Saturday morning, eons ago in the blog world, I finished Brian Morton's A Window Across the River. My crush rages on.
Below are three of my favorite quotes from AWATR. I have been thinking about quotes lately. About why I like them. What that says about me. Do I like the ease, the comfort of summing up a feeling or sentiment in a tidy sentence? Am I clutching to the ideal that a single thought can encapsulate us and become a mantra? Do I think quotes reveal some ray of truth that paragraphs can't capture? What's the hangup with finding gems of truth? I don't know, but I can't seem to be cynical about them. I like them. They make me want to fold down pages. They let you see into other people's lives or give you the feeling that someone else can see into your life, and they understand. If only for a moment. Comfort. Even in darkness.
Ugh. Did I just go there? Whatever, here are the quotes:
"You spend a lot of time worrying about what choice you're going to make, until one day you take a look at your life and realize you've already chosen."
"You tell someone you love him, because you think you do - or because you want to, and you hope that saying it will make it become true - and then, when you begin to see that you never have, never will, you can't quite take it back."
"We think of our lives as incredibly complicated and long, composed of many different stages, different eras, when the truth is that a life is but a single note."
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Create your own canon
I've been thinking lately, unsurprisingly, about the written word. We've discussed how I like to judge what others are reading, and how I am trying to curb that impulse. One tactic I have added - in addition to slapping my own hand when feeling judge-y - comes from the author of this wonderful blog, and concerns the idea of pleasure.
The following is motivated from him completely opening my mind. I'd humbly like to try to pass on a few lessons he has taught me. Paying it forward if you will...
Why do we read? Is it to escape our commute or our world? For just a moment? Is it because we salivate when a lyrical line rolls over us? Is it the enjoyment of art for art's sake? Is it to be entertained? To laugh? What do you like? Why? What do you get out of it? What do you go to it for?
We are continually engaged in the process of creating our own canon. Who is in your library?
Lately, I have been opening up to poetry. I know. Poetry...oh noetry! I realize the general consensus on poetry is something like, "Ugh, I just don't get it. What are they even saying?" But even in this, we return to the theme of pleasure. Isn't there also pleasure in working to achieve understanding? In reaching the light at the end of the tunnel?
Below is a poem. I want you to read it two times. Please?
First we will read it the depressing way. It is written in third person. But is that just a rouse because the author doesn't want to subject himself to the intimacy of first person? What is he telling us about himself? Should he be on suicide watch?
The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Second reading. We are going to go the philosophical route. You are going to need to channel your inner Zen. What is reality? Is reality the constructs we project onto the world? If we reject those constructs, what is left? Is the reality of Winter the feelings we attribute to it or is it feeling-less?
The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
English lesson over. In case you are still reading (congrats!) and want more, check out this site. Or this one!
The following is motivated from him completely opening my mind. I'd humbly like to try to pass on a few lessons he has taught me. Paying it forward if you will...
Why do we read? Is it to escape our commute or our world? For just a moment? Is it because we salivate when a lyrical line rolls over us? Is it the enjoyment of art for art's sake? Is it to be entertained? To laugh? What do you like? Why? What do you get out of it? What do you go to it for?
We are continually engaged in the process of creating our own canon. Who is in your library?
Lately, I have been opening up to poetry. I know. Poetry...oh noetry! I realize the general consensus on poetry is something like, "Ugh, I just don't get it. What are they even saying?" But even in this, we return to the theme of pleasure. Isn't there also pleasure in working to achieve understanding? In reaching the light at the end of the tunnel?
Below is a poem. I want you to read it two times. Please?
First we will read it the depressing way. It is written in third person. But is that just a rouse because the author doesn't want to subject himself to the intimacy of first person? What is he telling us about himself? Should he be on suicide watch?
The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Second reading. We are going to go the philosophical route. You are going to need to channel your inner Zen. What is reality? Is reality the constructs we project onto the world? If we reject those constructs, what is left? Is the reality of Winter the feelings we attribute to it or is it feeling-less?
The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
English lesson over. In case you are still reading (congrats!) and want more, check out this site. Or this one!
"I am tired, Beloved, of chaffing my heart/against/the want of you"
Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
Friday, January 16, 2009
Literary crush
Remember when I said I had found a man who understood women? Remember how that man was Brian Morton? I started another novel by him, A Window Across The River. I am five pages in. I am hooked. I actually wonder if Brian Morton is an alias and the writer is actually a woman and I wonder if that woman is me.
First paragraph:
" Sometimes you lose touch with people for no good reason, even people you love. Nora had lost touch with Isaac five years ago, but he kept coming back to her mind. He would appear to her in dreams (usually looking as if he was disappointed in her); things he'd said to her long ago would bob up into her thoughts; and sometimes when she was in a bookstore she'd drift over to the photography section to see if he'd put out another book. Through year after year of silence, she carried on a conversation with him in her mind."
Emphasis mine.
Sigh.
Brian Morton you are a golden God.
"I recognized your silence. It's different from anyone else's."
Brian Morton
Brian Morton
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I like to think of bitter as the new onyx
Never finish a book right before you go to sleep. You won't be able to sleep.
But I always have to test theories, don't I?
This time it isn't my fault (it is totally my fault). It is Jennifer Lancaster's. Yeah, I'm calling her out. It is her and her book, Bitter is the New Black. And maybe the Chicago Public Library. Yup, all of them. Definitely not me.
Evidence in timeline form:
10:20 p.m. - Hang up with the BF. Close my eyes.
10:33 - In a fit of eternal optimism check my computer one more time to see if my Internet is working. INTERNET IS WORKING. Play.
10:45 - Check my library materials online. Both books are overdue and CPL doesn't allow you to renew overdue materials. I haven't yet finished Bitter is the New Black.
10:46 - Snuggle down with BITNB. 180 pages left.
12: 49 a.m. - Finish BITNB, text BF "going to bed now" so someone knows how late I am up. Close eyes.
12:50 - Baby cat can tell I mean business about this sleeping thing. Moves into cuddle spot. Even lets me pet her with no biting.
12:55 - Commence thinking about BITNB. About living in the Chi / life choices / love / weddings / apartment searching / blogging / hatred of corporate America / friends / new friends / old friends / family / book writing / pearls / public transportation...
1:29 - Text BF "What the hell is wrong with me? This is going to be painful tomorrow."
1:30 - Put on face mask (I am a diva, it helps me sleep) and stop incessantly looking at my phone to see just how little sleep I will be getting.
approx. 2:00 - Fall asleep...
So thanks Jen. Thanks for writing a funny book that takes place in the Chi so I know all the places you talk about. Thanks for being witty and heartfelt so that when I finish reading your book I think about things. Thanks a lot.
But I always have to test theories, don't I?
This time it isn't my fault (it is totally my fault). It is Jennifer Lancaster's. Yeah, I'm calling her out. It is her and her book, Bitter is the New Black. And maybe the Chicago Public Library. Yup, all of them. Definitely not me.
Evidence in timeline form:
10:20 p.m. - Hang up with the BF. Close my eyes.
10:33 - In a fit of eternal optimism check my computer one more time to see if my Internet is working. INTERNET IS WORKING. Play.
10:45 - Check my library materials online. Both books are overdue and CPL doesn't allow you to renew overdue materials. I haven't yet finished Bitter is the New Black.
10:46 - Snuggle down with BITNB. 180 pages left.
12: 49 a.m. - Finish BITNB, text BF "going to bed now" so someone knows how late I am up. Close eyes.
12:50 - Baby cat can tell I mean business about this sleeping thing. Moves into cuddle spot. Even lets me pet her with no biting.
12:55 - Commence thinking about BITNB. About living in the Chi / life choices / love / weddings / apartment searching / blogging / hatred of corporate America / friends / new friends / old friends / family / book writing / pearls / public transportation...
1:29 - Text BF "What the hell is wrong with me? This is going to be painful tomorrow."
1:30 - Put on face mask (I am a diva, it helps me sleep) and stop incessantly looking at my phone to see just how little sleep I will be getting.
approx. 2:00 - Fall asleep...
So thanks Jen. Thanks for writing a funny book that takes place in the Chi so I know all the places you talk about. Thanks for being witty and heartfelt so that when I finish reading your book I think about things. Thanks a lot.
"Essentially, you allowed fruity rum punch to alter the course of your life TWICE? Oh, my God, you're such a WHORE!"
Jen Lancaster
Jen Lancaster
Monday, January 12, 2009
Bleakhouse installment II
books / authors / Dickens / Bleak House / AWESOME
Where we left off, we knew that Esther's mom is Lady (Dedlock) and they have decided to never talk again for Lady Dedlock's husband's sake.
Damn. It's all or nothing is it?
I will say that the last 300+ pages were crazy amazing. If pages the same weight as tissue paper and just as translucent could turn quickly I would call it a page turner.
It was really just one thing after another:
Esther tells her guardian about her real mom and now he wants to marry her but he OLD but he is just going to be a father figure to her? Not so husband-y? She says yes because feels marred from her sickness (scarlet fever? typhoid? what deforms the face??) and not worthy of the doctor whom she really loves. And Esther goes to the jerky lawyer and tells him to step off and the other mean - but powerful - lawyer is blackmailing Lady Dedlock. Also blackmailing George. Will someone please kill this guy! OMG someone killed this guy! Shot through the heart. Oh no, Buckett who we thought might be mean but is just doing his job is ARESTING George but George is the son of the Dedlock's trusted housekeeper and LADY DEDLOCK IS MISSING. Her husband now knows everything (getting knocked up by soldier who overdosed on opium) and says ALL IS FORGIVEN and is quelling rumors that they are divorcing because he loves her so much and LADY DEDLOCK COME BACK! But she doesn't. And she dies. Where her lover's body is.
But it ends happy!
How could it right?
But it does. Just as any Victorian novel should:
The Jarndyce suit comes to a close and guess what...no more money left to divide because it was sucked up by legal costs. Oh the irony! So Richard is upset cause now he really has no money, but is consoled by Ada and the fact that he is prob going to live with old Jarndyce because he will be lonely because he isn't marrying Esther because he saw how she loved the doctor and gave her a house and him as a husband!
I love it when it all works out. Leaves me warm and fuzzy.
Where we left off, we knew that Esther's mom is Lady (Dedlock) and they have decided to never talk again for Lady Dedlock's husband's sake.
Damn. It's all or nothing is it?
I will say that the last 300+ pages were crazy amazing. If pages the same weight as tissue paper and just as translucent could turn quickly I would call it a page turner.
It was really just one thing after another:
Esther tells her guardian about her real mom and now he wants to marry her but he OLD but he is just going to be a father figure to her? Not so husband-y? She says yes because feels marred from her sickness (scarlet fever? typhoid? what deforms the face??) and not worthy of the doctor whom she really loves. And Esther goes to the jerky lawyer and tells him to step off and the other mean - but powerful - lawyer is blackmailing Lady Dedlock. Also blackmailing George. Will someone please kill this guy! OMG someone killed this guy! Shot through the heart. Oh no, Buckett who we thought might be mean but is just doing his job is ARESTING George but George is the son of the Dedlock's trusted housekeeper and LADY DEDLOCK IS MISSING. Her husband now knows everything (getting knocked up by soldier who overdosed on opium) and says ALL IS FORGIVEN and is quelling rumors that they are divorcing because he loves her so much and LADY DEDLOCK COME BACK! But she doesn't. And she dies. Where her lover's body is.
But it ends happy!
How could it right?
But it does. Just as any Victorian novel should:
The Jarndyce suit comes to a close and guess what...no more money left to divide because it was sucked up by legal costs. Oh the irony! So Richard is upset cause now he really has no money, but is consoled by Ada and the fact that he is prob going to live with old Jarndyce because he will be lonely because he isn't marrying Esther because he saw how she loved the doctor and gave her a house and him as a husband!
I love it when it all works out. Leaves me warm and fuzzy.
"The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me."
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Bleak House installment one
books / authors / Dickens / Bleak House
To date, I am 400 pages into Dickens' Bleak House. Make that 408 pages in.
For the first 100 pages or so there was a litany of new characters. Every chapter introduced new people. I had to underline. For the subsequent 200 pages, Dickens began to connect the characters. Underlining was not enough. Margin writing commenced. Such as: Lady + vagrant...Skimpole is a satire on society...soldier likes Esther...Mr. Guppy (lawyer) = jerk...
But then.
Foreshadowing.
OMG.
IS THE LADY ESTHER'S MOM?
OMG.
The Lady had a child with the dead opium copy writer who was friends with the soldier who likes Esther who was brought up by a mean lady but a nice maid who became acquaintances with the creepy lawyer who proposed to Esther but is slimy and might try to blackmail the Lady because he has vip information because he works for the law firm that represents the Jarndyce's in their decades long lawsuit, and John Jarndyce is Esther's guardian and they live next to the Lady but she didn't know her child was alive because her sister said the baby DIED.
...
362 pages left. I predict DRAMA.
To date, I am 400 pages into Dickens' Bleak House. Make that 408 pages in.
For the first 100 pages or so there was a litany of new characters. Every chapter introduced new people. I had to underline. For the subsequent 200 pages, Dickens began to connect the characters. Underlining was not enough. Margin writing commenced. Such as: Lady + vagrant...Skimpole is a satire on society...soldier likes Esther...Mr. Guppy (lawyer) = jerk...
But then.
Foreshadowing.
OMG.
IS THE LADY ESTHER'S MOM?
OMG.
The Lady had a child with the dead opium copy writer who was friends with the soldier who likes Esther who was brought up by a mean lady but a nice maid who became acquaintances with the creepy lawyer who proposed to Esther but is slimy and might try to blackmail the Lady because he has vip information because he works for the law firm that represents the Jarndyce's in their decades long lawsuit, and John Jarndyce is Esther's guardian and they live next to the Lady but she didn't know her child was alive because her sister said the baby DIED.
...
362 pages left. I predict DRAMA.
"He...cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand; that the plain rule, is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing under-handed or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground."
Dickens (345)
Dickens (345)
Friday, January 2, 2009
Remember that time we pretended it was still 2008 so I could put my list up?
In the end, this blog - similar to my life - is all about me. Now, it is true that lots of people ask me for book recs and so this list is there for them, but...it is also because it is now 2009 and I need to archive my 2008 books I have read list and this is just really the easiest way...so you see, it all comes back to me.
Without further ado, the amazing and surprisingly helpful 2008 categorized book list:
Must Reads
Breakable You - Brian Morton
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro
Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story - Rachel Kadish
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Don't Bother
Whatever Makes You Happy - Lisa Grunwald
Love Warps the Mind a Little - John Dufresne
The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
Ponder Heart - Eudora Welty
Feel Happy and Laugh
Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker
How to Be Single - Liz Tuccillo
A Year in the Merde - Stephen Clarke
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Wallow and Cry
I See You Everywhere - Julia Glass
Breakable You - Brian Morton
One True Thing - Anna Quindlen
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
Ponder Heart - Eudora Welty
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Great Story
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro (short stories)
The Clock Winder - Anne Tyler
Blessings - Anna Quindlen
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Habit of Loving - Doris Lessing (short stories)
The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
Makes you Think
The Diary of Anais Nin
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story - Rachel Kadish
I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley
Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
1984 - George Orwell
Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama
Silly Fluff
Lamb - Christopher Moore
Elegance - Kathleen Tessaro
The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black
Chasing Harry Winston - Lauren Weisberger
The Woman and The Ape - Peter Hoeg
TailSpin - Catherine Coulter
Love Warps the Mind a Little - John Dufresne
Whatever Makes You Happy - Lisa Grunwald
Page Turner
The Devil in The White City - Erik Larson
I am Legend - Richard Matheson
The Host - Stephenie Meyer
The Widow of The South - Robert Hicks
Blind Fall - Christopher Rice
The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg
Literacy and Longing in L.A. - J. Kaufman and K. Mack
Without further ado, the amazing and surprisingly helpful 2008 categorized book list:
Must Reads
Breakable You - Brian Morton
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro
Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story - Rachel Kadish
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Don't Bother
Whatever Makes You Happy - Lisa Grunwald
Love Warps the Mind a Little - John Dufresne
The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
Ponder Heart - Eudora Welty
Feel Happy and Laugh
Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker
How to Be Single - Liz Tuccillo
A Year in the Merde - Stephen Clarke
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Wallow and Cry
I See You Everywhere - Julia Glass
Breakable You - Brian Morton
One True Thing - Anna Quindlen
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
Ponder Heart - Eudora Welty
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Great Story
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro (short stories)
The Clock Winder - Anne Tyler
Blessings - Anna Quindlen
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Habit of Loving - Doris Lessing (short stories)
The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
Makes you Think
The Diary of Anais Nin
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story - Rachel Kadish
I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley
Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
1984 - George Orwell
Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama
Silly Fluff
Lamb - Christopher Moore
Elegance - Kathleen Tessaro
The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black
Chasing Harry Winston - Lauren Weisberger
The Woman and The Ape - Peter Hoeg
TailSpin - Catherine Coulter
Love Warps the Mind a Little - John Dufresne
Whatever Makes You Happy - Lisa Grunwald
Page Turner
The Devil in The White City - Erik Larson
I am Legend - Richard Matheson
The Host - Stephenie Meyer
The Widow of The South - Robert Hicks
Blind Fall - Christopher Rice
The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg
Literacy and Longing in L.A. - J. Kaufman and K. Mack
"For the last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice."
T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot
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