The Sky Conducting Michael Seidlinger 9781937865160 Books
Download As PDF : The Sky Conducting Michael Seidlinger 9781937865160 Books
Fiction. America died while no one was looking. All that remains is the skeleton of a land riddled with demise and what had once been referred to as domestic symmetry those commodities we once called our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors.
"Michael Seidlinger's terrific new novel pruned my skin. Seriously, I was reading it in the bathtub one night and I stayed in the water for a good couple of hours, deeply engrossed. It's that immersive (so to speak). It also marks a confident new direction in his work. THE SKY CONDUCTING is elegant, disturbing, and important. Buy it and read it."—Nick Antosca
The Sky Conducting Michael Seidlinger 9781937865160 Books
Seidlinger’s <i>The Sky Conducting</i> is often categorized as dystopian fiction. This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill post apocalyptic fiction, however. This book is necessarily post apocalyptic so as to explore the nuances of American identity and question our culture on a very primal level of the human psyche.Seidlinger explores American culture first at the level of the nuclear family. His is a raw and brutally honest depiction in many cases. I found myself second-guessing my own value system at this point in the book. But ultimately, no matter what choice we make in life, whatever we value can be chopped off at the knees. I think the most important thing to take away from the early pages of this book is, if you’re not living life according to your own values, and you’re not really questioning your own values and thinking about why you value what you do and who played a part in that, then you’re not really living.
On that note, the characters in this book are dead from page one. That’s not a spoiler, and that’s not a criticism. It is just a figurative observation. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good characters. They’re boiled down to archetypes of the nuclear family, “sister,” “father,” etc. Kind of like Anyone E.E. Cummings’ “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town.” They transcend these archetypes as the story moves forward, with the daughter being one of the strongest characters in the book. They are good characters. They are relatable because they are dead Americans in the same capacity that many of us are dead Americans.
This book really struck a chord with me when the family started excavating American relics under the wing of Johan, a foreigner who wants to collect artifacts from America’s past. Their goal is to find things that we’ll never see again now that America has essentially shit to bed and given up the ghost. One of the first things they find, that they actually want to keep because they know it is a valuable cultural artifact, is Dunkin Donuts paraphernalia.
I couldn’t imagine a more accurate metaphor for American culture, the core of which is materialism and consumption. I started thinking about Benedict Anderson’s <i>Imagined Communities</i>, about how nations are nothing more than fabricated extensions of our desire for connection with others. We’ve grown so diverse and divided as human beings that many of the symbols of collective American identity boil down to shit like apple pie, coffee, etc. We identify ourselves through our consumption in so many ways. When everything is said and done, what does it all mean?
The book definitely offers some possibilities, some escape plans if you will. They’re laced with the cynicism that shaped the philosophy underlying this book to begin with, resulting in a poignant and necessary conclusion.
While the book appears long due to spacing, it reads incredibly fast and is well worth the couple of hours it takes to get through it. The narrative approach is refreshingly distinct, so the book serves as a brief study in form as well. There’s even a great prologue about the structure at the beginning. If you can’t find this book (as I hear it may go out of print for a while) check out some of Seidlinger’s later material. It promises to be of equal or greater merit in all the areas covered above.
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The Sky Conducting Michael Seidlinger 9781937865160 Books Reviews
Michael J. Seidlinger's 3rd novel "The Sky Conducting" is an engrossing and engaging read, pulling the reader in as you devour, and are in turn, devoured. The story follows a family after the events of a post-apocalyptic collapse of society. The beast known as America has died, and all that is left are the remnants of a world being forgotten. Clouds of ash reign in the sky, and all that was is burned, erased, forgotten in time. The nuclear family of four are lost within the ideal home of suburbia, but soon have to face the reality of their situation "America died while no one was looking."
They long for a world that ceases to be.
America is an artifact, living within the characters.
Michael J. Siedlinger has a pulse on contemporary American like no other. He sees the American Dream as nothing more than the weight of Earth on your back, crushing you slowly against the tides of time.
Depressing, bizarre, and unrewarding dystopian story. Surprised by the number of 5-star reviews. Unique writing style and approach, but I did not like the characters, or the story. This genre is not for me.
This book was great. I had a lot more I was going to type about it, but for some reason kept telling me it could not be posted. I think it was because I was being critical of specific capitalist markets in a vague, yet alarming way, probably there were key words that didn't like.
I bought this book on and it was great! It came very quickly! Less than two weeks!
I loved the characters! I loved the voice! I loved the structure!
Seriously, though, buy this book. There is no way you will regret it.
Michael J. Sellindger is keeping the novel alive for the twenty-first century.
It has instructions at the beginning. You know how products these days have instructions? Usually not books. But now a book does.
The apocalypse, the end of a nation, and shopping malls are masterfully explored in this brilliant journey that explores the American dream and the nuclear family. This book will make you reexamine every value and belief you take for granted. It's a quick read, addictively provocative. There's a wonderful cast including an unnamed daughter and father, and a mercenary who is going to help `save' the family. Some of my favorite lines include
"It wasn't surprising to note that everything that died with America was something that could be bought."
"With no society nobody is sleepy. Everybody must stay awake. There is no luxury of sleep and relief. We are all awake, tonight. My friends."
The ending was disturbingly twisted, in other words, the perfect climax. Read it!
Seidlinger’s <i>The Sky Conducting</i> is often categorized as dystopian fiction. This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill post apocalyptic fiction, however. This book is necessarily post apocalyptic so as to explore the nuances of American identity and question our culture on a very primal level of the human psyche.
Seidlinger explores American culture first at the level of the nuclear family. His is a raw and brutally honest depiction in many cases. I found myself second-guessing my own value system at this point in the book. But ultimately, no matter what choice we make in life, whatever we value can be chopped off at the knees. I think the most important thing to take away from the early pages of this book is, if you’re not living life according to your own values, and you’re not really questioning your own values and thinking about why you value what you do and who played a part in that, then you’re not really living.
On that note, the characters in this book are dead from page one. That’s not a spoiler, and that’s not a criticism. It is just a figurative observation. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good characters. They’re boiled down to archetypes of the nuclear family, “sister,” “father,” etc. Kind of like Anyone E.E. Cummings’ “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town.” They transcend these archetypes as the story moves forward, with the daughter being one of the strongest characters in the book. They are good characters. They are relatable because they are dead Americans in the same capacity that many of us are dead Americans.
This book really struck a chord with me when the family started excavating American relics under the wing of Johan, a foreigner who wants to collect artifacts from America’s past. Their goal is to find things that we’ll never see again now that America has essentially shit to bed and given up the ghost. One of the first things they find, that they actually want to keep because they know it is a valuable cultural artifact, is Dunkin Donuts paraphernalia.
I couldn’t imagine a more accurate metaphor for American culture, the core of which is materialism and consumption. I started thinking about Benedict Anderson’s <i>Imagined Communities</i>, about how nations are nothing more than fabricated extensions of our desire for connection with others. We’ve grown so diverse and divided as human beings that many of the symbols of collective American identity boil down to shit like apple pie, coffee, etc. We identify ourselves through our consumption in so many ways. When everything is said and done, what does it all mean?
The book definitely offers some possibilities, some escape plans if you will. They’re laced with the cynicism that shaped the philosophy underlying this book to begin with, resulting in a poignant and necessary conclusion.
While the book appears long due to spacing, it reads incredibly fast and is well worth the couple of hours it takes to get through it. The narrative approach is refreshingly distinct, so the book serves as a brief study in form as well. There’s even a great prologue about the structure at the beginning. If you can’t find this book (as I hear it may go out of print for a while) check out some of Seidlinger’s later material. It promises to be of equal or greater merit in all the areas covered above.
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