how long, sweet jesus
i spent the summer i was 14 trying to read the
the grapes of wrath. i'd get to page 300 and then realize i had already read it. this went on for several years until finally, during senior year, i got to the end and felt something other than boredom, a little titillation (ha ha), some emotional return on the 800+ pages i had stuck it out. i figured out early on what the book was about and how it was going to go down, so the little bit at the end was somewhat surprising. i returned the book to the library three or four years overdue.
so, now i'm about 50 pages from the end of
everything that rises must converge. i've been reading this book for two months. i can only take a few pages at a time because it's so bleak and heavy-handed (spoiler alert: everyone goes to hell at the end). i can't explain why, but i just feel determined to finish. i don't like this book at all, in fact, i find it unpleasant. i think i'm just being stubborn, but i won't give up and move on to another book and, in books only, i am quite monogamous (ok-well unless it's an afternoon quickie like
running with scissors or something).
so my question is this: how long should one keep trying to get into a book that one is not enjoying? what's the longest you ever took to successfully read a book? and what's up with flannery o'connor? is it going to be all shiftless niggers, overeducated know-nothings, and lupus? i just need to know if the hope i have that, at the end, flannery o'connor will use her powers to make the bicycles fly over the police roadblock is justified or foolhardy...
Yiyun in NYT Magazine Once More
She's impressive, folks. This time she's musing on the wonders of Tang, the from-a-funky-powder orange beverage my mom used to give me when I was sick. (Now I think it tastes kind of nasty, but back in the day it was the beverage of choice.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/magazine/22food.html
Keep in mind that if, like me, you also want to check out the chocolate chip cookie recipes that are next in the food section, you should click "next article" at the top of Yiyun's piece. The link on the front of the magazine that should go to the recipes actually takes you to Yiyun once more. :) The first time this happened to me, I actually just read her article again.
-Viz
What's That You Say?
Its's the
AWPWonder if any of you are thinking of going, presenting on panels, leaning into the hotel bar for seventy-two hours.
It's in Austin this year, which I heard was burned. Perhaps Hynes can confirm or deny that. I've always enjoyed the bookfair, when I've gone to AWP, and watching that bird-woman dance at the ball in her sequined, cut to the thigh gown. I've enjoyed too the drama of it all, the little packs that follow the Komunyakaas and the Hannahs like they're littering money, the drunks riding the escalators and elevators, the presentations like, "Birds in Literature: What's to Say?" And I remember fondly, seeing some of you that year in Chicago, even though you were in Iowa City too when I got home.
Get Your Rejection Printed Onto Toilet Paper!
It only costs you $90.
http://www.lulu.com/content/122436
-Viz
You almost beat me to my post Chauncy! Fiction, non-fiction, who gives a shit if it's readable?
I was on vacation this week, and this book,
A Million Little Pieces, was literarly everywhere - people were reading it by the pool, on the beach, in the plane, in the lobby of the Ramada where the airline stuck us when we missed our connection.
Now there's a "scandal" because James Frey embelished a number of events. Here's the
NY Times Article.
I think this debate says a lot more about what people expect from labels like "fiction" and "non-fiction" than about Frey himself. It's a fluid line for most writers - and I doubt that this memoir was any more fictionalized than most others. One of my favorite books "Bastard Out of Carolina" was marketed as a novel, but it's mostly memoir. The publishers might have marketed it as a novel because they were trying to target a more "literary" audience. On the other hand, a recent memoir from Russia called "White on Black" has an entire chapter that's told from the points of view of a charater who's not the author. The book is being claimed as an "expose" of human rights abuses and nobody is claiming it's not strict non-fiction.
I think the label of "non-fiction" freed it from comparisons with more literary work, and people could read it as a really good, faced-paced story. It seems a little naive to expect strict reality from non-fiction. As far as I'm concerned, it's fiction the moment the words are on the page.
Lacquered
Like speed bumps, the holidays. And now that we're over them, I have a set of festive holiday dishes, a culture of bath products, and some giant under armor to wrangle. I wonder what the right thing to do with these things is. Returning would mean requesting a receipt. A terrible prospect. Stowing it all away would make me feel fat. Where does one donate such a thing as a lacquered sports towel? A pair of loafers made of memory foam? A calendar about Elvis's dietary compulsions?
