READIN

Wednesday, April 21st, 2004

Looking at the William Faulkner on the Web site at the University of Mississippi I found his address to the Nobel Prize committee in 1950 -- it is a speech I have read before but one well worth being reminded of.

It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

A difficult proposition for me to affirm but one which I hope and try to embrace.

posted afternoon of April 21st, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, April 20th, 2004

Flags in the Dust -- I am trying to pay attention to what reading mode I am in as I read each sentence -- this is an experiment with some potential to disrupt my reading experience and if I find it is doing so too much, I will abandon it. But if I am successful I think this extra level of consciousness about my role in the story will be very useful -- I am trying to achieve a meditative consciousness in reading. My hunch is that Faulkner is particularly well-suited to reading this way.

posted morning of April 20th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, April 19th, 2004

🦋 Fluent narrative

I started a new book today; Flags in the Dust, by William Faulkner. It is the director's cut of his third novel, Sartoris, with over 40 minutes of previously unreleased Yoknatawpha footage.

I opened to page 1 and was almost instantly swept away by the lushness of Faulkner's imagery -- beautiful! I was seeing the scene inside my head like a movie privately screened, hearing the words like a bicameral narration. And as I read I would slip into and out of this state -- slip into it when I come across a particularly nice image, out of it when I realize I am not really understanding what is going on and I have to back up a paragraph or two to figure out where the story is.

This is a common experience for me when I am reading a good book. Some good books, e.g. House of Sand and Fog, I am in the "cinematic" mode most of the way through, rarely losing the thread. Some good books, e.g. Gravity's Rainbow the first 3 times I read it (well, the fourth time as well to be truthful), interruptions are much more frequent -- there is a lot more complexity and intricacy to the narrative. Both are enjoyable reading experiences; I would venture to say I'm more likely to reread the second type of book.

I am glad to be reading Faulkner again, he is a favorite of mine and I haven't read anything by him for a few years.

posted evening of April 19th, 2004: Respond

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

I finished Tender is the Night this afternoon. I was amused to see Dick ordering Black & White and water when he is with Nicole and Michael -- this is what Kurt Vonnegut ordered when he made his cameo appearance in Breakfast of Champions. And it is -- for that reason -- what I ordered the first time I was ever drinking in a bar, in Montréal, in January of 1988. I got the same response from the bartender that Dick gets -- I'm sorry, we don't have that Scotch, maybe I could fix you up with a Johnny Walker? To this day I have never drunk Black & White, after years of thinking based on one scene from one book that it was what the cool guys drink. I believe this evening marks the second reference to it that I have ever seen.

posted evening of March 22nd, 2004: Respond
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Friday, March 19th, 2004

I'm really liking Tender is the Night. The story of Dick's night in Rome (chapter xxii of part 2) just hit me really hard -- it's like Fitzgerald had identified and dissected all of my pretensions to originality, 40 years before I was born.

posted evening of March 19th, 2004: Respond
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Truth may be stretched thin and not break, but float upon the surface of the lie, like oil on water

Cervantes
Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter X

For some reason, this quote out of context reminds me strongly of neocon arguments in support of the Iraq war.

posted evening of March 19th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, March 16th, 2004

I started reading Tender is the Night, by Scott Fitzgerald, yesterday. (Picked it up from a street vendor a couple of weeks ago but have been spending my commuting hours on crossword puzzles in the mean time.) It's fun. All the characters are ciphers to me (thus far) except for Rosemary. A nice mix of mannered comedy with something else -- there is an element of mystery or suspense present. A very gentle tension that really points up the jokes. I am about to go look at IMDB to check if there was a movie made of it but am going to say beforehand that I think Gary Cooper should have been in it...

And here it is! Nope, no Gary. Jason Robards is the lead. Jill St. John plays Rosemary.

posted morning of March 16th, 2004: Respond

Tuesday, March 9th, 2004

Ellen finished House of Sand and Fog today. She liked it a lot, for similar reasons to my own -- the clarity of the characters' portraits will take your breath away. One note she found a little jarring was the level of detail in the narration -- it does not seem plausible that the characters would notice everything around them so accurately, when they are portrayed as being disconnected from the world. I can see the validity of this criticism but did not react that way myself.

Ellen told me what the title meant, which I had been wondering about -- "Sand" is Moussad, "Fog" is Kathy -- I thought it was just a reference to the house being near the San Francisco Bay.

posted evening of March 9th, 2004: Respond
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I found an interesting book on my way to work this morning. While looking at a used-book vendor's table on 40th Street between Madison and Park, I noticed an old hardbound book called Mother Goose in Prose. Hmm, an interesting idea -- then I noticed the author's name, L. Frank Baum!

Update: I asked about this book on the open thread at Making Light; Seth Ellis says it is Baum's first children's book.

posted morning of March 9th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, March second, 2004

I finished the first part of Don Quixote last night. What I want to say about the book is that it is funny and clever but not satisfying. And that the reason for this is, the reader is given no chance to get to know the characters as humans. (Funny, this is the same thing I just said about "The Dreamer" -- I don't know if that makes my saying it more or less trustworthy...) I do not want to paint myself into a corner where the only thing I can appreciate is modern novels. And I don't really thing that's what is going on: I can think of two works I love (and find satisfying) straight off the bat, Iliad and Beowulf, which do not have human characters in the sense I have been talking about; I'm sure there would be many more if I took some time to dig through my memory. Why is it that these work? Can I shift my expectations of Don Quixote to make myself enjoy it more?

posted morning of March second, 2004: Respond
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