My interests tend to be thematic, consciously or unconsciously. So I read Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and then Surface Detail by Ian M. Banks and then This is the End by Seth Rogen and Friends to cap it all off. I did not really intend to focus on hell, it just kind of happened that way.
Inferno has been on my to-read shelf forever, and only, as it turns out, because I forgot I read it twenty years ago at camp when I was buying used classic SF at the McCall, ID library sales like it was going out of style. Which it had.
I don't always read with too many metrics in mind, but these days there is usually one: is this book good enough to pack up in a box and move with me? Largely because I got tired of moving so many boxes of books, and while my books are precious to me, if I'm being honest not all of them will be read again or recommended to friends, so I don't need to throw out my back for them. Hoarding also runs in my family*, so I try to be careful.
Inferno, sadly, did not pass this metric until the last 2 pages, which gave me pause before I heaved it to the "not staying" box. For one, it's steeped with in jokes from the life of an SF writer as filtered through conventions, so it feels like it's written for a very select crowd of people who've gotten drunk with Niven and Pournelle, a group which does not count me in their number, as I was born the year it was written and I believe the family doctor contraindicated both alcohol and socializing with SF authors in my first year.
Otherwise, it's a more or less enjoyable re-telling of Dante's classic, with an odd digression of venom directed at Vonnegut, who I guess wasn't popular among SF nerds at the time. The main complaint was that he talked in baby talk and his SF conceits were BABY SF, not even college level. I think they were just mad he was classified as SF by some but also popular at parties. I say this with much love for SF and SF communities, but the pathologies of insecurity and in-group behavior are very real even there.
What swung me around on the last two pages was the realization of the main character that Hell was yet another chance to be saved, which is an idea I have liked for a long time, but had forgotten I had picked it up from Larry Niven as I read SF by myself on the shores of Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho. I think one of the reasons I ended up my childhood religion as offered was partly the idea that an all-powerful god was so bad at creating a compelling case to be good and then so punitive regarding failure, a failure that could have easily been avoided by a, uh, more attentive celestial guardian.
So I like the idea that Hell was just another place to "figure it out" because I like the idea that God really never gives up and that given infinite time and infinite patience he/she/it would try to keep getting people to change. Once they've shuffled off the mortal coil and are left with an immortal soul that can still learn and change, what's the hurry? I think constructing a hell is a bit much and potentially counter-productive, but I do like the idea that any redemptive god that exists would never truly give up, although there are disturbing aspects to that too, if you take it far enough. What if they don't want to change and prefer obliteration if they have the choice? Anyway, I liked it for prompting me to think even this much in the last 2 pages so it goes on the "maybe" pile.
Surface Detail is the second to last Culture book and I am sad to be almost done with the series. There was no question of keeping this one, I adore the culture books and this will go on the golden shelf devoted to Ian Banks with all the rest. I went in blind though, and was surprised to discover it was yet another book about hell.
The Culture books have slowly built up a sketched-out mythology of sublimed races and virtual afterlives, playing a little fast and loose with the idea that copied mind states are truly souls that experience a continuous existence between death and the virtual afterlife. The Culture is a radically left and vaguely liberal/libertarian society in the galactic culture at large, and the other races tend to resent the holier-than-thou attitude and relentless do-gooding, especially when the Culture has blood on its hands too. So the ongoing existence of virtual hells, where the deceased, or at least perfect copies of their minds, are quite intentionally tortured forever by computer simulations, presents a source of considerable friction between the culture and like-minded do gooders and races still deeply invested in punishing the "wicked" in the afterlife, even if they have to do it themselves. They agree to resolve the dispute in a virtual war over hell, which mostly concerns the stored minds of the dead, but it all too quickly spills over into the Real as one side begans to fear it is losing.
The story is fun, the characters delightful (especially my perpetual favorites the ships). But it was the stuff about the hells that kept me thinking along the same train of thought as the previous book. Why do that? Why given the chance to create heaven, create hell instead? Leading directly to the obviously conclusion of: why do we insist on creating hell on earth? The greater our technological powers grow the fewer excuses we have, so why? I honestly don't think we have a good answer anymore.
This is the End I have been meaning to watch for years and finally got around to it. As a child of a dark and depressing apocalyptic religion it was right up my alley. It is extremely self-indulgent so I hope you really find Seth Rogen and James Franco charming because it's just them and their friends farting around. That said, it is also pretty funny. It's a pretty light movie despite the darkness of the theme, but there's still a "are we good people?" aspect that necessarily comes up in any sort of christian apocalypse. They eventually figure out that self-sacrifice is the way to a guaranteed blue beam to paradise, which they enact with varying degrees of success. I don't know, I enjoyed it almost in spite of myself.
The part that interested me was how they were all people who had vaguely paid attention to religious upbringing trying to figure out how to deal with all of that turning out to be real with half-remembered lessons from the Exorcist and hazy memories of church. I mean, in that scenario they're basically boned, at least in any Final Judgement worth it's name, but it's kind of fascinating to watch pampered hollywood dudes bring up the idea, even in jest, to even wonder "are we good people? Should we try? Why or why not? Please leave your answer in the form of a 2-hour movie".
I have just recalled, the universe being a heavy-handed pedant, that I watched the second season of "the Good Place" just before reading Inferno. Which is also all about where we go when we die and why. There is so much to say abut the Good Place, but I don't know how to do it without spoiling it. So I'll just mention the part that struck me was the title of one of Chidi's lectures entitled, "what do we owe each other?" as a basis for a multi-part discussion on ethics. "What do we owe each other?" is a very good question.
So that was my weekend on hell. Now all that's left is to figure out: Am I a good person? What does that mean? How would I know? Why would I try that?
I think I am just being reminded that I should crack a book or two about ethics in the near future. Heavy. Handed. Pedant.
*My grandmother's sister, when she died, had a real-estate empire, but also houses and properties just full of hoarded rubbish like stacks of old newspapers, tended by a small pride of housecats. Her kids thought it would take years to sort and sell it all, and as far as I know it is still ongoing. So yeah, I try to be careful with my "I must have and keep that" impulses which are non-trivial compulsions in my life.
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