Hurricane Laura

DickensURL

2009-04-29T13:51:00.001-07:00

Dickens URL. Big Fun. Now, when you enter this URL:

http://dickensurl.com/49c3/Under_an_accumulation_of_staggerers_no_man_can_be_considered_a_free_agent_No_man_knocks_himself_down_if_his_destiny_knocks_him_down_his_destiny_must_pick_him_up_again

You come here.

Day One: I should write in this blog

2008-11-19T09:09:00.001-08:00

I mean, I have this dang blog. I should use it!

We're getting close to thesis-writin' & finishin' time. There are 172 days until it is due. I was joking around with another MFA student that I would just turn in a "Diary of the Last One Hundred Days" as my thesis, detailing my cranky complaints, my feud with the facilities department at the New School, a rant about various writers and/or artistic movements, a hurling of epithets at my instructors (j/k ya'll!), gossip, rumors, unsubstantiated allegations, scientific marginalia, and anything else I deem noteworthy. I might just keep a diary anyway, just because I'll never get back those treasured moments of total stress, agony and creative wrangling. Yay!

So, Day One: I set the counter at 172 days. I got a bagel because I skipped dinner last night to sit through all 2000 hours of the National Book Awards readings. While I was listening to the readings, I wrote 1-2 word impressions of each reader. Because I am really just here to serve you, my zero readers, here you go:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (YA lit): TARTAN.

Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (Poetry): Ugh. Sestina.

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering (Non-Fiction): Garfield, Meh.

Aleksandr Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Fiction): INDIFFERENT.

Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (YA): CATS. FUCKING CATS.

Mark Doty, Fire to Fire (Poetry): HELL YES.

Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello (Non-fic): Finally.

Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Fiction): Forgettable.

Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (YA): Very good.

Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Poetry): MELLIFLUOUS.

Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index (Non-fiction): SEARING.

Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Fiction): GOAT MAN.

E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (YA): BOOB!

Richard Howard, Without Saying (Poetry): Choked turtle.

Jim Sheeler, Final Salute (Non-fic): Sentimental

Salvatore Scibona, The End (Fict): Flat planed.

Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (YA): Incongruous

Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Poetry): Tingling

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side (Non-fic): Methodical

Marilynne Robinson, Home (Fict): Delicate

I know, its like you were there with me, right? Actually, I went on a tear taking notes about Peter Matthiessen's performance, because I felt he behaved himself quite poorly last night. Sometimes I really do think some of these old literary men are more hype than quality, and they are easily shown up by younger, fierce female writers like Joan Wickersham and Patricia Smith, who really have something to contribute and who deserve our attention much more.

Matthiessen, for one, had to follow Joan Wickersham's searing, incredible reading from her memoir about her father's suicide. And here comes this old, horny geezer, reading tired lines about the "apple bosom" of his female characters and barely stumbling his way through. The disparity could not have been more evident between them. I was so bored and uninterested in his reading that I could barely wait for him to be finished. I felt embarassed that we were forced to heap laurels upon someone so obviously from another generation, so obviously dated and so full of his own self-regard. Bah. Honestly, was there not one single book better than his for the nomination? Can we stop celebrating the work of old white men who have already been celebrated and look at what the next generation is doing already?

Ok, end rant. That's day one for you!

Updates on books for a change

2008-07-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the swing of reviewing work -- I have three big reviews that I'm currently working on, and they will all be coming out in the fall. Lately, I have such a passion for debut novelists -- I want to give these people the critical reception they deserve after launching their (hopefully successful) publishing careers. It is what I will want if I ever get my work scraped together enough to publish, so I feel it is only right to give that to them.

Also, it is pretty exciting to see the new generation of writers -- there could be something amazing in the mix, you never know. My giddy book nerd instincts are all aflame these days.

On a totally unrelated note, about 5 a.m. this morning I woke up and reached for whatever book was in bed with me (I typically sleep with 3-4 books in the bed). I grabbed a copy of an old George RR Martin paperback, the first of his A Song of Ice and Fire series. I started re-reading and realized just how much I enjoyed those 1000+ page books. Say what you will about the nerdiness of that, but Martin is quite good at what he does.

Whereas Tolkien was more of a mythologist -- he brought the language of saga and myth to the fantasy/sci fi novel -- Martin is, in my opinion, a very keen political writer. His work features dozens of characters, reflecting a wide variety of houses and interests, in a epic which is just as much about the politics of a nation as it is about good, old-fashioned sword-and-sandals fantasy. What I love about these books is the way the plot lines swoop in and around each other, getting entangled, becoming further complicated and elaborate. Personally, I think the swords/dragons angle of the book is almost beside the point -- it is the dynastic wrangling that makes these books so addictive. While Tolkien made you feel like you were reading noble, grand prose (a bit like the Bible), Martin makes you feel like you're reading a really good political analysis.

His next one in the line is out in September. I'm dying to get a review copy and write something really giving Martin the credit he deserves, but I think the mainstream review publications are a little wary of him still. Time will tell if his work endures -- but I'm willing to bet he's recognized by mainstream reviewers eventually, much the same way that Stephen King has.

BBC Headlines: Crisis! Loo Shortage!

2008-06-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

We begin with the ever-conscientious British Parliament: MPs take on the cistern. Apparently the public toilets in England need some overhauling.

The best part about that article, though, is one of the pictures embedded in it:

Caption: Phyllis Starkey is on a mission to solve Britain's loo shortage

That poor woman, forever associated with "Britain's loo shortage." Maybe when you google that, you will get Phyllis Starkey's face...?!?

This next one just shows you that I'm becoming desensitized to the BBC's terse headlines style. The headline is 'Policeman praised for mud rescue'. Nope, he did not rescue the mud as this headline seems to imply. He rescued two children from the mud. Prepositions! A dying breed.

When all else fails, the Phoenix tries shake and sprinkle.

And last but not least, the disabled bowler avoids prison, but the lollipop man attacker is imprisoned. Tough luck on that last one.

Gay Marriages More Egalitarian

2008-06-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

There's a great article in the NY Times today about recent studies about same-sex marriage and what they suggest about the role of gender in marriage. I'm quite excited about this article, because I've been saying for years that marriage, for women, is a bad deal. (I believe the exact, inflammatory phrase I use to upset my more conservative Southern family is, "Marriage is a form of legal prostitution for women.")

Here's my favorite bit:

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

Thank you. That is exactly the point I've been trying to make for years. Along with all the really good reasons to let gays and lesbians get married -- it's the right thing to do, etc. -- there is the additional reason that same-sex marriage will expose the fact that our traditional notions of marriage are not based on any kind of biological, gendered roles for men and women but purely on cultural myths that persist in our society. And that is good for everyone. It is good for gay and lesbian folks because it further challenges this idea that they are somehow "aberrant" for being women with so-called 'masculine' traits or men with 'feminine' traits. And it helps heterosexuals to understand that a relationship isn't about "a man does this and a woman does that" which does nothing but further divide and alienate men and women.

Not to mention the fact that I'm looking forward to the Bridezilla battles between women and their former gay wedding planners now looking to book the same venues. It is on!

BBC Headlines: Getting Eaten by Dragons

2008-06-09T08:32:00.001-07:00

Ah the weekend. Full of wonderful, weird stories from the BBC.

Like this one, which goes into detail about how likely you are to be eaten by a komodo dragon if you wash ashore on an island, dehydrated and near death. Not likely, if there's only one or two and you have enough strength to pelt it with stones. Good to know!

And this one: Cancer boy's stories help charity. Seriously?!?! Cancer boy? This kid survives a terrible disease and writes two books, the money from which he donates to a charity, and all you can come up with is CANCER BOY?!?! I would have at least thrown in some alliteration: 'Cancer boy chronicles case for charity cash' has a very nice ring to it.

This one takes a minute to unpack. The headline is: Stab death of porn charge ex-Pc. What's going on here, you ask? Ok. A former police constable who was up on charges of child pornography was stabbed to death. But I don't know how you're going to figure that out from the headline, which is weird and garbled.

I wish there was a picture for this one: Kitten rescued by vacuum cleaner.

And finally for those panda-porn aficionados out there: Giant panda sex secrets revealed. Oh yes, there is video.

BBC Headlines: Oh, Blah.

2008-06-05T09:53:00.001-07:00

This picture pretty much sums up how I feel about the BBC website:

You have to read this whole story: Red faces over 'blah' drug answer. Someone actually responded to a government request about drugs in prison by writing "Blah." And it "only occurred in the version sent to journalists." Someone out there is generating material for the Absurd/Alliterative Headlines Department...

BBC Headlines: Children Brush Alone

2008-06-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

This is very troubling: Many children 'brush teeth alone.' Unsupervised teeth-brushing is a huge crisis nowadays.

Update on the ear-biter is here. He's going to jail, obviously. And disturbingly, the article reports that he "invited bus passengers to photograph the severed part." Yipes!

And finally, sausage saves knife accused woman. Because in this age where our heroes are increasingly discredited, the sausage can still stand as a beacon for morality and courage.

BBC Headlines: Monkey Puzzle Tree

2008-06-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Right away, let me just bring your attention to the headline that BBC Stars are not paid too much. Instead, I would like to argue that the BBC headline-writers are not paid enough!

I mean, granted, this is seven words so a bit longer than the formula, but you can't deny this is seven words of brilliance: Man bit off and hid friend's ear. Succinct yet chilling. And of course, this is from Wales.

More bits of poetic brilliance:

Dirty hospital practices revealed!

Church in the sea goes electric.

And frankly, I know you were on tenterhooks about this one, but the monkey puzzle tree decision is due. So calm down already!

They're on to me

2008-05-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

I check the BBC News - Wales site so often that I got asked to do an opinion survey. Clearly, they're on to my frequent cruising for another piece of gold from the Absurd/Alliterative Headline Department. Soon, I'm sure I will be recruited to join their elite ranks.

Meanwhile, the story labeled 'Strong winds wreck campsite tents' was the number one Welsh news story on Wednesday. Really, you guys? That was number one? You had nothing better to read about?

And there was Anger over exploded garage mess. I should think so!

Nice bit of alliteration here: New reef brings surf safety fears.

And last but not least, somebody call Arnold Schwarzenegger. Skynet is being built in Britain.

BBC Headlines: Monkey Brains/Robot Arms

2008-05-28T21:30:00.001-07:00

Credit to Martin Roberts, who found and alerted me to the 'Monkey's brain controls robot arm' story AND video on the BBC science page right now. I can think of nothing better than bringing together the monkey and the robot in this incredibly awesome way.

If the Ricky Gervais podcasts were still going on, I'm sure that would make it into "Monkey News."

BBC Headlines: Cake Poison Woman

2008-05-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

I'm sure when Carlos Santana penned his magnum opus, "Black Magic Woman", he never imagined that I'd be sitting at my desk humming the tune to the BBC headline about the "Cake Poison Woman."

I've been following her saga since April 2nd, when I learned that the Cake poison woman pleads guilty. (Please note the picture of the cake in question, plus the caption which informs you that "blobs of the poison are clearly visible in the cake.")

Well, today our long transatlantic nightmare finally comes to a close. "Poison cake woman spared prison"! Hurrah! Details are here.

Sadly, no more pictures of the cake in question and its little green blobs.

BBC Headlines: The Beavers are Back!

2008-05-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Of course, front and center, there's a cute-cat-in-Japan article. Millions are dying from famine, natural catastrophe and senseless civil war all over the place, but it is the cat conductor on the railways that matters!

Fancy dress man 'killed by punch'. At first, I thought it was the drink punch, but no, it is the throwing-a-fist punch. The worst part? He was dressed like a Ghostbuster.

Try to say this one quickly five times: Barbecue embers sparks grass fire.

Science probe for space pistols.

Beavers to return after 400 years. Um...where have they been all this time???

BBC Headlines: Pet Skunk Stink & Dead Fly Case

2008-05-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do online is a quick perusal of the BBC website for its more unusual (read: absurd) headlines. For some reason, they stick to a very strict 5-6 word headline limit, which can result in some strangely cryptic and brilliant headlines. I started this years ago when a friend of mine got me hooked on it, but recently I started keeping records of the best ones from each day. I've just been sharing them with two coworkers, but it seems like it is time to keep them as a part of my blog. Thus, we're going to start the "BBC Headlines" label and throw it open to the general public.

Before I get into the headlines of this week, though, let me show you why this is worth doing. Here are some of the "best" ones we've found recently:

From April 7th, an example of their commitment to alliterative effect: Drug dog suspended for duck death

From April 18th, about a queer smell coming from Germany: Pong in the air is Euro-Whiff (My coworker and I actually put this to music, so we can sing the line "pong in the air is euro-whiff.." Its quite catchy. Credit: Meghan Roe)

From April 23rd, an example of the wonderfully cryptic tone in the 6-word style: No sex for all-girl fish species (Credit to Martin Roberts for that one.)

I've often speculated that there are some disgruntled, underpaid journos at the BBC who come up with these headlines as a way to mitigate the mind-numbing boredom of covering the local news. I like to call them the Alliterative/Absurd Headlines Department. Whenever there's a story about a drunk man cutting off his pet snake's head or an inflatable pig going loose at a concert, they send it over to the A/A HD in order to get a 6 word piece of gold out of it. Let us enjoy their daily work....

Recent headlines:
Hairdresser loses dead fly case. (Not the tragic story of a loss of a box full of dead flies as you might imagine. Credit: Martin Roberts)

Council kicks up pet skunk stink. (They love the smell so much, they just kept kicking it.)

Paint chemicals 'may harm sperm.' (On the main page, this head line is "paint chemicals may hit sperm," which I think adds a little something more, don't you?)

Bus drivers take saliva samples. Ok, with all due respect to the BBC, you guys could have done so much better with this one. The article mentions that they get 'spit kits.' C'mon guys, that one was ripe for a headline! Like: "Bus drivers armed with 'spit kits'" or "Spit no more on the bus" or something. The Absurd/Alliterative Headline Department at the BBC is definitely phoning it in on that one.

Cybrids - the new slave race?

2008-05-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting editorial on the NY Times Olivia Judson blog about a bill in the U.K. approving the fusing of animal and human DNA into "cybrid" embryos. I pointed it out to a coworker yesterday and her only response was, "What, like a new slave race?"

For some reason I found that hilarious. Slave race = laugh riot, I guess.

I'm still looking for a roommate, so anyone wandering here as a potential roommate I suppose will find out that I'm a book nerd, and I'm a relatively bad blogger. Listen, kids, I did start blogging in 2001! It was just on this super oldster-site called Opendiary.com and I kept my diary there pretty private. It still exists, I still occasionally throw a post up there, mostly because of the community of 2 dozen or so people that I care about. I went through that whole early-20s Overshare/TMI experience online back before you could end up writing an article in the NY Times magazine based on your blogger status (like Emily Gould has done for this weekend). Back then, all you got when you overshared online was an occasional moment when you got asked by a reader of your site.

But those days are over now! I'm just gonna write about books'n'stuff. I am just now catching up on all the Best of 2007 books I couldn't read because of grad school, and I have to admit: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao totally deserves the praise it received. I was so moved I actually cried at the end, and that happens only .000001% of the time in my black, scarred book-reviewer heart.

I have an assignment for BUST magazine I'm now working on (which is, groan, a memoir about religion), but then its back to working my way through the 2007s, as well as taking a crack at the syllabus for my fall seminar.

The One Page

2008-05-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have too many internet sites to log into and update -- Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogger, Gmail, etc. There needs to be some sort of merged site with all these features -- I think Facebook is trying to achieve that, but who knows how long that one will be viable. Will we just become internet nomads, roaming from social networking site to social networking site, as popularity rates rise and fall? Is any of this productive or just useless chatter, filling up space in the void and really going nowhere?

If I'm going to be an internet gypsy, I'm going to do it Stevie Nicks-style -- leaving draped shawls and dove feathers in my wake, ya'll. I'm singing a song that sounds like I'm singing, ooh baby, ooh, I said ooooooh. (Sorry, brief seizure/Edge of Seventeen moment.)

For bookish people, the internet is now a reality, and day by day, more and more of us realize we have to make peace with it and learn to use it. This video from Dennis Cass pretty much sums up how many of us are feeling right now -- I gotta do what? Seriously? Ok, ok. I'll frickin' Twitter, man. I'm going to be all up in yo' Twitter grillz.

The Art of Getting Into Trouble

2008-05-16T02:50:00.001-07:00

I've been having such a tough time this past spring semester -- I've been sick basically since mid-March, and it has affected my work, my writing and my personal life in ways I never even thought possible. Wonderful, good things have also happened, and I'm trying to remember that and not let the bad define everything. In pursuit of that, I dug up this commencement speech that a friend of mine passed on to me 10 years ago, when I was just a wee young speechwriter for a politician in Tennessee. I find this helps me focus my energy right now:

The Art of Getting Into Trouble

(Delivered by N. Hobbs, May 1968, as a commencement address at the Peabody Demonstration School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN)

Life is highly problematic and what you become will rest in no small measure on the kinds of problem situations you get yourself into and have to work yourself out of. It is exceedingly difficult for a person to take thought and alter the quality of character and direction in his life. However, he can choose the direction he would like his life to take and then put himself deliberately in situations that will require the evolution of himself toward the kind of person he would like to become.

It is deep in the nature of man to make problems for himself. Man has often been called the problem-solver, but he is even more the problem-maker. Every noble achievement of men -- in government, art, architecture, literature, and above all, in service -- represents a new synthesis of the human experience, deepening our understanding and enriching our spirit. But each solid noble achievement creates new problems, often of unexpected dimension, and man moves eagerly on to face these new perplexities and to impose his order upon them. And so it will be, world without end. To know a person, it is useful to know what he has done, another way of defining what problems he has solved. It is even more informative, however, to know what problems he is working on now. For these will define the growing edge of his being.

We sometimes think of the well-adjusted person as having very few problems while, in fact, just the opposite is true. When a person is ill or injured or crushed with grief or deeply frightened, the range of his concerns become sharply constructed; his problems diminish in scope and quality and complexity.

By contrast, the healthy in body and mind and spirit, is a person faced with many difficulties. He has a lot of problems, many of which he has deliberately chosen with the sure knowledge that in working towards their solution, he will become the person he would like to be.

Part of the art of choosing difficulties is to select those that are indeed just manageable. If the difficulties chosen are too easy, life is boring; if they're too hard, life is self-defeating. The trick is to move oneself in the direction of what he would like to become at a level of difficulty close to the edge of his competence. When one achieves this fine tuning of his life, he will know zest and joy and deep fulfillment.

Getting back on the horse

2007-09-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

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.

When good sci-fi goes bad

2007-07-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

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.

My Review, and the Week of Potter

2007-07-16T10:16:00.002-07:00

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.

Prick Flicks

2007-07-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

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.)

I Am Legend/The Whole

2007-07-10T07:31:00.001-07:00

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 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.

In the Country of Last Things - Paul Auster

2007-06-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

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.)

Book networks

2007-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

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.

The Hurricane touches down on land

2007-06-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

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.