Day One: I should write in this blog

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

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.