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Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai
In this remarkable tetralogy of short novels, Nichols envisions the nature of our communal, yet highly individualized society in which decentralized democracy, ecological sensibility, bioregional principles, and liberatory technologies are integrated into a traditional culture. It is a vision of utopia emerging out of the rich particularity of history and lived experience. First published in five separate volumes in the late 1970s, Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai has never gained the recognition it deserves. It is an extraordinary contribution to both literary and theoretical utopianism and should be recognized both for its radical ideology and for the fecundity of the imagination that informs it at all moments. It is a beguiling and inventive mixture of hallucinogenic prose and poetry that has demonstrates a fiercely independent mind and talent at its pinnacle. This reissue includes the full series, Red Shift (with illustrations from Peter Schumann), Arrival , Gahr City , The Harditts in Sawna , and Exile .
“As those lucky enough to have read Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai know, Robert Nichols is one of our most profoundly original writers, his political passion, and acuteness transfigured by a visionary gleam.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
“As those lucky enough to have read Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai know, Robert Nichols is one of our most profoundly original writers, his political passion, and acuteness transfigured by a visionary gleam.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
487 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2017
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About the author
Robert Nichols
105 books20 followersAmerican author, poet, playwright, and landscape architect. He was married to Grace Paley.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 11, 2020
I was led to this book by Ursula LeGuin --or should I write "books" because the current publication is an assemblage of the five books that Nichols wrote on Nghsi-Altai; however, Red Shift is its own animal, but it does act to introduce the reader to the main characters and their mission in Nghsi Altai.
Some reviewer somewhere wrote that Nghsi-Altai has some relationship to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and as someone who really loves that book I agree; however, the connection is tentative in that Calvino was exploring an idea that began maybe back in The Castle of Crossed Destinies or Marcovaldo, but Nichols' work is an attempt to envision what Ursula LeGuin would call a "warm" society--see her fascinating essay, "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be" for more explanation. In other words, Nichols had more in mind than working out a conundrum in print, which isn't an attempt to denigrate Invisible Cities but merely an explanation of the difference in the writing projects--if you scour the internet, you'll find lots of artistic interpretations of Invisible Cities because the book lends itself to these conceptual projects, but good luck finding the same with Nghsi-Altai!
I'm not going to much more than roughly sketch out the books. Red Shift was by far the most "magical realism-esque" of the five and it's one that I'll probably reread a few times. It's here that the reader is introduced to the main characters--William Blake, Santiago Alvarez, and Jack Kerouac--who will lead an exploratory expedition to the land of Nghsi-Altai. I will add that the stories with the Hudson and the Mohawk rivers as settings were the strangest of the lot.
The second book, Arrival, is comprised of the reports that the main characters send back to their respective committees. I enjoyed the disagreements that the main characters had regarding their various methods for recording and interpreting their contact with the Nghsi-Altains. Nichols shows some awareness of anthropological methods here.
The third book, Gahr City, is the one that is most reminiscent of Invisible Cities and it's also the one where the main characters begin to recede into the background--the city itself and its various quarters and castes take on the role of the main characters. It's also where Kerouac is replaced by William Morris. I will also add that reading Gahr City is like encountering a city for the first time--the pace feels too rapid, the activities of the citizens are strange if not disconcerting, and you feel a general sense of unease mixed with anticipation and excitement. I have to hand it to Nichols for pulling this phenomenological rabbit out of the text(or for managing to put it in there in the first place).
The fourth book, The Harditts of Sawna, concerns the rites and rituals of those who live outside of the city. On the other hand, this is also the more technical of the books in its explanation of Nghsi-Altai's industry and ethos. It's in this book that we begin to follow individual people and are introduced to their families who live in particular castes. The reader also gains a deeper understanding of the technical workings of the society.
The final book, Exile, is part Silmarillion, part epilogue and is, for me, the most poignant of the books. The book opens with a series of free verse poems that seem to comment on the inner workings of Nghsi-Altain culture, but at this point I am unsure. The section that follows is what I meant by "Silmarillion" in that you get the explanation for Nghsi-Altai that you wished that you had all along, but that explanation was saved for the last book because Nichols obviously wanted the reader to share in the experiences of the main characters--the reader never feels like he has gotten a hold of Nghsi-Altai and this sense of general discomfort is what leaves the reader feeling more like a traveler than a viewer of spectacle--if you're the sort who likes to look under the hood of local cultures, then maybe you know what I'm trying to say here. The poignancy of the book concerns the exiling of an entire clan of Nghsi-Altians, not because of any wrong-doing on their part, but because of internal problems within the system.
I suppose that if I had two or three more readings of this book under my belt, I would probably give it five stars. I mean, in terms of imagination and inventiveness it's already five stars, but in terms of my understanding of the material it's four--or 4.5 if Goodreads had such a point system--so the last star is probably not the book's fault.
As I previously mentioned, I came to Nghsi-Altai through an Ursula LeGuin essay, but I came to the LeGuin essay through a talk given by Donna Haraway on the Cthuluscene. If you are a fan of either of these writers, or if the Anthropocine is giving you a case of the "end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it" blues, then you really owe it to yourself to take the plunge. If you're not a fan of these writers, well, the day is still young! If you have no idea what the Anthropocene is beckoning or have not looked lately for the "You Are Here" map of human time, then you'd better get busy.
Some reviewer somewhere wrote that Nghsi-Altai has some relationship to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and as someone who really loves that book I agree; however, the connection is tentative in that Calvino was exploring an idea that began maybe back in The Castle of Crossed Destinies or Marcovaldo, but Nichols' work is an attempt to envision what Ursula LeGuin would call a "warm" society--see her fascinating essay, "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be" for more explanation. In other words, Nichols had more in mind than working out a conundrum in print, which isn't an attempt to denigrate Invisible Cities but merely an explanation of the difference in the writing projects--if you scour the internet, you'll find lots of artistic interpretations of Invisible Cities because the book lends itself to these conceptual projects, but good luck finding the same with Nghsi-Altai!
I'm not going to much more than roughly sketch out the books. Red Shift was by far the most "magical realism-esque" of the five and it's one that I'll probably reread a few times. It's here that the reader is introduced to the main characters--William Blake, Santiago Alvarez, and Jack Kerouac--who will lead an exploratory expedition to the land of Nghsi-Altai. I will add that the stories with the Hudson and the Mohawk rivers as settings were the strangest of the lot.
The second book, Arrival, is comprised of the reports that the main characters send back to their respective committees. I enjoyed the disagreements that the main characters had regarding their various methods for recording and interpreting their contact with the Nghsi-Altains. Nichols shows some awareness of anthropological methods here.
The third book, Gahr City, is the one that is most reminiscent of Invisible Cities and it's also the one where the main characters begin to recede into the background--the city itself and its various quarters and castes take on the role of the main characters. It's also where Kerouac is replaced by William Morris. I will also add that reading Gahr City is like encountering a city for the first time--the pace feels too rapid, the activities of the citizens are strange if not disconcerting, and you feel a general sense of unease mixed with anticipation and excitement. I have to hand it to Nichols for pulling this phenomenological rabbit out of the text(or for managing to put it in there in the first place).
The fourth book, The Harditts of Sawna, concerns the rites and rituals of those who live outside of the city. On the other hand, this is also the more technical of the books in its explanation of Nghsi-Altai's industry and ethos. It's in this book that we begin to follow individual people and are introduced to their families who live in particular castes. The reader also gains a deeper understanding of the technical workings of the society.
The final book, Exile, is part Silmarillion, part epilogue and is, for me, the most poignant of the books. The book opens with a series of free verse poems that seem to comment on the inner workings of Nghsi-Altain culture, but at this point I am unsure. The section that follows is what I meant by "Silmarillion" in that you get the explanation for Nghsi-Altai that you wished that you had all along, but that explanation was saved for the last book because Nichols obviously wanted the reader to share in the experiences of the main characters--the reader never feels like he has gotten a hold of Nghsi-Altai and this sense of general discomfort is what leaves the reader feeling more like a traveler than a viewer of spectacle--if you're the sort who likes to look under the hood of local cultures, then maybe you know what I'm trying to say here. The poignancy of the book concerns the exiling of an entire clan of Nghsi-Altians, not because of any wrong-doing on their part, but because of internal problems within the system.
I suppose that if I had two or three more readings of this book under my belt, I would probably give it five stars. I mean, in terms of imagination and inventiveness it's already five stars, but in terms of my understanding of the material it's four--or 4.5 if Goodreads had such a point system--so the last star is probably not the book's fault.
As I previously mentioned, I came to Nghsi-Altai through an Ursula LeGuin essay, but I came to the LeGuin essay through a talk given by Donna Haraway on the Cthuluscene. If you are a fan of either of these writers, or if the Anthropocine is giving you a case of the "end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it" blues, then you really owe it to yourself to take the plunge. If you're not a fan of these writers, well, the day is still young! If you have no idea what the Anthropocene is beckoning or have not looked lately for the "You Are Here" map of human time, then you'd better get busy.
May 18, 2024
What a strange journey. A long series of songs, poems, festivals, letters, computer programs, wiring diagrams, governmental reports… all manner of anthropological data about an imagined society. I thought it was interesting, but could have used more cohesion at the same time. I sought it out because I had seen that it had influenced Ursula Le Guin. I’m not sure I found it to be so marvelous, particularly in comparison to Le Guin’s work, but it was an interesting diversion nonetheless.
May 16, 2021
I applaud this book's ambitions. I've never read anything quite like it, and it's impressive--had I read it before doing my doctoral dissertation, that could've turned out very differently. But--I have to say--I also frequently found it very, very boring. I know that's not a sophisticated criticism, and of course tastes will vary, but I dunno. Glad I read it; don't think I'd want to reread it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews