Life has made book-blogging a little untenable the last few months. I've just started my MFA at the New School, as well as a new job, and there is hardly any time to stop and reflect on the reading I'm doing.
But I'd like to try and record some thoughts about my fall reading list. I'm in a literature seminar called "War, Politics and the Modern Novel", and I'm already three novels in and considering topics for my first critical essay for the class. The first two novels we discussed were Dostoevsky's Demons (or, to some, The Possessed) and then Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes. I wasn't able to finish the Dostoevsky because it was summer reading, and I'm a first-year student, although I hope to go back and get into it. (I read the first one hundred pages, and like any casual reading of Dostoevsky, found it puzzling and wonderful.) I did get the Conrad completed, and we're in the midst of discussing that in class.
For me, the first part of that book was excellent -- the moral struggle of Razumov over his anger with Haldin, his desire for vengeance, and his qualms about betraying a fellow student. I really felt Conrad created such a believable and moving story, and the ending was so thrilling. However, the rest of the novel failed to recapture that sense of sharp poignancy. Part of it may be a generational issue -- a 21st century reader is well acquainted with the tropes of spy thrillers and many of Conrad's plot features have been exhausted in books, television and movies. I'm sure to his contemporaries, Conrad's story was far fresher than it feels to me now.
What I really appreciated was Conrad's use of doubles -- a constant in his work apparently. I loved that certain pairs of characters illuminated each other and cast certain qualities in relief, either from similarity or contrast. I might have to check out Lord Jim and consider writing my essay on Conrad, but I'm still not sure what I want to do.
We're in the middle of The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth this week. For some reason, it reminds me a bit of Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude -- that multi-generational quality, perhaps. But I'm still not far enough into it to have much to say just yet.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
When good sci-fi goes bad
I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me: I start reading a science fiction book, particularly something supposedly "classic" from the 1940s to the 1960s, and I get so excited about it, because the story and the characters are both interesting, and then...and then, the Big Idea of the book takes over, and the novel goes downhill.
I was halfway through Philip Jose Farmer's The Unreasoning Mask, when the didactic Big Idea of Farmer's novel took over, and the characters and the story took a decided (and much regretted) backseat. It is as if the writer somehow feels the story of these characters in this particular time is not enough -- that he must supplement it somehow with these grand pronouncements and a "solution" to the nature of the universe or some huge revelation about space/time travel, human nature, or insert-your-own-Big-Idea-here. It culminates in the undoing of a lot of potentially good science fiction novels, and results in a big sigh of disappointments, nearly every time, from me.
Farmer's novel had a really great opening -- a space ship captain, a former Muslim turned atheist, steals an artifact from a planet they've visited, and the artifact just happens to be considered the "god" of the people he took it from. In attempting to outrun the pursuing aliens, who want their god back, the captain and his crew also encounter a massive, planet-killing force which seems somehow tied in with the stolen god. Sounds interesting, right? It was, until about two-thirds of the way through, when it gets trippy and explication of the Big Idea takes over for the story. You can tell this happens when dialogue -- the main character Explaining The Nature of the Universe -- takes over for the actions and details of the plot.
I've got maybe fifty pages left, and I don't even want to finish it. I'm sick of the lecture.
The main thing science fiction genre writers need to learn is that the story itself is sufficient. Place us in the world, show us some of what you've got, but you don't need to explain everything to us. A little mystery is just fine with a reader, even preferred. That moment in science fiction, when the writer seems to say "ok, now, let me tell you how it is" -- that moment just induces a groan from the reader.
Ah well, on to the next one.
I was halfway through Philip Jose Farmer's The Unreasoning Mask, when the didactic Big Idea of Farmer's novel took over, and the characters and the story took a decided (and much regretted) backseat. It is as if the writer somehow feels the story of these characters in this particular time is not enough -- that he must supplement it somehow with these grand pronouncements and a "solution" to the nature of the universe or some huge revelation about space/time travel, human nature, or insert-your-own-Big-Idea-here. It culminates in the undoing of a lot of potentially good science fiction novels, and results in a big sigh of disappointments, nearly every time, from me.
Farmer's novel had a really great opening -- a space ship captain, a former Muslim turned atheist, steals an artifact from a planet they've visited, and the artifact just happens to be considered the "god" of the people he took it from. In attempting to outrun the pursuing aliens, who want their god back, the captain and his crew also encounter a massive, planet-killing force which seems somehow tied in with the stolen god. Sounds interesting, right? It was, until about two-thirds of the way through, when it gets trippy and explication of the Big Idea takes over for the story. You can tell this happens when dialogue -- the main character Explaining The Nature of the Universe -- takes over for the actions and details of the plot.
I've got maybe fifty pages left, and I don't even want to finish it. I'm sick of the lecture.
The main thing science fiction genre writers need to learn is that the story itself is sufficient. Place us in the world, show us some of what you've got, but you don't need to explain everything to us. A little mystery is just fine with a reader, even preferred. That moment in science fiction, when the writer seems to say "ok, now, let me tell you how it is" -- that moment just induces a groan from the reader.
Ah well, on to the next one.
Monday, July 16, 2007
My Review, and the Week of Potter
First off, my Brooklyn Rail review on The Apocalypse Reader is finally up here. The print edition has one of the best covers for the Rail I've ever seen. I'm sending it home -- I hope my mother takes that Jesus-crucified-on-a-fighter-plane with her to church services at First Baptist, Memphis. I'd love to see their faces.
(Actually they probably wouldn't mind -- they're pretty liberal for a Southern Baptist church.)
And thus we come to the Week of Potter. People are freaking out, ya'll. And yes, I pre-ordered. Didn't you? Oh c'mon, don't act like you're above it.
Having said that, this article in the Washington Post makes some very good points. I don't think the marketing and popularity of the Potter books is as much to blame as this reviewer seems to think -- personally, I think the failure of our public education system is behind this. We're not creating a well-educated, thoughtful, literate citizenry, and thus, we have airport-novel readers who just want something easy or who want the latest, most buzzed-about thing. The Potter phenomenon is just the mirror reflecting this back to us -- and some of us don't like what we see.
One of the "pet projects" I've always dreamed about involves getting great novelists into public schools -- to teach, do readings, talk about writing and books. Mostly at the elementary or junior high school level. They don't have to read their own work -- I think it would be extremely cool for someone like, say, Jonathan Lethem to read from the young adult novels that he loved at that age. One of the strong influences I had as a child was the presence of strong, passionate readers -- my parents, a few teachers, etc. I have a very fond memory of my fifth grade teacher doing a wonderful reading of "James and the Giant Peach" -- that's the kind of thing that cultivates a desire to read, I think.
Get 'em while they're young -- that's how you do it, folks.
(Actually they probably wouldn't mind -- they're pretty liberal for a Southern Baptist church.)
And thus we come to the Week of Potter. People are freaking out, ya'll. And yes, I pre-ordered. Didn't you? Oh c'mon, don't act like you're above it.
Having said that, this article in the Washington Post makes some very good points. I don't think the marketing and popularity of the Potter books is as much to blame as this reviewer seems to think -- personally, I think the failure of our public education system is behind this. We're not creating a well-educated, thoughtful, literate citizenry, and thus, we have airport-novel readers who just want something easy or who want the latest, most buzzed-about thing. The Potter phenomenon is just the mirror reflecting this back to us -- and some of us don't like what we see.
One of the "pet projects" I've always dreamed about involves getting great novelists into public schools -- to teach, do readings, talk about writing and books. Mostly at the elementary or junior high school level. They don't have to read their own work -- I think it would be extremely cool for someone like, say, Jonathan Lethem to read from the young adult novels that he loved at that age. One of the strong influences I had as a child was the presence of strong, passionate readers -- my parents, a few teachers, etc. I have a very fond memory of my fifth grade teacher doing a wonderful reading of "James and the Giant Peach" -- that's the kind of thing that cultivates a desire to read, I think.
Get 'em while they're young -- that's how you do it, folks.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Prick Flicks
There is a really interesting article by Gloria Steinem here which proposes that, just as we label "women's media" as chick-lit and chick flicks, perhaps we should group all male-oriented media under the heading "Prick Flicks." Here's my favorite quote:
"Think about it: If Anna Karenina had been written by Leah Tolstoy, or The Scarlet Letter by Nancy Hawthorne, or Madame Bovary by Greta Flaubert, or A Doll's House by Henrietta Ibsen, or The Glass Menagerie by (a female) Tennessee Williams, would they have been hailed as universal? Suppose Shakespeare had really been The Dark Lady some people supposed. I bet most of her plays and all of her sonnets would have been dismissed as some Elizabethan version of ye olde "chick lit," only to be resurrected centuries later by stubborn feminist scholars."
That's it: from now on, I'm calling myself Nancy Hawthorne.
***
It occurred to me this morning while reading Andrea Levy's Small Island that part of the novel's genius is that it doesn't limit itself to depicting the racism of Britons during World War II -- Levy devotes herself, almost equally, to showing how class snobbery still played a role, even when London was under heavy bombing. The middle class still sniffed and complained over the lower classes taking refuge on their respectable streets -- even when these people had nowhere else to go! This book really does deserve all the praise it has received -- in addition to being extraordinarily well-written, it maintains distinct character voices with a wonderful fluidity, and it covers a very broad range of human experience.
That being said, I've got to finish it before Harry Potter arrives, or I'll have to put it down to read that first. (I'm only slightly kidding.)
"Think about it: If Anna Karenina had been written by Leah Tolstoy, or The Scarlet Letter by Nancy Hawthorne, or Madame Bovary by Greta Flaubert, or A Doll's House by Henrietta Ibsen, or The Glass Menagerie by (a female) Tennessee Williams, would they have been hailed as universal? Suppose Shakespeare had really been The Dark Lady some people supposed. I bet most of her plays and all of her sonnets would have been dismissed as some Elizabethan version of ye olde "chick lit," only to be resurrected centuries later by stubborn feminist scholars."
That's it: from now on, I'm calling myself Nancy Hawthorne.
***
It occurred to me this morning while reading Andrea Levy's Small Island that part of the novel's genius is that it doesn't limit itself to depicting the racism of Britons during World War II -- Levy devotes herself, almost equally, to showing how class snobbery still played a role, even when London was under heavy bombing. The middle class still sniffed and complained over the lower classes taking refuge on their respectable streets -- even when these people had nowhere else to go! This book really does deserve all the praise it has received -- in addition to being extraordinarily well-written, it maintains distinct character voices with a wonderful fluidity, and it covers a very broad range of human experience.
That being said, I've got to finish it before Harry Potter arrives, or I'll have to put it down to read that first. (I'm only slightly kidding.)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
I Am Legend/The Whole
My reading weekend was interesting -- I polished off John Reed's The Whole and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend in less than forty eight hours, in addition to cleaning, seeing friends and immersing myself (temporarily) in cable television while cat-sitting for a friend. (My rule about cable -- 24 hours once a year, and I'm over it and don't need to watch it again for another year.)
I Am Legend was a fast and interesting read. Originally published in 1954 and set in a fictional, nightmarish version of the 1970s, it tells the story of Robert Neville, last survivor of a bacterial plague that has rendered all of humanity into a vampiric, parasite-plagued species. Neville survives by boarding up his house, constantly working to replenish his supplies and his independent generator, and never going outside after sundown. The book is interesting, not because of the horror of his situation, but because of the small details Matheson bothers to elaborate -- the psychology of being the sole human left, the boredom, the use of alcohol as a crutch, and the monotony of working constantly at a bare-bones level of survival. That level of detail draws you into the story -- a simple fighting-vampires story would not be enough here, and Matheson knows that.
This is also a more philosophical horror novel. There is a wonderful twist here, which is less about vampires and more about questioning the idea of what we consider "normal". I won't give away the ending, but this is worth a read if you like a good vampire story. I'm afraid the upcoming movie version is going to take out the best bits of the book in favor of a Hollywood ending, but hey, what can you do?
I Am Legend was a fast and interesting read. Originally published in 1954 and set in a fictional, nightmarish version of the 1970s, it tells the story of Robert Neville, last survivor of a bacterial plague that has rendered all of humanity into a vampiric, parasite-plagued species. Neville survives by boarding up his house, constantly working to replenish his supplies and his independent generator, and never going outside after sundown. The book is interesting, not because of the horror of his situation, but because of the small details Matheson bothers to elaborate -- the psychology of being the sole human left, the boredom, the use of alcohol as a crutch, and the monotony of working constantly at a bare-bones level of survival. That level of detail draws you into the story -- a simple fighting-vampires story would not be enough here, and Matheson knows that.
This is also a more philosophical horror novel. There is a wonderful twist here, which is less about vampires and more about questioning the idea of what we consider "normal". I won't give away the ending, but this is worth a read if you like a good vampire story. I'm afraid the upcoming movie version is going to take out the best bits of the book in favor of a Hollywood ending, but hey, what can you do?
I had also started The Whole about mid-week and then finished it on Saturday afternoon. Here's a caveat -- John Reed is my editor at the Brooklyn Rail and my former teacher, so I suppose I'm biased. Also, I am a huge fan of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Reed's book is very evocative of that story. There are other reviews out there about this book that give a plot summary and a better analysis than I could, but what I particularly liked about this book was its language. The book satirizes modern-day youth language as much as it does anything else, and there's a creative playfulness in it that I really enjoyed. That being said, I'm still scratching my head over the ending, which was so ramped up into absurdity that I don't even know what to make of it.
In other news -- I keep meaning to mention that Annie Dillard has a new novel out. I'm pretty excited about that. She granted an interview, which is here, and there's a review of the novel in the Times, which is here. I have mostly read her nonfiction essays, but the novel sounds like a quick, dazzling read. I'm even tempted to invest in a hardcover version, which is a rare thing for me.
I'm on to Andrea Levy's Small Island now -- I'm reading it for the multi-narrative style, which I'm also using (far less successfully?) in my own work.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
In the Country of Last Things - Paul Auster
I reached the last few pages of this book on the subway this morning and, very reluctantly, put it back in my bag and headed to work. But I couldn't stand it so I surreptitiously read the last few pages at my desk, and I'm writing this only seconds away from finishing it.
I loved this book. It is one of the best post-apocalyptic stories I've ever read -- vivid, eventful, character-driven, terrifying but with enough moments of humanity and hope to keep you invested.
This is the story of Anna Blume, a woman who has come to a ruined city in search of her brother, William. The city itself is a mystery -- I've read reviews that suggest it is New York, but I really didn't feel that it mattered. I like it much better as a city without a name, a city that could be anywhere. The city has collapsed, and probably the entire nation has also collapsed. Corrupt, inefficient regimes come and go in the city, but most of the population lives in a kind of starved, desperate stupor, scavenging for food and any objects they can sell to buy food. There are suicide cults of various kinds, centers where you can pay to be euthanized, and it is against the law to bury the dead, since they have to be burned for fuel.
Anna has an almost picaresque journey through the city -- we see the various micro-worlds through her misadventures of survival. She starts as a scavenger, looking for objects she can sell to keep herself alive, and falls in with an elderly woman who also scavenges, but who has the good fortune of an apartment so Anna doesn't have to sleep outside. She eventually is turned out of this apartment, and finds herself living amongst the remaining intelligentsia, who are inhabiting various rooms of the National Library.
Here she falls in with Sam, a journalist (and a colleague of her missing brother) who is writing a book that documents the decline and fall of the city. The two become lovers, and this is one of the most interesting sections of the book. Auster combines extreme desperation with moments of clarity in dizzying episodes and the physical details of Anna's life, in particular, make this story so incredibly evocative. In a way, it reminds me a little bit of "Oliver Twist" -- the lost child, falling in with wiser and more complicated characters. Anna starts out that way, but she isn't the foil that Oliver was for Dickens -- she's a more well-rounded, complete character.
I also compared this book to Jim Crace's recent book "The Pesthouse", except I felt Auster's book was far better. Crace seemed to shrink from examining the really interesting developments of a post-cataclysmic landscape, as if this struck him as too "science-fictiony" and a little silly. (And it definitely can be, in the hands of the wrong writer.) He had a few really wonderful moments in that book that he didn't exploit nearly as well as he could have. In contrast, Auster seems to luxuriate in those features, and devotes almost a little too much time to them in the opening of the book.
In fact, my one criticism with this book is that he takes a little too long to get into his plot, and spends a little too much time establishing the landcscape. Readers are savvy enough these days to accept an apocalyptic city and recognize it immediately -- they don't need as much establishment as Auster gives them.
According to IMDB, this book might be made into a movie, filmed in Argentina, with Eva Green as the main character. My little "prediction" for 2008 is that we're going to see a lot of these post-apocalyptic stories adapted for film - they might not make it all the way to the screen, but there will be deals and there will be rumors. Hollywood probably sat up and took notice when McCarthy won the Pulitzer for "The Road", and I'm sure someone will think to adapt Crace's book as well. (In fairness, it might make a really good movie.)
I loved this book. It is one of the best post-apocalyptic stories I've ever read -- vivid, eventful, character-driven, terrifying but with enough moments of humanity and hope to keep you invested.
This is the story of Anna Blume, a woman who has come to a ruined city in search of her brother, William. The city itself is a mystery -- I've read reviews that suggest it is New York, but I really didn't feel that it mattered. I like it much better as a city without a name, a city that could be anywhere. The city has collapsed, and probably the entire nation has also collapsed. Corrupt, inefficient regimes come and go in the city, but most of the population lives in a kind of starved, desperate stupor, scavenging for food and any objects they can sell to buy food. There are suicide cults of various kinds, centers where you can pay to be euthanized, and it is against the law to bury the dead, since they have to be burned for fuel.
Anna has an almost picaresque journey through the city -- we see the various micro-worlds through her misadventures of survival. She starts as a scavenger, looking for objects she can sell to keep herself alive, and falls in with an elderly woman who also scavenges, but who has the good fortune of an apartment so Anna doesn't have to sleep outside. She eventually is turned out of this apartment, and finds herself living amongst the remaining intelligentsia, who are inhabiting various rooms of the National Library.
Here she falls in with Sam, a journalist (and a colleague of her missing brother) who is writing a book that documents the decline and fall of the city. The two become lovers, and this is one of the most interesting sections of the book. Auster combines extreme desperation with moments of clarity in dizzying episodes and the physical details of Anna's life, in particular, make this story so incredibly evocative. In a way, it reminds me a little bit of "Oliver Twist" -- the lost child, falling in with wiser and more complicated characters. Anna starts out that way, but she isn't the foil that Oliver was for Dickens -- she's a more well-rounded, complete character.
I also compared this book to Jim Crace's recent book "The Pesthouse", except I felt Auster's book was far better. Crace seemed to shrink from examining the really interesting developments of a post-cataclysmic landscape, as if this struck him as too "science-fictiony" and a little silly. (And it definitely can be, in the hands of the wrong writer.) He had a few really wonderful moments in that book that he didn't exploit nearly as well as he could have. In contrast, Auster seems to luxuriate in those features, and devotes almost a little too much time to them in the opening of the book.
In fact, my one criticism with this book is that he takes a little too long to get into his plot, and spends a little too much time establishing the landcscape. Readers are savvy enough these days to accept an apocalyptic city and recognize it immediately -- they don't need as much establishment as Auster gives them.
According to IMDB, this book might be made into a movie, filmed in Argentina, with Eva Green as the main character. My little "prediction" for 2008 is that we're going to see a lot of these post-apocalyptic stories adapted for film - they might not make it all the way to the screen, but there will be deals and there will be rumors. Hollywood probably sat up and took notice when McCarthy won the Pulitzer for "The Road", and I'm sure someone will think to adapt Crace's book as well. (In fairness, it might make a really good movie.)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Book networks
I've been thinking a lot about book networks. That Oprah book club article started me thinking about the topic, and then this article about Chuck Palahniuk's fan base drew me back to the topic of what I'm calling "book networks". Fan events, reader-review sites, book clubs, book blogs -- these are the new ways that readers are interacting and learning about books. That's a bit of the reason why book reviewing is in jeopardy and newspapers are scaling back their coverage -- these informal networks break up the authority of the bespectacled academic book reviewer, perched authoritatively in his desk chair, pronouncing a verdict upon the latest Philip Roth novel.
I'm intrigued by the phenomenon, and not entirely sure if I think of it as a good-vs-bad thing. On the one hand, the egalitarian, vaguely anarchic side of me celebrates the tearing down of the ivory tower (which I, as a descendant of blue-collar Southerners, never quite felt I could get into), but on the other hand, the labyrinthine world of book blogs and amateur reviews is something I don't have time to wade through.
For example, here is the National Book Critics Circle Links page -- possibly the most thorough listing of the best book blogs and review sites out there. Have I had time to go through all these sites yet? No. At best, I manage to sprint through a few sites each month, or I go searching for a review of a particular book. Sometimes I wonder if you could actually spend all the time you had available to read a particular book just searching for and reading all the blog and mainstream journal reviews of the book that are available. Information Overload, big time.
The nature of reading -- as a solitary activity -- and the type of personalities who tend to be avid readers often makes for a certain longing to connect with other like-minded people. People who read a lot, often from an early age, tend to feel solitary and isolated from other people, and to seek understanding and comfort from books -- I'm not stating an opinion here, that's a well-documented fact (anthropological studies, blah blah blah). So the idea that these people could connect with each other and enjoy nerding out over their favorite books would seem to be a no-brainer, right? I don't know, somehow I'm still skeptical.
I'm interested to see how the website GoodReads does -- whether it takes off or not. A lot of people have enthused to me about it recently, but that doesn't mean they're going to put in the time to write reviews and document their reading lists. My secret suspicion, which I'm hoping is proved incorrect, is that people who have historically felt isolated from others and took solace in books are not exactly going to succeed in creating a networking movement that is based on those books.
I'm very happy to be wrong about that, however.
I'm intrigued by the phenomenon, and not entirely sure if I think of it as a good-vs-bad thing. On the one hand, the egalitarian, vaguely anarchic side of me celebrates the tearing down of the ivory tower (which I, as a descendant of blue-collar Southerners, never quite felt I could get into), but on the other hand, the labyrinthine world of book blogs and amateur reviews is something I don't have time to wade through.
For example, here is the National Book Critics Circle Links page -- possibly the most thorough listing of the best book blogs and review sites out there. Have I had time to go through all these sites yet? No. At best, I manage to sprint through a few sites each month, or I go searching for a review of a particular book. Sometimes I wonder if you could actually spend all the time you had available to read a particular book just searching for and reading all the blog and mainstream journal reviews of the book that are available. Information Overload, big time.
The nature of reading -- as a solitary activity -- and the type of personalities who tend to be avid readers often makes for a certain longing to connect with other like-minded people. People who read a lot, often from an early age, tend to feel solitary and isolated from other people, and to seek understanding and comfort from books -- I'm not stating an opinion here, that's a well-documented fact (anthropological studies, blah blah blah). So the idea that these people could connect with each other and enjoy nerding out over their favorite books would seem to be a no-brainer, right? I don't know, somehow I'm still skeptical.
I'm interested to see how the website GoodReads does -- whether it takes off or not. A lot of people have enthused to me about it recently, but that doesn't mean they're going to put in the time to write reviews and document their reading lists. My secret suspicion, which I'm hoping is proved incorrect, is that people who have historically felt isolated from others and took solace in books are not exactly going to succeed in creating a networking movement that is based on those books.
I'm very happy to be wrong about that, however.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Hurricane touches down on land
Introduction -- Welcome to Hurricane Laura
After keeping an extensive journal for almost seven years, I finally decided to hell with it, time to consolidate my writing and my journal in public space. So here it is, the Hurricane Laura blog. At some point, this will all be updated into a website, with links to my writing, my CV, some pictures my cousin is taking of me, as well as anything else I feel like adding, but for now, this will be a placeholder where I can post things I'm doing or just thinking about.
A note on the name "Hurricane Laura" -- this is a joking nickname my mother and my brother have called me since my adolescence. It refers to my ripping-up-your-trailer-park style temper, as in: "Uh-oh, here comes Hurricane Laura. Everybody take cover in the basement!" I used to get irritated by this nickname, but now I embrace it. Whatever, ya'll, I'm a tempest in a teacup. Goes with the territory when you're a) a Southerner and b) a redheaded Southerner.
Recent Reviews Available Online
My first review is up for the Brooklyn Rail, available here. It's a review of Mackenzie Wark's book "Gamer Theory".
I filed my second review, about post-apocalyptic fiction, this month and that will be out in the July/August issue. I'm excited about that one because I've been doing a lot of summer research about post-apocalyptic fiction. I have an annotated bibliography in the works -- at nine pages and counting -- and I am busily going through and refreshing myself on the major works or reading some things for the first time. Currently, I'm in the middle of Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things (1987) and Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx (2002). I have to say, I wouldn't recommend reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction for months at a time -- you do start to get very world-weary and a little paranoid. I'm cleansing my literary palate with a variety of other things whenever I feel like I just can't take it anymore.
By the way, two other ways to find me: here I am on Goodreads and here I am on myspace. I don't really like 'the myspace' so much -- someone mentioned to me the other day that it is 'growing like a weed', and I thought, yup, that's why I don't like it -- it's a weed. But you can't exactly prune the Internet.
What I'm Thinking About Today
I just read this review by Chris Beha about the whole Oprah book club thing and the Cormac McCarthy interview. I "joined" the book club for the exact same reason -- just to see the interview -- and I agree with Beha: McCarthy shouldn't have to talk about the book if he doesn't want to. Get him going about something parallel, something he's interested in that (perhaps) informs the work. But he's far too intuitive and private to be capable of a good interview about his own books.
Well, that's it for post one -- pretty milquetoast for me, but I'm just getting warmed up.
After keeping an extensive journal for almost seven years, I finally decided to hell with it, time to consolidate my writing and my journal in public space. So here it is, the Hurricane Laura blog. At some point, this will all be updated into a website, with links to my writing, my CV, some pictures my cousin is taking of me, as well as anything else I feel like adding, but for now, this will be a placeholder where I can post things I'm doing or just thinking about.
A note on the name "Hurricane Laura" -- this is a joking nickname my mother and my brother have called me since my adolescence. It refers to my ripping-up-your-trailer-park style temper, as in: "Uh-oh, here comes Hurricane Laura. Everybody take cover in the basement!" I used to get irritated by this nickname, but now I embrace it. Whatever, ya'll, I'm a tempest in a teacup. Goes with the territory when you're a) a Southerner and b) a redheaded Southerner.
Recent Reviews Available Online
My first review is up for the Brooklyn Rail, available here. It's a review of Mackenzie Wark's book "Gamer Theory".
I filed my second review, about post-apocalyptic fiction, this month and that will be out in the July/August issue. I'm excited about that one because I've been doing a lot of summer research about post-apocalyptic fiction. I have an annotated bibliography in the works -- at nine pages and counting -- and I am busily going through and refreshing myself on the major works or reading some things for the first time. Currently, I'm in the middle of Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things (1987) and Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx (2002). I have to say, I wouldn't recommend reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction for months at a time -- you do start to get very world-weary and a little paranoid. I'm cleansing my literary palate with a variety of other things whenever I feel like I just can't take it anymore.
By the way, two other ways to find me: here I am on Goodreads and here I am on myspace. I don't really like 'the myspace' so much -- someone mentioned to me the other day that it is 'growing like a weed', and I thought, yup, that's why I don't like it -- it's a weed. But you can't exactly prune the Internet.
What I'm Thinking About Today
I just read this review by Chris Beha about the whole Oprah book club thing and the Cormac McCarthy interview. I "joined" the book club for the exact same reason -- just to see the interview -- and I agree with Beha: McCarthy shouldn't have to talk about the book if he doesn't want to. Get him going about something parallel, something he's interested in that (perhaps) informs the work. But he's far too intuitive and private to be capable of a good interview about his own books.
Well, that's it for post one -- pretty milquetoast for me, but I'm just getting warmed up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
