This was a Golden Age, a time of height adventure, rich living, and hard dying…but nobody thought so.”

So opens Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (or “Tiger, Tiger” if you read it in the mid-50s when it originally hit the shelves) which I just finished reading for the first time (or the only time, if you hold to Neil Gaiman’s philosophy that you can’t read the same book twice).

It’s almost a book that seems like it should be read backwards. As I followed Gully Foyle (the god-animal) in his path from revenge to redemption I wondered if my understanding of the story would change if I read it from right to left–page 258 to page 1.

Can a story told backward retain it’s meaning? All the elements are there; a man, his spaceship, his betrayal by society, his revenge, his redemption. Mankind is still a hopeless wreck, society a victim of the innate vices of human nature. But in the book, as mankind digresses, the individual progresses. Would the impact be the same if the reverse were true? A seesaw, constantly maintaining the balance of wicked individuals being balanced out by the attentiveness of the hopeful masses. Does this say anything about human nature? About the the weight of goodness and wickedness within us? About the pure volume of goodness it takes to outweigh a grain of grain of depravity? In the story as Gully evolves his savage tiger mask tattoo gradually fades into obscurity beneath his skin, but can a man really learn to control his impulses on his own? These are the kinds of questions that this wonderful book raises in my mind.

Just a thought or two. I could be wrong.

(Note: I have it in my mind to redesign the cover of every book I read this year. This may or may not happen, but stay tuned.)