'The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe' by D.G. Compton

I have not had much luck with my SF Masterworks reading recently. Synners (1991) by Pat Cadigan, The Sea and Summer (1987) by George Turner, Floating Worlds (1976) by Cecelia Holland, and Unquenchable Fire (1988) by Rachel Pollack were all so boring that I gave up on them. Babel-17 (1966) by Samuel R. Delany, A Maze of Death (1970) by Philip K. Dick, The Fountains of Paradise (1979) by Arthur C. Clarke, and Cat's Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut were each entertaining but to varying degrees disappointing. I have read better books by Clarke, Dick, and Vonnegut.

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (1973) by D.G. Compton is the best SF Masterwork I've read in months.

Reality TV is very popular these days. We can, if so inclined, choose to watch real people: competing over performance skills (The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, etc), being affluent housewives (The Real Housewives of Cheshire, etc), working in a kitchen (Jamie's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, etc), working in a tattoo shop (Miami Ink, etc), driving on icy roads (Ice Road Truckers, etc), coping with teenage pregnancy and motherhood (16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, etc), buying and selling antiques (Bargain Hunt, etc), being affluent youngsters (Made in Chelsea, etc), going on dates (First Dates, The Undateables, etc), cleaning houses (How Clean Is Your House?, Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners, etc), being poor (Benefits Britain, Benefits Street, Skint, etc), sharing a house (Big Brother), being in an airport and or on a plane (Airport, Airline, etc), buying and selling houses (Location, Location, Location, etc), being in hospital (24 Hours in A&E, etc), losing weight (The Biggest Loser, etc), or coping with medical problems (Embarrassing Bodies, etc). If that's all too exciting for us, we can instead watch people watching TV (Gogglebox).

From Private Eye 1406

I don't watch much TV; I don't have a TV license; I use DVDs, Netflix, 4OD, and BBC iPlayer if there's something I really want to watch. I had to use Wikipedia's lists of reality TV shows to research the above paragraph.

Back in the 70s, when Compton was writing The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, reality TV was only just appearing with a few experimental shows. These had a powerful effect on the popular imagination of the time, inspiring a range of SF writers, such as Compton.

In Katherine Mortenhoe's world, medical science has cured most illnesses, so most people die of old age or serious injuries (such as car crashes). Terminal illnesses are rare anomalies, and there's money to be made in filming rare anomalies and selling it to the public. Katherine is diagnosed with a terminal illness at the age of 44, giving her only 28 days to live, and must make tough choices about what to do with her remaining days, knowing that her privacy will be destroyed. It's quite a bleak book.

Compton writes well, and - to make a good point about the fake reality of reality TV - switches between third and first person narration: Katherine's story is narrated in the third person, telling us her actions but little of her thoughts; Roddie - 'The Man with the TV Eyes', a reporter with cameras in his eyes - narrates in the first person, giving his thoughts and his interpretation of Katherine's actions. Thus, Katherine's true character, her thoughts and goals, her inner life, are hidden from us: we have to figure it our for ourselves. The reader, like Roddie, like the viewers of reality TV, see only the external reality, missing out on all the inner complexity that makes people who they are. Our eyes may process the same images, but how we interpret them will differ.

'You see, beauty isn't in the eye of the beholder. Neither is compassion, or love, or even common human decency. They're not of the eye, but of the mind behind the eye.'

The story is gripping and well-written. The premise is brilliantly bleak. The main characters are well-rounded and memorable. The anti-TV message is one I can get behind. It is a very good book.

However, the novel's world is rather shallow: there are brief mentions of Privacy Laws (relating to when and where reporters can film), fringies (people who live on benefits on the fringes of society), Computabooks (computer-generated books), and various political protest marches occurring, but it is not explored in depth. We are given no clues as to what country, or how far in the future, the story is set. Beyond the TV Eyes, advanced medical science, and Computabooks, there is little to no mention of technological progress. This all dates the novel: with those few exceptions, our dystopian present looks far more futuristic than Mortenhoe's world. Perhaps the list of reality TV shows above demonstrates that our dystopian present is also more terrifying than Mortenhoe's world...

But this is not a book about a dystopian society, and should not be read as such. It is, and succeeds as, a story about a woman coming to terms with her imminent death, and a man trying to understand her. Recommended.

APOCRYPHA: The Book of Judith

A condensed version of the story of Judith, found in Catholic Bibles and the Protestant Apocrypha.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria was angry: the people of the western countries - Israel, Egypt, etc - had not helped him in his war against King Arphaxad of Persia. To punish them, the king sent General Holofernes & Army to slaughter his way through their lands.

After a few days, news of Holofernes' campaign reached Israel, who promptly began building defenses and preparing for attack. After another few days, Holofernes learned that Israel had prepared for war. He asked one of his advisors - Achior the Ammonite - to give him the low-down about Israel. Achior recounted the history of Israel, explaining their raison d'etre as God's Chosen People and the nature of the God-Israel covenant (they can only be defeated in warfare if they have annoyed Yahweh), and recommended that they not attack Israel because they had no sources to confirm whether the Israelites had recently disobeyed their God and made him angry.

Holofernes thought this was nonsense, so had Achior tied up and dumped in front of the Israelite city of Bethulia, having informed him that he will die with the people of Israel for trying to prevent the attack. Achior was brought to the Elders of Bethulia to explain the situation; the Assyrian army surrounded the city, cutting off its supply lines, waiting for the inhabitants to die or surrender.

Judith, a beautiful God-fearing woman, was not pleased about this situation. One night, she bathed herself thoroughly, combed her hair,  and dressed in her fanciest clothes and jewelry, including tiara, anklets, bracelets, rings and earrings. She left the city and went to meet the Assyrians. She told them that she was fleeing the city because she knew the people had angered God, who was using the Assyrians to punish Israel.

For four days Judith hung around with Holofernes, going for walks in the mountains, eating, praying, saying that she knew a secret way to the city which would mean he could conquer it without losing a single soldier, etc. On the evening of the fourth day, Holofernes decided to hold a banquet, with Judith as guest of honor.

The General was quite lusty that night, and hoped to woo Judith by the end of the night. To increase his confidence in this matter, he drank an awful lot of wine, so much that he passed out on his bed. The other guests left; Judith was alone with the unconscious Holofernes, so she picked up his sword and struck his neck twice, severing head from body. She put the head in her bag, sneaked out of the tent and returned to Bethulia.

"See, here is the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army. The Lord has struck him down with the hand of a woman."

She advised the city to attack the Assyrians at dawn. When the Assyrians learned of the attack, they would go into Holofernes' tent - expecting to find him sleeping with Judith - and discover his decapitated body, which would make them panic and flee.

"But first, bring Achior the Ammonite to me, and let him recognize this man who despised Israel and sent him to us as if to his death."

Achior looked upon the severed head, and saw that God had saved his chosen people, and from them on firmly believed in God: he had himself circumcised so he could join Israel.

The Israelites attacked at dawn; the Assyrians were slaughtered.

A Gnostic Creation Myth

Warning: Convoluted

Before time and space and matter, the True God existed in the realm called Pleroma. From the True God came emanations which produced Aeons, divine beings. Each successive emanation produced weaker beings, and so Sophia, the youngest Aeon, was also the weakest and furthest from the True God. Sophia wanted to know the True God, the Source of All Things, and from this desire came an emanation that produced Chaos. Terrified by the Chaos, Sophia created a being to rule over and monitor it: Ialdabaoth, the Demiurge, the First Archon.

Ialdabaoth is an inferior being created by the least of the Aeons, and so is unable comprehend that he is not the greatest thing in existence, despite Sophia's myriad attempts to explain this. The Demiurge assembled the Chaos into Matter, creating more Archons, the Seven Heavens, and the Earth. Archons argue a lot, and fight over petty things; one such disagreement led to a Heavenly Civil War. After defeating the rebels, Ialdabaoth declared "There is no God but me!"

"You are mistaken!" said Sophia.

"If there is a higher power, it should make itself known to me!"

On cue, light descended from the higher realms, and in the light a human form could be discerned.

Not one to be outdone, Ialdabaoth set about creating his own human, Adam, with the help of his Archons, each Archon being assigned a specific job (Raphao designed his head, Miamai designed his toenails, etc). But the Archons could not breath life into Adam, try as they might. At length, Ialdabaoth stole some of his mother's power and used it to bring Adam to life. But his mother's power was stronger than his, and so the Archons became jealous of Adam, recognizing in him a superior intelligence to their own. They dumped Adam in the shittest material realm they had created - Earth - and made him a partner, Eve, hoping that the humans would be content there, kept out of mischief, not interfering with the Archons' delusions of grandeur.

But Sophia had lost some of herself, and wished to regain it, for without it she could never resume her journey to the True God. Her servant, the Serpent, the wisest of all creatures, convinced Eve to disobey the Archon's orders, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and so her eyes were opened. And she convinced Adam to do the same. The Chief Archon responded by cursing humanity, casting the couple out of Eden, and desperately trying to assert his dominance over their descendants, sending plagues, floods, rulebooks, etc, to convince them that he is the One True God.

Meanwhile, two Aeons - Christ and Holy Spirit - descended to the material world to help rescue the trapped fragments of Sophia, to awaken the dormant divinity within humanity, to make Sophia whole again.