cherished thing, though he realizes that many of you shed them like the rubbish at yard sales.)

And the Stories

You want to know about the stories, huh? I’ve already told you they are less important to a lover of Ellison than is the intro, but alas, who reads intros? (Gasp! Most books don’t even have them.) Right away, as you skip the intro and head for the stories, you see that Ellison has prefaced each story with a little intro all its own and ended each of these with a relevant quotation. fuggly’s favorite one of these mini-intros is to the third story, “Killing Bernstein,” where Ellison writes, “There is absolutely nothing startling or terrific to say about this story. . .” And fuggly’s second-favorite one of these mini-intros, which is some seven pages long and quite a story in itself, is to the eleventh story, “The New York Review of Bird.”

All told, these mini-intros and the quotations which accompany them would make a darn fine book in-and-of themselves, and they contain a good deal of the book’s wisdom. But again, they aren’t the best mini-intros out there: despite the fact that these mini-intros are wonderful, they don’t hold a candle to those quite similar ones in Deathbird Stories.

The Stories, Already . . .

Alright, now I’ll tell you a little about the stories, but not all the stories, and not enough about either one since you can’t capture the essence of these things in summary, but alas here we go.*2 (Skip this part if you want, fuggly don’t care; fuggly just spent hours pouring the blood from my fingertips to make this wisdom available to you, but feel free to skip it.)

“Croatoan” – a cute little story about alligators and aborted fetuses, a man with a never-condomed, prolific organ, and the sewers of New York City. Ellison almost calls it autobiography . . . something about his vasectomy.

“Working With the Little People” – a story about Stephen King wherein the prolific, award-winning author actually hasn’t written anything since The Shining. Instead of writing, King (who is called Noah in the story which was actually published before Carrie for those of you who don’t follow fuggly’s sorry attempts at wit) loses his ability to tell stories, but before going loony over it, is helped by a pack of typewriterly gremlins (before Gremlins, too).

“Killing Bernstein” – all about a man who just keeps on killing the same woman, over and over. Opps, gave it away. But like all Ellison, the end is a doozy.

“Mom” – Jewish ghost humor. Not autobiography, supposedly. ‘Nough said.

“In Fear of K” – Kafka, Ellison style. With a little Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? thrown in for good measure.

“Hitler Painted Roses” – fuggly’s favorite of Strange Wine, at least right now. This one’s all about the stupidity of most people and the mob mentality (a favorite Ellison supject). Also, as he says, it’s mainly concerned with those who are falsely punished because the public believes the accused are guilty. But the best thing about the story is the final, chilling moment where the title comes to play.

“The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the Memory Has Gone Flat” – the title used to be longer; Terry Carr shortened it. Supposedly a “Jack Vance-style stor[y] in which many and variegated aliens appear, in a strange and alien setting, and with a happy ending” written for afore-mentioned Carr, but before you read the story, Ellison admits that perhaps “[n]ext time he’ll ask me for a soft pink-and-white bunny-rabbit story.”

“From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet” – a bit odd. Weird, I say. This one’s not actually a story at all, but rather a set of 26 mini-stories. Some are good, some aren’t. Personal favorite: “K is for KENGHIS KHAN”: “He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.”

“Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time” – a bit of a feminist piece. Ellison, the feminist, is quite a common figure, you know. . .

“The New York Review of Bird” – the long intro to this story tells the history of Ellison’s nom deplume Cordwainer Bird. This one is quite an enjoyable read for those of us who care about things like the history of literature, book publishing, comic books, and the history of Harlan Ellison. For the rest of humanity, it is just simply fun.

“Seeing” – a true Ellison story, and perhaps the best one of the lot. Think distopian future ruled by people with way too much money, stir in crack wh--prostitute with a taste for alien booty and two mystical mutated eyes, give it a good dose of Crime Noir and a selfish old woman (aren’t they all? See fuggly’s upcoming Epinion). Ultimately, you get the type of complicated SF that Ellison made famous with “’Repent Harlequin’ Said the Ticktockman” and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” though not as a good a story as either of those.

“The Boulevard of Broken Dreams” – a little bit of history, a little bit of horror, a teeny, tiny story.

“Strange Wine” – the title piece and easily the most literary of the whole bunch, if like fuggly you think of literary as a genre the way people think of SF as a genre. Ultimately though, it’s a trick story, and the trick is too easy to figure out. (If you want to read some great literary Ellison, hunt down “The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore.” It was published in the The Best American Short Stories 1993, I believe.)

“The Diagnosis of Dr. D’arqueAngel” – the last story, but don’t ask me why. This one, like “Seeing,” is a true Ellison-style story, but it isn’t as good as “Seeing” or most of the other stories collected here. The writing is more powerful and literary than much of Ellison’s swiftly crafted prose, but the plot is too simply done for the ending to have the desired effect. It was like a combination of two or three of the earlier stories which failed. But still, a fun read.

And These Aren’t Ellison’s Best?

Nope. His most powerful book is Angry Candy, his most effective is Deathbird Stories, his most enjoyable (as in funny) is probably Approaching Oblivion, but still, the best stories aren’t even in these books. You want to read Ellison and you haven’t anywhere to start: buy The Essential Ellison; it contains the best: “A boy and His Dog,” and the most popular (i.e. important) “’Repent Harlequin’ Said the Ticktockman” and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” as well as any number of other wonderful Ellison stories.

But if you like Ellison (and every person with an ounce of literary taste likes Ellison), then to you fuggly must say, "’Strange Wine’ is well-nigh impossible to find - if you find a copy, steal it!”


* -- but the weight of guilt is fast approaching the critical for fuggly, and the book will soon be returned, maybe, if he can tear his hands away from it. Deathbird Stories, where can I find Deathbird Stories: the horror, the horror.
*2 – this list owes a lot to the music reviews of the lovely rfr.




Recommended: Yes