By the middle of the third month I had finished only reading the second book of the year. I'm failing horribly on my reading list. I've put 25 books on that list and at the rate I'm going I'll be lucky to read 10. And what was the third book on the list, the next one I was supposed to read? Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke. Another one over 600 pages long.
So, in order to come away with sense of accomplishment and be able to tick off a few more titles on the list, because of the business and leisure travel over the last two weeks, I've jumped ahead on the list some. And I just kicked that Denis Johnson can down the road.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Book Review: High Lonesome
High Lonesome: Selected Stories 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol OatesI will be direct. I like this writing very much. I feel a kinship with her methods and approach, and of course the darkness within her stories. It is funny when reading many of the stories, I was simply waiting for things to go horribly wrong. And they tended to do so. I am partial to stories about degenerates, perverts, murderers, and plain ol' bad luck. And it was only when Oates ventured away from this formula that I struggled.
A lengthy story in this already lengthy collection of 660 pages, "My Warsawza: 1980," was an adventure and torturous. It seemed like an attempt to deal with more substantial (less titillating) subject matter, but it wanders without the normal road map.
I enjoyed these stories very much and am encouraged to read more of her work. And also I am reminded of Flannery O'Connor and must read her stories again.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Origins of a Writer
Thinking back this week about what led me to become a writer, what made me want to create and shape worlds, I was led back to one particular aspect of my life. Of course we can't discount the foundation of reading from an early age or being taught to think creatively, but if I were to point to one think that made me being to create fiction it was being in trouble as a kid.
I grew up with strict curfews, deadlines for play, times that I was supposed to be home. Commonly during summers I was told to be home by noon. This wasn't "around" noon; this was BY noon. Sometimes, though, I didn't make it home on time.
There could be many reasons for being late. I never was a good judge of time. I'm not sure what should be expected of a twelve year old.
Hustling home, from a friend's house on the other side of the highway, or limping home a bike with a flat tire or a busted chain, I would think about what it would be like when I got home. I would imagine exactly how it would play out. Not just my excuse, but the expression on my dad's face, the light through the window, the feeling in my gut.
By the time I got home I would have been through the scenario about thirty times, diffusing the situation, taking all the anxiety out of it. This mental exercise, though, made me think about creating a scene, shaping a world, and all the things that were possible with the imagination.
I grew up with strict curfews, deadlines for play, times that I was supposed to be home. Commonly during summers I was told to be home by noon. This wasn't "around" noon; this was BY noon. Sometimes, though, I didn't make it home on time.
There could be many reasons for being late. I never was a good judge of time. I'm not sure what should be expected of a twelve year old.
Hustling home, from a friend's house on the other side of the highway, or limping home a bike with a flat tire or a busted chain, I would think about what it would be like when I got home. I would imagine exactly how it would play out. Not just my excuse, but the expression on my dad's face, the light through the window, the feeling in my gut.
By the time I got home I would have been through the scenario about thirty times, diffusing the situation, taking all the anxiety out of it. This mental exercise, though, made me think about creating a scene, shaping a world, and all the things that were possible with the imagination.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Three Right Feet
From another Drudge link:
In an Answerless Canadian Inquiry, 3 Bodyless Feet
GABRIOLA ISLAND, British Columbia — Should a fourth human foot float ashore here in the evergreen Gulf Islands off the west coast of Canada, the person who finds it would no doubt want to know the answers to three questions.
Is it a right foot?
Is it wearing a running shoe?
Is the shoe a size 12?
In an Answerless Canadian Inquiry, 3 Bodyless Feet
GABRIOLA ISLAND, British Columbia — Should a fourth human foot float ashore here in the evergreen Gulf Islands off the west coast of Canada, the person who finds it would no doubt want to know the answers to three questions.
Is it a right foot?
Is it wearing a running shoe?
Is the shoe a size 12?
Another Faked Memoir
What the hell is going on? Is the world short of supposed inspiring memoirs? Did the whole Frey thing not scare people away from this sort of thing?
Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child who went on to live a gang-banger’s violent life, wielding guns and running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret P. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in well-to-do Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of California, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in North Hollywood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
And no one suspected anything? No one thought that the whole think was a little far-fetched, coming from someone clean-cut? Who was the editor who didn't bother looking into it:
Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied.
McGrath? Boy, that name sound familiar.
Over the course of three years, Ms. McGrath, who is the daughter of Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times, worked closely with Ms. Seltzer on the book. “I’ve been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed,” Ms. McGrath said. “All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks.”
Yes, that Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review. Nice.
Some have suggest that the memoir is supplanting the novel, but I think these sorts of things must being turning folks away from the genre. The real question is why? Why on earth is this necessary? What does it mean that someone is willing to cover this sort of thing up, instead of calling it fiction? Does fiction have that bad of a name? Geez.
And what does it mean that Drudge is linking to this story?
Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child who went on to live a gang-banger’s violent life, wielding guns and running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret P. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in well-to-do Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of California, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in North Hollywood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
And no one suspected anything? No one thought that the whole think was a little far-fetched, coming from someone clean-cut? Who was the editor who didn't bother looking into it:
Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied.
McGrath? Boy, that name sound familiar.
Over the course of three years, Ms. McGrath, who is the daughter of Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times, worked closely with Ms. Seltzer on the book. “I’ve been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed,” Ms. McGrath said. “All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks.”
Yes, that Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review. Nice.
Some have suggest that the memoir is supplanting the novel, but I think these sorts of things must being turning folks away from the genre. The real question is why? Why on earth is this necessary? What does it mean that someone is willing to cover this sort of thing up, instead of calling it fiction? Does fiction have that bad of a name? Geez.
And what does it mean that Drudge is linking to this story?
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