...about the rest, but the review of Gravity's Rainbow is a riot:
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/lone-star-statements
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
So. All This Reading...
Did a bit of math last night. Assuming the average book page has 250 words, and I'm going through at one hundred pages a day, not counting extra reading and audiobooks, just how much reading am I doing?
Note that I give myself two weeks or so off for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and other travel, so let's say I'm going to read 35,000 pages this year.
That is the equivalent of reading the bible every month, month after month, year after year.
So what happens to the brain?
—I can read anywhere. I am not distracted. Reading is now Thing #1 to my brain.
—I can detect voice much, much better than ever I could before. Not only can I readily tell the difference between any two writers; I can tell the difference between early Writer X and late Writer X.
—I need to read early in the day. If I wait to read until late in the day my eyeballs fall out. I need to start reading by six in the morning. I also need to see my eye doctor more frequently. I have reading glasses, but wearing them makes me fall asleep.
—My brain is completely addicted to constant reading. I just finished Raintree County by Ross Lockridge Jr., a great American novel that is actually a great American novel. Setting out across this vast work, feeling Fitzgerald's boats beating back against the tide, I learn writing, I learn voice, I learn the story of my nation, the story of my however-many-times great grandfather Henry William Clark, corporal of Company F of the 27th Connecticut Volunteers who fought at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg...
I learn to read again.
Note that I give myself two weeks or so off for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and other travel, so let's say I'm going to read 35,000 pages this year.
That is the equivalent of reading the bible every month, month after month, year after year.
So what happens to the brain?
—I can read anywhere. I am not distracted. Reading is now Thing #1 to my brain.
—I can detect voice much, much better than ever I could before. Not only can I readily tell the difference between any two writers; I can tell the difference between early Writer X and late Writer X.
—I need to read early in the day. If I wait to read until late in the day my eyeballs fall out. I need to start reading by six in the morning. I also need to see my eye doctor more frequently. I have reading glasses, but wearing them makes me fall asleep.
—My brain is completely addicted to constant reading. I just finished Raintree County by Ross Lockridge Jr., a great American novel that is actually a great American novel. Setting out across this vast work, feeling Fitzgerald's boats beating back against the tide, I learn writing, I learn voice, I learn the story of my nation, the story of my however-many-times great grandfather Henry William Clark, corporal of Company F of the 27th Connecticut Volunteers who fought at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg...
I learn to read again.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
#250!
Post two-fifty, apparently. Considering the year's festival of reading, there can be no better thing to say about writing than this:
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Dear Anonomi,
I do not wish to purchase Xanax, Cialis, or the like. I shall be temporarily disabling anonymous comments, if I can figure out how.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
New Genre.
I'm reading another one of these, and I'm trying to come up with a definition:
Wealthy young people* slumming in European capitols in genteel poverty**, experiencing the local culture*** while pursuing artistic endeavors**** and engaging in earnest relationships***** that turn into tragic lifetime memories******. Also, somebody dies*******.
*They don't think they're wealthy. Often they think they had a middle class upbringing. Until they explain their boarding schools, vacations, and ponies. Mummy sitting in the drawing room smoking all afternoon, for example.
**Genteel poverty in that they have small apartments in bohemian parts of town, but never have to work and never run out of cigarettes and alcohol.
***These folks live in the "real" city, and some of their best friends are locals. Mockery of the clueless foreign tourists is a necessity.
****They are painters, photographers, novelists, poets, whatever. The writers only write longhand and the artists never need supplies. Whatever they do, it never interferes with their free time.
*****Lots of sex, and sex very soon after meeting the partner(s). Remember, these are young artists.
******Because we know these relationships can't last, right? Because then it's not literature. It's a romance. Nobody wants to explain this lost summer to the grandkids.
*******Might be one of the lovely young couple, but often as not is the friend who chases the art thing a little too hard. Alcohol, drugs, random behavior, suicide, something gets him. This is the death that tells our lovers that the dream cannot last. That they may have to go home and get a job. One of the two (usually, if one is a novelist, it's that one) will succeed with the art part, but love will never be the same.
Note that this genre does not seem to work with actual poor people, particularly Americans, because they have to start paying off their student loans and can't just biff off to Europe or wherever.
Wealthy young people* slumming in European capitols in genteel poverty**, experiencing the local culture*** while pursuing artistic endeavors**** and engaging in earnest relationships***** that turn into tragic lifetime memories******. Also, somebody dies*******.
*They don't think they're wealthy. Often they think they had a middle class upbringing. Until they explain their boarding schools, vacations, and ponies. Mummy sitting in the drawing room smoking all afternoon, for example.
**Genteel poverty in that they have small apartments in bohemian parts of town, but never have to work and never run out of cigarettes and alcohol.
***These folks live in the "real" city, and some of their best friends are locals. Mockery of the clueless foreign tourists is a necessity.
****They are painters, photographers, novelists, poets, whatever. The writers only write longhand and the artists never need supplies. Whatever they do, it never interferes with their free time.
*****Lots of sex, and sex very soon after meeting the partner(s). Remember, these are young artists.
******Because we know these relationships can't last, right? Because then it's not literature. It's a romance. Nobody wants to explain this lost summer to the grandkids.
*******Might be one of the lovely young couple, but often as not is the friend who chases the art thing a little too hard. Alcohol, drugs, random behavior, suicide, something gets him. This is the death that tells our lovers that the dream cannot last. That they may have to go home and get a job. One of the two (usually, if one is a novelist, it's that one) will succeed with the art part, but love will never be the same.
Note that this genre does not seem to work with actual poor people, particularly Americans, because they have to start paying off their student loans and can't just biff off to Europe or wherever.
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