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Sunday September 20, 2009

Guilty pleasures

STRAY THOUGHTS WITH A. ASOHAN


Sometimes, giving in can be therapeutic, cathartic, nostalgic or just plain old fun.

IT started a few months ago, when I was clearing up and re-arranging my book collection, a Sisyphean task that is going on even as I write this.

I stumbled upon some dusty and decrepit paperbacks snuggled in one corner. I had stashed them away because there was just no space in my overloaded bookshelves.

Oh, let’s be honest here: I had probably subconsciously hidden them because they didn’t quite fit in with the rest of my collection. They were a collection of pulp fiction books in genres that are already pariahs with the mainstream literati: science fiction, fantasy and sword-and-sorcery.

They were the books of, if not exactly my childhood, at least my younger self. I cracked one open and haven’t looked back since.

They became my guilty pleasures of the last few months of bibliophilic fun. Sure, Gene Wolfe may challenge your intellect, Ursula K. LeGuin may move your soul, Philip K. Dick may blow your mind and Umberto Eco may make you feel stupid, but there’s nothing like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ tales of John Carter’s adventures in Barsoom (and visions of Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars!) for pure escapism.

The next thing I knew, I had picked out books from A.E. Van Vogt, Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore and others and placed them in the “to be read next” bookshelf downstairs.

They were not all dusty old paperbacks – thanks to the Fantasy Masterworks series, some were relatively new. I had had older versions for years, but many had ended up in the “lent to friends” limbo. I had bought the new versions, only to indulge the collector in me, never expecting to read them again.

I’m glad I was wrong. Reading a foreword by an English lecturer in the Wesleyan University reprint of A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool, and then the actual work itself, I began to appreciate anew the evocative purple prose of these pulp classics.

While Moore and Merritt painted lush vistas before your mind’s eye, Burroughs was good at keeping you on the edge of the seat. You learn to discount the innate racism of their era when you read Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories and just enjoy the heart-stopping action, lavish exoticism and understated erotica.

And you may also discover that some of them were pretty good writers, and also that pretty good writers by any measure of the phrase, from Fritz Leiber to Ray Bradbury, saw nothing wrong in doing the pulp thing.

It was all sufficient for me to ensure another quarter in the black for Jeff Bezos’ baby as I went and ordered more goodies from Amazon.com, including the first three of a five-volume set of the complete fantasy works of Clark Ashton Smith.

Guilty pleasures do not need to be restricted to literature. Sure, Radiohead may produce some of the most multi-layered and evocative music, but once in a while I see nothing wrong in regressing to the pure-energy rock ‘n’ roll of the Ramones.

Heck, you might even slum it with the Romantics, although I myself have not gone so far ... the big hair and tight leatherpants I remember from their videos still produce too much of a visceral reaction in me.

Not all punk rock needs to be socially relevant, so I can move from Rage Against the Machine and The Clash to a bit of Green Day, even if purists may argue that the last are mere punk poseurs.

When it comes to movies or TV, there’s nothing wrong in, after watching a few episodes of the Sci Fi Channel’s award-winning Battlestar Galactica, you go back to chuckle lovingly at the campy Glen Larson 1978 original. Move from The Dark Knight to The Transformers. The former is one of the greatest movies ever brought to the silver screen; the latter ... well, it has Megan Fox.

And food! One of the great things about being a grown-up is that, no longer living under the benevolent tyranny of caring parents, you can have a pint of ice-cream for dinner – er, when the kids are not around, of course.

Indulging in culinary guilty pleasures comes with a caveat however: Be cautious on the health front and make sure you’re willing to work it off!

It’s always hard to keep a straight face when I tell my daughters that they shouldn’t be in a hurry to grow up and that their childhood is the best of time of their lives. They have no bills to pay, no soul-crushing problems to worry about, yadda, yadda.

When they finally fall asleep, soothed into somnolence by a parental lecture, I sneak into the kitchen, spread some condensed milk on a slice of bread, top it up with some sliced cheese and enjoy a dinner I would never let them have. Hey, it’s because I care about them!

Guilty pleasures should not be equated with vice, even though they are both very subjective. While some may argue that certain vices may be harmful – and this, too, is subjective – guilty pleasures are mostly harmless, as the late Douglas Adams would say.

And guilty though they may be, you have nothing to be ashamed of when indulging in such pleasures.

■ A. Asohan, Digital News Editor at The Star, is thinking of going pulp in his next role-playing game campaign.

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