Some books I read:
1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie: This is a YA novel by one of my favorite authors about a nerdy Native kid leaving the reservation and going to a white kids' school in town. And it's kind of hilarious because the big fancy white kid school has like 200 students. That gave me some great flashbacks of high school. But it was very cute and sweet and enlightening. It's kind of a Young Adult, Native version of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Highly recommended.
2. The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis: I first read this when I was 15 or 16 and would stay summers with my aunt in Westchester, NY. My late uncle had worked for Scholastic (he invented the book fair; how bitchin' is that?) and my aunt still has a bunch of stock and gets crazy discounts. I think I read more real, good, modern literature on those trips than I ever have. It's a bit older, having been originally published in 1941, though you'd never know it. It's a really timeless book; it could've been written five years ago or two hundred years ago, a skill I envy. Martin Guerre is based on a true story of the life of Bertrande du Rols and her marriage to Guerre in the backdrop of 16th century France, during the rise of the Protestant Reformation. They are married off to each other in their early teens and, after the birth of their first child, Martin runs away from home for making an agricultural accounting error. He promises Bertrande he will come home in a few days or weeks. Instead he is gone for almost ten years before returning, Odysseus. Gradually Bertrande begins to suspect, in the coming years, that he is not her husband at all, but a stranger assuming Martin's identity. This book explores why it took Bertrande so long to come forward with her accusation (another child is born to her before she puts Martin on trial) and what, after so long, convinced her almost beyond doubt that he wasn't Martin. Even though she was also convinced that having slept side by side with a stranger for so long and never having come forward was a death sentence for him and a sentence to Hell for her.
3. The newest Sookie Stackhouse book, by Charlaine Harris: I do not remember this book's name, or what it is about. But I do remember that SPOILERS Sookie gets together with Eric, finally. So basically this book reminded me that Sookie has terrible taste in men. I liked Alcide the best. Also on the show True Blood he is handsome and looks like he is a musician in a band I would listen to. He would play the banjo, like the Avett Brothers. Why do I read this series?
4. 1491 by Charles C. Mann: A book about pre-Columbian Amerindian civilizations. A fairly peppy read, despite the kind of scary subject matter. It's in no way comprehensive, mostly concentrating on the big 3 of Meso and South American Indians: The Inca, the Mayans and the Aztecs (and even explaining why those names we learned for them growing up are all wrong.) But it contained some startling revelations, like the fact that when Pizarro and his men found Cuzco, they were most likely looking at the largest city they had ever seen, or that any European had seen. In the notes at the end of the book, Mann notes that it broke his heart to have to cut out a chapter on the American West, but he recommended a book called One Vast Winter Count, which I bought and am slowly chipping away it. It's...comprehensive.
5. Klondike: Phil Jourdan wrote this. It's funny. It's a noir detective story. It took me two sittings to read. It has a man named Hugo Slavia who is a surgeon and quotes philosophy. And a detective named Abe Klondike who is always suspecting that things are starting to become uncool.
In other news, I'm going back to Chicago again in about 10 days with the baby and his mother. I will probably spend too much money on books again, after I just recovered from all the damn crap I bought there in May.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Chicago books pt. 2
Some more books I read whilst on vacation:
1. Autobiography of a Fat Bride by Laurie Notaro. This was my friend Kristen's book. She and I had a long talk about why I read such "serious" books (though I don't really think I do, but perhaps I don't have the proper perspective); we came to the conclusion that it's because, unlike her (who is in grad school, and tutors for a living), I get most of my intellectual stimulation through my choice of reading material, rather than from school or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I like my life and I'm not saying it's completely devoid of wit, but I'm not eating lunch at an Algonquin Round Table every day, you know?
That being said, this book was more on the frippery side than what I usually read. It was a set of stories/vignettes about Notaro's life, mostly about the single scene and getting married. Amusing enough; she definitely has an ear for funny crap, but the mechanics of her writing are really poor. She suffers from the inability to use the word "said," and instead feels the need to make everyone's words action-oriented: cried, moaned, shouted. (See also: Meyer, Stephanie.) Good vacation reading, but I probably won't pick anything else up by this author.
2. A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons: I will tell you a secret. I have started this book two times and haven't ever made it more than about 1/3 of the way through. It's a subject I WANT to like, but it's obvious that the author has spent most of his adult life wading through legalese. Irons himself is pretty cool: in the intro he says that he spent 3 years in federal prison for draft-dodging, whereupon he began a correspondence with my personal Jesus, Howard Zinn. After he was released, he went to law school, helped defend Ellsburg, and became a law professor.
But this book is dry, dry like bread left in the toaster overnight. I often find early American history to be such a riotous subject. Bitches was crazy back then! But this book makes even things like the XYZ Affair and Zenger's sedition trial into tedious subjects. The whole point of the book is that it's supposed to be accessible to anyone, even if they don't have a law background, but unfortunately it only succeeds about half the time. Eventually I WILL finish this, mostly because I borrowed it from Elise and I need to give it back someday.
3. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky. Continuing in a similar vein, this is a book about a Rolling Stone reporter who accompanied David Foster Wallace for one leg of his Infinite Jest tour. The feature article never happened, apparently; RS axed it at the last minute, which Lipsky said in his introduction was a relief to Wallace. And I don't doubt it, after reading this book. It shows us what we all knew all along about the man: that he was intelligent, to the point where it was pretty much crippling. He was a relentless deconstructionist, worrying constantly about the way he was going to come across (not only to RS and its audience, but Lipsky himself), wondering if his thoughts were valid, constantly trying to reassure himself that Lipsky understood where he, Wallace, was coming from. The entire book was just a straight-up transcription of Lipsky's tapes, with pretty much no added commentary save the introduction and a few off the cuff remarks about things like Wallace's facial expression as he says something. I found myself gritting my teeth with jealousy whenever it was indicated that either man had turned the tape off, which happened pretty frequently, especially as they bonded and came towards the end of the tour. Whenever Wallace needed to parse through a thought, or tell Lipsky something too personal, he would shut the tape off, and I would find myself bending the corners of the book, thinking, "What?!? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS."
It was great. I love it. I want to carry this book around in a Bjorn. Amanda, take note.
Okay, I think that's it. I haven't been reading nearly enough since I got home, mostly because I got Netflix back. But I will update and blah blah.
1. Autobiography of a Fat Bride by Laurie Notaro. This was my friend Kristen's book. She and I had a long talk about why I read such "serious" books (though I don't really think I do, but perhaps I don't have the proper perspective); we came to the conclusion that it's because, unlike her (who is in grad school, and tutors for a living), I get most of my intellectual stimulation through my choice of reading material, rather than from school or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I like my life and I'm not saying it's completely devoid of wit, but I'm not eating lunch at an Algonquin Round Table every day, you know?
That being said, this book was more on the frippery side than what I usually read. It was a set of stories/vignettes about Notaro's life, mostly about the single scene and getting married. Amusing enough; she definitely has an ear for funny crap, but the mechanics of her writing are really poor. She suffers from the inability to use the word "said," and instead feels the need to make everyone's words action-oriented: cried, moaned, shouted. (See also: Meyer, Stephanie.) Good vacation reading, but I probably won't pick anything else up by this author.
2. A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons: I will tell you a secret. I have started this book two times and haven't ever made it more than about 1/3 of the way through. It's a subject I WANT to like, but it's obvious that the author has spent most of his adult life wading through legalese. Irons himself is pretty cool: in the intro he says that he spent 3 years in federal prison for draft-dodging, whereupon he began a correspondence with my personal Jesus, Howard Zinn. After he was released, he went to law school, helped defend Ellsburg, and became a law professor.
But this book is dry, dry like bread left in the toaster overnight. I often find early American history to be such a riotous subject. Bitches was crazy back then! But this book makes even things like the XYZ Affair and Zenger's sedition trial into tedious subjects. The whole point of the book is that it's supposed to be accessible to anyone, even if they don't have a law background, but unfortunately it only succeeds about half the time. Eventually I WILL finish this, mostly because I borrowed it from Elise and I need to give it back someday.
3. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky. Continuing in a similar vein, this is a book about a Rolling Stone reporter who accompanied David Foster Wallace for one leg of his Infinite Jest tour. The feature article never happened, apparently; RS axed it at the last minute, which Lipsky said in his introduction was a relief to Wallace. And I don't doubt it, after reading this book. It shows us what we all knew all along about the man: that he was intelligent, to the point where it was pretty much crippling. He was a relentless deconstructionist, worrying constantly about the way he was going to come across (not only to RS and its audience, but Lipsky himself), wondering if his thoughts were valid, constantly trying to reassure himself that Lipsky understood where he, Wallace, was coming from. The entire book was just a straight-up transcription of Lipsky's tapes, with pretty much no added commentary save the introduction and a few off the cuff remarks about things like Wallace's facial expression as he says something. I found myself gritting my teeth with jealousy whenever it was indicated that either man had turned the tape off, which happened pretty frequently, especially as they bonded and came towards the end of the tour. Whenever Wallace needed to parse through a thought, or tell Lipsky something too personal, he would shut the tape off, and I would find myself bending the corners of the book, thinking, "What?!? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS."
It was great. I love it. I want to carry this book around in a Bjorn. Amanda, take note.
Okay, I think that's it. I haven't been reading nearly enough since I got home, mostly because I got Netflix back. But I will update and blah blah.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Recent reads
I was on vacation in Chicago all last week, and read about a book a day. Here are the things I read on the plane, in town, and since I've been back:
1. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: I often hear this cited as peoples' favorite Vonnegut, and I can see why. This book came into my possession as partial recompense for babysittery. It had a much shorter timeline than many of his other books (maybe 3 days?) and happened in mostly chronological order. And I think the climax of the book was amazing SPOILERS SPOILER ALERT when Hoover reads Trout's book and confirms what we all secretly think: that God put everyone else, every machine, every star in the heavens, there for our own benefit, so that he could watch our reactions and be amused.
I also like the meta-narrator in this one, especially with Vonnegut's descriptions of his fears of turning out like his mother (who he described as having "declined to go on living" in one of his forwards.)
Not my favorite of his (that would be either Hocus Pocus or Deadeye Dick) but I definitely understand the reputation it has earned.
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: I think I first read this in early high school, maybe 9th grade or so. It's long been a favorite of mine, back before I just read and liked stuff without really understanding why I liked it (which I kind of miss). And the problem of that being, now that I've washed a lot of my life away with reading, analyzing, classrooms, etc., I start to see some of the flaws in my favorite works: for example, holy crap is Catch-22 adverb-heavy. Seriously, like, every single line of dialogue is appended with sneeringly, magnificently, haughtily. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it must be a conscious style choice, because a) it's so flipping obvious, and repetitive and b) despite said repetition, I can't ever remember him using the same adverb twice. Which, considering the book is like, 400+ pages, is pretty impressive in and of himself.
Generally this book has stood up, however, and it has re-acquainted me with how much I love the chaplain. I yearn for him tragically.
3. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Graeme-Smith: Okay, so this was written by the same guy who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was a pretty hysterical book in a novelty sort of way. Obviously it would take great imagination to write something like that, but very little new writing actually took place, and I'm not sure if it's the kind of thing people will still be reading in 10 years.
Not so Abraham Lincoln. Imagine a world where vampires exist, in the Byronic mode: mysterious, dangerous, almost unknowable. Most of them are greedy, gratuitious monsters who are breeding slaves for food, but a few of them loathe their own kind, and are looking for the right human being to help them hold back the tide of human abuse.
Enter young Lincoln, whose mother slowly wastes away and eventually dies of "milk poisoning," thought to be caused by drinking bad milk. Of course, she actually was slowly poisoned after Lincoln's wastrel father entered into a Faustian pact with a local vampire and couldn't pay up. Thereafter, Lincoln dedicates his life to tracking and killing vampires. It's his motivation for everything he does: going into politics, running for president...he is even assassinated by a vampire.
This book is AWESOME. I read it basically all in one sitting, and realized afterwards that that was a huge mistake. It's the kind of book that deserves to be stretched out, to have time taken on it. It's wildly imaginative, weirdly factually correct, and surprisingly touching.
3. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace: This trip allowed me to rekindle my love affair with Wallace. I bought both this book and a biography/travelogue on him (more on that later), and plus finding a kindred spirit in Jack Joslin, who also wanted me to mention that he is good-looking and single. Not to mention an article in Paste Magazine where a superfan compiled an exhaustive audio archive (found here: http://www.sonn-d-robots.com/dfw/ ), it's been a pretty PoMo week for me.
And this book is deliciously fantastic: It contains my favorite essay ever, "E Unibus Pluram" http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf ", a treatise on how irony, especially in television, is crippling American communication and the sincerity within. It completely changed the way I viewed interpersonal communication, especially among the young, especially on the internet (which, given that this was written in I think '97, makes the latter application eerily prescient).
Quote: "And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.""
The titular essay, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," refers to Harper's magazine sending Wallace out on assignment on a seven-day cruise on a luxury liner. In this, out of all the essays, I think you really get a sense of the man's demons: that he was so relentlessly analyzing, thinking, overthinking, and searching for hidden metaphor and meaning that he essentially didn't know how to shut it off and just see a cruise as a cruise, the way that everyone else on the ship did, instead of some sort of hulking symbol of cheating death. He speaks at length of the innate despair that the experience brings him, in everything from being surrounded by the ocean to the brochure for the cruise itself:
"An ad that pretends to be art is — at absolute best — like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair."
Jack also said that this particular essay is probably the funniest thing he's ever read, and I don't disagree with that, either. It's a lot of things, simply.
Okay more later!
1. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: I often hear this cited as peoples' favorite Vonnegut, and I can see why. This book came into my possession as partial recompense for babysittery. It had a much shorter timeline than many of his other books (maybe 3 days?) and happened in mostly chronological order. And I think the climax of the book was amazing SPOILERS SPOILER ALERT when Hoover reads Trout's book and confirms what we all secretly think: that God put everyone else, every machine, every star in the heavens, there for our own benefit, so that he could watch our reactions and be amused.
I also like the meta-narrator in this one, especially with Vonnegut's descriptions of his fears of turning out like his mother (who he described as having "declined to go on living" in one of his forwards.)
Not my favorite of his (that would be either Hocus Pocus or Deadeye Dick) but I definitely understand the reputation it has earned.
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: I think I first read this in early high school, maybe 9th grade or so. It's long been a favorite of mine, back before I just read and liked stuff without really understanding why I liked it (which I kind of miss). And the problem of that being, now that I've washed a lot of my life away with reading, analyzing, classrooms, etc., I start to see some of the flaws in my favorite works: for example, holy crap is Catch-22 adverb-heavy. Seriously, like, every single line of dialogue is appended with sneeringly, magnificently, haughtily. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it must be a conscious style choice, because a) it's so flipping obvious, and repetitive and b) despite said repetition, I can't ever remember him using the same adverb twice. Which, considering the book is like, 400+ pages, is pretty impressive in and of himself.
Generally this book has stood up, however, and it has re-acquainted me with how much I love the chaplain. I yearn for him tragically.
3. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Graeme-Smith: Okay, so this was written by the same guy who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was a pretty hysterical book in a novelty sort of way. Obviously it would take great imagination to write something like that, but very little new writing actually took place, and I'm not sure if it's the kind of thing people will still be reading in 10 years.
Not so Abraham Lincoln. Imagine a world where vampires exist, in the Byronic mode: mysterious, dangerous, almost unknowable. Most of them are greedy, gratuitious monsters who are breeding slaves for food, but a few of them loathe their own kind, and are looking for the right human being to help them hold back the tide of human abuse.
Enter young Lincoln, whose mother slowly wastes away and eventually dies of "milk poisoning," thought to be caused by drinking bad milk. Of course, she actually was slowly poisoned after Lincoln's wastrel father entered into a Faustian pact with a local vampire and couldn't pay up. Thereafter, Lincoln dedicates his life to tracking and killing vampires. It's his motivation for everything he does: going into politics, running for president...he is even assassinated by a vampire.
This book is AWESOME. I read it basically all in one sitting, and realized afterwards that that was a huge mistake. It's the kind of book that deserves to be stretched out, to have time taken on it. It's wildly imaginative, weirdly factually correct, and surprisingly touching.
3. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace: This trip allowed me to rekindle my love affair with Wallace. I bought both this book and a biography/travelogue on him (more on that later), and plus finding a kindred spirit in Jack Joslin, who also wanted me to mention that he is good-looking and single. Not to mention an article in Paste Magazine where a superfan compiled an exhaustive audio archive (found here: http://www.sonn-d-robots.com/dfw/ ), it's been a pretty PoMo week for me.
And this book is deliciously fantastic: It contains my favorite essay ever, "E Unibus Pluram" http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf ", a treatise on how irony, especially in television, is crippling American communication and the sincerity within. It completely changed the way I viewed interpersonal communication, especially among the young, especially on the internet (which, given that this was written in I think '97, makes the latter application eerily prescient).
Quote: "And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.""
The titular essay, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," refers to Harper's magazine sending Wallace out on assignment on a seven-day cruise on a luxury liner. In this, out of all the essays, I think you really get a sense of the man's demons: that he was so relentlessly analyzing, thinking, overthinking, and searching for hidden metaphor and meaning that he essentially didn't know how to shut it off and just see a cruise as a cruise, the way that everyone else on the ship did, instead of some sort of hulking symbol of cheating death. He speaks at length of the innate despair that the experience brings him, in everything from being surrounded by the ocean to the brochure for the cruise itself:
"An ad that pretends to be art is — at absolute best — like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair."
Jack also said that this particular essay is probably the funniest thing he's ever read, and I don't disagree with that, either. It's a lot of things, simply.
Okay more later!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Stuff I'll never get to do, and it makes me sad:
1. Be Cajun
2. Tame a cougar
3. Get lost in deepest darkest Africa and then found, a la Dr. Livingstone
4. Meet Professor Van Helsing
5. Attend Hogwarts
2. Tame a cougar
3. Get lost in deepest darkest Africa and then found, a la Dr. Livingstone
4. Meet Professor Van Helsing
5. Attend Hogwarts
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Hollywood blockbusters and the death of plot
I called my brother the other day to discuss the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We had meant to see it together over Christmas, but were thwarted by the Great Christmas Blizzard of '09. He went with his S.O. Misha, and I saw half of it in theaters (fire alarm) and watched the other half online.
"Overall I liked it," I said. "Robert Downey Jr. was well-casted, and my worst fear wasn't realized: they didn't turn Watson into a bumbling comic relief. And I liked the attention to detail, like him shooting the VR into the wall, and the thing about poisoning the dog."
My brother said, "Yeah, all that was pretty good. But I feel like the plot...like, the whole thing with Moriarty?"
I agreed that the Moriarty thing was completely unnecessary, and my brother said something almost revelatory: "I feel like the plot of this movie was completey tacked on. Can...can a plot be tacked on?"
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. The movie was well-cast, well-acted, beautifully costumed, and authentically shot (and I do so love gross, gritty, smoggy Victorian movies. Done right, they're just breathtaking.) But the plot. The PLOT. Why is it that, 10 minutes after closing the laptop after the movie was over, I couldn't remember a single thing about it? Other than the fact that it existed? I couldn't remember why Irene Adler was around, why she was in league with Moriarty, what Blackwood had done that was so terrible (human sacrifice? Or something?) and most of all, why I should care about any of this.
I realized, more and more, this seems to be a common theme with blockbuster movies. Take "Pirates of the Caribbean." I've seen the first one maybe four to six times, and I could really only give you a basic outline of the plot. The third movie, I couldn't even begin to recount. I remember it being convoluted for no good reason, or what I realize NOW was probably no good reason. But we're all aware what a bad-ass Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow is, and how much fun those movies are otherwise.
Or The Dark Knight. Christian Bale is the best Batman ever, full stop. Aaron Eckhardt is equally perfect as Harvey Dent, and as someone who takes the character of Batman as seriously as any other literary figure, I do adore these movies. I've seen the Dark Knight at least four times, and as recently as two months ago.
Things I remember about the plot include:
-Boats with the potential to explode
-the Joker is there
-Asians laundering money?
-Lucuis Fox faces an ethical quandry
Up until recently, I really thought it was me, that these movies weren't sticking in my head because my memory isn't as crackerjack as I like to believe it is, or that I get distracted by all the whizz-bang. But that's silly. I have a pretty good mind for character and plot in books, so what was the difference in movies?
I think the real answer is, these movies spend $100 million to make me forget that ultimately, they lack substance. Now I know this will come as a SHOCK to you: Blockbusters are typically meant to be all pop and little substance, no? But I've come to realize most of these movies are written in such an absurdedly convoluted way so that you're almost distracted by the fact that they make no sense.
Maybe this is why I've always gravitated towards character dramas. Things move along at human speeds, in realisitc ways, with minimal amounts of distractions and flash. People learn stuff, and grow as human beings.
I mean, of COURSE I want a movie with Batman in it to have explosions. I just also would like it to make sense, somewhere along the line.
"Overall I liked it," I said. "Robert Downey Jr. was well-casted, and my worst fear wasn't realized: they didn't turn Watson into a bumbling comic relief. And I liked the attention to detail, like him shooting the VR into the wall, and the thing about poisoning the dog."
My brother said, "Yeah, all that was pretty good. But I feel like the plot...like, the whole thing with Moriarty?"
I agreed that the Moriarty thing was completely unnecessary, and my brother said something almost revelatory: "I feel like the plot of this movie was completey tacked on. Can...can a plot be tacked on?"
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. The movie was well-cast, well-acted, beautifully costumed, and authentically shot (and I do so love gross, gritty, smoggy Victorian movies. Done right, they're just breathtaking.) But the plot. The PLOT. Why is it that, 10 minutes after closing the laptop after the movie was over, I couldn't remember a single thing about it? Other than the fact that it existed? I couldn't remember why Irene Adler was around, why she was in league with Moriarty, what Blackwood had done that was so terrible (human sacrifice? Or something?) and most of all, why I should care about any of this.
I realized, more and more, this seems to be a common theme with blockbuster movies. Take "Pirates of the Caribbean." I've seen the first one maybe four to six times, and I could really only give you a basic outline of the plot. The third movie, I couldn't even begin to recount. I remember it being convoluted for no good reason, or what I realize NOW was probably no good reason. But we're all aware what a bad-ass Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow is, and how much fun those movies are otherwise.
Or The Dark Knight. Christian Bale is the best Batman ever, full stop. Aaron Eckhardt is equally perfect as Harvey Dent, and as someone who takes the character of Batman as seriously as any other literary figure, I do adore these movies. I've seen the Dark Knight at least four times, and as recently as two months ago.
Things I remember about the plot include:
-Boats with the potential to explode
-the Joker is there
-Asians laundering money?
-Lucuis Fox faces an ethical quandry
Up until recently, I really thought it was me, that these movies weren't sticking in my head because my memory isn't as crackerjack as I like to believe it is, or that I get distracted by all the whizz-bang. But that's silly. I have a pretty good mind for character and plot in books, so what was the difference in movies?
I think the real answer is, these movies spend $100 million to make me forget that ultimately, they lack substance. Now I know this will come as a SHOCK to you: Blockbusters are typically meant to be all pop and little substance, no? But I've come to realize most of these movies are written in such an absurdedly convoluted way so that you're almost distracted by the fact that they make no sense.
Maybe this is why I've always gravitated towards character dramas. Things move along at human speeds, in realisitc ways, with minimal amounts of distractions and flash. People learn stuff, and grow as human beings.
I mean, of COURSE I want a movie with Batman in it to have explosions. I just also would like it to make sense, somewhere along the line.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The next 25
I've been wondering why these books start back at 1923. Is that when TIME itself started? Because there is really no other logical explanation. According to wikipedia, here are some important events that took place that year:
Jan 10th: Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel
Jan 17th: Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro (see Fig 1.o)
March: Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar
March: TIME magazine hits newsstands for the first time (AH-HA!)
And my personal favorite, July 10th: Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union.
So as we can see, 1923 was obviously a watershed year, what with its old-timey flying machines and such.
Anyway. To continue.
26. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell
27. Death Comes to the Archbishop--Willa Cather. Man, Cather's so cool. 1) Nebraskan 2) Transvestite 3) named "Willa", and I'm always a fan of solid "W" names, like my adopted grandma Wanda. She was OG. Rest in peace, you awesome old lady.
28. A Death in the Family--James Agee. Previously mentioned in my "books that I haven't read yet" entry. Oh Agee, why must you come back and haunt me!? And how some sometimes I get you confused with Edward Albee, whom I consider self-indulgent and whiny!?!?
29. The Death of the Heart--Elizabeth Bowen
30. Deliverance--James Dickey. Whoa, is this what I think it is?? If so, I might have a hard time taking it seriously. Kind of like how First Blood is apparently a sober, introspective novel about Vietnam-era PTSD but when you think about it, all you can picture is Sylvester Stallone in a red bandana. Likewise, when I hear the name of this book, all I can think of is, "You sure do got a purdy mouth."
31. Dog Soldiers--Robert Stone
32. Falconer--John Cheever
33. The French Lieutenant's Woman--John Folwes. Man, I haven't read any of these. Shame on me.
34. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. Okay, awesome. I am actually reading this right now. It's sitting next to me on the couch as I speak, along with an Etch-a-sketch and Cookie Monster (who is wearing a pumpkin costume). So far I really like it, although I'm only on page 15, which is being marked by a Team Jacob bookmark. One of the things I like best about it is Lessing's extensive conversation with herself in the intro about what she was trying to "do" with this work--how she wanted to write something that she felt really embodied the mid-20th century, and what she felt she could bring to the table to contribute to people's understanding about the way life is right now (that is, in the early 60's, when she was writing it.) She compares her goals to those of Thomas Hardy's work in contribution to the poor during the Victorian era. This is definitely something I can get behind. So the main character, Anna, is an unmarried feminist who is also a communist. All I've really read so far is Anna and her best friend Molly sitting around in an apartment eating strawberries and waiting for a dude named Richard to drop by, and everything is very British and now I want strawberries. But I have high expectations!
35. Gone With the Wind--Margaret Mitchell. Man, I really do want to read this! I checked it out from the library once and it was eleventy million pages, though. And I was like 13. But I do like authors who are famous recluses (except Pynchon--fuck you, dude) and I like the South and I wish I could say "fiddle-dee-dee" but that's the kind of phrase that's hard to work into your everyday lexicon without sounding like a retard.
36. The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck. Look, I recognize that this is actually a seminal work in Amerian Lit, possibly the great American novel, and it's skillfully done. But I still hate it. It's still depressing and quite frankly, boring. Let me tell you a little story about this book. This was the last book we had to read in senior year American Lit. And I was the only person who'd read it before that, including the teacher (it was her first year at our school). So she had to read a chapter or two every night ahead of where we were, and was relying on the old teacher's lesson plan on the book in order to teach it to us. Last week of school, I drag in first period, having stayed up all night to attend a Bright Eyes concert (ahhh, 2003, how I loved you) and she's finishing reading the book right then and there. She looks at me and says, "I now understand why you hate this book." So at least I wasn't alone.
37. Gravity's Rainbow--Thomas Pynchon. Dude. I'm still mad at you about Crying of Lot 49. You're not pulling this one over on me! You're not Cormac McCarthy! Gtfo.
38. The Great Gatsby--F. Scott Fitzgerald. Garrick once had an amazingly well-thought-out rant about why he hated this book. I wish I could remember at least some of it. Then again, Garrick also once wrote me a several thousand word long email about the similarities between Will Turner and Luke Skywalker, so take that as you will. I love this book, but now as I'm sitting here trying to think about it, I don't really know why. It's...stylish? I guess? I like the character of Gatsby, how I imagine he seems like the kind of guy that sweats too much when he's nervous. And Fitzgerald is my ultimate example of how I don't think you can really fully appreciate a good work of literature unless you have at least a passing familiarity with the life of the author. Rich girls don't marry poor boys, Scott!
39. A Handful of Dust--Evelyn Waugh. I don't know anything about the life of Waugh! I'm a hypocrite. Also, Jack said one of his professors was writing a book about Waugh, and he (Jack) suggested the title "WAUGH--What is He Good For?" That made me snort just typing it out.
40. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter--Carson McCullers. I read this in junior high and don't remember much about it. It didn't dazzle me, but it gets such high praise in the annals of American Lit, maybe it deserves another chance. I remember it having this Peyton Place-ish vibe: a small town full of colorful characters and dark secrets. Man. I DO love PP. I wonder if it'll be on this list!!
41. The Heart of the Matter--Graham Greene. I once bought about half of Greene's books at a college library sale but I only ever got around to reading like, two of them. I have this book stored in my parents' house somewhere. Also I love Greene because of Donnie Darko: "Do you even know who Graham Greene is?" "PLEASE. I think we've all seen 'Bonanza.'"
42. Herzog--Saul Bellow.
43. Housekeeping--Marilynne Robinson
44. A House for Mr. Biswas--V. S. Naipul
45. I, Cladius--Robert Graves
46. Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace. THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME. THIS BOOK SAVED MY LIFE. LOOK HOW LOUD I HAVE TO YELL, THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE IJ. What could I say about this book that would communicate my undying fealty toward it, its genius, and its complex, vibrating understanding of who I am as a human being? When David Foster Wallace hung himself last year I stayed in my room all day and cried and listened to Elliott Smith, which is basically the same thing I did when Elliott Smith died. ANYWAY. I wish I still had this book, but I gave it away to my friend Liz. She later joined a Virgin Mary cult so I'll never get it back. Sad. I'll probably write a blog devoted to just this book someday, so I'll save the hardcore elaboration until then.
47. Invisible Man--Ralph Elliston. This is the one about being fake black, right? Not about being literally invisible?
48. Light in August--William Faulkner
49. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--C. S. Lewis. Hell yeah! I love Lewis, especially this series and The Screwtape Letters. I love how the kids take everything in with such cool British aplomb--oh, there's a war on and a magical land inside the wardbobe, how delightful--and the land of Narnia is one of the most well-spun fantasty universes ever created, from Magician's Nephew to The Last Battle. Also, movie version of Prince Caspian is so handsome!
50. Lolita--Vladimir Nabokov. This seems to be one of those books that becomes more and more vindicated over time, and rightly so. Highly lyrical, beautifully doubtful, you'll be re-checking the author section again and again; are you SURE English isn't Nabokov's native language? This book was important enough to spawn a whole new concept of how young women were viewed, for better or for worse.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Time's 100 Top Books
THE COMPLETE LIST: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html
So because I actually have nothing of substance to say, and my face hurts, diverting my attention, here's Time's 100 top books from 1923 to 2000, with my witty and occasionally verbose commentary. (Note: I also might make uninformed, stupid, and perhaps inadvertently racist comments about books that I have not actually read. You just never know.)
1. The Adventures of Augie Marsh--Saul Bellow
2. All the King's Men--Robert Penn Warren. I keep thinking I've read this book because I've read half of All The President's Men, the nonfiction novel about the Watergate scandal. This is not that book. This book is about the South and corrupt politics, which are both things that intrigue me, so I should probably read this book at some point.
3. American Pastoral--Philip Roth. I've read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, and while I like it, it did not convince me to ever read another Roth novel. Shortsighted? Perhaps. I have no idea what AP is even about.
4. An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser. I'm pretty sure I've read this. It's about a golddigger guy, right? And he murders his lover with a boat oar? Does that sound correct?
5. Animal Farm--George Orwell. I'm pretty sure I'm the only American to ever read this that wasn't assigned to do so in English Lit class in high school. It was okay. Frankly I liked it better than 1984, which I've always found somewhat overrated in a modern context. Yeah, I get that it BLEW MINDS when it came out in the 40's, and the whole "Big Brother" concept transcends time and space (plus I find it really fun to say things are "doubleplusgood," etc.) but it's no Brave New World, you know? It's not even Animal Farm. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah: I like AM because talking animals are cool and so are allegories, especially ones about talking animals. The Garden of Eden! The life of St. Margaret! Those things are cool. Also it always makes me think of the song "Piggies" by the Beatles, which is really not that great of a song but I'm still in love with.
6. Appointment in Samarra--John O'Hara
7. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret--Judy Blume. There is nothing I can say about this book that hasn't already been said, or would like, contribute to the world's consciousness about this book in any real way. It takes about BRAS and stuff. Ew. A classic when you're 12 but otherwise pointlessly unreadable.
8. The Assistant--Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds--Flann O'Brien. I like these wild cards that the editors are throwing around. This one has a very catchy title.
10. Atonement--Ian McEwan. I haven't read this but Shana and I rented the movie and it has literally the most depressing movie ending I have ever seen. IT ATE MY SOUL. It was a happiness a-bomb. Don't watch it unless you want to cry so much that your tear ducts shrivel up and fly away.
11. Beloved--Toni Morrison. This is one of the books I think of when I think of "fem lit." This is not to be confused with that disgusting moneymaking behemoth, "chick lit"--the reading equivalent of watching whatever's on TV. " It's about slaves or something. It's like Uncle Tom's Cabin for women who find it hard to read old-timey books.
12. The Berlin Stories--Christopher Isherwood.
13. The Big Sleep--Love. This. Book. So fantastic. I saw the movie first (which, spoilers: has a much different ending than the book, as the movie was primarily a Bogie/Bacall vehicle, so of course they ended up together at the end) and was interested enough to go through a short novel noir sort of phase; I read this and The Thin Man and a handful of short stories. Nowadays it's a bit hard to read this sort of thing without giggling slightly at all the hardboiled detective cliches--the shadowy rooms, the dames, the whiskey. But remove yourself from that and appreciate the well-plotted action, and it's a good book.
14. The Blind Assassin--Margaret Atwood. I have not read this but I generally like Atwood, so I should keep this in mind. She's one of the only science fiction authors I can consistently stomach.
15. Blood Meridian--Cormac McCarthy. Fuck this book so hard. This is my least favorite book ever. With two different authors (McCarthy and Tom Robbins) have I had the experience of people assuring me, "Read this! This is great." I read book X, hate it, and then listen to someone (often a different person) say, "No no, read book Y! It's great! Different, yet the same, as book X!" Let me tell you something: If you hate a book (and I mean HATE. Hate like you would smack it if it were a person and gossip viciously about it behind its back, girl-style), don't bother reading anything anything else the author has written. Your life is too goddamned short to put yourself through that gorey rigamarole. At least mine is. This book is 1) Archaic for no particular reason 2) Contains no real character development, plot, QUOTATION MARKS, etc etc. 3) Is like 300 pages long, and as far as I can tell, every chapter is basically interchangable with one another. It BAFFLES me, the popularity of this book. It basically is just talking about murdering people (mostly committed by a 14 year old named The Kid) under a sunset and there's a desert, it's really hot, blah blah blah. I've been to the desert. I know it's hot there. Just thinking about reading this book makes my blood pressure rise. I also read two more books by this author, No Country For Old Men and The Road (and no, I have not seen either of these movies) and saw the film version of "All The Pretty Horses." And every moment devoted to these endeavors was wrung from me like Jesus crying tears of blood onto the stones of Gethesename. Fuck McCarthy.
16. Brideshead Revisited--Evelyn Waugh. Jesus sent me a little present just now by putting this book next on the list. This book is great! I love Brit Lit, I really do. And I think the microgenre of this would be "between-the-wars", which seems delightlfully Mitfordian. This is the story of Charles Ryder, a poor, somewhat confused (about sex, about youth, the war, his artistry...) young man who befriends a family of aristocrats and spends the next 20 years weaving in and out of their lives. There is also an excellent film version with Emma Thompson playing the matriarch, Lady Marchmain, Mrs. Flyte. I've also been told the BBC miniseries is good, too, though I've never seen it. The movie version plays up the possibly-gay angle much harder, and some Waugh purists decry this, but for me it makes the whole thing hang together much better in a way that I think Waugh would have appreciated. It throws the whole Catholicism thing into better relief. Waugh apparently decried this book in later years, saying it was overwrought, but I really feel it's a cornerstone of 20th century British literature. As the title suggests, you can't go home again.
17. The Bridges of San Luis Ray--Thorton Wilder
18. Call it Sleep--Henry Roth
19. Catch-22--Joseph Heller. Yes! Yes! This book. The definitive book of World War II. Rejected by 25 different publishers before acceptance, taking over a decade to complete. A landmark in American satire, poking fun at WWII-era "Americanism" and xenophobia, something that all of us who came of age in a post 9/11 environment can sympathize with. This is the book that all authors, would-be and established, should apsire to write.
20. The Catcher in the Rye--JD Salinger. Have there ever been more split opinions about any book than this one? When I was a youth and read this, I hated it violently. (And probably by this point, you should realize that my opinions on books run towards the violent.) But that was about a decade ago, and since then I've come to appreciate Salinger's other major works, Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey. Being that, I can't really be sure I am an accurate judge of this book anymore. Also it features the insult "crummy," delivered in a manner that makes me think that Salinger was using deadly force with it, like calling someone a "cunt" today.
21. A Clockwork Orange--Anthony Burgess. Things you might not know about Burgess, and this book: The author was a linguist, and the book was partly written in an exercise of language, much like Tolkein's LOTR trilogy. Somewhere along the way, probably when Stanley Kubrick got his dirty little hands on it, CO became a byword in "omg the youth of today!!!" and by all accounts, Burgess spent the rest of his life regretting he'd ever put pen to paper on the whole subject.
22. The Confessions of Nat Turner--William Styron
23. The Corrections--Johnathan Franzen. Um. I got about 30 pages into this and put it down. Did not want. At this point in my life I'm somewhat over the whole white boy, middle class, O WOE IS ME I have it soooo hard sort of thing. Yeah, I get it, you want to feel marginalized by society because minorities have such a fun time, living in their ghettos and reservations, and you want a slice of that pie. That's fine. Take it. But please don't be a whiny jerk about it who blows the rest of the money in their bank account on leather pants while you're at it. At least have some self-deprecation.
24. The Crying of Lot 49--Thomas Pynchon. Fuck you, Pynchon. You will never be Ray Bradbury. Why would you even want to be? He sucks too.
25. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell
I will do more of this when I'm in a more giving mood and can write things more explanatory than "Fuck you, Pynchon."
So because I actually have nothing of substance to say, and my face hurts, diverting my attention, here's Time's 100 top books from 1923 to 2000, with my witty and occasionally verbose commentary. (Note: I also might make uninformed, stupid, and perhaps inadvertently racist comments about books that I have not actually read. You just never know.)
1. The Adventures of Augie Marsh--Saul Bellow
2. All the King's Men--Robert Penn Warren. I keep thinking I've read this book because I've read half of All The President's Men, the nonfiction novel about the Watergate scandal. This is not that book. This book is about the South and corrupt politics, which are both things that intrigue me, so I should probably read this book at some point.
3. American Pastoral--Philip Roth. I've read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, and while I like it, it did not convince me to ever read another Roth novel. Shortsighted? Perhaps. I have no idea what AP is even about.
4. An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser. I'm pretty sure I've read this. It's about a golddigger guy, right? And he murders his lover with a boat oar? Does that sound correct?
5. Animal Farm--George Orwell. I'm pretty sure I'm the only American to ever read this that wasn't assigned to do so in English Lit class in high school. It was okay. Frankly I liked it better than 1984, which I've always found somewhat overrated in a modern context. Yeah, I get that it BLEW MINDS when it came out in the 40's, and the whole "Big Brother" concept transcends time and space (plus I find it really fun to say things are "doubleplusgood," etc.) but it's no Brave New World, you know? It's not even Animal Farm. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah: I like AM because talking animals are cool and so are allegories, especially ones about talking animals. The Garden of Eden! The life of St. Margaret! Those things are cool. Also it always makes me think of the song "Piggies" by the Beatles, which is really not that great of a song but I'm still in love with.
6. Appointment in Samarra--John O'Hara
7. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret--Judy Blume. There is nothing I can say about this book that hasn't already been said, or would like, contribute to the world's consciousness about this book in any real way. It takes about BRAS and stuff. Ew. A classic when you're 12 but otherwise pointlessly unreadable.
8. The Assistant--Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds--Flann O'Brien. I like these wild cards that the editors are throwing around. This one has a very catchy title.
10. Atonement--Ian McEwan. I haven't read this but Shana and I rented the movie and it has literally the most depressing movie ending I have ever seen. IT ATE MY SOUL. It was a happiness a-bomb. Don't watch it unless you want to cry so much that your tear ducts shrivel up and fly away.
11. Beloved--Toni Morrison. This is one of the books I think of when I think of "fem lit." This is not to be confused with that disgusting moneymaking behemoth, "chick lit"--the reading equivalent of watching whatever's on TV. " It's about slaves or something. It's like Uncle Tom's Cabin for women who find it hard to read old-timey books.
12. The Berlin Stories--Christopher Isherwood.
13. The Big Sleep--Love. This. Book. So fantastic. I saw the movie first (which, spoilers: has a much different ending than the book, as the movie was primarily a Bogie/Bacall vehicle, so of course they ended up together at the end) and was interested enough to go through a short novel noir sort of phase; I read this and The Thin Man and a handful of short stories. Nowadays it's a bit hard to read this sort of thing without giggling slightly at all the hardboiled detective cliches--the shadowy rooms, the dames, the whiskey. But remove yourself from that and appreciate the well-plotted action, and it's a good book.
14. The Blind Assassin--Margaret Atwood. I have not read this but I generally like Atwood, so I should keep this in mind. She's one of the only science fiction authors I can consistently stomach.
15. Blood Meridian--Cormac McCarthy. Fuck this book so hard. This is my least favorite book ever. With two different authors (McCarthy and Tom Robbins) have I had the experience of people assuring me, "Read this! This is great." I read book X, hate it, and then listen to someone (often a different person) say, "No no, read book Y! It's great! Different, yet the same, as book X!" Let me tell you something: If you hate a book (and I mean HATE. Hate like you would smack it if it were a person and gossip viciously about it behind its back, girl-style), don't bother reading anything anything else the author has written. Your life is too goddamned short to put yourself through that gorey rigamarole. At least mine is. This book is 1) Archaic for no particular reason 2) Contains no real character development, plot, QUOTATION MARKS, etc etc. 3) Is like 300 pages long, and as far as I can tell, every chapter is basically interchangable with one another. It BAFFLES me, the popularity of this book. It basically is just talking about murdering people (mostly committed by a 14 year old named The Kid) under a sunset and there's a desert, it's really hot, blah blah blah. I've been to the desert. I know it's hot there. Just thinking about reading this book makes my blood pressure rise. I also read two more books by this author, No Country For Old Men and The Road (and no, I have not seen either of these movies) and saw the film version of "All The Pretty Horses." And every moment devoted to these endeavors was wrung from me like Jesus crying tears of blood onto the stones of Gethesename. Fuck McCarthy.
16. Brideshead Revisited--Evelyn Waugh. Jesus sent me a little present just now by putting this book next on the list. This book is great! I love Brit Lit, I really do. And I think the microgenre of this would be "between-the-wars", which seems delightlfully Mitfordian. This is the story of Charles Ryder, a poor, somewhat confused (about sex, about youth, the war, his artistry...) young man who befriends a family of aristocrats and spends the next 20 years weaving in and out of their lives. There is also an excellent film version with Emma Thompson playing the matriarch, Lady Marchmain, Mrs. Flyte. I've also been told the BBC miniseries is good, too, though I've never seen it. The movie version plays up the possibly-gay angle much harder, and some Waugh purists decry this, but for me it makes the whole thing hang together much better in a way that I think Waugh would have appreciated. It throws the whole Catholicism thing into better relief. Waugh apparently decried this book in later years, saying it was overwrought, but I really feel it's a cornerstone of 20th century British literature. As the title suggests, you can't go home again.
17. The Bridges of San Luis Ray--Thorton Wilder
18. Call it Sleep--Henry Roth
19. Catch-22--Joseph Heller. Yes! Yes! This book. The definitive book of World War II. Rejected by 25 different publishers before acceptance, taking over a decade to complete. A landmark in American satire, poking fun at WWII-era "Americanism" and xenophobia, something that all of us who came of age in a post 9/11 environment can sympathize with. This is the book that all authors, would-be and established, should apsire to write.
20. The Catcher in the Rye--JD Salinger. Have there ever been more split opinions about any book than this one? When I was a youth and read this, I hated it violently. (And probably by this point, you should realize that my opinions on books run towards the violent.) But that was about a decade ago, and since then I've come to appreciate Salinger's other major works, Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey. Being that, I can't really be sure I am an accurate judge of this book anymore. Also it features the insult "crummy," delivered in a manner that makes me think that Salinger was using deadly force with it, like calling someone a "cunt" today.
21. A Clockwork Orange--Anthony Burgess. Things you might not know about Burgess, and this book: The author was a linguist, and the book was partly written in an exercise of language, much like Tolkein's LOTR trilogy. Somewhere along the way, probably when Stanley Kubrick got his dirty little hands on it, CO became a byword in "omg the youth of today!!!" and by all accounts, Burgess spent the rest of his life regretting he'd ever put pen to paper on the whole subject.
22. The Confessions of Nat Turner--William Styron
23. The Corrections--Johnathan Franzen. Um. I got about 30 pages into this and put it down. Did not want. At this point in my life I'm somewhat over the whole white boy, middle class, O WOE IS ME I have it soooo hard sort of thing. Yeah, I get it, you want to feel marginalized by society because minorities have such a fun time, living in their ghettos and reservations, and you want a slice of that pie. That's fine. Take it. But please don't be a whiny jerk about it who blows the rest of the money in their bank account on leather pants while you're at it. At least have some self-deprecation.
24. The Crying of Lot 49--Thomas Pynchon. Fuck you, Pynchon. You will never be Ray Bradbury. Why would you even want to be? He sucks too.
25. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell
I will do more of this when I'm in a more giving mood and can write things more explanatory than "Fuck you, Pynchon."
Friday, January 22, 2010
A dude I love: Sherman Alexie
When I was in high school, my friend Will gave me a book that I've since grown to love, called Reservation Blues. The motivation was, I think, that I had given him a mix CD with a Robert Johnson song on it. Reservation Blues is the story of a couple of down-and-out Spokane reservation Indians who receive a magical guitar from Robert Johnson and form a blues band. They travel around the Pacific Northwest and learn, you know, stuff about life.
I immediately loved Sherman Alexie, both for his work and his amazingly outspoken public persona. His book of short stories, Ten Little Indians, is also one of my favorites, and my mother has spoken highly of his young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Alexie keeps a pretty cool website, www.shermanalexie.com, which contains his blog and some general biographical info.
He made news recently for denouncing digital versions of books, as you can see in this clip of him on the Colbert Report:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/257719/december-01-2009/sherman-alexie
...where he says that none of his books are available for digital download. He points out, and rightly so, that we should all be paranoid of having our entire lives (like text messages, what we're reading, who our friends are, etc) all on one device that anyone with half a brain could hack. "I'm an Indian. I have plenty of reasons to fear the government."
Alexie also apparently is a great public speaker, and I'd like to see him in person someday. His speeches are a combination of stand-up, social commentary, and literary critcism. Speaking at Cornell last year, he spoke about the unacknowledged genocide of American Indians. "He demanded an acknowledgment of the genocide that wiped out entire tribes of people. 'Where is our roomful of moccasins?' asked Alexie, referring to the Holocaust Museum’s powerful room full of shoes that illustrates the thousands of lives lost in Nazi extermination camps."
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/41972527.html <<--Full article here
More than anything, Alexie writes eloquently about poverty, isolation, ruralism, and post 9/11 attitudes towards "brown people" that few other American others could ever hope to touch.
He's a cool dude. Everyone should read his stuff.
I immediately loved Sherman Alexie, both for his work and his amazingly outspoken public persona. His book of short stories, Ten Little Indians, is also one of my favorites, and my mother has spoken highly of his young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Alexie keeps a pretty cool website, www.shermanalexie.com, which contains his blog and some general biographical info.
He made news recently for denouncing digital versions of books, as you can see in this clip of him on the Colbert Report:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/257719/december-01-2009/sherman-alexie
...where he says that none of his books are available for digital download. He points out, and rightly so, that we should all be paranoid of having our entire lives (like text messages, what we're reading, who our friends are, etc) all on one device that anyone with half a brain could hack. "I'm an Indian. I have plenty of reasons to fear the government."
Alexie also apparently is a great public speaker, and I'd like to see him in person someday. His speeches are a combination of stand-up, social commentary, and literary critcism. Speaking at Cornell last year, he spoke about the unacknowledged genocide of American Indians. "He demanded an acknowledgment of the genocide that wiped out entire tribes of people. 'Where is our roomful of moccasins?' asked Alexie, referring to the Holocaust Museum’s powerful room full of shoes that illustrates the thousands of lives lost in Nazi extermination camps."
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/41972527.html <<--Full article here
More than anything, Alexie writes eloquently about poverty, isolation, ruralism, and post 9/11 attitudes towards "brown people" that few other American others could ever hope to touch.
He's a cool dude. Everyone should read his stuff.
Band names taken from history, literature, and pop culture that I want to form.
1. The Baker Street Irregulars
2. The Spanish Armada
3. Charles Foster Kane (this is a solo project. Just to screw with people.)
4. Papa Doc
2. The Spanish Armada
3. Charles Foster Kane (this is a solo project. Just to screw with people.)
4. Papa Doc
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Webster v. Fahey: Revisionist History
This entry is only passingly about books, and contains a LOT of pedantic information about my city. Read at your own risk.
So as I've mentioned before in previous spaces, my friend Dusty just opened an art/mixed media gallery in North downtown Omaha (idiotically known as NoDo). I spend a lot of time in this part of town, as Saddle Creek Records has a complex on the next block that includes an art house theater, an awesome bar, and a coffee shop that I love. Formerly, both Axiom and the Saddle Creek Complex were located on Webster Street, about 20 blocks from my abode. They are now located on Mike Fahey Drive.
In our part of town, most of the streets are named for important early Omahans, Nebraskans, or heroes of the Civil and Plains Indians wars. Running south to north, in what I consider my general neighborhood, the streets go Dodge (named for Grenham Dodge, a Civil War general), Davenport (I admit I don't know what this is named for, though I presume it's the same thing/person as the town of Davenport, NE), Chicago (self-explanatory), Cass (another Civil War general, and also the street I live on), California (see "Chicago", above), Webster (see below), Burt (named for our first territorial governor), and Cuming (another Civil War soldier).
As you can see, there's a somewhat common theme for the streets in this part of the city, which dates back to around the turn of the 20th century.
I'm upset about the name change from Webster to Mike Fahey. Really upset. Not like, throwing things upset, but upset enough to complain about it at parties to Dusty and write blog entries about it. And here's why!
John L. Webster was, in the 1870's, the lead attorney for Union-Pacific railroad, which was a gigantic corporation--the importance of the railroads in forming this part of the world really can't be understated. It was a big-ass fancy job. In 1876, he worked pro bono in a landmark civil rights case, Standing Bear v. Crook. He was on the side of Standing Bear.
You might remember Standing Bear from your American history class, but you probably don't. A brief rundown: Standing Bear was a member of the Ponca tribe, which was a non-nomadic tribe living in Northeast Nebraska (near the present day NE-SD border, on the banks of the Niobrara River). During the time period when the US government thought it was fun to fuck with Indians for no particular reason, the Poncas were rounded up and forced to march to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in what's now know as the "Ponca Trail of Tears." While in OK, Standing Bear's son died, and his deathbed wish was to be buried at home on the Niobrara. So Standing Bear and his family turned around and marched all the way back home, a distance that's about 12 hours by car, in the dead of winter. They made it about as far as Omaha before Standing Bear was arrested and thrown into jail at Fort Omaha by General George Crook. Standing Bear sued Crook for rights of habeas corpus, i.e. that he was unlawfully detained, both by being confined to a reservation, and in the prison. He won his case, in no small part because of the awesomeness of his attorneys, John Webster and Andrew Poppleton (which is the name of the last street I lived on!) And in so winning, he was declared a human being by the Nebraska court system.
Obviously, this is a pretty big deal. It's considered one of the most important court cases in American Indian history, which you can imagine has seen a whole hell of a lot of court cases. And it's also very important for civil rights for all American citizens, in that it reaffirms that you can't be randomly thrown into prison or confined to a landed space, like an Indian reservation, without just cause.
This is all laid out beautifully and intricately in a wonderful book called "I Am a Man" by Joe Starita. The title is taken from Standing Bear's speech during the trial, as translated by Susette "Bright Eyes" LaFlesche:
"My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."
I saw this man speak last winter in the home of General Crook, which is now a museum at Fort Omaha. Terrific topic. Terrific book. Required reading for anyone interested in Plains Indian history or minority rights.
The story ends very sadly: Standing Bear's brother Big Snake was later killed by soldiers for attempting to make the same journey home, and in the 1960's, the Ponca tribe was dissolved by the federal government, and the reservation sold off to farmers. They were reinstated about 10 years ago, but the damage that the dissolution did will probably never be fully healed.
Mike Fahey was the mayor of Omaha from 2001-2009. He was born in KC and attended college at Creighton University. He gained prominence in the city by starting an insurance company. He gained notoriety for the following:
1. Quote wikipedia: "In October 2006 the City of Omaha Safety Auditor Tristan Bonn submitted a report which detailed Omaha Police Department officers' aggressive, rude and unwarranted traffic stops, which unprecedentedly involved African Americans and other people of color.[2] Within a week Fahey fired her, as he called Bonn "insubordinate" for submitting the report.[3] The incident has caused ire within North Omaha [i.e. the black part of town] particularly.
2. "Fahey has been criticized for his decision to build a new baseball stadium in downtown Omaha as a means to securing a long-term contract with the NCAA to keep the College World Series in Omaha. As a result of this, a group of Omaha residents circulated a proposal to recall Fahey. This petition drive failed, with the Recall Fahey campaign collecting only 8,202 of the required 21,734 signatures."
GUESS WHERE THIS BASEBALL STADIUM IS LOCATED. OH RIGHT, ON WEBSTER STREET, right behind the Saddle Creek complex. It's under construction as I write this, and is currently in the spooky rebar skeleton stage.
It's also been alleged that part of the reason Fahey wanted the stadium in that part of town (which is undergoing a swift gentrification process) was because he himself had bought up a fuckton of land by the river, and then resold it to the city, making an absolute killing. This is all common knowledge for the citizens of Omaha.
A link from the Omaha World-Herald about the street name change:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20100118/NEWS01/701189954
So tell me. Which one of these men deserves to have a street named after him?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Books on my shelf that I haven't read/haven't finished:
This list does not include reference books, my Bible, textbooks, or any book that isn't meant to be read comprehensively. I've also included a short note on why I bought the book, or what it's about, or some junk like that, where applicable.
1. Don't Look Now--Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is one of my favorite books ever. This was a by the lb blind buy. I didn't even bother to read the book flap.
2. Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic--Terry Jones
3. Gods, Demons, and Others--compiled by R.K. Narayan. The blurb on the front of this book says, "Great tales from Indian myth and legend retold in English by India's leading novelist." I pulled this book out of the trash can when we moved into our current abode, along with an INSCRIBED copy of Franny and Zooey. Whomever lived here before us is a heartless bastard.
4. Montana, 1949--Larry Watson. I bought this because the cover and the blurb reminded me of an Annie Proulx book.
5. The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas--translated by James F. Anderson. I took a class on early church literature while I was at UNL and it was very interesting. I wish I'd paid more attention but I was busy drinking a lot, which leads to a somewhat gappy memory. This is another book I pulled out of the trash. Its previous owner seems to be "Mary Jeannette Dorcey," who lived in Apt. 23 and bought it for $2.
6. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution--by John H. Watson, M.D., ed. Nicholas Meyer. Glorified fan fiction. I don't anticipate liking this book. YOU DON'T FUCK WITH CANON.
7. Eleanor Rigby--Douglas Coupland
8. Adverbs--Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler. I started this book in high school and remember liking it, but it was overdue at the library or something.
9. Fathers and Sons--Ivan Turgenev. My roommate's boyfriend left it here and said I could keep it.
10. All Quiet on the Western Front--Erich Maria Remarque
11. Voices of a People's History--comp. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. A companion piece to one of my favorite books, A People's History of the United States by Zinn, and apparently a documentary called "The People Speak." This was a Christmas present from my friend Lia, along with Breaking Dawn. Hell yes.
12. Black Elk Speaks--John G. Neihardt
13. The Road to Wounded Knee--Robert Burnette and John Koster. This has "flavor of the month" written all over it, but it looks pretty interesting. Also Koster's interests apparently include "history of the West and parapsychology." I wonder if he does ghost town excursions.
14. Lewis and Clark Among the Indians--James P. Ronda
15. Black Hills, White Justice--Edward Lazarus. This is about Sioux Nation v. the United States, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest?) settlements against the US ever brought about by the Supreme Court. I read about 3/4 of this and then got bogged down in somewhat tedious legalese. I know how it ends, anyway.
16. Indian Fights and Fighters--Cyrus Townsend Brady. Both the title and the author of this book are very catchy.
17. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto--Vine DeLoria Jr.
18. Born Rich: A Historical Book of Omaha--Margaret Patricia Killian. I bought this at a book sale at a synagogue, which are seriously the best book sales. Go to one, if you get the chance. It's some woman's recollections about being wealthy at the time Omaha was founded as a dirty little river town. It also kind of looks like someone spilled mashed potatoes on the cover.
19. The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid--Pat F. Garrett. The tagline is "A faithful and interesting narrative by Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., by whom he was finally hunted down & captured by killing him." Leaving aside the obvious syntax problems, this is what we learned in school is called an "unreliable narrator."
20. The Stranger--Albert Camus. I don't remember why I never finished this. It turns out that angst and despair are kind of boring.
21. "The Possessed"--Albert Camus
22. Steppenwolf--Hermann Hesse
23. Gone Baby Gone--Dennis Lehane
24. King Solomon's Mines--H. Rider Haggard. I bought this solely because I'm gay for Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Don't judge me. At least not for this.
25. The Plot--Irving Wallace. Again, book by the lb, no idea what this was about. But The People's Almanac was a perennial favorite of mine and my brother's when we were children. It was snappy, weird, and informative.
26. Utopia--Thomas More. Trashcan book.
27. A Death in the Family--James Agee
28. Vanity Fair--William Makepeace Thackeray. I might have actually read this in high school; I didn't have a life in HS so all I did was read classic European novels. But I might be confusing it with "Pilgrim's Progress", which I also sometimes get confused with "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."
29. The Story of the Western Railroads--Robert Edgar Riegel. Hahah why did I buy this. It's like something an autistic kid would own.
30. The Reader--Bernhard Schlink. I also own the movie of this, and I've read the first 20 pages, so I sometimes lie and tell peole that I've read this book. I have not. It feels nice to get that off my chest.
31. A Moveable Feast--Ernest Hemingway
32. For Whom the Bell Tolls--Hemingway
33. The Autumn of the Patriarch--Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think I bought this at the same time as 100 Years of Solitude but was so scarred by the former that I never gave this one a shot.
34. Empire--Gore Vidal
35. Speaker for the Dead--Earlier in the year I was attempting to mack on a boy whose favorite book was Ender's Game. My friend Alecia gave me both books. The macking subsequently failed and, never having been a huge fan of sci-fi, I gve up on this book about 1/3 of the way through.
36. The Thirty-Nine Steps--Abandoned by the roommate's boyfriend, again.
37. Tender is the Night--F. Scott Fitzgerald. I might have actually read this. But all Fitzgerald's books tend to bleed together in my brain.
38. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--Mark Twain. Trashcan book.
39. Empire of the Sun--J.G. Ballard. I remember this moving being awesome/frightening.
40. The French Revolution--Thomas Carlyle. I want to read this but I'm scared of it. It's over 500 pages long.
41. The Return of the Native--Thomas Hardy
42. "The Cherry Orchard," "The Sea Gull," "The Three Sisters," "Uncle Vanya."--Anton Chekov. I think I've seen a stage version of "Uncle Vanya" but I've never read any of these.
43. Postcards--Annie Proulx. Love her. Love you. Probably will love this, once I get around to reading it.
44. The French and Indian War--Francis Russell. This is the type of book that uses the word "savages." Enough said.
45. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. My brother gave me this for Christmas. Also, Doris Lessing kind of looks like Golda Meier. Check it out:
Three and Three
Do other people do this? I tend to read in genre binges. For about half of my 15th year, I only read books about 17th and 18th century French aristocracy. (Louis XIV is one of my 5 imaginary dinner guests, consequently.) In the last year, this spring and summer was mainly devoted to American West/Plains Indians history. But, as my brother pointed out, basically anything interesting enough to write a nonfiction book about is a pretty depressing subject.
So as a change of pace, in the last month I've been reading one of my first loves, Victorian fiction, primarily detective stories. I've become reacquainted with my good friends, Holmes and Watson, (and NO, we shall not talk about the movie) and also the following:
1. A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories, ed. Everett F. Bleier
2. From Hell, written by Alan Moore, drawn by Eddie Campbell
3. Gotham by Gaslight, w. Brian Augystn, d. Michael Mignola
(And definitely not Victorian, but I just finished up reading all of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, aka the Southern Vampire Mysteries, aka the True Blood books. In case you are wondering, no, they are not good, and there's like nine of them. This is a bleed-over from another minor phase of mine this fall: Twilight/modern horror, when I was watching lots of "Dexter" and having dreams that I was being eaten like a giant hamburger. But that's another post for another day.)
1. This book is awesome. It's one of the most entertaining books of short stories I've ever read. As I mentioned previously, there's a thrift store I go to where you can buy books by the pound. Which sounds awesome until I looked at my bookshelf and realized I've bought or acquired nearly 100 books in the last 13 months. It contains short stories by two of the big three in Victorian detective fiction:
A. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English, most famous for his character Sherlock Holmes, an English private eye.
B. Emile Gaboriau, French, most famous character M. Lecoq, a French inspector
C. Edgar Allen Poe, American, most famous character The Raven, but also well-known for Chevalier Auguste Dupin, also a French police inspector.
(If you are a Holmes fan you might recognize the latter two as being name-dropped in Holmes' first novel appearance, A Study in Scarlet. Watson compares his friend's amazing powers of deductive reasoning to the two famous detectives, to which Holmes replies, "No doubt you think you are complimenting me." Hahah BURN. Despite that, Doyle paid great homage to both Poe and Gaboriau, generally considered the fathers of the genre.)
This book also rules because it contains an extremely comprehensive introduction by the editor, Bleiler, where I learned cool facts like that there are two main time periods of Victorian detection: the 40's-50's, when Poe was writing Dupin, and the 70's-90's, when Doyle and Gaboriau were. Poe based his story "The Murder of Marie Roget" (which is set in Paris) on the death of a woman named Marie Roger in New Jersey. His work, with its amazingly clever endings (the letter hidden in plain sight; the nonhuman murderer) was one of the main reasons detective fiction became so immensely popular. One of the other main reasons, especially in England, is because the Scotland Yard, the metropolitan police force of London, was formed in 1829, and many people became immensely curious about police procedures, and then disillusioned with what they viewed were the failings of the police (hence the rise of snarky, overly-smart private detectives like Sherlock Holmes.)
I would recommend this book. Even the stories I've never heard of are fantastic (except perhaps the aforementioned Dickens story, but I cannot discount even that, because it's afforded me ever so much amusement.) But I don't know if you can buy books by the lb where you live, so you might be out of luck in trying to find it.
2. From Hell was written by one of the masters. You might recognize Alan Moore from his many famous works (V for Vendetta, The Watchmen) or from the fact that he is a legendary crazy person and looks like Rasputin and lives in a cabin in the woods or something, like a Montana Freeman. And make no mistake, FH is the best of the best, one of the best graphic novels ever written. It's exquisitely researched and annotated--Moore's footnotes alone take up about 100 pages, covering everything from where he made his research to the changes in London architecture and his and Campbell's painstaking attempts to recreate them on the page. If you're not familiar with this book, it's a reimagining of the Jack the Ripper murders, with them having been committed by Dr. William Whitey Gull, the personal physician of Queen Victoria. This is a real historical personage, and one of the names that's long been thrown around when people are naming candidates for the murderer. The book presupposes he does this for extremely abstruse, certifiably insane reasons; namely, that he's trying to invoke ancient powers channeled through the Masonic order. Yes! Awesome.
If you're one of those fags who still holds out and says that graphic novels are just comic books, la la la not a legit art form, this book will change your mind. Guarateed.
3. This is basically fanboys only. I shall sum up the plot thusly: It's basically about the same thing as FH, only it's got a different murderer, and instead of being investigated by real life police inspector Frederick Abberline, it's done by Batman. He is, after all, the world's greatest detective. This book is no masterpiece, but the drawings are pretty awesome, and it's got one of those awesome matchups that you could only make up while you are trying to fall asleep: BATMAN V. JACK THE RIPPER. I'd watch that.
Okay. Maybe more on this later. Maybe not. Wouldn't you like to know.
So as a change of pace, in the last month I've been reading one of my first loves, Victorian fiction, primarily detective stories. I've become reacquainted with my good friends, Holmes and Watson, (and NO, we shall not talk about the movie) and also the following:
1. A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories, ed. Everett F. Bleier
2. From Hell, written by Alan Moore, drawn by Eddie Campbell
3. Gotham by Gaslight, w. Brian Augystn, d. Michael Mignola
(And definitely not Victorian, but I just finished up reading all of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, aka the Southern Vampire Mysteries, aka the True Blood books. In case you are wondering, no, they are not good, and there's like nine of them. This is a bleed-over from another minor phase of mine this fall: Twilight/modern horror, when I was watching lots of "Dexter" and having dreams that I was being eaten like a giant hamburger. But that's another post for another day.)
1. This book is awesome. It's one of the most entertaining books of short stories I've ever read. As I mentioned previously, there's a thrift store I go to where you can buy books by the pound. Which sounds awesome until I looked at my bookshelf and realized I've bought or acquired nearly 100 books in the last 13 months. It contains short stories by two of the big three in Victorian detective fiction:
A. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English, most famous for his character Sherlock Holmes, an English private eye.
B. Emile Gaboriau, French, most famous character M. Lecoq, a French inspector
C. Edgar Allen Poe, American, most famous character The Raven, but also well-known for Chevalier Auguste Dupin, also a French police inspector.
(If you are a Holmes fan you might recognize the latter two as being name-dropped in Holmes' first novel appearance, A Study in Scarlet. Watson compares his friend's amazing powers of deductive reasoning to the two famous detectives, to which Holmes replies, "No doubt you think you are complimenting me." Hahah BURN. Despite that, Doyle paid great homage to both Poe and Gaboriau, generally considered the fathers of the genre.)
This book also rules because it contains an extremely comprehensive introduction by the editor, Bleiler, where I learned cool facts like that there are two main time periods of Victorian detection: the 40's-50's, when Poe was writing Dupin, and the 70's-90's, when Doyle and Gaboriau were. Poe based his story "The Murder of Marie Roget" (which is set in Paris) on the death of a woman named Marie Roger in New Jersey. His work, with its amazingly clever endings (the letter hidden in plain sight; the nonhuman murderer) was one of the main reasons detective fiction became so immensely popular. One of the other main reasons, especially in England, is because the Scotland Yard, the metropolitan police force of London, was formed in 1829, and many people became immensely curious about police procedures, and then disillusioned with what they viewed were the failings of the police (hence the rise of snarky, overly-smart private detectives like Sherlock Holmes.)
I would recommend this book. Even the stories I've never heard of are fantastic (except perhaps the aforementioned Dickens story, but I cannot discount even that, because it's afforded me ever so much amusement.) But I don't know if you can buy books by the lb where you live, so you might be out of luck in trying to find it.
2. From Hell was written by one of the masters. You might recognize Alan Moore from his many famous works (V for Vendetta, The Watchmen) or from the fact that he is a legendary crazy person and looks like Rasputin and lives in a cabin in the woods or something, like a Montana Freeman. And make no mistake, FH is the best of the best, one of the best graphic novels ever written. It's exquisitely researched and annotated--Moore's footnotes alone take up about 100 pages, covering everything from where he made his research to the changes in London architecture and his and Campbell's painstaking attempts to recreate them on the page. If you're not familiar with this book, it's a reimagining of the Jack the Ripper murders, with them having been committed by Dr. William Whitey Gull, the personal physician of Queen Victoria. This is a real historical personage, and one of the names that's long been thrown around when people are naming candidates for the murderer. The book presupposes he does this for extremely abstruse, certifiably insane reasons; namely, that he's trying to invoke ancient powers channeled through the Masonic order. Yes! Awesome.
If you're one of those fags who still holds out and says that graphic novels are just comic books, la la la not a legit art form, this book will change your mind. Guarateed.
3. This is basically fanboys only. I shall sum up the plot thusly: It's basically about the same thing as FH, only it's got a different murderer, and instead of being investigated by real life police inspector Frederick Abberline, it's done by Batman. He is, after all, the world's greatest detective. This book is no masterpiece, but the drawings are pretty awesome, and it's got one of those awesome matchups that you could only make up while you are trying to fall asleep: BATMAN V. JACK THE RIPPER. I'd watch that.
Okay. Maybe more on this later. Maybe not. Wouldn't you like to know.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I have a blog now.
My blog is about books, what I'm reading, and how it's affecting my day-to-day life. I figure this is as good as anything.
In accordance with this, here's a short note I first wrote on facebook about what I'm currently reading, entitled "A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories", which I bought by-the-pound at the awesome thrift store.
----
Following in a long tradition of the bells and whistles of Dickens being much more exciting than the actual plot (I mean, nobody could name a character or a book like Dickens, you have to admit), I just read three short detective stories by him and was really underwhelmed. I shall recount the plot of one of them for you:
1. A woman nicknamed The Countess is murdered in her bed. (And yes, she was murdered, I triple-checked.) A set of men's gloves, with the initials TR and a small cross monogrammed onto them, are found under her pillow. They are very dirty but show signs of recently having been cleaned.
2. The inspector in charge of the case takes the gloves to all the places he knows of in the city where one could have gloves cleaned. Eight or nine different shops in all. This takes several days.
3. This is all for naught, so he decides to go see a play in the middle of the afternoon because he's bored.
4. He sits next to a gentleman at the play who has a thorough and interesting knowledge of the actors on stage.
5. They decide to get a drink together; they refer to this as "draining", which seems to me to be the opposite of what they are actually doing.
6. The gentleman turns out to be the son of a glove-cleaner. He says his father could probably recognize the gloves. But he also asks the inspector to not mention that they met at a play. (?!)
7. The glove-cleaner father recognizes the gloves, having cleaned them a few days ago, as belonging to a textile shipper who works several streets over.
8. As a reward for this info, the inspector takes the glove-cleaner father out for a draining.
9. The textile guy is arrested.
10. His story is that he was courting a cousin of the Countess, and left a pair of his gloves on the coffee table. The Countess, seeing that they were left behind, decided to give them to her maid so she (the maid) could wear them whilst cleaning the fireplace.
11. The Countess apparently forgot to give them to the maid, and the maid, thinking they belonged to the Countess, puts them under the Countesses' pillow. (I'm not sure if this is a common storage space for gloves, or what.)
12. The inspector accepts this explanation, releases the textile guy, and NO FURTHER ACTION OF ANY KIND IS TAKEN.
What/!?!?!?! WHO KILLED THE COUNTESS? I DON'T KNOW. NEITHER DOES CHARLES DICKENS, APPARENTLY.
In accordance with this, here's a short note I first wrote on facebook about what I'm currently reading, entitled "A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories", which I bought by-the-pound at the awesome thrift store.
----
Following in a long tradition of the bells and whistles of Dickens being much more exciting than the actual plot (I mean, nobody could name a character or a book like Dickens, you have to admit), I just read three short detective stories by him and was really underwhelmed. I shall recount the plot of one of them for you:
1. A woman nicknamed The Countess is murdered in her bed. (And yes, she was murdered, I triple-checked.) A set of men's gloves, with the initials TR and a small cross monogrammed onto them, are found under her pillow. They are very dirty but show signs of recently having been cleaned.
2. The inspector in charge of the case takes the gloves to all the places he knows of in the city where one could have gloves cleaned. Eight or nine different shops in all. This takes several days.
3. This is all for naught, so he decides to go see a play in the middle of the afternoon because he's bored.
4. He sits next to a gentleman at the play who has a thorough and interesting knowledge of the actors on stage.
5. They decide to get a drink together; they refer to this as "draining", which seems to me to be the opposite of what they are actually doing.
6. The gentleman turns out to be the son of a glove-cleaner. He says his father could probably recognize the gloves. But he also asks the inspector to not mention that they met at a play. (?!)
7. The glove-cleaner father recognizes the gloves, having cleaned them a few days ago, as belonging to a textile shipper who works several streets over.
8. As a reward for this info, the inspector takes the glove-cleaner father out for a draining.
9. The textile guy is arrested.
10. His story is that he was courting a cousin of the Countess, and left a pair of his gloves on the coffee table. The Countess, seeing that they were left behind, decided to give them to her maid so she (the maid) could wear them whilst cleaning the fireplace.
11. The Countess apparently forgot to give them to the maid, and the maid, thinking they belonged to the Countess, puts them under the Countesses' pillow. (I'm not sure if this is a common storage space for gloves, or what.)
12. The inspector accepts this explanation, releases the textile guy, and NO FURTHER ACTION OF ANY KIND IS TAKEN.
What/!?!?!?! WHO KILLED THE COUNTESS? I DON'T KNOW. NEITHER DOES CHARLES DICKENS, APPARENTLY.
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