Side note

Today at work I caught myself paraphrasing Barthelme.

Coworker: How do you like your new apartment?
Me: I think it'll suit me fine.

The post I promised you-- it's about books

Okay...

So once I got over the fact that Chelsea broke out of our little fiction cult and actually made real internet friends...naturally I started reading their blogs. One thing that really caught my eye was the lists of books....to be read, to be owned, to read again, all time favorites... the lists went on for what seemed to be forever.

This, naturally, got me to think about my own library. Some people think that I'm well read, but I'm not so sure. I read a little here, and a little there, frequently for class, sometimes serendipity throws books into my lap. Having a job at the parking garage last summer allowed me to read 10,000 pages. A lot of those pages belonged to books that I'm not going to admit to have read. A few of them, I will though. Last summer I read Gore Vidal for the first time, and I'm still thinking about that book (all 500+ pages). I also read Saunder's other story collection (Pastoralia, which I highly recommend), and ZZ Packer's collection (which I had really mixed feelings about). I have a lot of random books on my shelf that look pseudo-impressive, and some books that don't. I love buying books, sometimes I buy by author, sometimes by title, occasionally by cover (the back one, not the...okay sometimes by the front one).

But there's a lot out there that I haven't read. Like Hamlet. I fucking hate Hamlet...can't do it. I've also not read a lot of Faulkner (okay almost no Faulkner) same for Hemingway. I've also not read the novels of Garcia Marquez (despite having loved his short fiction in high school...if you're ever looking for short stories and you're bored, check out Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez). The only Joyce I've ever read is Araby. My Woolf oeuvre is pathetic. I still haven't read Jhumpa Lahiri's novel (The Namesake). I haven't read House of the Spirits (Allende). I never made it through Rushdie's Midnight's Children (started it though). I've started Camus's The Plague at least twice, haven't finished it yet. I didn't finish Lolita. I've not read much Henry James. I started a Phillip Roth book once (can't remember which one). I've also not been exposed to a lot of contemporary fiction. The problem with contemporary fiction is that I don't really even know the names to go after.

The other problem is that I was an over-ambitious reader when I was younger. I read Catcher in the Rye when I was twelve. I'm pretty sure that most of the book went over my head because after I finished it, I wondered what the big deal was about. I'm pretty sure I haven't head Jane Eyre in 10 years. I reread most of my Austen library (again, definitely not complete) last year for the first time in almost ten years. I think I read Lolita too young, I was maybe 15 or 16. I know I was too young to really appreciate Arundati Roy's The God of Small Things (again, maybe 14?)-- I got the book, but I didn't really like it. I read Slaughterhouse V when I was maybe 15-- again, a book that went over my head at the time. I'm trying to brainstorm books that I've read and this would be so much easier if I were at my parents house (where the bulk of my books are living).

So, I as I was reading these lists on Angelle's blog, I started thinking about my essential books. Beloved (Toni Morrisson) is definitely on there. I read it the summer before my senior year of high school, and I'm still thinking about it. The Autobiography of Malcolm X changed the way that I saw the world (and it was great fun reading it when I was in Mississippi for three weeks). Daniel Quinn's books gave me one of the biggest head-fucks I've ever had, and I'm still grateful for it. I love the adult fiction of Roald Dahl-- to me he's one of the best story tellers of the 20th century and if none of you have read him, go track down his stories "Royal Jelly" and "The Great Automatic Grammatisator"... hell, get the entire Omnibus, you won't regret it. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera was probably the most phenomenal book I read sophomore year (of college). I know there are other books, but they're slipping my mind. Julie Orringer, if she continues to live in my head, will make this list.

So anyways, now that you've suffered through reading this ill-organized and unaesthetic looking blog entry, I'm charging you, reader, with a task. Tell me what to read. Help me draft a list.

Also, Chelsea, if you become a literary agent, and I make it to that point, will you consider representing me?

Bookmark

I feel really guilty for having not posted since Monday. However, I'm exhausted and putting my thoughts together now isn't going to work well. So I'm going to sleep now and write a good, solid, thought/conversation provoking post in the morning. Or afternoon.

Because I'm feeling competitive

or something. I just felt like pointing out that I, too, have had over 400 visits, and I think my Malaysia beats your China (which I've already had twice).

Charles,

Check this out: http://www.mcsweeneys.net

And then think about this:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/submit/web.html

and I have reached that point...

I got nothing.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007.


(according to Wiki)

On pages 9 and 10 of his book, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut stated that there are eight rules for writing a short story.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

on writing.

This is when I feel like banging my head against the wall. Someone plot my stories for me, and then I'll write them and then they'll get done, and then life will be good. Ok?

I feel so alone in Blogland. Where have all of my internet-friends gone?

Non-writing related confession

Last night I watched some of Return of the Jedi with my four year old niece and seven year old nephew. This is not worthy of a confession, but brought on what I am now about to confess:

I have never seen Star Wars.
I have never seen episode four, episode five, episode six.
Nor have I ever seen episode one, episode two, or episode three.

However, I have a plan to remedy this, so don't hurt me yet. Someday, when I start having whole spans of 24hrs plus off, I'm going to rent all six of them and start with Episode one (I hear the first three are worse than the last three, and if I watch them all in order, I won't be so let down).

I suppose if I tried, I could make this relate to writing, somehow.

The Gospel of Cary

(this might be a record breaking list)

1. "Where something is found, there look again."
2. The story is in the details and consequences
3. "I know well from my husband & I ridin around in the country side..."
4. It's okay to think of the dead as brats
5. "fondle details"
6. "She's not doing a dad-gum thing"
7. Merry-Go-Sorry starts with the Cicada in Cary's lemon dish
8. Whatever you're writing, you have to include from the here & now-- your life, contemporary, no matter what time you're writing in
9. A good story absorbs everything in it's path and just keeps going
10. If you open with action, then you have to move into inner character
11. You have to write in scene-- moment by moment in real time-- smell? sound?
12. Find the Book of Lists.
13. Turn the readers' expectations against themselves
14. "unusual emotional flavors"
15. Become a tour guide in Colonial Williamsburg (to get over shyness)
16. Teaching is good for social interaction and editing skill improvements
17. Write 2 pages a day-- you can make a career off that
18. you have to KEEP ON
19. Cary's been an "emerging writer" for years
20. Cary is goo.
21. Everyone copies-- you can learn something everywhere
22. Read lots of nonfiction-- you have to write what you know AND keep adding to it
23. Anything you find interesting belongs in your work (what you love)
24. You can never have too many books.
25. Look at the over size books with photos (in the Library)... take a magnifying glass.
26. Every writer is regional in his own way.
27. "queasy makin"
28. We write because of our romance with the books we love
29. Take notes on stories- but don't know how it ends
30. Every story has a beginning, a muddle, and an end
31. you should only write about characters who are in trouble and at the end of their ropes.
32. If you have sympathy and empathy for your characters- the reader will too.
33. "Notes like vegetable stew"
34. "Orphaned anecdotes"
35. Memory exercise: Over the weekend, make a list of the names of everyone you've ever met.
36. Learn to remember/memorize
37. "a great packer of suitcases and slammer of doors"
38. We hear the voices of our family when we write
39. The market favors short story cycles (intertwined short stories like Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio)
40. Just dream it. It's more alike than different between then and now" (on writing a period piece)
41. It's okay to write a story because you want to write a story that includes The Beegees
42. Every Story must have 3 elements: 1) a precise & suspenseful plot, 2) a sense of urgency (burning) and 3) a sense of ownership over the material.
43. Your stories belong to you. Don't talk about them00 it takes the pressure off of you to write it.
44. "Follow the pain"
45. write about human experience.
46. Use all of the depths of the language available to you.
47. Don't show off your research, make it organic, make historical dialogue/regionalism sound normal and contemporary.
48. Dialogue is written for the eye, not the ear. Do dialect/history with a very light hand
49. Any story that gives you delight should be part of your emotional life permanently.
50. we write not because we have something to say, but because we feel when we read
51. When you have something to say, you write an editorial
52. anything human is political
53. you can only get over the wall of frustration by reaching it and letting it build up
54. "the well of fear & loneliness"
55. whatever should happen in your story is what happens next to you when you get up and go to the next room.
56. Do character analysis-- know and commit to your characters
57. Faulkner was a great writer but he also wrote a lot of crap
58. No writer is so consistent that they give other writers a reason not to write
59. Don't lose the reader or get cagey-- don't trick the reader-- they get unhappy that way
60. 1st person narrators are notoriously unreliable
61. don't make your reader feel dumb
62. Language is a clumsy tool.
63. He who accepts good advice increases his ability
64. You can learn from the aesthetics of a writer you don't like
65. Poetry is good for fiction
66. mice characters= good, especially when they die horrifically and rejuvenate the next day
67. landscape is character
68. no more wine for me at dinner.
69. there should aways be some element of mystery and suspense
70. Revision is 90% of writing
71. You don't have to find the answers in a story-- sometimes you just ask more questions.
72. writing fiction is part memory and a lot of invention.

At the end of the semester, I'll publish a giant book list from all of the writers' reading recommendations (except Bapsi because I didn't get hers).

Life of Intern, last 48hrs (approximately)

Sunday, April 1st
6:44am wake up with burning throat, guzzle water, attempt to go back to sleep. FAIL.
8:30am get up, make poster, attempt to get poster to print. FAIL.
9:55am work.
12:50pm Leave work as throat is swelling shut. Proceed immediately to Linc Care
3:30pm Leave Linc Care with no diagnosis but with a prescription for antibiotics
4pmish attempt to eat something
5:30pm attempt to sleep off pain in throat/glands. FAIL.
8:30pm wake up, realize pain is worse. call someone else to fill prescription as pharmacy within walking distance is closed and should probably not operate motor-vehicle in this state.
10pm take antibiotic, unaware of side effects.
11pm attempt to sleep. FAIL.

Monday, April 2nd
12am become aware of side effects of antibiotic. Spend hours in fetal position as stomach tries to plow way out of self.
1amish fever kicks in
2am still awake, in misery.
3am still awake, in misery.
4am still awake, in misery but realize that sinuses have partially cleared.
5am still awake, in misery.
6am still awake, in misery, but fever is breaking.
7am attempt to call in sick to work, can barely do so as have no voice.
7:10am sleep, blessed, blessed sleep.
2:30pm wake up. delighted to find strawberry jello. try a little ravioli too.
3pm take antibiotic, again.
4pm wait for side effects to pass.
5:30pm more sleep.
8:30pm jello, part two.
9pm attempt to work on resume. word not compliant.
10pm attempt to sleep. FAIL.
11pm attempt to sleep. FAIL.

Tuesday, April 3rd
12am attempt to sleep. FAIL.
1am attempt to sleep. FAIL.
2am sleep.
3am sleep.
4am sleep.
5am wake up. Note appearance of cough. attempt to go back to sleep. FAIL.
6am attempt to sleep. FAIL.
7am attempt to sleep. FAIL.
8am email professors. Eat more jell-o. determine that jello-o x4 might = gagging.
8:30am blog.

List 'o' Bapsi

Let's see if I can get this done before I pass out again.

1. Little shifts in politics mean big feelings
2. conservative Muslims in power make women feel uncomfortable
3. Bapsi writes a strong mix of fiction & autobiography
4. Bapsi does not write exoticized accounts that pander to others' tastes
5. Cracking India became a movie because it had "India" in the title
6. The Earth demands bloodshed (I love that line)
7. Women have insecurities about the future
8. the basic concepts and facts about the Zoroastrian people
9. The narration in Cracking India was replaced by a specific camera angle in Earth
10. in 1947, suddenly overnight, 12 million people had to emigrate in the span of 3 months
11. Peasants are had to move because they are embedded in the soil
12. The Sikhs became warriors in loin cloths and brutalized village women in sadistic ways
13. Deepha carves her own universe into the book
14. Readings actually occur with 300 people present
15. The Crow Eaters is a funny book
16. A book has to become skeletal to become a film because the camera will pack on the flesh
17. usually, film makers don't want you (the author) on the set because you get in the way and want to change things
18. actors are easily confused and should not be talked to by the writer/author
19. the camera cannot see as much as written words can show, but the camera closes in the distance that authors are very careful to build between the world and the author
20. The Ayah is completely fictional
21. There was a race riot on the film set
22. "Before the British, like Boa Constrictors, gobbled up India, India had religious tolerance"
23. After 1875, the British started playing divide and conquer with the Indians
24. When the Partition began in 1947, the British were in favor of it to keep India from being too powerful. The British military presence was there to stop the riots but didn't. The U.S. does the same thing in Iraq
25. Gandhi killed his wife (refused to let her take the British invention Penicillin) but then saved himself with a shot of it later. He also treated his son so badly that his son converted to Islam.
26. Leaders must have huge egos.
27. Kashmir is a big, festering wound between India & Pakistan.
28. Elections are won by threatening war
29. Bapsi's job on set was to distract the censor and take him off set during the "inappropriate" scenes so Deepha could get them shot.
30. The Crow Eaters are people who talk too much
31. Rushdie didn't sell well before the Fatwah.
32. Milkweed press bought Cracking India for $1500.00
33. Bapsi seems to appeal more to Anglos than Southeast Asians/imigrants
34. Ice Candy Man is still a best seller in India
35. A kidnapped woman was such a slur that no one would admit to being related/married to one-- sexual defilement and martyrdom/murder
36. Everyone Kills
37. Bapsi is now writing short stories
38. Give poor people a sense of self respect and see what happens
39. "I drink whiskey, I drink bourbon, but I don't drink you poor peoples' blood"
40. Pakistan became a conduit for passing arms during the Russian/Afghanistan debacle
41. "I want to kill me a commie"
42. Radical Islamic books were published in Ohio and sent to Pakistan/Afghanistan
43. Afghanistan is an often sacrificed country that has a sad destiny.
44. Under Islamic law, you need 4 male witness or 8 female witnesses for a rape to occur
45. there are no love marriages-- it is an insult to the family
46. women are in demand because there is a shortage-- they are almost always married off to cousins, if she does not obey she is charged with adultery and thrown into jail.
47. politicians will always have strange bedfellows
48. Bapsi can speak for 90 minutes without opening her bottle of water.

My closing thought is that I would be intrigued to watch a conversation between Josip and Bapsi.

Now I think I go pass out now.