11 posts tagged “books”
If you could write like one fiction author, who would it be?
Submitted by Marilyn.
See below. I love everything about Junot Diaz. I hate to put it this way, but there's a from-around-the-way feel to the language he writes in, and it comes off natural and real, unlike most hood fiction writers whose language usually comes off kind of contrived. And I think this is the first book I've ever read with a non-white narrator that I could relate to (I discovered him just as I was starting college, and I went to a predominantly white high school where we mostly read white authors and the occasional slave narrative). His narrator was a 1.5 generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic and the stories were basically written in two languages.
I once compared him to Hemingway and my English professor didn't get it. Diaz writes about hustling on the street corners in Jersey and fucking underage girls who are in and out of juvie, not African safaris or cafes in Spain, but he tells his stories with Hemingway's subtlety. I don't know if this is what's considered minimalist fiction, but he knows how to unpack things using only few words and few images. Nothing too long-winded, which is why I never get bored reading his stories.
Book: Show us one of your favorite works of fiction.
Why do I feel like they keep recycling the book questions and I keep having to recycle the books I've already posted? Anyway this is my favorite:
I'm spending the morning reading. Here are some choice quotes from Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction which I promised last week, most of them on writing.
(p. XVII):
A little set-up for this one: This comes from the essay, "You Are Here," which actually really depressed me. It's about standard procedure at the nation's major writers' conferences -- you pay a hefty fee to get in and you basically pitch your book or screenplay to each book agent, publisher, or some other suit for seven minutes at a time. (pp. 33-36):The one drawback to writing is the being alone. The writing part. The lonely-garret part. In people's imagination, that's the difference between a writer and a journalist. The journalist, the newspaper reporter, is always rushing, hunting, meeting people, digging up facts. Cooking a story. The journalist writes surrounded by people, and always on deadline. Crowded and hurried. Exciting and fun.
The journalist writes to connect you to the larger world. A conduit.
But a writer writer is different. Anybody who writes fiction is -- people imagine -- alone. Maybe because fiiction seems to connect you to only the voice of one other person. Maybe because reading is something we do alone. It's a pastime that seems to split us away from others.
The journalist researches a story. The novelist imagines it.
I pretty much agree with everything that precedes, except I honestly don't think that last part could ever happen unless loads of people were getting rich off of writing. A real writer, hell, any real artist -- be it a rapper, a painter, a poet, a cellist, a dancer -- who puts years upon years into perfecting their craft just for the love of it knows how hard a shot it is. The only time there's money in being creative is when you know the right people. Living for the story is a luxury afforded only to those who are already wildly successful (financially, that is) in telling their story.The screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker once said that no one in Los Angeles is ever more than fifty feet from a screenplay. The're stowed in the trunks of cars. In desk drawers at work. In laptop computers. Always ready to be pitched. A winning lottery ticket looking for its jackpot. An uncashed paycheck.
For the first time in history, five factors have aligned to bring about this explosion in storytelling. In no particular order, the factors are:
Free time.
Technology.
Material.
Education.
And disgust.
The first seems simple. More people have more fre time. People are retiring and living longer. Our standard of living and social safety net allows people to work fewer hours. Plus, as more people recognize the value of storytelling -- but strictly as book and movie material -- more people see writing, reading, and research as something more than just a highbrow recreation. Writing's not just a nice little hobby. It's becoming a bona fide financial endeavor worth your time and energy. Telling anyone that you write always prompts the question "What have you published?" Our expectation is: writing equals money. Or good writing should. Still, it would be damn near impossible to get your work seen if not for the second factor.
Technology. For a small investment, you can be published on the Internet, accessible to millions of people worldwide. Printers and small presses can provide any number of on-demand hard-copy books for anybody with the money to self-publish. Or subsidy publish. Or vanity publish. Or whatever you want to call it. Anybody who can use a photocopy machine and a stapler can publish a book. It's never been so easy. Never in history have so many books hit the market each year. All of them filled with the third factor.
Material. As more people grow old, with the experience of a lifetime to remember, the more they worry about losing it. All those memories. Their best formulas, stories, routines for making a dinner table burst into laughter. Their legacy. Their life. Just a touch of Alzheimer's disease, and it could all disappear. Besides, all our best adventures seem to be behind us. So it feels good to relive them, to share them on paper. Organizing and making all that flotsam and jetsam make sense. Wrapping it up, neat and tidy, and putting a nice bow on top. The first volume in a three-volume boxed set that will be your life. The "best of" NFL highlights tape of your life. All in one place, your reasons for doing what you did. Your explanation why, in case anyone wants to know,
And thank God for number four
Education. Becuase at least we all know how to keyboard. We know where to put the commas... kind of. Pretty much. We have automatic spell-checkin. We're not afraid to sit down and take a swing at the job of book writing. Stephen King makes it look so easy. All those books. And Irvine Welsh, he makes it look like fun, the last place you can do drugs and commit crimes and not get arrested, or fat, or sick. Besides, we've read books all our lives. We've seen a million movies. In fact, that's part of our motivation, the fifth factor.
Disgust. Except for maybe six movies at the video store, the rest is crap. And most books, it's the same. Crap. We could do better. We know all the basic plots. It's all been broken down by Joseph Campbell. By John Gardner. By E.B. White. Instead of wasting more time and money on another crappy book or movie, how about you take a stab at doing the job? I mean, why not?
Then, sorry, your seven minutes is up.
Okay, okay, so maybe we're headed down a road toward mindless, self-obsessed lives where every event is reduced to words and camera angles. Every moment imagined through the lens of a cinematographer. Every funny or sad remark scribbled down for sale at the first opportunity.
A world Socraties couldn't imagine, where people would examine their lives, but only in temrs of movie and paperback potential.
Where a story no longer follows as the result of an experience.
Now the experience happens in order to generate a story.
Sort of like when you suggest: "Let's not but say we did."
The story -- the product you can sell -- becomes more important than the actual event.
One danger is, we might hurry through life, enduring event after event, in order to build our list of experienes. Our stock of stories. And our huner for stories might reduce our awareness of the actual experience. In the way we shut down after watching too many action-adventure movies. Our body chemistry can't tolerate the stimulation. Or we unconsciouly defend ourself by pretending not to be present, by acting as a detached "witness" or reporter to our own life. And by doing that, never feeling an emotion or really participating. Always weighing what the story will be worth in cold cash.
Another danger is this rush through events might give us a false understanding of our own ability. If events occur to challenge and test us and we experience them only as a story to be recorded and sold, then have we lived? Have we matured? Or will we die feeling vaguely cheated and shortchanged by our storytelling vocation?
I mean, this essay really seriously depresses me cause it forces me to take a closer look at my own goals. All I've ever really wanted was to write. Or, to be a dick about it, all I've ever really wanted was for people to listen to me, relate to me. Even if it was a small sect. I've self-published, I've been published, I've even met some famous people through my writing, so how come I'm not happy?
There are always better goals. Do I want to publish a book? Yeah, I do. Do I want to go on a book tour with readings and signings? Definitely. Do I want to be well-received, highly acclaimed, reviewed by all the major critics? Of course. Do I want to be called a class of my own, the next big thing in literature, and party with stars like that kid in Almost Famous? Hell yes. And I'm so blocked, I can't bring myself to write a simple story.
I think about The R and his drive, how he stays so hungry and keeps his eye on the prize even after all the disappointments. Maybe I'm cutting him too much credit, but he tried the old road, it didn't work for him, and then he made his own road. How do I get there? I don't even know what my own prize is. I wouldn't even know what to keep my eye on.
Book: Show us the latest book you bought, borrowed or received.
I also love the book questions!
My last week at the bookstore I went on a total Chuck Palahniuk kick. I bought a ton of other books with the last of my discount, but these are the ones I bought on my very last day. I'm reading a couple of them now when I get bored at work.
What are five books that changed your life?
Inspired by Ms. Genevieve.
What are your top 5 books of 2006?
I feel like kind of a loser cause I haven't read anything that actually came out in 2006, and I don't even think I've actually read five that I'd consider the best books I've read this year. But for the sake of making my lists complete, let me try.
I want to tell the story again.
That's why I write fiction -- so that I can keep telling the story. I return to problems I can't solve, not because I'm an idiot, but because real problems can't be solved. The universe is expanding. The more we see, the more we discover there is to see.
Always a new beginning, a different end.
And here I thought the only people reading this were you guys, my Vox neighbors. But on the contrary, others have been peeking in too, people I've been writing about, alluding to. I might want to watch what I say in here in the future, I guess. Or I might not.
I picked this up a few days ago and it should've been a breezy read, but life got in the way. I finally finished it this morning. First, let me tell you a thing or two about Margaret Atwood. I've never read a full novel of hers, but she is easily one of my favorite writers of all time. I've done projects on her poetry and short stories all throughout college. She's dark, funny, and the woman is a certifiable genius. She's the kind of writer I want to become.
That said, I'm not as well-versed in Greek mythology as I'd like to be -- never read Ovid or Homer, so I don't really know the story about Penelope and Odysseus, but from what little I know about Greek mythology (and its inherent misogyny) in general, Atwood does a really amazing reinterpretation of Penelope's story, particularly having to do with her relationship with her cousin, Helen of Troy. Atwood's Penelope is a three-dimensional character, a flawed woman I can actually relate to, rather than the virtuous, modest, and faithful Penelope as told by Homer, right? My favorite part of the book, though, was Penelope's perspective on her relationship with Odysseus, and how she tried to evade the issue of whether or not she slept with any of her suitors while she waited 20 years for Odysseus to come back to her. It reminded me very much of my own situation.
On the wedding night being paraded as a sanctioned rape (pp 44-48):
On Odysseus's return after twenty years (pp 172-173):Once the door had been closed, Odysseus took me by the hand and sat me down on the bed. 'Forget eveyrthing you've been told,' he whispered. 'I'm not going to hurt you, or not very much. But it would help us both if you could pretend. I've been told you're a clever girl. Do you think you could manage a few screams? That will satisfy them -- they're listening at the door -- and then they'll leave us in peace and we can take our time to become friends.'
This was one of his great secrets as a persuader -- he could convince another person that the two of them together faced a common obstacle, and that they needed to join forces in order to overcome it. He could draw almost any listener into a collaboration, a little conspiracy of his own making. Nobody could do this better than he: for once, the stories don't lie. And he had a wonderful voice as well, deep and sonorous. So of course I did as he asked.
Somewhat later I found that Odysseus was not one of those men who, after the act, simply roll over and begin to snore. Not that I am aware of this common male habit through my own experience; but as I've said, I listened to a lot of the maids. No, Odysseus wanted to talk, and as he was an excellent raconteur I was happy to listen. I think this is what he valued most in me: my ability to appreciate his stories. It's an underrated talent in women.
[...]
In return for his story about the scar, I told Odysseus my own story about almost drowning and being rescued by ducks. He was interested in it, and asked me questions about it, and was sympathetic -- everything you could wish a listener to be. 'My poor duckling,' he said, stroking me. 'Don't worry. I would never throw such a precious girl into the ocean.' At which point I did some more weeping, and was comforted in ways that were suitable for a wedding night.
So by the time morning came, Odysseus and I were indeed friends, as Odysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myself had developed friendly feelings towards him -- more than that, loving and passionate ones -- and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is not quite the same thing.
On life in Hades (pp 188-189):After a little time had passed and we were feeling pleased with each other, we took up our old habits of story-telling. Odysseus told me of all his travels and difficulties -- the nobler versions, with the monsters and the goddesses, rather than the more sordid ones with the innkepers and whores. He recounted the many lies he'd invented, the false names he'd given himself -- telling the Cyclops his name was No One was the cleverest of such tricks, though he'd spoiled it by boasting -- and the fraudulent life histories he'd concocted for himself, the better to conceal his identity and his intentions. In my turn, I related the tale of the Suitors, and my trick with the shroud of Laertes, and my deceitful encouragings of the Suitors, and the skilful ways in which I'd misdirected them and led them on and played them off one another.
Then he told me how much he'd missed me, and how he'd been filled with longing for me even when enfolded in the white arms of goddesses; and I told him how very many tears I'd shed while waiting twenty years for his return, and how tediously faithful I'd been, and how I would never have even so much as thought of betraying his gigantic bed with its wondrous bedpost by sleeping in it with any other man.
The two of us were -- by our own admission -- proficient and shameless liars of long standing. It's a wonder either one of us believed a word the other said.
But we did.
Or so we told each other.
Complex story indeed. It's clear throughout the book that Odysseus is really Penelope's one true love, but it's never as simple as just being in love. Sounds like a familiar story to me, huh? Hits very close to home.None of this stops Odysseus. He'll drop down here for a while, he'll act pleased to see me, he'll tell me home life with me was the only thing he ever really wanted, no matter what ravishing beauties he's been falling into bed with or what wild adventures he's been having. We'll take a peaceful stroll, snack on some asphodel, tell the old stories; I'll hear his news of Telemachus -- he's a Member of Parliament now, I'm so proud! -- and then, just when I'm starting to relax, when I'm feeling that I can forgive him for everything he put me through and accept him with all his faults, when I'm starting to believe that this time he really means it, off he goes again, making a beeline for the River Lethe to be born again.
He does mean it. He really does. He wants to be with me. He weeps when he says it. But then some force tears us apart.
What books did you love as a child?
Submitted by hearts.
Here are a few in order by age. I miss the old covers though. =(
