Review of Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation

Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation by Tom Bissell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is upsetting: I wrote a review here, about an hour ago. It's gone. I wrote the whole thing, clicked save down there at the bottom and ...

What have I learned from this? In future I will write reviews in a word processor or text editor and save them; then, I will cut and paste them here. This is a very frustrating experience: first, because I don't like writing reviews about collections--whether of essays or short stories or poems. My mind tries to go too many ways, even when, as in this collection, there is clear connection between the individual works.

Bissell connects his essays with the theme of the creator and the act of creating, whether that is in film, TV, fiction or video games. I'll confess that I did not read that essay: i.e. "The Invisible Girl," because I have no interest in video games or in how they are made.

The essays I most enjoyed are: "The Theory and Practice of Not Giving a Shit," in which Bissell visits the author, Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall) and "Writing about Writing about Writing."

Harrison has the persona of the gifted artist; that special person who has been touched by the Nine Muses, maybe he has. There is a definite agon, here, with Hemingway, et al; it could be fun to look at Harrison in light of Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence.

Well, sadly, that's about all I can recall from my earlier attempt.

I do look forward to reading more of Tom Bissell's work, which I'll approach with curiosity and pleasure.


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A Review of The Book of J

The Book of J by Harold Bloom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bloom shares his interesting ideas about the parts of the Torah/Pentateuch which were written by the Yahwist, whom he calls J. Rosenberg's translations of these parts is amazing; really bringing out the irony that Bloom mentions so often in this book.

Religion doesn't play a part in this project, in fact, Bloom makes the argument that J should be considered blasphemous when taken in conjunction with the orthodox views of God, Yahweh, or whatever one happens to call this character; that is what Yahweh is to J: a character.

Knowing something of the Bible is more than helpful; and actually, I can't imagine anyone who doesn't know the Bible fairly well being interested in this book. Even lit geeks, if a knowledge of the Bible is lacking, may have trouble with most of what Bloom says about the sections which scholars believe were written by J.

Bloom discusses J, E, P, D and R: writers and redactors who had a hand in what we now call the Torah or the Pentateuch. Some religious believers don't like this, because the Bible itself says that Moses is the author. However, scholars have been able to recognize different styles, and certain aspects of an earlier writer which were missed inadvertently by a later one.

I will spare the details, because Bloom does a much better job of expounding them. But, he doesn't go into depth with any writer, except J.

My interest in this book was from a textual comparison point of view; I have been fascinated by the differences, often glaringly contradictory, in many translations of the Bible (as well as other books). This is evidence that translations do indeed usually signify interpretation. Therefore, no translation can be 100% accurate, as even the original is open to interpretation. This can become a thorny mess and has led to many arguments, which thankfully, Bloom doesn't spend too much time on. His interest is mostly literary, so he avoids much of the theological/philosophical arguments concerning the meanings, etc. This also gives him freedom to take off the "rose colored glasses" of religious interpretation, which often blind readers to what is actually written.

If you are at all interested in the history of the text of the Tanakh/Old Testament, specifically the Torah/Pentateuch/Books of Moses; or in textual comparison, interpretation, criticism, etc.; then, I recommend this book. It does lack a scholarly apparatus, as many of Bloom's books do, making it difficult to do further research, etc. from this text. It is, however, a good place to begin, and (as it was meant to be) to be enjoyed by the lay reader/general public.

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Review of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Coming to this book, I knew only that the main character, Lester Ballard, had some strange ways, but I didn't know how strange until several chapters into the book. It is an interesting read; McCarthy has a way of making it seem dream-like: broken up, but still flowing together. I'm not sure that makes sense, but that's how it reads to me. He kept the chapters short, most being only a single scene: some shorter, some longer. The short chapters coupled with Lester's bizarre behavior keeps you turning the pages, not to mention the "need" to know what happens....

There is a strong link to mythology in most of McCarthy's work and this book is no different. There are trips to the underworld, shape-shifting and tragedy among other motifs.

Without giving away too much, I will say that this book is not for the faint of heart. If Nabokov's Lolita bothers you, then there is a possibility that this will, too. It isn't exactly the same as Lolita , but the deviance of Lester, the main character, is very pronounced as is that of Humbert Humbert. But, in the case of Child of God, Lester is not the narrator.

I wonder if you could still call Lester a protagonist? He does change, but not much. The reader gets the sense that he is depraved right from the beginning. It's the level, or depth, of his depravity that changes.

The writing itself will not disappoint fans of McCarthy. His prose, as always, is tight and musical; the critics like to call it poetic, which it is. It damn near sings. I give it four stars simply for the prose. The content gives me pause; that's not to say that we should ignore it, it's just more unsettling than a book with a happy-go-lucky attitude and a bright happy ending. McCarthy almost never has happy endings and this is no exception. He does have "just" endings on occasion, or endings in which those who deserve it get it, if you get my drift.

I will read it again, simply because I love McCarthy's writing and want to learn from him. If I were reading it as a reader only, once would be enough--maybe more than enough.

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Does Anyone Else See the Problem Here?

We all know that e-books are outselling hard copies.  We all know that fewer and fewer people are actually reading: e-books or otherwise.  But, this news story has me absolutely flabbergasted.

BBC News - Disappearing ink gives books in Argentina read by date
Disappearing ink gives books in Argentina read by date 25 September 2012 Last updated at 16:18 GMT Help A publishing company in Argentina has begun printing books with ink that fades away after just two months. Publishers hope readers will be inspired to finish off their books quickly, rather than leaving them languishing on shelves forever. Tom Santorelli reports.

The first problem I see is that if you spend anywhere from $15 to $45 on a book, you aren't going to want the ink to disappear.  What if you don't have time to read the whole thing in that two months?  You just lost your investment, or you have a very expensive journal with the cover or an unfinished book.

Another problem has to do with re-reading.  A person obviously can't re-read a book if the ink has vanished.  While it may inspire a sprint read to finish it in those two months, what happens if it is a book you want to return to, to slowly chew on and think about.  That is not an option with this kind of book, evidently.

While there are probably many problems with this idea, one that will hit the sellers of books the hardest is this: people will not buy as many books.  I'll rephrase that.  Book sells will decline rapidly.  They will fall drastically because people will be less motivated to buy several books at once; instead, they will purchase a book at a time.  AND, if they fail to finish one of these two-month books, they will be even less motivated to buy another.  They will begin to see that they are wasting not only their time, but their money.

I for one would have shelves of worthless, unreadable books.  I read everyday, but I also have a rather large and ever growing to-be-read collection, and more importantly, a to-read-again collection.  If the ink is going to vanish, I may as well not plan my reading; maybe I'll stop reading and start watching TV.  Yeah, that's gonna happen.

I'm not saying boycott these books, but I am suggesting that you think about the repercussions and the consequences of buying them.

Think About It

Review of Alone With All That Could Happen

Alone with All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction by David Jauss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished this; there is much to absorb, but for starters Jauss, as is hinted at in the subtitle, comes at writing from a different angle. At least one I haven't seen. There are several chapters dealing with many aspects of writing, but none of it is prescriptive: I loved that.

Not that I dislike prescriptive books on writing. They have their place. But, sometimes, you have to be reminded why you're doing this (beyond the "I just have to write" thing). Jauss shows some ways to make the connection between craft (which is necessary) and art (which is vital). Without art, fiction feels plastic: and I'm not talking about the good kind, i.e. flexibility. I'm talking about it feeling fake, lifeless. Art without craft makes for some tough, and let's be honest, boring reading on occasion. So, we need both, and Jauss helps.

It was refreshing to read a book about writing that isn't trying to make you sit down and write a set number of words everyday, or to write for a set number of hours. Jauss brings out different aspects that many beginning writers probably never even get around to thinking about. And I know some published writers haven't gotten around to them, either.

One of my favorite parts was the last chapter: in it Jauss argues that writers, in order to really be creative, must learn to think differently: they must learn to hold contradictions in their mind; they must learn to negate themselves in certain situations in order to spark the creativity.

That may sound weird, but I don't want to give away too much. If you are a writer, or are even interested in literature, this is an excellent read.

I'm going to read it again....

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Review of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Faulkner was not afraid to break from mundane and predictable writing; that which later leads to obscurity. If you are looking for a nice point A-to-point B type story, this is not it. This leans more toward something like a mixture of his other work and Joyce/Woolf amalgamation. Yes, it has that in it (stream of consciousness writing). That said, it isn't Joyce or Woolf. It is Faulkner rollicking in the intoxicating power of words, at the height of his game. I love it because of that. Stick with it and you will see that there is a method to the madness; it is not for the faint of heart, to be sure (please excuse the cliché); it requires breaking out of the trained-laziness that much of contemporary literature and internet reading is breeding in us.

On that note, it is disheartening and nauseating to read about people who get bored because there wasn't tension in the previous two sentences, or because an author wants to take some time and really have a play with language. Editors, agents, publishers, writing gurus all spew the same thing: tension, tension, tension. It's as if the entire world is suffering from learned ADHD (not to take that disease lightly: I struggle with this condition myself, so I understand the pain it can cause; but, we cannot allow it to govern everything: i.e. make literature easier, more exciting, tension, tension, tension; but instead, we must make ourselves stick to something and why shouldn't that something be great works of literature?). If this is to change, we have to change it. Reading great literature requires sacrifice and sometimes it requires breaking out of the the blasé expectations of how literature "ought to be." "Oughts" are very ugly things....

Faulkner's writing, especially in this case, is more art than craft. Many of his other works are very tight, craft-wise (as is The Sound and the Fury; but it's tight in its own way: i.e. when there is what seems like a lot of jumping around, it really should not bother a contemporary reader, whose attention span has been hacked down to nearly nil by television and internet; this part of the book is very much like a movie: quickly switching from scene to scene, bringing into the reading the dizzying effect that the character is experiencing on the page).

The Sound and the Fury is one of Faulkner's more difficult books and didn't really catch on until after he had published Sanctuary. It isn't my favorite of those I've read of his works, but it is a strong book and has a lot to recommend it: chief being the way Faulkner plays with language and builds his characters.

Don't give up, it's worth the time you put into it.

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Freedom, Faith and Responsibility - Part 2

To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce.

— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

With this democracy, which I began to look at last time, comes the right to say whatever one wants (within certain bounds, of course). The problem comes from two directions. The first is being faced in the very act of allowing these people to comment and to speak and to flaunt their ignorance and to spread their worthless stupidity all over the place. But, who is to judge what is ignorant or stupid or worthless? Good question? So, those who allow this sort of commenting to continue are trying to show a basic trust in other humans. We should trust each other to do what is right. According to Paulo Freire, without that trust there will never be true democracy.

Now, I want to go back to the American Revolution. They were writing pamphlets and others were writing pamphlets to counter the first pamphlets and there was a serious dialogue happening. The entire process actually helped shape the ideals of the early America. Not that those ideals were complete and perfect, but they were the beginning of democracy in the world and the freedoms that those pamphleteers enjoyed were then written into law so that future generations could blabber away on the internet.

It seems that most people, today, think of the American revolutionaries as quaint old guys and a bunch of windbags that were only interested in not paying taxes. But, they established the very right which allows me to publish this essay on this blog. I have freedom of speech.

There is a cliché that says, “Freedom is never free.” And I believe that, and I’m sure you believe it, too. So, in taking the liberty, not only to write this essay, but to post it for all the world to read, I take that saying into consideration. I do not want to betray your trust and at the same time I have the faith that we as human beings can make democracy the powerful political and social ideal that it has the potential to be. That requires something else, which Paulo Freire mentions: “true words.”

Freire says that true words embody both action and reflection. If action is missing, then we see what we see today on the internet—what Freire calls “verbalism.” Without reflection we get mere “activism.” To truly change things we need both. We need “praxis.” Freire writes, “Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.”¹ So, we have freedom, especially in this country, and every voice should be heard.

Ultimately, it comes down to how we choose to use our voices. We can use them to spread hatred and tension, we can use them to merely throw empty words into empty space where their lack of authenticity will change nothing. Or, we can choose to follow Freire's words of wisdom and we can speak "true words" that engender both action and reflection and thus have power to change our world.

Happy 4th of July! Remember the First Amendment and The Golden Rule!

NOTES:

1.     Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000). 87

Freedom, Faith and Responsibility - Part 1

To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce.

— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Since we're coming up on the month of July, and that reminds me of revolutions, I want to think particularly about the events leading up to the American Revolution. There were people taking the freedom that they believed to be theirs by right and they were using that freedom to write pamphlets.

Today, we are witnessing the largest experiment in democracy that the world has ever seen—the internet. People can comment on just about every news item and if they can’t comment directly, they can save the article on any number of social bookmarking sites. This, is in effect saying to everyone else that this is the news that I think is worth reading.

The problem I have with the democratic, free speech of comments is that many of the comments are irrelevant, degrading to others, disrespectful and some are simply a waste of cyber-ink. But, to take the right to comment away would be worse than if it had never been granted in the first place. So, what is the solution?

Comments are not the only thing. Blogs, “tweets” and status updates on Facebook all share the same pros and cons. It is important to some people to be able to tell the entire world that they just relieved their bowels and are now going out for a night of wild partying. And the next day we get to hear about the hangover!

I know! I don’t have to read these things, but they are there. This is why comments are especially bothersome; one has to read through all the garbage to find one useful or even meaningful comment. People cannot refrain from replying to the first idiot commenter and so the stupidity soon begins to fly and before you know it there are pages and pages of worthless bantering about which President is to be blamed for the color of toilet paper in the bathroom of some backwater gas station. It is asinine and annoying and democratic!

NOTES:

1.     Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000). 87

WTF Is This Blog Even About?

I know, I know.  I have no rhyme or reason to my posts.  Well, I do to some of them... Right?
I have a tendency to blog about things that strike me at the moment, and thus require almost immediate comment or they will be lost to the archival darkness and my chance to have my voice heard will be gone.  I know this, because I have let these opportunities slip by uncommented upon too many times.  I'm ashamed, really.

Well ... anyway, often I read a news article or another blog post or hear someone say something while I'm out and about (which is rare, by the way--since I am something of a recluse), and it sparks ideas that I cannot get away from.  So, I start pounding away on this blog.  (That almost sounds naughty).

As you can tell, if you read enough of my posts, there is a sort-of thread or connection.  No, I don't know what it is, but it has to be there, right?  I mean, I'm not doing all this writing for nothing.... am I?  Am I?  Hmmm....  Good question.

The blog is a conglomeration of my thoughts spilled out into words and posted here for all the world to ignore, if they so wish.  Or to read and comment on, if that is more to their liking.  Or to take and make better, which I hope is what happens most.

I am a writer and I write about things that are important to me, about things that move me, about things that make me think or wonder or just shake my head in utter dismay....  For example, my last post about heeding warnings.  How many people ignore those?  Why do they do that?  If I was involved in preparing those warning systems and those people didn't listen and died, and lost their dogs and their homes and their belongings and everything else, it would eat me alive!  I would want to scream from the rooftops, "WHY????"  even if I am a reclusive introvert and don't want that kind of attention.  Lives are important, life is important.

Wow!  I have officially ranted and raved on and have basically said nothing.  If you've read this far, I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or be afraid of you.

Now, a point (which according to all the rules, I should have made much earlier, but, hey, I didn't wanna!): it is writing that ties this blog together.  I'm not published in the strict sense of the word.  Yes, I have this blog and that is a form of being published, but I would be hardpressed to use this as an example of my writing that would win me a book contract with a publisher of books.  That was a clunky sentence, huh?  O well.  This is my place to practice publicly.  You know you can practice writing all you want, but you have to let someone read it.  I mean, what else is the purpose of writing anything other than a diary/journal?

I write because I feel compelled to write.  It drives me.  Most of the time I am writing in a journal, or notebook or working on a novel (that is not in a state to be seen by anyone, yet) and so I have to write a blog post, to get that feeling that someone, anyone, is reading what I write.  It  may sound crazy, because I'm just writing about all kinds of things that are not closely related when I write here, and in my other writing, I am hopefully keeping a cohesion and a tightness in my writing.  But, this is a necessary part of my writing.

This blog is my way of discussing ideas that are important; some of those ideas will eventually end up in my other work, simply because I took the time to hammer out some of the kinks in my thinking right here, for all the world to see.

You have to be getting tired of all this by now, so, I'm shutting up.

Thanks for reading....

Book Recommendations From Hell: A Cry For Help

I recently (well, if you consider a couple of months recent) began reading A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis.  My reason for choosing it was because several "what-to-read-next?" websites recommended it as being like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.  I can't think of any way that the two books resemble one another.  Now, if I had typed in Catch 22, by Joseph Heller, say, or maybe even A Broom of the System, by David Foster Wallace, A Frolic as a recommendation, would make sense.  But, Gravity's Rainbow?  Well, I guess you live and learn; you can't always trust technology to steer you in the right direction, can you?

How do those things even work?  I've noticed on YourNextRead.com, that there is an option to thumb-down a recommendation.  PLEASE, if you come across one that you know is NOT a good recommendation, thumb that shit down!  It does NOT mean that you don't like either of the books; it DOES mean that someone looking for a similar book will be baffled by that recommendation, and said bafflement may cause recommendationophobia or something.  Do you want to be a cause of these persons contracting an extending case of Luddititis?  I mean, come on!  If you have read, say A Frolic of His Own and Gravity's Rainbow, and you see one of those being recommended because of the other, what are you going to do? THUMB-THAT-SHIT-DOWN! Repeat after me: THUMB-THAT-SHIT-DOWN!  You can give each book five stars, LIKE I DO.  They are both excellent literary fiction.  BUT, they are not alike.  Okay, I guess I have probably beat the holy bejeepercreepers out of this dead horse.  You get me.

Don't misunderstand.  I like A Frolic, but every time I pick it up to begin reading, all I can do is think about how much it is NOT like Gravity's Rainbow and that just knocks me right down.  I'm trying not to give up and try some other year.  I guess I'll just keep at it and bitch away here on my trusty blog....
Later gators.

Music While Writing?

I mentioned a few posts ago about Stephen King's listening to music when he writes. I know people who listen to music while they study. Many arguments/debates have taken place between me and my children and between my college student peers and me on this subject.

They claim that they can concentrate BETTER with music or TV playing while they read and study. I have told them, and stick to this: the human brain is not capable of handling this efficiently. And this is especially true if there are vocals. Classical music may work for short periods, but the human voice is one of the most distracting sounds to other humans; so, if you are listening to music while reading, writing, or studying, you are in effect causing your brain undue stress by making it attempt to pay attention to two separate things at once. Not good.

Now, on to listening to music while writing. In some cases listening to hard and heavy music while writing is extremely helpful:

• When your inner critic refuses to shut the hell up
• When you are attempting to drown out other distractions
• To increase your feeling of energy while you work
• Because that Homeric Geek guy said I shouldn't

There are probably other reasons for listening to music while writing, but those are some that I have argued for.

On the other hand, it is a bad idea to listen to music when you are:

• trying to work your way through a difficult plotting issue
• trying to hear your characters' voices
• writing at 3:00am and everyone else in your house is sleeping

Seriously, it is nearly impossible to truly give your undivided attention to deep issues while Ozzy is cranking in your ears. Dr. John Medina in Brain Rules states that it is actually impossible to multitask, which is what thinking and listening to music amounts to.

So, next time think about what you are attempting, then make an informed decision about cranking up the Metallica while writing....

Attention Spans Are a Terrible Thing to ... to Something ... I Can't Remember

We should use technology to push our minds to new breadth and new depth. Don't simply give up on the old technology (such as books), especially at the expense of the attention span. Technology should be used to learn about new areas in which to spend more time thinking deeply. But, online reading, online browsing will change our brains to the point that we will have trouble thinking deeply; our attention spans will be incapable of handling that sort of pressure.

What will happen as fewer and fewer books are read; what will happen as fewer and fewer teachers and professors actually require students to read the books assigned? Nicholas Carr interviewed several people for his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains; people who were students, teachers, etc. One philosophy major stands out. He no longer reads actual books. How is that possible? Another interviewee states that he is no longer able to read War and Peace. (That may not be a fair example, because I know plenty of people who make that claim and it has nothing to do with attention span). For that person, Tolstoy's novel is too long and complex. That is disheartening. People are allowing themselves to be changed to such a degree, by reading online -- only online -- that they can no longer enjoy complex and tedious tasks. Their brains are changed. Literally.

Already, people are more impatient than they used to be, in general. (No, I don't have any statistics for that, it is a personal observation). Is that the kind of world we want to live in? A world filled with impatient people who are incapable of thinking deeply?

Think about it.... if you still can.

Attention Contention

Publishers and editors seem to suffer from what appears to be adult ADHD (Disclaimer: I am not a psych doctor, so I can't make this diagnosis for real).  They press new writers to maintain constant tension for their potential readers; keep the pressure on, keep them turning pages; in other words, don't bore them with anything that might strain their weak, failing, meager attention spans.

It won't be long that novels will have to be the length of short stories and short stories will have to be one word that captures the entire emotional and psychological life of a character: e.g. Jesus wept.

I contend that we, as humans, as readers, as writers, have the responsibility to rebel against the publishers and editors, for the sake of our children and their children.  Attention spans are quickly becoming endangered and if something drastic is not done, will follow the Dodo into extinction.

Reading Genius

"The genius of our brain's construction is not that it contains 

a lot of hardwiring but that it doesn't." 

- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows, 31.

It's not bad enough that television kicked our attention spans' collective asses, but it prepared the way for an all out annihilation to it, which has come in the form of the internet.  Email, social media, IM: these all play a part in distracting our minds from whatever productive task we have on our TO DO lists.  Cory Doctorow, as quoted by Carr, writes that "leaving your IM running is like sitting down to work after hanging a giant 'DISTRACT ME' sign over your desk, one that shines brightly enough to be seen by the entire world."  When I think of the telephone ringing, the doorbell sounding, the dogs barking at something only they can hear, the thought of having another potential distraction is more than irksome.

I'm going to say that Carr, in The Shallows, makes some rather sobering points regarding the internet's changing of the human brain.  And, as he passingly mentions, the answer is obviously not to stop using the internet at all costs.  Luddites have a difficult time uniting, with their lack of technology, which is the reason their way of thinking is an exception to actual social acceptance of the  technology they fear and loathe. But I, for one, don't want my brain to be changed in such a way that I am unable to read long, difficult works of literature, and I hope you don't want that for your brain, either.

A good idea, then, is to follow the Buddha; i.e. follow the middle path.  Use the internet to skim information, to grasp the main points of knowledge and to share our own knowledge with others; but, use books and other less distraction prone media for developing depth.  Old fashioned books for depth; new fangled internet for breadth.

Otherwise subsequent generations' attention spans won't be as long as their eye-blinks.

LINKS: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

Reading and Writing to Write

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."
- Stephen King

I agree with this very simple-seeming piece of advice; there are no magic spells, no secret buttons, no fairy dust—unless you want them in your stories; but they will not arrive serendipitously to give you the edge to write.  King, it has been belabored by many writing teachers, points out that reading provides the tools for writing.

Thinking about this in connection with Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, I believe this advice needs to be modified with the following caveats:

• Online reading does NOT equal deep reading of actual books
• Reading like a reader must be changed to reading like a writer
• Both reading and writing should be done in distraction free environment, if and when possible

In following posts we’ll look at these in turn, with an eye toward distraction, the changes to our brains from online reading, and reading like a writer.

There will be many that will disagree with me on one or more of these points: that’s understandable, because everyone is different.  The area that I have received the most debate in is that of distraction free reading and writing.  Even Stephen King states in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that he writes while listening to music (usually hard rock or heavy metal).  I will say that there are times when doing this can be helpful and I will go into that, also.

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Please feel free to comment, but be nice to me and to other commenters.  This is meant to be a discussion on writing and reading and comments should reflect that.  Thanks.

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Being Changed by Literature

Change can be good, but it is not necessarily always easy.  Several changes that a person can experience may be barely noticeable: they wake up one morning and something is different.  Changes brought about by literature are usually not so quiet; at least not in my life.  Some of these changes I have instigated, others have been instigated for me by assigned readings in university, and others are serendipitous.

The changes that I have experienced in reading T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, for example, were of the latter kind.  I picked it up on purpose, but simply to distract myself.  It ended up being the focus of my 60 page senior thesis for the B. A. in English Literature.  Because of that one moment, the one choice to read something for the sheer distraction of it, I have stumbled onto the concentration for my future literary pursuits.  I still have more to say about it, lots more.  And, I really hated The Waste Land the first few times I read it; I thought to myself, “How can people call this good?”  But, now, I call it good!

Albert Camus changed the way I look at life in general.  I would say that the changes that have happened in my life since first reading his works were self-instigated.  I purposely and purposefully chose his Myth of Sisyphus with change in mind.  What happened was not so much an actual outright change, but a merging and an upgrading of my thinking.  I found that I already shared several of his thoughts and ideas, but was unable to articulate them and that he had been kind enough to put them in writing.  Others of his ideas were not mine, but I agree with them and now they are.

The reading that I have been doing lately has both intrigued and bothered me.  It is of the assigned variety.  It is mostly philosophical in nature, which I have not had much experience with.  Well, I should rephrase that.  I have read literature that is philosophical, but have not read much systematic philosophy and then attempted to read literature through it.  Some of these works are difficult, and my initial response is dislike or distaste.  The dislike is not because of the difficulty, nor because they are philosophy or philosophical, but because they lack poetry—I am mostly referring to Kant.

I have read many things that are merely good, enjoyable; that I am glad to have read, but that I will most likely not read again.

Then, there are those works that initially I dislike, or even hate; yet, as I read them I realize that I am changing.  In these times, change is not comfortable.  My mind will not stop working on the new ideas.   I lose more sleep than usual.   The Waste Land, as I mentioned, is one of these works.

Soon, if the literature is strong I will begin to let the words become a part of my way of thinking.   But, this is a choice.  My choice.  I will not blindly believe; I absolutely refuse to call something good just because someone else does.  If I did that, I would lose respect for myself as I have often lost respect for others that do this; i.e. call something good because that is the popular consensus.

Some of the works I have been reading lately are not literature, but philosophy and literary criticism.  The professor raves about them and I was initially excited to be introduced to them; that is, until I read them.  I had a strong dislike to a few, but after thinking about them and discussing them, they are slowly moving into my “must read again and again” category.  And, several have given me ideas for expanding my research on Eliot.

Not only will I not call something good simply because that is the general consensus; I will argue, fight, declare my disgust of the work—if I do not like it.  I will, however, usually give the work a fair chance by reading it for myself.  Sometimes, but not many times, the work of literature will remain on my “do not like” list.  More often the work will become one of my favorites, and not merely because of my investment in it, but because of its investment in me.

Investment in literature is not something I take too seriously, nor is it something I take lightly.  I am serious about literature and the part it will play in my future; I will wrestle with a text as long as is necessary, if I believe that it is worth it.  I refuse to take any of it so seriously, however, that I am angered when others joke or have fun at the expense of the literature.  If there is no fun in it, I will not bother.  The day I lose pleasure in literature and its study is the day I find something else to be fill my time.

That does not mean that I will only read silly literature—how much of that is running around in the wild?  What I mean is that I will not let literature become something about which I cannot change my mind.  If it is good, I will read it, enjoy it, wrestle with it, write about it, but I will not let it be my holy text.  I have no holy text and will have none, thank you.  Nothing is sacred unless we make it sacred.

My mind is my mind and I will run it the way I want to run it.¹ Literature does have an enormous impact on much of my thinking and my way of being.  However, I have no problem changing my mind if I think that what I am reading no longer suits me, or serves me.  Maybe I am fooling myself.  Maybe I just think I change my mind, when in reality it is another work of literature that has done it for me….

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1. At least I think this way; I could be wrong and have no free will whatsoever.  I’ll have to keep reading the philosophers and get back with you on it.

Book Obsession

I am obsessed with books and reading. 

My current year’s (i.e. 2011) reading list is too long to finish this year, at my present reading rate.  It comprises mostly contemporary literary fiction, but there are a few modernist and classic titles.  The list began when I asked my friends for recommendations of contemporary literary novels.  Then, it grew as I read a novel I liked and searched for others similar to it.  There are close to one hundred books on the list; which does not include the non-fiction, philosophy, poetry and short stories I want to read. 

This may sound rather benign and harmless, but nearly every time I get online I am looking for more books; I often check books out from the library that are not on my list and attempt to read them concurrently with the listed books. 

Books are always on my mind: at night I think about what I want to read next from my list (or not from my list); during the day I have a stack of books that I am working on, while I look longingly and with desperate remorse at my shelves of books (and stacks of books that won’t fit on the already full shelves).

It’s not that I’m a book-pack-rat.  And, it’s not that my books are like first editions or collectible; most of them are paperback.  I read, have read and plan to re-read most of the books I own.  If I read a book and it doesn’t rate at least 4 stars and fairly beg to be read again, then I will get rid of it: either selling it on Amazon, donating it to the local used bookstore or swapping it on PaperBackSwap. 

Still, I have a lot of books and have a very hard time, with withdrawal-type symptoms, when I think of giving up buying them—even for a short time.  My palms are sweating now and my heart is pounding, and I’m merely thinking about it so I can write about it. 

I have not sought medical help for this, but am beginning to think it may be necessary.