the ken

Google

2011-12-01T01:16:00.003-05:00

Google reminded me today that it was Mark Twain's birthday. I'm glad they did because I'm not friends with him on Facebook. Terrible jokes aside, I've said it once and I'll keep saying until someone listens: Mark Twain was the greatest American writer who ever lived. And quite possibly our first stand-up comic. I haven't read nearly enough of the guy. Perhaps one day, when I'm not stoned and drunk, I'll remedy that. Until then, I'll keep repeating this quote, which is one of my favorites: "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

And now for something lighter that should make you happy:

Publishing, excuses, Paris

2011-11-28T23:24:00.024-05:00

It's been two months since I posted to this blog which is probably nearing the 404 stage on the internets. I picture a smoke-filled room packed with trained monkeys surfing the net. Between working on new Nora Roberts novels, they troll the net looking for un-updated blogs and 404 the dormant ones.

I can assure you that I have some solid excuses for ignoring you and tempting those monkeys. As I said last time I posted, my writing was featured on a website; and though I was excited, the site wouldn't be confused with The New Yorker. But fuck the new yorker. What matters is that someone took the time to read something I had written and found it worthy of publication.

I had blasted out about three stories to dozens of journals and I had no idea I'd strike oil twice, but that's exactly what has happened. I was informed by Damazine that my writing would appear in their next issue. Perhaps what's most exciting about the publication is that it also includes a monetary reward. Not more than enough to pay for a few bourbons, but this isn't the rub of the story. The idea is that I was paid for a short story. This, I would argue, is but another corner turned or, to drive a pun into the muddy earth, another page turned. No matter how you look at it, something has turned. Don't question it. Ride the wave.

The move to Chicago has opened my eyes to motivations and stories and ideas and people I once thought did not exist. Certainly the stories in my head have been brewing in a latency period for years now. I can't explain why they're falling onto the page now. I guess it's simply sitting down and writing. I constantly quote John Gardner, my favorite writing sage: "It's the sheer act of writing, more than anything else, that makes a writer."

I can safely say that the past six months have been my best ever as a writer. The last week, however, has produced only one sentence. But look at the sentence: A matatu sped by and, through the hallucinatory dusting, the hoard of robes rose from the ground and then parted down the middle with biblical grace.

Fuck yourself if you aren't thrilled about that sentence. In the eternal words of Edward Abbey, I give you my favorite quote of all-time: "Your criticism is greatly appreciated, but fuck you all the same."

That concludes the first of my distractions. The second is, and always shall be this time of year, fantasy football. It could be argued that such a hobby (distraction) is trite and pathetic, but there's something inherently appealing about the NFL. I won't get into it here, but I find it compelling. I don't need your approval. It consumed me more this year since I started a blog with a friend that is devoted to fantasy. If The Ken is my outlet for culture and sophistication (which is so ridiculous to think let alone to write here), I suppose in comparison my other blog is a smut-rag on par with The National Enquirer. Certainly as entertaining for me to write as that publication must be for its readers to read. A sort of guilty pleasure. We have netted almost 500 followers on Twitter so I would call it a mild success thus far. I have no intention in giving it up. And though the world may indeed be ignoring its glaring flaws whilst being distracted by things like the NFL, don't blame me for my addictions. Addictions often choose us, we don't choose them.

And then, of course, there's my addiction with travel. My lady friend and I recently returned from a trip to Paris. I won't bore you with the details of drinking and eating in what I consider the greatest city in the world. I'll simply post my favorite photos below. I'm not photographer. It would appear, however, I might be a writer.

I almost forgot. No, I haven't read a fucking thing lately. I finished Light in August by Faulkner. It was well-written, of course, if not a bit long-winded. I would say that my take on reading lately could be summed up best by a line I remember Peter O'Toole saying in the movie Venus (unfortunately that clip is not of the quote, but it's a marvelous scene, nonetheless). Venus asks Maurice whether he likes reading and he answers, "Only if there's no one interesting to talk to."

Here's to updating more.

Favorite cafe in Montmartre

Looking outside from the Louvre

It's not even the real Mona Lisa, assholes

If I lived in Paris, I think I'd pop a tent right here

Candaleria for tacos and in the back, a speakeasy

We'll shut a city down, son

I call this "The Curling Heart"

My obsession with graffiti begins at Sacre-Coeur

Beads at a flea market

Just down the street from our hotel

We ate the country out of foie gras

I heard him reciting his work, but damned if we had time to wait and listen to everything

From Shakespeare & Company's Bookstore facade and the new background on the blog

The best graffiti I've ever seen

Editor's note: If you are ever in the Latin Quarter, please visit Curio Parlor. It's a speakeasy and the head bartender's name is Arthur. Fantastic spot. I told him about my own exploits as a bartender and I shared one of my favorite recipes in a journal. Look for it. It's called the Shimbashi Athletic Club. Maybe they'll make it for you. And tell him I sent you.

Babbitt

2011-09-12T16:19:00.003-04:00

The number one rule of being a writer is to write, as John Gardner's paraphrased quote goes. This might seem like a logical statement but one that I think a lot of writers fail to realize. We—I am using this as a journalistic we—get caught up with our daily lives and commitments and tend to forget about putting in the work required of writing. For me, the most common distractions are booze and fantasy football. But, again, it's the act of writing, more than anything else, that separates the mice from the men, per se.

I've noticed that when I'm writing, I'm happier, in a sense, freer. I'm less likely to get frustrated and throw things at the wall. It's important to me. And the writing can be in any capacity. I write simply to hear myself typing (which is how I think Tom Wolfe has probably written most of his books—that is not a compliment). And, by doing so, I feel free. Or at least this is what I tell myself.

What people don't realize is that it doesn't matter whether you ever get published. I truly believe that statement. With that said, an online publication has agreed to publish one of my short stories. The site, however, looks like it was put together by a team of blind IT guys with epilepsy. I don't want to publicize it for this reason, but, at the end of the day, I'm published. It's not The New Yorker, but it's a start. I'm looking for something to hang a hat on and this is it. It legitimizes my efforts, but by no means settles my drive. It's perfect in this way.

It's strange that the news of this story acceptance came a week after I finished reading Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt (I have read some great books over the course of the summer—Barry Lyndon, Brighton Rock, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, The Pickwick Papers, Monsieur Pain, Vineland, short stories by Maupassant, reread several Chekhov shorts—but I've honestly been lazy (read: drinking too much and concentrating on my own writing and fantasy football)).

With the aside finished, I must say Babbitt, a book ostensibly about a discontented businessman at the beginning of 20th c. America, touches on what it means to be free and to grow old.

"...he was restless again, discontented about nothing and everything, ashamed of his discontentment, and lonely for the fairy girl."

George Babbitt is a real estate guru (perhaps only in his own mind) who lives in Zenith, a common Mid-Westerrn city, with a wife and three kids. From the very beginning, Babbitt is restless and surrounded by friends who he believes don't truly understand him. Babbitt believes only one friend, Paul Reisling (who I seemed to read as Paul Reiser every time), seemed to truly get what Babbitt wanted—though it's ambiguous, because, as Babbitt said, "I've never discovered anyboy that knew what the deuce Man really was made for!"

As the book wore on, I felt like it shifted from a book about America and about personal freedoms (which it pounds home) and Lewis' personal take on politics, to what it means to be truly free. A life without kids, without connections, without any hindrance from making your own decisions at all times.

"For many minutes, for many hours, for a bleak eternity, he lay awake, shivering, reduced to primitive terror, comprehending the he had won freedom, and wondering what he could do with anything so unknown and so embarrassing as freedom."

I've worn out philosophy books about the question of personal freedom. I love novels about the topic. I love thinking about the topic until my head hurts. It dominates my thoughts. What does it mean to be free? None of us are, I've concluded over the years. Hampered by work or by family or by a dog you can't leave alone in the house. It's impossible for someone to wake up and think only of themselves and make decisions that will only affect them. That's where the idea of freedom becomes so hazy. You can't be free. And even fragments of freedom are impossible to come by as you grow older. Babbitt, who finds solace in the arms of another woman and spends his time drinking and carousing, is eventually pulled back into family life after his best friend, Paul, ends up in jail and his wife, Myra, ends up in the hospital. None of us, Babbitt included, can run away from commitments we have. And so none of us can be free, in its absolute definition.

"Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself."

I've often maintained, much to the chagrin of certain friends of mine, that to have kids is to give up on your own dreams and sacrifice the last remnants of freedom. Perhaps this is harsh and self-absorbed, but it's just my opinion. And it's flawed, but what opinion isn't flawed? At any rate, Lewis comes back to his family because he feels there is no other way for him to go. The book's ending is a homage to living through your kids, as your own dreams—whether they are of being single or climbing mountains or winning fantasy football championships—are all gone and you have nothing to do but live through your children. Perhaps this isn't what Lewis was saying, but it's what I was reading.

Now what, you may be asking yourself if you've read this far, does this have to do with anything about writing? I guess I believe that, for me, writing represents a small part of freedom. In my writing I can do whatever I want. It is mine forever and no one can touch it or take it away. I think everyone should have something that belongs only to them. Maybe Babbitt realized that, for him, his family was that source of freedom. Ironic, I suppose, and certainly not as exciting as other pursuits, but it was his nonetheless.

I suggest you find your source of freedom before it's too late. Babbitt proves that waiting too long is more of a hassle than anything else.

Old Man and the Sea and inspiration (or lack of it)

2011-07-26T00:06:00.001-04:00

The video below makes me happy I'm trying to be an artist. Or at least think I'm an artist. I was reading over at New Dork Review of Books today and he was talking about writing or the lack of it. I've actually been doing more than usual lately, which would account for the lack of blogging (I'm currently six book "reviews" behind and where the hell is the beloved Amazon Wednesday?). But I digress.

It's almost an impossibility to get published these days—says the guy who hasn't been published—and even if you're lucky enough to do so, there's fuck-all for money in it. And, yet, we do it anyway. None of it makes much sense to me. It's like women or the universe or soccer.

Anyway, If you're a fan of The Old Man and the Sea or art or simply need a little inspiration, I suggest you watch this below. If you don't think writing sounds easy after this, you're not watching closely enough. The artist's name is Aleksandr Petrov and you can read what Wikipeons say about him here. Enjoy. And keep writing. Or taking photos. Or painting. Or whatever turns the disco ball on for you.

Ball of Suet

2011-07-18T14:34:00.007-04:00

It's said that Gustave Flaubert was Guy De Maupassant's mentor when the young Frenchman began his writing career. Flaubert never has excited me. I found Madame Bovary melodramatic and most of the characters contemptible and complacent. Certainly I should read more Flaubert, as I believe one book is by no means a wide enough sample of a person's work. As French novelists go, however, I almost find it unnecessary to read anyone but Marcel Proust, whose Swann's Way literally slapped me in the face with a bag of nickels when I read it. But I've digressed.

I picked up a copy of Maupassant's short stories, Boule De Suif and Selected Stories (and don't feel bad, three years of college French and I still had to run "suif" through BabelFish), at a small used bookstore near my hometown. I actually purchased about 12 books and it cost me less than 20 bucks. It reminded me of the old days of stealing books at Banres and Noble. With that said, there was a disturbing page in Maupassant's book:

Pretty sure Bette threw a bag full of puppies into a stream as a child and later murdered her parents. Kind of creepy. Or ... Some guy was a little obsessed with Bette. Either way, I think it confirms all work and no play, makes Bette a dull girl.

The first four or five stories I read in this collection led me to believe Maupassant might have been the first animal right's activist. One story, about a puppy two maids can't take care of and throw into a well (like Bette), and another, about a man who incubates chicken eggs under his fat armpits, could probably both be read with an angle to make you believe they were written to protect animals or to realize animals are on the same level as humans. Of course, I would probably argue the former was about the inability of any of us to take care of everyone and especially the inability to help someone is doesn't want to help themselves. As for the latter, however, I'm still not sure what the hell Maupassant was trying to tell me.

Overall, the first ten stories were not stories I'd likely read again. Intelligent, well-written, thoughtful, yes, but nothing that had me begging for more. The racier stories, the ones about out-of-wedlock children and loose maids, knowing they were written before the turn of the twentieth century, certainly highlighted his honesty and his "laissez-faire" attitude toward censorship (which is a great thing). But, again, the themes felt straight-forward and heavy-handed. Peasants got it rough. The upper-class is sinister.

But then I read Boule De Suif, for which the collection was named. And then I understood why the guy is mentioned in the same breath with so many greats. The story, about a group well-to-do French elitists (and a few stragglers) fleeing from the surging Prussian army, encompasses everything that a great short story should: strong characters, a simple plot with complex themes and an ending that makes you stand up and applaud.

Elisabeth Rousset, known as 'Butterball' in the story, is a fille de joie—a lady of the night (isn't my French just astounding?). In the carriage the women abhor her and the men, though lustful, are also snooty toward Butterball. In what turns out to be a 14-hour journey, she is kind enough to share her basket of food with the entire company. What unfolds when they reach a city for rest, it being occupied, much to their dismay, by Prussian soldiers, cements this as one of the better short stories I've ever read. And the ending, somehow encompassing everything that Maupassant had been trying to say, not only in Boule De Suif but in all his stories, had me wanting to go back and reread the entire thing again.

I've often believed that the best stories are those that make us question our own morals (still not sure I have any of those, but, never mind that). This story will do that. If you never read an entire collection by Maupassant, that'd be fine, but do yourself a favor and read the one story that made him famous, Boule De Suif.

Editor's note: the picture in the heading is of small shrine in Misumi, Shimane-ken, the small town where I lived in Japan. I used to go there and read. Oddly enough, that's where I first enjoyed Proust. But that doesn't have anything to do with the price of butter.

Amazon Wednesday regrets to inform you that we are, unfortunately, still surrounded by morons

2011-05-25T01:31:00.009-04:00

So the rapture came and went. I was getting so tired of hearing about it, I was hoping a comet would hit earth real soon and take the pain away. I have long believed that Malthus was right and all the rapture talk had me more excited than scared. And speaking of Malthus and thinning the reh-tarded herd, how about this Anonymous waterhead who left a comment last Amazon Wednesday:

Anonymous said...

So instead of writing your own thoughts, you just pick on other people's reviews? Wow, what a classy guy.

8:22 AM

So, as everything is clear here at my blog, let me say a few things. First, if you can't find your Man Card and leave your name or at least a tag, please go piss up a rope. I don't need your comments and no one cares about cowards. Even Falstaff would be embarrassed for you. Second, if you truly believe that these booger-eating morons don't deserve to be lambasted for their idiocy, than you, you milksop, should adjust your reading list. Obviously you are completely clueless about real literature and what it means and how it's read. Third, at what point don't I give my opinion on this blog? There are enough opinions and passion in this ridiculous diatribe right here to sustain some people for a month. Perhaps you should dig into the several years of archives and read the reviews of countless books. In each of them, I put my name at the right of the page. The difference between you and I is that I actually have a backbone and am willing to share my thoughts openly.

Fourth, go fuck yourself. I hate the anonymity of the internet. You want to challenge someone, challenge them. Don't hide behind comments and act superior because you can say something without any consequence.

Am I overreacting? Perhaps. But it's a microcosm of everything wrong with the world. People unwilling to announce themselves and standby their opinions and take responsibility for their actions. If this Anonymous Reh-tard had simply put his name out there, I wouldn't be writing about him as if he were Mephistopheles.

Okay. I'm done, for now.

Here's some Amazon Wednesday dedicated to the rapture via Nevil Shute's apocalyptic novel On the Beach. I read this book ten years ago, so I don't remember all the details. I do remember it being a quick read and though melodramatic, it cultivated some great thoughts. With that said, I thought these were some of the best reviews I found. I dedicate this week's Amazon Wednesday to all those people who don't have a sense of humor. And to all the anonymous shitheads out there, too.

2 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Major Let Down, April 17, 2002

"missy_weir" (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Beach (Mass Market Paperback)

Well, we had to read this book in English class. It is supposedly a classic, but many of the members of my class agree with me that it does not deserve its award winning title. First of all the characters in the book have very odd relationships, not resembling those of real people. Secondly, human nature is to protect oneself and its offspring. All the characters in the novel are taking their death as it comes, but if they were smart they could build underground shelters, stay there for 5-10 years and then return to the surface when the radiation has lessened. All in all it was a bit of a dissapointment, however the movie is very well done and I would recommend that first and foremost before the book.

This anthropologist tells us that "human nature is to protect oneself and its offspring." Right. Human nature sure isn't volatile. And then I love how this person says they should just build shelters and stay there till the radiation goes away. An anthropologist and a biologist. To quote Rodney Dangerfield, "Now I know why tigers eat their young."

5 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A chore to read, January 21, 2000

Robert lucas (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Beach (Mass Market Paperback)

Mr. Shute had a wonderful scenerio for the end of the world in his book. Now if only he had given the idea to an author who knew how to write. This novel moved excrusiatingly slow and his repetitve australian dialect added nothing to help; if not hurt it. Out of all the books I have read, I would have to say that this one ranks among the top 10 worst in language usauge and sentence structure.

out of all the reveiws i have read this ranks among the top 10 worst in gramar language usauge anything to do with speling

4 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars ppft it [was bad]!, April 18, 2002

kathleen (Vancouver, B.C, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Beach (Mass Market Paperback)

ok well how can i start, i go to a private school in SUrrey B.C and im unfortunatly forced to read this book as a novel for our english class. what can i say it [is bad]! the characters just dont do logical things! ok if u knew the world was ending in less then a year would you just pretty much ignore it.. go on a submarine for half the time and forget about everything that was happening and not even try and save yourself? no, of course not. human nature is to survive! not to be willing to die and just deal with it... its human nature to stand up and try and not give up. obviously mr shute didnt know that while writing this book. He is very sexist towards woman and his style of writing is QUITE borring, i did NOT enjoy this book.

You are quite a [terrible] writer and reader. I do NOT understand how everyone on Amazon now studies human nature and understands it so well. Seriously, the rapture can't get here soon enough. "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever."

Hey, monkeys, read and discuss

2011-05-24T18:02:00.004-04:00

So The Reading Ape brought up some great questions over at his blog. Being that I have ignored my own blog for the last several weeks, I thought this was a perfect way to jump back into the game. My answers are brief, since I had originally responded in the comments section of the post. Then I decided to post it here. I encourage everyone to get in on this discussion. I think it's a worthy and interesting one.

1. What does book blogging do best?
2. If you write a book blog, why do you?
3. What do you think the future of book blogging is?
4. What do your favorite book bloggers do?
5. If you could tell all book bloggers one thing, what would it be?
6. If you could change one thing about book blogging, what would it be?
7. How do you think book blogging fits into the reading landscape?
8. What about your own book blogging would you like to do better/differently?

1. I want to say book bloggers, unlike some haughty reviewers at the NYer, NYT, Paris Review, etc., inject an immediate and fresh discussion to books while lacking the pretension that often accompanies literature and reviewers of literature.

2. Mostly to give myself a way of instant gratification. Since I'm no longer a journalist and no journals find any of my stories publishable, I have nothing in print. It gives my writing a home. It's something, I guess.

3. I'd like to see a time when blogs like yours (not mine, per se, as I do it solely for fun and not on a serious basis) get the exposure they rightfully deserve. Some of the blogs I read are incredibly thoughtful and should have a wide(r) readership.

4. Going back to point one, I think they present their opinions in a readable way and give objective opinions (I don't always do that, but, then, I don't care what people think).

5. People are reading you, even if you don't think they are, so keep writing.

6. Sometimes I feel like many bloggers are afraid of writing about classics. Maybe it's me, but there seems to be a lack of blogs that are solely focusing on literature before 1950. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places. I think challenging yourself as a reader is important. And sometimes, I think, that means reading books that might have horse and buggies in them rather than Cadillacs. Does that make sense?

7. I find that I read only about three or four blogs these days. I find there is so much to read that if I focused on more, I'd have no time for other pursuits. With that said, the product better be worthy and timely and almost constant or there's no reason to do it (I am a lazy blogger—I should practice what I preach).

8. As I just said, I wish I posted more. Content is a problem and so are other commitments. Take, for example, this lengthy reply on your blog. I guess I should've made this into my own post. In fact, that's what I'm going to do right now.

Amazon Wednesday finds a gold mine

2011-05-18T11:19:00.009-04:00

So I'm back. Sort of. It's slowed considerably at the restaurant and I'm catching my breath. Helping to open a restaurant, I guess, is much like trying to read Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. Tiring, but certainly fulfilling. I would very much like to write a long entry about what I enjoyed most about the book—the Wellerisms, Mr. Jingle and "the fat boy"—but I'm afraid I haven't the time right now. I can assure you it was a fantastic book, however. There were times when I wanted to toss it into the street, but that goes with the territory. Anyone who has read an 800-page book knows such pain (and speaking of big ones, this is a fantastic article about the books that hold us captive).

I only found one person who talked smack about Pickwick, who is a most genial and intelligent and gentlemanly fellow. Because I wanted to celebrate Dickens on this Amazon Wednesday—having missed several weeks—I decided to look up a couple of his other titles and settled on Great Expectations. Oh, what the Dickens did I find? A gawdamm gold mine.

Turns out people have some unfavorable opinions of The Great Expectations. I'll admit that the plot is contrived and when I read it years ago I hated it and even a reread recently left me under-whelmed. But in no way would I say it was completely terrible or worthless. And the more I read Dickens the more I think maybe I will appreciate the book that much more years from now when I inevitably read it again.

Anyway, enough of this piffle. Let's dig in to some Amazon Wednesday.

2 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Vapid and superficial, July 19, 2001

Christopher L Potter (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pickwick Papers (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Being a Dickens fan, and having read all of the other Amazon reviews, buying this book was a no-brainer for me.

Unforunately, the work is TOTALLY lacking in depth. All the characters are completely two-dimensional, if not one-dimenional: they lack development and in no way resemble real people with real emotions, desires, fears, etc - they are mere caricatures. Worse, the plotline wanders aimlessly. Certain passages do evoke chuckles, but the great majority of the writing is lifeless and indeed boring.

This is the work of a very young Dickens, and it shows. At this point in his life, his writing skills had simply not yet evolved very far. The 700+ page novel is simply undistunguised and totally forgettable. I would HIGHLY recommend any of Dickens' more famous works (most notably Great Expectations), but this one is a waste of time. Do not let others lead you astray.

What does "being a Dickens fan" entail? Is there a club for that? Aptly named Pickwick, I'd think? Or does it mean they have visited his house or grave? I am a fan of internet porn, but I don't write retarded reviews under videos.

6 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Looks like a reject book., April 26, 2008

G. Cooke - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Great Expectations (Barnes & Noble Classics) (Hardcover)

Pages are all different size and roughly cut. A bit rubbish, really. This is not a reflection on the narative, which of course is well reviewed in general.

Yeah, and there were words. Lots of fucking words. It was overwhelming. It was like Dickens wanted me to read them. But I read them anyway, because, of course, it was well-reviewed.

10 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What A Wonderful Cure For Insomnia!, February 20, 2006

Brandon Rohrig (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I was forced to read this book in my English class this year, and I almost died. For a more thrilling read, try a dictionary or a phone book.

It put you to sleep? I'm done snorting Ambien.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Bob Foofoo's Constructive cuisine corner, June 11, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Great Expectations (Mass Market Paperback)
On my home planet of Mars, books that we do not enjoy, we refer to as lunch. We had "Great Expectations" before the matinee last week. The matinee was "Smoky the Cowhorse." It was Martian Thanksgiving, so "Awful (great (yeah right!)) Expectations" was a good choice, because it is so freakin' long, and low in cholesterol. I am on a strictly bad classics diet. The Martian Major Leagues starts today, so I grilled a warthog.
One of the reasons that I found this book (in terms of literature, not food) so disturbing is because the Martian term for a hemmohroid is a pip. In terms of food, it could have used a bit more seasoning, like a trip to Denmark. Of course, they didn't actually go to Denmark. If instead of being named "Magwitch" the convict had been called Bozo the Clown, and gave Pip balloon animals instead of money, I would have enjoyed the book much more.
But, the thing that ticked me off the most (and Auntie, too!) was the way that Dickens never ended his sentences: instead, he just ran them on and on and on and on and punctuated them only with commas and semicolons, as if to say, "this is my book, feel free to fall asleep; or, you could eat it": that reminds me of a very funny story about a man named "Kitty"...
WHACK!
(Auntie just hit me over my other head with a frying pan). The truth is... the only good part about this book is when Miss Havisham (the Martian) gets married to Pip. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! HA.
Ha.

Whatever acid you're taking, please give me your dealer's phone number.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars i'll sum this book up for you in four words..., February 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Expectations (Mass Market Paperback)

TOO LONG, IT SUCKED!!

That's what she said! God, I hate myself.

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not read this book!, May 11, 2011

Elizabeth A. Verzello - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Great Expectations (Paperback)

To start this book is so dry it could catch on fire. Also description in the book, ha there is none to be spoken of. This book has been called Charles Dickens greatest novel, not even close, save your time, and money for buying a better book.

So dry it could catch on fire? That's not that good of a joke. How bout "It's so dry we have a surplus of vermouth." Let's call it a work in progress.

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars It ..., March 6, 2001
By
Bob Marley (Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I can't understand how anyone can stand to read this dribble. A "Book" consisting of 50 pages of people standing around talking reads more like a court transcript than a "great novel." If you own this book, burn it.

Easy, Hitler. Ah, Nazi jokes are always funny.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Overrated, worthless, and so very boring, March 29, 2001
By
Ryan (Ohio) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
This book reminds me of algebra, its boring, time-consuming, worthless, and you will never have to use this in your whole life. Never! So when you're teacher asks you to read this book, don't do it. Read the Cliff Notes or watch the Wishbone version.

Yeah, if you're teacher asks you to read you're books, your not obligated to do it. Your never going to need any of this, your right about that. Ryan, you're mother sure didn't raise no fool, nohow.

A poem from the internets

2011-05-04T14:32:00.002-04:00

America: an Ode to Walt and Allen

America you give me nothing and I am everything.
America I don’t hang American flags in front of my house.
I did marijuana in college and it still whets my taste buds.
My dad never trusted the government, because of the subsidies he barely broke even on the farm. He is taxed many moneys for land he has lived on for 60 years. He says there is no such thing as ownership.
America owns everything.
America I can’t stand you. You are making me turn serious and your jokes are getting personal.
When I was little, I believed in the president. I believed in adults who made decisions for me. Then Reagan fell asleep and while he was sleeping I awoke.
When I was little, I looked at the Barbi twins in Hefner’s dirty books and still remember Vanna stripping in the late eighties. I think pornography is great.
America is never naked in front of the mirror.
Iraqi is tacky. Those sandniggers are taking everything from me. My suburban, with DVD, CD, GPS, pager, cell, greenbacks under the seat is missing from the garage and those towelheads left a camel in its place.
America save me from those ominous empires.
Communism is still alive in Nam. They tell me the whole of east was falling to communism, but Laos is a hot spot to visit now. Those gooks are too nice. When I was little, Gorby had Asia tattooed on his forehead, hellbent on washing my white underpants in hot water with that Russian hammer and sickle. China’s stars are yellow and the block around it is red. The bull sees a cape and America you charge.
America I have money saved and I am going to travel.
In Malawi, those blacks are starving but they have big bellies on television.
America why does everybody have a bomb?
America I will keep my guns and you can call me a hillbilly.
America my sex drive is suffering from worry. I take pills so my penis isn’t limp. I take pills to make me happy. I take pills so I don’t think about my job. I take pills so I can cope with the death-smell surrounding me. I take pills so the doctor will still see me.
Do you still love me?
America I graduated from college naked and you wrapped me in the flag, but it was soiled before you handed it over and now I’m covered in your shit. I see why the French think we stink. We need bidets.
I have a French flag flying outside my house, with rectangles of RED, WHITE, BLUE and my neighbors frown when they wave. They don’t understand because they think their voice can still be heard.
My larynx is flooded from lack of thirsty ears.
I saw kids in Zimbabwe sitting on tires, buckets, shell casings, then we pass and they run barefooted beside the truck until the dust drowned them like the bombs from so many planes. Those kids are still running for water.
America has California full of more rice than China. Those Chinamen are commies so don’t trust their rice. We keep it all for ourselves, argh, survival of the fittest. Feed us, fuck them.
America you kill me you so funny.
There are idiots in the streets that don’t know why we are fighting. There are idiots on the couches that think they do. I only just recently fortunately realized myself an idiot.
America how come my plate is empty?
Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon take up our cause, while sipping Bombay with stuffed bleu cheese olives on a hill in a house with a Jacuzzi and Hispanic pool boys. Don’t help me.
America where is it we will go next?
Are you serious?
America the Kurds will still be in northern Iraq when you leave.
America the Shia are sympathetic to Iran and Saddam was a Sunni.
America who can we trust?
America will fight with anyone once.
I live down the road from a mental institution. Men and women who don’t understand bombs and hate and imperialism. America I want to do a personal lobotomy. America I wish I were retarded.
America feed someone here.
America feed someone somewhere else.
I quit wearing underwear because I want to be separated from your rules. It makes as much sense as your war.
America you should legalize weed and decriminalize prostitution. Amsterdam whores look better in the window than they do naked.
America the construction companies keep building but there are so many empty buildings. How come is that?
America the constitution is dying from a bag you put over its head. How come is that?

I have a job that pays me cash. I collect it in a bottle with a lid that says: Don’t Tread on Me. Soon I will have enough to leave.
America I would never join your Marines and I will not work inside a building of steel. I wouldn’t trade an old strophe for a new Ford any day. He must have been desperate.
You made me turn this queer shoulder to the wheel.
You are to blame.
America I have unleashed my dog and we are walking away.

Amazon Wednesday gives you a twister

2011-04-27T23:54:00.003-04:00

I'm busier than a looter in a riot, so forgive me for this less than mediocre Amazon Wednesday. I can't be sure whether this person is really intelligent and accidently ate some mushrooms or if they are simply just another dumbass. I'm going to go with the latter. Enjoy this thoughtful take on Romanticism and Wordsworth. This fella below hates clouds. The sun. Ducklings. Breezes. Pretty much anything in Nature. I bet he loved that one movie that starred Bill Paxton/Pullman and that blonde from Mad About You who ran around without a bra during the tornadoes.

22 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars ROMANTICISM: An infectous excuse for not thinking!!!, April 14, 2003

Timothy Shives (Collegedale, tn USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Major Works: Including The Prelude (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Two hundred years ago, a revolution hit the literature world. This revolution was a reformation movement against the predominating belief in science and the power of mankind. This movement was coined as period of Romanticism and chief among the romantic leaders was the poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth's was inspired by his overwhelming love for nature and his belief that following the heart was the most important decision making skill a person could possess.
In the poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", William Wordsworth reveals his unfathomable love for nature. He has elevated nature to a stage beyond his mere aesthetic appreciation to one of total devotion. He even informs the reader that he has become "a worshiper of Nature" and how nature to him was "his all in all." He also gives constant reference of his love through explicit descriptions and metaphors of Nature's beautiful features. However, beyond that he shows evidence that he has developed this love to the point of blind sightedness. As I read further into the poem, I noticed that Wordsworth is extremely biased just as he berates the civilized world for the evils it has brought upon mankind; he then extols Nature for being perfect and for "never betray[ing] the heart that loved her." Wordsworth aspires to a cult of aesthetics where beauty alone is holy.
As a critical reader, I thought to myself, has Wordsworth ever been in a natural catastrophe before or ever really spent any significant time in outdoors? Because I have, and I know that nature is not quite as loving as Wordsworth makes it to be. Typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, large predators preying upon weaker life forms are just a few of the many hazards of nature which reveal another side to nature's bubbling brooks that Wordsworth sees.
In my opinion the nature Wordsworth speaks of only exists in Walt Disney's creations and federal funded national parks. Therefore, I do not believe that nature is such a venerable force to be worshiped. It is very impressive, true, but it should not be held in reverence in of its own self. I don't wish to criticize Wordsworth. However, I also believe that this form of thinking, which he made popular through his poetry, has affected our view of nature even today. For example many people automatically and ignorantly assume that because a healthcare product is "all natural" or "made from all natural ingredients" the product is completely harmless and likely to be very beneficial to the consumer. However, most poisons used to murder people are also all natural or made from natural ingredients. I am not saying that Wordsworth is wrong in having a love for nature. I just believe that the romantic ideal of total adulation has severe adverse effects upon society.
In the poem "We Are Seven," Wordsworth's narrator has a dialogue with a pretty little girl who has lost two of her siblings. The narrator asks her how many siblings she has and the girl tells him over and over that she has seven (including herself.) No matter how many times the girl is told that she only has five siblings since two are dead, she refuses to repudiate and declares that there are still seven. This poem does a very good job of illustrating another romantic principle. The thesis of the poem is imagination equals reality. Wordsworth makes her the hero of the poem because she is young, noble, and refuses to let go of the past. Though her brother and sister are buried, she still believes that they are with her and will not recant because somehow by believing she is able to make them alive again. The girl also has an unbreakable will which is strengthened by her innocent demeanor and makes her even more appealing to the romantic reader.
Upon reading this poem, I came to the conclusion that Wordsworth was a man who lived in the past and lost someone dear to him. This poem has a very touching atmosphere where the reader wants to believe that the girl is right that because she is holding on to the memories of her siblings they are still with her. However, no matter how much you believe, when people are dead they are gone and no amount of belief will erase that fact. I also noticed that this poem is almost a debate between the classical and romantic humanist points of view. The narrator in a way represents the classical humanism of thought and is counting the number of siblings and rationalizing through the numbers. The girl, however, is a champion for the romantic humanism of feelings and by her beliefs shrugs off the rationality of the narrator. I believe that Wordsworth believes that through the girl in the poem he has won this debate. However, I want to know how you can argue feelings over rational thought, because it is impossible to counter a point using rational thinking over a feeling in the heart. You cannot debate the two. I can imagine that if the dialogue in the poem took place in actuality, the narrator would leave shaking his head in disgust and the girl would gloat in victory because the narrator could not break her indomitable will.
William Wordsworth was a superior poet and the imagery in his poetry is astonishingly vivid. In many ways, his verse helped to change and deepen mankind's appreciation for the beauty of nature. However, there is a problem when you take Wordsworth too far and make a religion out of nature and feelings. A person who uses only his heart to view the world is seeing only half the picture. Just the same, a person who uses only his brain to analyze everything is every bit as blind sighted. Therefore, classical and romantic humanism are both incomplete approaches to life. To understand and really appreciate life in reality a well rounded person thinks with his mind, but also feels with his heart.

Your revolution is over. The bums lost. (And so did rich people?)

2011-04-21T08:29:00.005-04:00

The American Dream—if it wasn't already—has officially been razed. Where will Zombie F. Scott Fitzgerald spend his days drinking now? Something to consider. I am just surprised that a house worth that much wasn't saved by some rich asshole with an agenda. Maybe the economy is as bad as they say. Now could be the perfect time to, as Hunter S. Thompson said, "start hoarding bullets." Just on the outside chance some crazy mechanic comes to your house and decides to shoot you. Also something to consider.

Amazon Wednesday discovers my mistakes, again

2011-04-20T11:04:00.003-04:00

I guess maybe I'm wrong. Again.

Apparently these people below, despite having read Murakami and loving him before, found South of the Border, West of the Sun to be the worst novel they've ever read. So much for me liking it.

It amazes me that just because something is easy to read people immediately dub it bad literature. It's like assuming that something hard to read immediately makes it good literature. That's a long conversation that I nary have the time or inclination to get into now, so I'm just going to say these people below are stupid. You just got lawyered.

If it looks like I'm being lazy on this Amazon Wednesday, you'd be right. But in my defense, I'm busier than a one-armed bartender at work, so please forgive me.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars love is this dull?, November 18, 2010

Ruisu (NYC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Paperback)

I completely cannot understand how Murakami gets away with peddling his superficial characters and their trivial interactions as narratives worthy of a literate reader's time.

Superficial characters? A guy who enjoys mixing drinks and listens to jazz? So I'm superficial? Uh, well, maybe you are onto something.

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Totally stinks, November 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: South of the Border, West of the Sun (Hardcover)

I didn't believe other people that I had heard dissing this book. Don't let any personal attachment you have Mr. Murakami's other wonderful novels convince you to give this one a chance. It stinks. The most boring of male fantasies. It stinks.

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Male fantasy? Yeah, I often have a fantasy of having a wife and two kids with a corrupt father-in-law that knows he owns me. It keeps me awake at night I'm so thrilled about that prospect.

5 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretension at its finest, March 14, 2006

Elizabeth Carter "Liz Carter" (Tokyo, Beijing or North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Paperback)

This book's only good point is that it's a quick read. I found the protagonist shallow, overly sentimental, but most importantly, static. While his journey through the cliched upper middle class man's midlife crisis translates easily from Japanese to American culture, perhaps the reason I should empathize with him was lost along the way. Hajime grapples with obstacles and problems that everyone experiences, but his inability to learn from anything, to form an attachment to people in his life or a moral compass repels me.

If you want something fluffy, exotic, sexy, and sentimental, if your suspension of disbelief is amazing and you don't care too much about the likability or depth of your characters, maybe you'd enjoy this book. Otherwise, I'd suggest picking something else.

I can't believe they don't think there's depth of characters here. I found the characters incredibly likable and I related to them on a couple levels. Maybe it was just all the drinking and jazz. And who actually learns from their mistakes? That shit's for adults. And I'll be damned if I'm ever going to get grouped in with them.

Murakami is cooler than you

2011-04-19T20:30:00.009-04:00

My new job is at a Japanese restaurant called Union Sushi and BBQ. Perfect for me since I know a lot about Japanese culture and know like a dozen words of Nihongo. The cocktail menu put together by Bittercube Bitters, a consulting duo out of Milwaukee, includes a cocktail called South of the Border, West of the Sun. It's a tequila-based cocktail and the name was inspired by Haruki Murakami's book of the same name.

Because I'm nerdy like that, I decided to read the book. Doing so broke a rule of mine. Let me explain, as if you care. I read Norwegian Wood about three weeks after arriving in Japan back in 2006. A fellow teacher had told me about it at the conference in Tokyo and soon after I ordered it via Amazon. At the time I was busy assimilating into a brand new culture. Surrounded by a language I had only known as background in Kurosawa films while trying to figure out why in the hell people drove so goddamn slowly and defensively, it was a time of serious adjustment. I was, of course, reading constantly at the time. I got home from work and since I had no television and the internet could provide only so much solace, I was devouring books.

And for whatever reason—perhaps the timing, the obvious cultural similarities between the book and my surroundings or maybe it was just the musty smell of the tatami in my apartment—the book spoke to me in ways few others ever really have. I found it to be funny, intelligent, poignant and I never wanted it to end. When it did, I loved the ending. One of the best I'd ever read. I feared by reading more books by Murakami NW would somehow lose some of its torque in my mind. It's silly, I suppose, but the book meant so much to me I just wanted to walk away from him for awhile. I wasn't so much afraid that other titles wouldn't stand up to it—though I can't read an Anthony Burgess title without comparing it to Clockwork and so he's essentially ruined for me—more than I didn't want to displace the perfect setting and time that the book had in my mind.

Yeah, it's weird. I get it.

But it's been four years and so I dove back in. And this was the perfect way to do it. Two-hundred pages and finished in two short sittings, the plot revolves around Hajime, a young Japanese kid who is quiet and smart and introspective. He befriends a girl, Shimamoto, who has a gimpy leg (You won't really notice the leg. She just drags it a bit.). Eventually she moves away and Hajime has some growing pains as he heads off to college. Eventually he marries and opens a couple of jazz clubs before Shimamoto unexpectedly stumbles (no pun there) back into his life.

" ... The world's full of boring things. Don't worry about it."

Just as I recall from NW, Murakami litters the book with brilliant observations and the story is seamless and fast-paced. His characters have incredible depth and Hajime is so intelligent and kind we seem to forgive him for his transgressions and his loose moral code.

One generation dies, and the next one takes over. That's how it goes. Lots of different ways to live. And lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.

In between all these deep themes and struggles of Hajime, Murakami does a great job toasting (pun intended) the bartending profession. He calls a bartender an artist and says a good one is hard to find, as he says below about one of Hajime's bartenders at the jazz club.

"I pay him a lot of money ... The reason for the high salary is his talent for mixing great drinks. Most people don't realize it, but good cocktails demand talent. Anyone can make passable drinks with a little effort. Train them for a few months and they can make a standard-issue mixed drink—the kind most bars serve. But if you want to take it to the next level, you've got to have a special flair. Like playing the piano, painting, running the hundred-metre sprint. Take me: I think I can mix a pretty good cocktail. I've studied and practiced. But there's no way I can compete with him. I put in exactly the same alcohol, shake the shaker for exactly the same amount of time and it doesn't taste as good. I have no idea why. All I can call it is talent. It's like art. There's a line only certain people can cross."

I'd love to believe I'm one of those people, but I can't be so sure. I just try to do my best and make sure to make the guest laugh. At least that way, if the drinks suck, they still have a good time.

Anyway, back to the book. I guess it is probably about growing up and healing and coming to terms with the inevitable passing of time. And though that may sound easy enough to come to terms with, if you sit quietly and think that one day you'll be nothing but dust, it can be a little hard to swallow. This melancholic tale is probably best for guys in their mid-thirties. Perfect for me, I suppose. It goes without saying how cool Murakami really is. Jazz and bartending? That oozes cool. I'm just saying. Anyway, now that I've read this, I can finally read Wind-Up Bird Chronicles so everyone can quit telling me I have to read it.

And so I can introduce the Youtube video below: Hajime is a fanatic of jazz and he and Shimamoto share a love for "Star-Crossed Lovers" by Duke Ellington and the title of the book takes its name from a Nat King Cole song, covered here by a band I've never heard of.

A helpless situation

2011-04-15T18:52:00.008-04:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to the complete works of Mark Twain and said he was reading through some of the essays and he couldn't believe how thoughtful and hilarious Twain was. It's been awhile since I dug into Twain. I think the last thing I read by him was Following the Equator, which was fantastic. I think it included his shark tale (tail?) that is a must read if you haven't done so. Perhaps it was in a different book but I'm not getting up to search it right now so Google it yourself.

Anyway, my friend and I were discussing my situation of sending in short stories and rejection letters popping up like outbreaks of herpes shortly thereafter. He told me he thought this essay, entitled "Helpless Situation," might help me out. It's about a lady who asks for Twain to use his clout to get her published. Pretty great stuff. Maybe I'll write a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking for his help. Any idea how I could get his address?

I actually found all this Twain talk somewhat coincidental because I was saving this fantastic letter from Twain to the Queen especially for Tax Day. Seems Twain wasn't keen on paying up. I certainly agree with that way of thinking. In the essay he writes, "But that is all I say; I stop there; I never pursue a person after I have got him down." I don't, however, agree with that way of thinking.

I should say something about The Pale King and its release but I'm pretty sure doing so would be like beating Eight Belles, so I'll leave you with this ironical (satirical?) video. Enjoy yourselves this weekend.

Follow your leader

2011-04-12T15:02:00.007-04:00

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray mantle. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

Normally I would never condone cutting and pasting a block of writing from Sparknotes and basing an entire post around it. But today I'm going to make an exception, because I had underlined every "gray" in my copy of Melville's Benito Cereno before ever reading Sparknotes—thus I figure I should be allowed the exemption. And I had formulated my opinion on the use of the word before reading through the explanation set forth on the website. In no way am I saying I'm smarter than the folks at Sparknotes. I'm sure their paychecks prove how much smarter they are.

I feel like I've read a lot of Melville lately, but it just seems this way, because Billy Budd felt like it was 1,000 pages long. Before that it had been months since I read Melville's Israel Potter, which I really enjoyed. I feel my Melville knowledge is lacking, thus my need to devour some of his stories (I feel the same way about Dickens, but I'm trying to rectify that. I'm currently reading The Pickwick Papers and I'm just over halfway done. Sam Weller and Mr. Jingle are some great characters.).

But back to the color gray.

Captain Amasa Delano is aboard his whaling ship when he sees a ship floating rather tenuously in the distance and he goes over to get the down low on the situation. He finds the boat in disrepair and is greeted by the "captain" of the San Dominick, Benito Cereno. The slaves—who oddly outnumber everyone else onboard—and Spaniards are in desperate need of water and supplies.

While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some things tending to heighten his first impressions; but surprise was lost in pity, both for the Spaniards and blacks, alike evidently reduced from scarcity of water and provisions, while long-continued suffering seemed to have brought out the less good-natured qualities of the Negroes, besides at the same time impairing the Spaniard's authority over them. But, under the circumstances, precisely this condition of things was to have been anticipated. In armies, navies, cities, families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery. Still, Captain Delano, was not without the idea that had Benito Cereno been a man of greater energy, misrule would hardly have come to the present pass.

I was immediately struck by the similarities to Joseph Conrad's writing, though presently I can't seem to tell you which story I might compare it to. Certainly the maritime setting lends itself to similarities, but there was stylistic and thematic similarities here as well. What is most fascinating is that this story was written before the outbreak of the Civil War and yet it seems to understand the powder-keg that race relations represented in America at the time.

... Captain Delano addressed the knotter, "What are you knotting there, my man?"
"The knot," was the brief reply, without looking up.
"So it seems; but what is it for?"
"For someone else to undo," muttered back the old man, plying his fingers harder than ever, the knot being now nearly completed.

Melville presents the problem of slavery aboard this ship as a complex, strange, long-lasting problem with a great many "gray" areas. The problem, you see, isn't black and white. It's one he knew firsthand, since he had been a captive in his own lifetime. The above exchange between Delano and a deck-hand is one of my favorites in the novel. Perhaps the best way to describe slavery: a large knot that someone else is inevitably going to have to undo.

"You generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves."
"Because they have no memory," he dejectedly replied; "because they are not human."

Wrapped in a story about revolt and mutiny of slaves—Babo, the leader of the slaves aboard the ship, is a fantastically written character who makes the reader feel sympathetic and uneasy all at the same time—Melville gives us a clairvoyant take on slavery in America. Sure enough the bright sun will forever forget what transpired aboard the San Dominick, but Cereno won't soon forget. Human beings tend to remember the awful things that have happened to them.

I think it would be difficult to say whether Melville was a staunch abolitionist. It is easy to say, however, that he understood the problem as a complicated one with frightening implications. After Billy Budd, I needed Melville to redeem himself and he did that and more in Benito Cereno.

The limitless possibilities

2011-04-12T14:17:00.010-04:00

Welp, listening to this roundtable discussion might be the best hour I've spent in a long time.

NPR Science Friday featured Cormac McCarthy and Werner Herzog (who took a break from narrating my dreams) and some genius physicist named Klaus. They talk about literature and the history of mankind and the eventual eradication of human beings and I can't tell whether the whole lot of them are stir nuts or pure geniuses. There's a thin line between the two, as I'm sure you're already aware. Anyway, here are some of the highlights, as I see it. After reading these tidbits, I bet you'll go listen.

A theory in physics is either true or not, Cormac McCarthy says and he adds that it's not that way in art. You have to have a measuring stick or there's really no reason to bother—my pole vault air theory.

It would take hundreds of thousands of years to get to another planet even with our most powerful ship, Herzog relates. And en route they'd eventually forget why they were going and where they were going. There'd be incest, pure dread and madness. I can't wait to buy my ticket.

Herzog explains how an ivory flute was made 30,000+ years ago. An ivory flute.

McCarthy believes there must've been a school of painting for cave painters. It makes sense, I guess. Reminds of a Kerouac quote, "Paint bores me. It takes a lifetime to learn how to paint..."

Herzog mentions Faulkner and Conrad and then dabbles in Melville. And then compliments Cormac. It's something. And I couldn't get over their voices. Herzog's is so sibilant and mesmerizing and McCarthy's is so gentle he sounds like a grandfather calming down a child during a thunderstorm. Sorry, I lost myself for a minute.

When Herzog started reading McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses I was astounded. Yes. Astounded.

I think you can sum the whole thing up with one question: what are the possibilities? I am pretty sure they're limitless and I guess there's some hope in that.

Aspen, where the beer flows like wine

2011-04-12T09:53:00.004-04:00

As you all know I'm for avoiding the political hear at my blog, but I found this story that a friend sent me too great not to share. Because I think the sun rises and sets up Hunter Thompson's ass, I guess it's fair enough to share a story about a former Aspen Sheriff (if you don't know Thompson's story about running for sheriff in Aspen, you should read about it or watch a documentary—this one ain't bad ). So, there isn't a literal connection, dude, but it's worth noting.

Amazon Wednesday finds some Benji Compsons and pokes fun at them

2011-04-06T21:20:00.012-04:00

The long and short of it is that I'm not that smart. On Twitter today—that's right, I'm plugging it again—I read this quote, "Being able to write isn’t the same as being smarter than everyone else." It was Ta-Nehisi Coates who said it and I had never heard of him before I read this article. Anyway, I hope he's right, because I'm no Rhodes Scholar but I love putting words together.

But let's get back to my stupidity.

I barely got higher than an epileptic monkey on my ACT. I did average on the LSAT and only because I studied for months. And up until about a year ago I thought Evelyn Waugh was a woman.

With all this said, however, I must be a genius compared to these twits below.

"It's too hard."
"I don't understand."
"It's confusing because this guy's retarded. Literally."

I so enjoyed The Sound and the Fury that it cracked—SPOILER ALERT—the top ten on my pointless list (for now anyway). I found it to be one of the more inventive, thought-provoking and incredible stories ever put together. The complaints about lack of plot are befuddling to me. The way the individual stories interlock and give details that are then elucidated later in the work was genius to me. And the characters being described as empty is the most ludicrous thing I've heard since someone told me I wasn't funny. As for one reviewer saying the book was like being on a "three-week drunken spree," obviously they've never been on a three-week drunken spree. Because it is decidedly un-yuck. I've been on a three-year drunken spree and it's been fucking awesome.

Sometimes I think a book is only as confusing as we'd like to make it. Certainly some books take a little more thinking than others, are more intellectual than others—though these poor souls disagree. For me a book should challenge your thought patterns and force you to connect some dots. Faulkner did that and more in The Sound and the Fury. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because I am, indeed, a genius and just don't know it. No, probably not. But compared to these Benji Compsons, I guess I am.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Most. Overrated. Book. Ever., January 18, 2011

Scottro (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

We exchange a lot of books with my in-laws and this book was in one of the latest bags, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally read Faulkner. I struggled through the whole thing because it is supposedly a classic. The stream of consciousness style of the the first (and also the second) chapters is certainly painful to read. But even beyond that, the book starts nowhere, ends absolutely nowhere, and has little of interest in between. The characters are not interesting. They don't do anything interesting. Their thoughts, the main feature of the book, are not interesting. The one good thing about reading this book is that I can cross the rest of Faulkner's works off my "classics I want to read someday" list.

14 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Huh?!, May 31, 2007

bookworn in nj (NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

I absolutely enjoy reading classics and because this was mentioned on the great 100 books list, I thought i might give it a shot.
My GOD it was so hard to read. I truly do enjoy challenges but i couldn't understand what the heck was going on through most of the first half of the book.
I do understand the purpose of Faulkner writing in so many different dialects/styles however it was painful to read. I finally had to set the book aside and read a synopsis of the book to really understand what the heck was going on and even after reading that, I seriously questioned how one could possibly pick up on those nuances from reading the book.

This book is impossibly difficult to read and frankly, for what the actual plot ended up being, really not worth it. I am still confounded as to why this book is even considered a classic.

1 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You've got to be kidding, May 11, 2007

madamemusico "madamemusico" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

Please, don't insult my intelligence. Faulkner was a Jamnes Joyce wannabe; his characters are poorly-educated, racist and revolting, they have no thoughts worth following anyway. And his writing style is a very poor imitation of Joyce's with its split-time and stream of consciousness. Both Dashiell Hammett and Jack Kerouac could write rings around Faulkner.

6 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars El yucko., February 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

So inaccessible. In the end, so unsatisfying. Just depressing. Like being on a three-week drunken spree. Yuck.

Light a fire. Watch it rage.

2011-04-06T00:14:00.007-04:00

I cannot lie still on my bed any longer, can barely breathe. Who has brought me to this detestable place and robbed me of my sleep and beer-belly? What a bunch of horseshit! It is those faggoty intellectuals who've never gotten it up themselves, social workers, pussy-ass do-gooders, bleeding shrinks with their Jewishness gone awry; it is Germanic blood, the East Coast school of books and snow, the Pilgrims and Baptists; it is the Pope with his lust for Mary, FDR and his quaint limp, Hitler and his ovens, the beastiality of fertility rites, the slaughter of the buffalo, the death of the Incas and Aztecs, the coming of the white barbarians; it is the condition of the human race, the Klan, the Triumph of Ceremony of the Geese; it is my entire life! It is everything and then some ... I will show the world what is what and who the fuck is me. Me in particular.

I am standing at the corner of Temple and Broadway in front of the old Hall of Justice, talking to three young pretty girls who are on their knees, in cute little mini-skirts and low-cut blouses. None of them wears under-clothes and all of them have bald-headed domes. A poster with red, white and blue paint announces they are protesting the political persecution of Charles Manson, the nut who allegedly masterminded the massacre of several movie stars, including one with an embryo in her fat belly. Supposedly some young kids, high on weird drugs, the Vietnam War and hard rock, under the influence of this stud who fucked minds as well as dead bodies, that allegedly they had, you know, decapitated, mutilated and desecrated the bodies of beautiful Jet-Setters and a fetus trying to get off the ground.

When I first read The Autobiography of the Brown Buffalo by Oscar Zeta Acosta, I was living in Los Angeles. Of course I thought this was one of my hipper endeavors: in a city known for its Chicano influence, I was tapping into a great leader of true movement from the 60s. A Chicano lawyer and activist who had grabbed the proverbial buffalo by the horns and wrestled it to the ground was on my night stand. My infatuation was amplified by my affinity for Hunter Thompson, whose famous depiction of Acosta in Fear and Loathing had led me to read Brown Buffalo in the first place. Up until now, aside from a few articles in books about Thompson, I had never read another book by Acosta.

The fuzz, la placa, la chota, los marranos, la jura or just plain old pig. The eternal enemies of the people.

The Revolt of the Cockroach People, Acosta's second and last novel, is purely focused on his courtroom struggles to help several groups of wrongly accused Chicanos get acquitted. The semi-autobiographical novel—the protaganist's name is Buffalo Zeta Brown—also depicts heavy drug use and promiscuous sex, but the target is clear: Chicanos are getting the short end of the stick and Acosta attempts to show us why.

"Goddamn, Brown! Five minutes and you're ready to start a goddamn riot!"

As you can see from the two large chunks of writing above, Acosta had some fire and rage in his prose. He could certainly raise an eyebrow and shake things up. I would have loved to see him bellow his heavy words in the courtroom. There were passages that had me wanting to throw down my black flag and start slitting throats, as HL Mencken once said. But the book, overall, lacks plot and, outside of Brown (Acosta), the characters are mostly forgettable.

If you guys ever really get serious ... I mean, if you really pick up the gun ... let me know. I'll get in on that one ...

I think it's inevitable for any revolutionary to eventually question what the hell it was they ever started fighting for; and, in the end, I think, no matter how many strides they might make—and there is no doubt that Acosta did some great things for the Chicano movement—they often feel somewhat like a failure. Probably because absolute success isn't an option. And there is certainly a melancholic fatality that permeates his style in parts. I felt like a good chunk of the book should've been cut and then tied back together. A tighter book would've made for a better book. In the end—perhaps like Thompson—Acosta's life became stranger than his own fiction (he disappeared in 1974 while on a boat). Personally I'd rather be known for my life than my books, so maybe that's why, despite this mediocre book, I still can't help but wish Acosta had written even more books. My opinion of Brown Buffalo being one of the best books I've ever read stands. If you care to, you can click on it over there on the right. I promise it's fascinating. But not as fascinating as Acosta's life.

This is quidditch, bitch

2011-04-01T01:06:00.004-04:00

I don't want this to turn into a you-should-get-on-Twitter-or-you-suck post, but you should get on Twitter or you suck.

I've been on Twitter about two weeks and I can't get enough. I'm like a New York stock broker who just went out for a night of cocaine and hookers: I literally want to re-ante immediately. The articles and information I'm acquiring dwarfs everything else mere internet surfing has to offer. It consolidates everything I'd normally read in a day—plus additional nuggets—into a confined and concise space. I have found more interesting and thoughtful articles in two weeks on Twitter than I have in three months of surfing the net. I think the marketing team at Twitter should put me on payroll. If only I had more than 45 followers. Tell your friends, for Christ's sake.

So here are my favorite Tweets this week. The first is a re-Tweet, which is actually RT in the Tweeting world. I told you mothers I was going to revolutionize this song-birding. The second is my reply to those cutesy Penguin covers everyone is talking about. The last one's the funniest. And not just because I said it. As usual, if you don't think I'm funny, I defer to Mr. Abbey, "Your criticism is greatly appreciated but fuck you all the same."

ImTracyMorgan Hustle Man

by robert_dixie

If you're a guy who's into Twilight, have a doctor prescribe you with a heavy dose of man the fuck up.

29 Mar Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

Opening day and LSD

2011-03-31T10:56:00.005-04:00

So I changed the photo behind my header to a pic of the Cell in honor of Opening Day. Today is a day of revived hope. A day for plenty of headlines. And a day when you never know what might happen. Like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter while on LSD—one of my favorite interviews of all-time. I hope your team wins it all this year. As long as your team is the Chicago White Sox. Enjoy.

Amazon Wednesday asks you to sacrifice yourself

2011-03-30T20:58:00.004-04:00

In all my time collecting reviews for Amazon Wednesday, I stumbled across these gems below. They are almost identical in their content, save the last one, and all of them are for different books. I promise I did not "doctor" any of them, though the person who wrote them could use a good psychiatrist.

Though there is a certain element of subjectivity that goes with art, to argue that one writer is not as "serious" as others is downright ludicrous. The plots and themes of novels refute this time and time again. Take, for instance, 2666. I'd say a 1,000-page book about women and young girls getting slaughtered is a bit more serious, than, say, Ron Weasley trying to get Hermione to take a peak at his snape. But that's just me. And to ever argue that a novel like Ulysses, that relies on exhaustive study and years of writing and re-writing, is not superior to something churned out in a month punches James Joyce right in his good eye.

If you're dumb enough to believe that Danielle Steele is somehow the intellectual equal of Kurt Vonnegut I think you should start the engine of your Pinto while you're in a closed garage. There is no hope for you. You should piss off Joe Pesci, hand him the pen you're using for marginalia in that shitty book you're reading and then let him stab you in the throat with it. There's really no polite way to say it. Do Malthus and all of us a favor. Suck a tail-pipe. Bungee without a bungee. Move to Libya.

9 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

It's not a Daniele Steele book, so I don't like it, April 23, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Slaughterhouse-Five (Mass Market Paperback)

While cultural pundits try to convince you that some literature is better than other literature, the truth is that all art is relative to individial tastes. Thus, it doesn't make any sense to think that a novel like this one is really any better than say, Michael Crichton or Stephen King. Aesthetic standards can't be grounded.

Thus, don't listen to anyone who tries to distinguish between "serious" works of literature like this one and allegedly "lesser" novels. The distinction is entirely illusory, because no novels are "better" than any others, and the concept of a "great novel" is an intellectual hoax.

I prefer Daniele Steele, and there's no basis for telling me I'm wrong. Vonnegut is no better or worse than Daniele Steele!

8 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not any better than any other novel, April 23, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

I prefer books with red covers. You may say the color of the book's cover has nothing to do with it being good, but who are you to dictate what criteria I use to evaluate books. This book does NOT have a red cover, so in the trash it goes.

7 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

Not as good as Harry Potter, says I, April 23, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: 1984 (Signet Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Finally a release date for that one movie

2011-03-29T21:18:00.007-04:00

So I've been following the eventual release of The Rum Diary for—literally—years now (the book is on my pointless list over there to the right). And it looks as though it's finally gonna happen. I was beginning to think I was going to have make the movie myself with me starring as Kemp. I wonder if I could get Amber Heard to sign on as Chenault? If I recall there's a sex scene on the beach between Kemp and Chenault. God do I hate sand. But, then, exceptions to my aversions can be made...

Drunken writers

2011-03-29T20:43:00.004-04:00

One of my readers, who goes by Kathy (and I assume that's her real name, but if I were a woman, I probably wouldn't use my real name when talking to me), suggested Hemingway and Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers. Owing to my profession as a bartender and my obsession with drinking and reading, Kathy's suggestion couldn't have made more sense. Over the last few days I've perused most of the book and I've found the anecdotes and quotes to be priceless. Here's a quick look at my favorite quotes and stories from the book.

-Sherwood Anderson, who wrote one of my favorite novels of all-time, Winesburg, OH, died when he swallowed a toothpick at a cocktail party. I bet Truman Capote choked on some toothpicks in his day, amirite?

-Speaking of Truman, apparently he arm-wrestled Humphrey Bogart and won. Then for good measure he out-wrestled him, too. Even our heroes are pansies, it turns out.

-"At four o'clock in the morning, when everybody's drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen." James Baldwin

-Raymond Carver and John Cheever were great drinking buddies. And friends used to invite them to dinner parties just to make sure they'd eat.

-Cheever used to keep bottles hidden behind his Henry James collection. I might do that, too. That'd give me a reason to take a James novel off the shelf. Hey-O!

-"Drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day." Charles Bukowski

-Zelda Fitzgerald once got so soused she danced naked at a party. I wish I got invited to those parties.

-Supposedly Hemingway broke John O'Hara's walking stick over his head at a bar in New York City and won 50 bucks for the effort.

-I haven't mentioned what drink went with each writer, because most of them were fitting and pretty basic. Faulkner: Mint Julep; Bukowski: Boilermaker. But I have to say that pairing Kerouac with a margarita and Hemingway with a mojito doesn't fit for me. They say it's because Kerouac loved Mexico. But I see him more as a whiskey guy, certainly not diluted by a juice. And Hemingway has a daiquiri named after him, so they missed the mark there.

-Hunter S. Thompson's drink is listed as the Greyhound. Vodka and grapefruit. Couldn't be a better choice considering he ate grapefruits to offset his massive intake of drugs and booze.

-Tennessee Williams was gin-soaked when he tried to open a medicine bottle with his teeth. He choked to death on the cap.

Note to self: avoid toothpicks and caps. Roaring drunk seems to be alright, though. It worked for almost all my heroes.

A small coincidence

2011-03-25T10:39:00.004-04:00

According to Rava from Seinfeld, there are no small coincidences. But if there were, the story below would classify as such.

As you know, I went to Kentucky to tame the wild turkey and find the ghost of Hunter Thompson. I failed in both endeavors. I didn't make too many purchases. I picked up some Wild Turkey, which I drank, and we had a great dinner in Louisville, but I kept the purse-strings tight. I did, however, pick up some Regan's Orange Bitters No. 6. I had never used them and wanted to mess around with them. They were six bucks at Buffalo Trace and there was a picture of an old geezer on the front.

Flash forward to yesterday when I attended a bartending conference. The presenters turned out to be otherworldly. One of them talked about making "vintage Manhattans," a process which involves bottling and aging Manhattans. This is going to happen at my house soon. Another commentator gave us a Buddhist/Hindu speech on finding happiness and being kind in all situations, while also urging us to never admit defeat.

The small coincidence: I open my bag of schwag and I find a shaker, a juicer, a bottle opener and other Plymouth Gin labeled products, but I also find a bottle of Regan's Orange No. 6 bitters. I turned to my fellow bartender and said, "Huh, that's funny, I bought these when I was in Kentucky." He replied, "Well, that's funny, the old geezer on the bottle is the host today."

At lunch I cornered Gary Regan, of the bitters fame, and told him my story. The old geezer with his British accent—he reminded me of Austin Powers in his guru, suave demeanor—proceeds to tell me this delightful little story.

"I was in Tequila, Mexico, and I was with a group. This lady and I were talking about drinks and swapping some recipes. My recipe just so happened to call for orange bitters. She said, 'What kind do you use?' I said, of course, 'I always use Regan's Orange Bitters No. 6.' She replied, 'Oh, I have some of those on me back bar in London. It's the one with an old geezer on the front.' So I was known as old geezer for the rest of the trip!"

Amazon Wednesday goes to the future and finds a really stupid kid

2011-03-23T21:29:00.005-04:00

I read Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World in college. I loved the book. It rustled up all sorts of thoughts and led to some great discussions in class. It also convinced me LSD might not be all that bad. The futuristic tale about a bunch of drugged-up folks who didn't know much about stepping outside of themselves seemed a perfect read for college students. I haven't read it in years so I can't comment about specifics, but I know the book was great when I read it. I bought a copy in a used bookstore in Montana and plan to reread it at some point. Then I'll be able to speak definitively on the subject. But, for now, let's assume the book is as great as I remember. This way we can make fun of these waterheaded reh-tards without feeling bad.

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointed, August 14, 2009

Traci Tatara "maximus" (Hummelstown, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

I have not yet recieved this book. I will never buy anything from amazon again. I have been in touch with the seller and she apoligized, and can't believe I haven't gotten it yet. My son needed to read this book before school started and I had to go to Borders and pay $22.00 so that he would have time to read it.

I have gone to the future and found your book. I have also found your son. He’s a meth chef and can’t read. You wasted your money.

1.0 out of 5 stars The Stupidest book ever, September 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

Words cannot express how unbelievably horrible this book is. I had to read this for school and it was so rediculously immature. I do not reccomaend this to any christian who does not want to put evil discust before their eyes, nor to any non-christian just because it was so horrid. This book is absolutely sick and obviously Huxley had never read the
Bible. Dont read this book. Its a waste of time.

If Jesus could cure the blind, you’d think He could cure this person’s grammar and spelling mistakes.

1.0 out of 5 stars Just wanted to get your attention:), December 5, 2001

"melanie436" (Hampton, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

I've read this book about ten times in my life since my dad gave it to me in Junior High-it is a fantastic book, and the ideas expressed in the book are timely even today. If you ever read one book in your life, this should be the book.

You are so TRICKY! I thought you hated it. Pass the soma, bitches! It’s time to celebrate switching the tables!

1.0 out of 5 stars ABSOLUTELY NO STARS FOR THIS ONE, JIM BOB!, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

Just kidding. I loved it. Five billion stars all around.

Wait. Which is it? Are you being ironic? Who rates with that many stars? And who is this Jim Bob of whom you speak?

1.0 out of 5 stars most boring book on the future, October 27, 2010

Big T (7 minutes in the future) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brave New World (Paperback)

How do you ruin a book on the future involving:

1) the future
2) sex
3) drugs

Why by being the most boring book ever and going ape over:

1) Shakespeare
2) religious nonsense

This book had many, many good ideas that COULD have made for a very thought provoking and entertaining read, but a plot is never fleshed out and there is no character development. Unfortunately, it was utterly UN-entertaining on every level! It's good (ideas) till they go to the Savage Reservation then it completely nose-dives into BORING!!! Ideas without a story. I recommend reading the first ~25% of the book then lighting it on fire.

How do you confuse your readers? Make willy-nilly lists and then use the word ‘idea’ ten times. I got an idea: lock yourself in an abandoned refrigerator.

Riding the wild horse, er, turkey

2011-03-22T10:51:00.009-04:00

The thing about southerners—which I define as any of these states, including Indiana and parts of Michigan—that has always scared me is how polite and kind they are. They hold doors. They say ma'am. They nod and smile and seemingly hang on your every word. They eat pieces of pecan pie just because.

And Kentucky, the place with bluegrass and the hot brown—aptly named for various reasons, I found—and birthplace of Muhammad Ali and Hunter S. Thompson, is known for the greatest liquor known to man: bourbon.

I didn't start "riding the wild turkey" until about seven months ago and bourbon quickly burrowed its way under my skin. Many of my friends—two of which hate that I've dubbed myself Mr. Bourbon, since my affinity is in its infancy—have been riding it for years and I wondered why I had been kept in the dark. I think it's because they wanted to keep it all to themselves. The sorry sumbetches done don't have that southern hospitality.

Like most things that I enjoy, I tend to go all in immediately. I try to learn about a topic or hobby and then decide from there whether I'll continue to indulge it (sadly, I tend to dump more than I stick with; here is a short-list of those I dumped: SCUBA diving; mountain climbing (though this is more out of financial constraints); tennis; racquetball; the French, Spanish and Japanese languages; internet porn—just kidding, I'd never give that up). Reading has lasted the longest. Writing staggers behind. And I've always liked my booze. There's something about the tragic happiness that accompanies getting trashed.

Not sure if my drinking habits had to do with books like this one or if I just liked drinking. Anyway, I don't know marbles from shit, but I know the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky was greatness. No ghost of the equine-faced Hunter Thompson greeted me while sipping my old fashioned and I never heard Ali reciting punchy-poetry, but I might have heard the atavistic whisper of those bourbon pioneers—maybe Elijah Craig—urging me, no matter how difficult, to keep trying to tame the wild turkey.

Nincompoop is not the word we're talking about

2011-03-21T20:42:00.006-04:00

Like everyone else I first read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in high school. By then, of course, like most white kids, I had heard the 'N-word' used in all sorts of forms: as a slur; as a greeting between two black guys; and its seemingly over-use in movies and music—I was a teenager in the 80s and my older brother's hand-me-down CD collection included NWA and Ice-T. Perhaps it was because I went to school with—and befriended—a great deal of African-Americans, but the word was not one I used frequently. I'd be a liar if I said I've never said it. It's happened. Admitting it I feel sort of like Bill Clinton when he admitted to marijuana use. Embarrassed and disappointed in myself (though I hesitate to believe Fat Bill was disappointed, so maybe this was a bad example).

All of this was a roundabout way to get to this 60 Minutes report about a guy who removed the word from Twain's book and replaced it with 'slave.' The 60 Minutes interviews are worth watching.

I don't use the word now. Would never think of using it in a crowd. And I hesitate to think of a scenario where I'd slip the word into conversation, even with a white friend, let alone a black guy I've known since I was in the first grade. With that said, however, I hesitate to think I wouldn't write the word. As I typed that sentence it made perfect sense to me. Looking back on it the sentence seems to scream oxymoron. I guess typing the word and using it in a certain context, in a certain scene—especially a fictional one—seems to me passable.

My oxymoronic stance, I guess, comes from my belief that altering Twain's book is a slap in the face to him and all his readers. If it offends people, who gives a flying wet duck's ass? He wrote it that way. It doesn't matter what some white, black or purple person believes. That's what he wrote and that's the way it is. I would love to find out what my 45 readers think?

Anyway, if they start changing or eradicating everything that offends a certain segment of the population, we're going to have to close down lots of blogs that's for sure. I hope they start here.

Penguins attack

2011-03-18T01:44:00.000-04:00

So I got an email update telling me that Penguin publishers were following me on Twitter. I thought that was pretty cool until I saw they follow 200,000 people. Holy hell. I haven't felt this insignificant since I was at my high school prom. Actually, I was prom king. It's a little known fact about me. Actually it's not little known. I tell everyone. Life has pretty much been downhill since then. Although I did once finish third in a rock, paper, scissors contest. I'd say that's equivalent to winning prom king.

Anyway, here's to the Penguin, though it would seem I like them a lot more than they like me. Like most women I've dated.

Suckfest VI

2011-03-17T12:24:00.000-04:00

I hadn't said anything about it because everyone else is talking about it and I didn't feel like throwing a match on a raging fire, but I've read more than my share about David Foster Wallace's book The Pale King, being released April 15 (fitting since the book is about the IRS—oh, it's marketing genius!).

The first lines are here, but with the magic of cut and paste, I've done the work for you right here:

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the a.m. heat: shattercane, lamb’s‑quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek.

Oh, it looks like it's going to be a fun read! I kid, of course. I'm excited. Especially since it's about a third of the size of IJ. Yes, I love the short ones. That's not what she said.

Amazon Wednesday finds two magnificent morons

2011-03-16T23:35:00.008-04:00

People acting smarter than they are really puts a rash on my ass. I never talk about the NBA with a good friend of mine because I don't know anything about it. I'm a casual observer whereas he has played a great deal of basketball and watches hundreds of games during the season. If he has a question about Facebook or internet porn, I field those with alacrity.

With that said, I give you two people who are doing their best to put on airs and obviously talking about things they don't understand. The first thinks they're smarter than Voltaire. How can anyone be smarter than this guy?

It looks like Yanni and a Pilgrim had a kid. And he carried a cane. Intelligent and regal. The best possible world would be one where this first reviewer didn't own a computer.

The second one is all about alliteration. I propound there is a panoply of problematic predicaments in your polemic, pal. If you're going to take yourself this seriously than don't trash a book in just one short paragraph. Sure, I do it all the time on this site, but I haven't taken myself seriously since I realized I was an idiot (nearly ten years ago). Of course the misspellings and grammatical errors might be a sign the guy's a waterheaded reh-tard, too. Go tell all of this on the mountain. Amirite?

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Candide, December 14, 2010

Richard Theobald - See all my reviews

This review is from: Candide (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Paperback)

Candide, by Voltaire

Voltaire wrote this in response to the philosophical writings of Leibniz. Unfortunately, my copy didn't describe these writings in the least, and so had I not already studied Leibniz, I would've thought even less of this work (though that is only just barely possible). He had made his point by page 10, and I made it through page 75 of 130 before quitting in irritation (if you ever wanted an example of the idiom "beating a dead horse", this would make an excellent one). It took me 3 days to get even this far!

This story follows around a fellow named Candide. Then it basically just talks about how his life goes from awesome to hell on Earth. It's kind of like the book of Job, but at least Job had some awesome quotes. This fellow is merely a simpering fool. There is nothing about him that is the least bit like-able, and the book includes everything that is wrong with "classics"; people feinting all over the place, over-emotional whining, and pretentious back-patting abound.

It actually kind of reminds me of a lecture by Richard Dawkins I attended. When he released his book The God Delusion he toured the country, and having read The Selfish Gene by him (which was masterful!), I was quite excited to hear him lecture on his theories and hear more about his new book. Instead, it was an hour and half lecture that could have been titled "Why Christians Are Idiots". I was livid. But I digress.

Leibniz was writing to try and solve the Epicurean problem of God ("Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"). Leibniz answer was that there were a limited number of worlds in which we could exist. God, choosing from among these, chose "the best of all possible worlds".

Voltaire, kind of missing the point, riposted "the best of all possible worlds kind of sucks". Good work Voltaire, way to make a strong philosophical argument! It's "classics" like these that make people hate reading.

[...]

4 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unintelligent and overated., September 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Go Tell It on the Mountain (Mass Market Paperback)

Baldwin's prose is average; and, at the time, the issues dealt with here weren't at all banal, but Baldwin tackles them far to brashly. He offers a panoply of problems, but rarely offers a solution that's tantamount to his psuedo-genius. The protagonist simply goes into fits of self-loathing and predictable "White man oppresive, Black oppressed, so let's sink down to their level." But I just can't get over the prose. It's not terrible, just unecessarily overated. I guess it was pretty iconoclastic for it's time.

New background, same shitty writing

2011-03-15T17:16:00.008-04:00

So it's been nearly two years since I switched the focus of this blog to literature related topics. Of course it was set up as a travel log—as the name of the blog denotes. I regret that the world hadn't invented high-speed internet and blogs back in the late nineties. My traveling habits were more exciting when I was drinking loads of booze and doing casual drugs all while in foreign nations. Ah, those were the days. But, alas, it's great that I was able to share this tale and many others in the early days of this blog.

Ever since I made the switch I wanted to change the format and bring it into the new decade and make it a bit more thematically friendly. The old layout looked tired and boring. But how about this new layout? It's stupendous, hey? It's so bloggy. Yessiree, we're gonna have internets in every house and a wifi that spins silver discs.

"Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes, sir, a veritable age of reason. Like the one they had in France. Not a moment too soon."

The typewriter in the background is not my picture, but one generated on a Gogol search. I doubt I need to worry about copyright laws considering I have 43 followers. I also reworked my "Top 100 List" and noticed that I had four Number 87s. Oh, the humanity! How didn't I know? Anyway, I cleaned that up, too. I also added a Twitter button. That's right, bitches, I'm Tweeting. And this songbird is going to change the world of Tweets forever! I currently have 14 followers.

The most exciting change, I guess, is the header above. I cropped about 25 pictures from my personal album that I plan to use. The first one I share is of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. It, along with Ryoanji, were my favorites spots in Kyoto. I suppose it might have symbolic meaning. The pathway is one I hope leads me to better writing and ambition to blog more. How poetic! But in all seriousness, walking under the red-orange torii is one of the more exciting and yet incredibly relaxing walks I've ever made. I guess considering what's happening in Japan these days it's also great to reflect on a culture and people that has thrived and survived for thousands of years.

Anyway, poetics and sentimentality aside, I'd like to think this improves the blog. If you don't agree, well, I give you my old standby: Your criticism is greatly appreciated, but fuck you all the same.—Edward Abbey

All hail, Mikhail

2011-03-14T15:13:00.007-04:00

When I was 18, I wanted to be Frederic Henry. At 22, I wanted to be Sal Paradise. At 26, I wanted to be Henry Miller. And in between each of these, I probably wanted to be a dozen other characters and authors. I never did get around to just wanting to be me, which, I think, would be a step in the right direction. This isn't even my original thought, since I remember Dali saying that at one point he wanted to be Napoleon and his ambition had been growing ever since.

With that said, however, I discovered my "character doppelgänger" in Mikhail Lermontov's Pechorin, the protagonist in A Hero of Our Time. In the author's preface, Lermontov calls the book "a portrait of the vices of our whole generation in their ultimate development." The book would be a precursor to Dostoyevsky's psychological work and Chekhov and Tolstoy both "regarded his prose as a model." In other words, this author is a titan and I'm ashamed to say it's taken me this long to read his work.

If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worth worrying about so much.

To give you an idea of why I found Pechorin so appealing, here is how the introduction explains him: "Unlike the classic type of 'superfluous' men, Pechorin is cast more in the mould of Byron's heroes, a strong individual at odds with the world. He is proud, energetic, strong-willed, ambitious, but, having found that life does not measure up to his expectations of it, he has grown embittered, cynical and bored. At the age of twenty-five (as he is in the book) he has experienced all that life has to offer and found nothing to give him more than passing satisfaction and interest. He sees that life has let him down, failed to provide for him the high purpose that would be worthy of his superior powers. So he is reduced to dissipating his very considerable energies in petty adventures of the type described in the novel. He embarks on these with few illusions that he is doing more than making a temporary escape from boredom."

Sound like an arrogant asshole who thinks he's smarter than most people and has spent too much time traveling and brooding and now ennui has taken over? Yeah, sounds about right. This novel renewed my faith in prose, in fresh characters and unique structure. It blew away any expectations and when I read Russians those are often quite high.

All I know is that if I make other people unhappy, I'm no less unhappy myself. Not much comfort for them perhaps, but there it is. As a young man, as soon as I got my freedom I threw myself wildly into all the pleasures that money can buy, and soon got tired of them, needless to say. Then I went in for society high-life and before long I was tired of that too ... I saw I had no need of learning to win fame or happiness, for the happiest people are the ignoramuses, and fame is a matter of luck and you only need to be smart to get it. I got bored after that ... The only thing left for me is to travel. Not for Europe, though, not on your life. I'll go to America, Arabia, India. With luck I'll die somewhere on the way. At least I can be sure that with storms and bad roads to help this final solace will last me a while.

Structurally, at the beginning of the novel, I was reminded of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There is a story within a story in the first "book" of the novel. Broken into five parts, three of which are separate stories from Pechorin's journal, the book certainly has a loose structure and pays little attention to timelines. But the reading is no less engaging.

...but disenchantment, like any other fashion, having started off among the elite had now been passed down to finish its days among the lower orders.

We're introduced to Pechorin by the man telling a story about him, Maxim Maximych. The narrator of the story has met Maxim while traveling in the Caucasus Mountains (a sentimental tidbit for me, having been to Mount Elbrus myself). The narrator learns, through Maxim's panegyric, about Pechorin's life being a "succession of attempts to go against heart and reason." Pechorin gets a young woman to fall in love with him knowing full well he will eventually lose interest. His ennui and lack of compassion are evident throughout the novel—sad how incredibly well I seemed to empathize with him.

'For my part,' said Werner, 'I'm convinced of only one thing.'
'What's that?' I asked, anxious to hear his views, for so far he had said nothing.
'That one fine day, sooner or later, I shall die,' he answered.
'I'm better off than you,' I said. 'I'm convinced of another thing too—that one foul evening I had the misfortune to be born.'

Pechorin seems to let everyone down, from former lovers to friends. The narrator comes by his journal after Pechorin happens about the narrator and Maxim at a camp they had stopped at. Maxim, like a school boy seeing his best friend, is overwhelmed with emotion in seeing Pechorin. Pechorin, in contrast, pays his old friend little mind. I think it's one of the more poignant moments in the novel. Pechorin, who the reader so desperately wants to like, seems to always choose to be cold and off-putting. And yet at the end of the novel, I wanted to give him a high-five.

I've been going over my past, and I can't help wondering why I've lived, for what purpose I was born. There must have been some purpose, I must have had some high object in life, for I feel unbounded strength within me. But I never discovered it and was carried away by the allurements of empty, unrewarding passions ... One just goes on living out of curiosity, waiting for something new. It's absurd and annoying.

If you are a fan of Russian literature and enjoy novels dense in characters and a structure that challenges you to realize books don't have to be linear, than buy this book now (the Penguin translation is the best for us American readers). It will not disappoint.

Sapling Wood

2011-03-10T14:15:00.003-05:00

A friend from my time teaching in Japan posted a status update on Facebook of the trailer for Norwegian Wood. I thanked her because I didn't think I knew anything about it. Then I remembered this post, which, after rereading it, reminds me of how unfunny I am and, apparently, how bad of a memory I have. Not sure on the American release date but those dirty Brits get it this weekend. The trailer is below and the film looks, as one quote said, "beguiling and beautiful." And as long as we're talking about beautiful, have a listen and look at the video below the trailer. It's Alexander Ebert's single from his solo release. You may know him from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. The video is a photo compilation of the boxer Jack Johnson. The two seem to fit together perfectly. Okay, that's it. I'm gonna go find more gratuitous Dakota Fanning videos.

Amazon Wednesday proves I probably don't know diddly-squat poo

2011-03-09T10:57:00.006-05:00

When I read raving reviews about a book after I've had a lukewarm reaction, I always feel as if I've missed something. It happened with Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a book I enjoyed though I failed to understand the incredible hype (don't get me wrong, I respect the guy as a writer, but I don't love him as much as this chick does—I love posting this video).

I am a person who likes to give everyone a fair shot. So even though I'm not Bradbury's biggest fan, when he mentioned John Collier in the same sentence as Hemingway and Cheever, I decided to see what the fuss was about. I bought Collier's collection of short stories Fancies and Goodnights and dove in. For the last four months I've been dipping in to read stories.

Unfortunately, despite reading over half the stories, most of them failed to do much for me. I found the stories, lots of them fables with often poor attempts at tongue and cheek humor, seemed predictable and without depth (not in-depth enough). There were times I sat a story down and didn't come back to it for days because I didn't care to read any further. On Amazon, there were 18 total reviews, 15 of which were five star reviews. If we compare John Collier's short stories to, say, Stephanie Meyer's short stories—if they exist—than five stars would be a fair assessment; but if you compare them to Hemingway or Cheever than I would probably slap sub-zero stars on Collier's stories.

Again, it's not that they are terrible, I was simply underwhelmed. The reviewers did mention a few stories they called the best of the collection and I happened to not read those. I will do so, but I have a feeling these reviews below will still seem like overshooting to me. Either way, the first reviewer uses the word claptrap, which is probably a great descriptor for my thoughts on this topic.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why is John Collier out of print?, April 16, 2000

thampimv@juno.com - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fancies and Goodnights (Hardcover)

Never has there a writer who has written so many brilliant and exquisite short stories. Each one is a gem. Better than Saki. The tongue in cheek humour and satirical presentation of human behaviour in his stories is unique. Check out the brilliant movie where he wrote the screenplay, "The War Lord" starring Charlton Heston. Also, I Am A Camera, Elephant Man, African Queen, etc. John Collier's books should be republished and studied in universities. No doubt the liberal humanities departments of today who prefer the feminist and political correct claptrap to real writing will not look at his writings.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Logic of Elfland Revisited, July 31, 2000

John A. Goodson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fancies and Goodnights (Hardcover)

The book comes as a revelation. One simply does not expect such invention on such a scale and with such constant intensity. These short stories ought to be strictly rationed so that one will read no more than a single example per day. This way the maximum pleasure can be obtained and that sly, wry smile of the connoisseur will surface often. Collier can do more with a paragraph than King does in a whole volume. This is what truly excellent writing is all about.

I would like to take this opportunity to pray for another human being.

2011-03-07T13:05:00.001-05:00

I accused her as though her prayers had really worked the change: What did I do to you that you had to condemn me to life?—Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

I've been working my way through this list of David Foster Wallace's most under-appreciated novels since 1960. My adamantine admiration for Wittgenstein's Mistress and Blood Meridian is well-documented. And since DFW puts the wind in my sails, I looked forward to reading the next book, Angels by Denis Johnson.

Baptism seemed just another way of getting yourself wet.

The book opens with the Graham Greene quote above and there's an immediate resemblance, stylistically and thematically, to the Little Bulldog and Chuck Bukowski. Echoes of all these guys had me wetting myself. The book begins on a Greyhound in Oakland. It would be difficult to think of a grittier—or seedier—opening to a novel. On the bus we are introduced to Jaime, who, with her two daughters, is fleeing her husband.

"Did you know this? Frogs fuck goldfish. That's true. No fooling, now."

On the bus she meets William Houston Jr. and, being vulnerable and desperate, follows him to Pittsburgh where they have a rendezvous. Bill drinks himself silly and abandons her and the girls to Chicago. When Jaime follows him to Chicago she is introduced to the not-so-appealing fringes of the City of Big Shoulders. The terrifying episode Jaime is catapulted into leads to her finding Bill, but also leads to her own downfall.

It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized not that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was. he found a cigaret and struck a match—for a moment there was nothing before him but the flame. When he shook it out and the world came back, it was the same place again where all his decisions had been made a long time ago.

Bill is an anti-hero, a man we are led to believe, despite his transgressions and dicey decision making, has a good soul. It would seem he wants to be a better man but hasn't figured out how to make the turn. Bill suggests that he and Jaime escape to Arizona where he has family. Coupled with his younger brothers and a suave character named Dwight Snow (clean as the white snow), the proverbial hits the fan.

"But all you gotta do is look around you for half a minute. Nobody's keeping it a secret from us that we're all in the toilet. We're in the sewer. Forecast tomorrow is for more of the same."

I enjoyed this book, but there were times when Johnson seemed to overwrite and the style went from gritty and sparse to verbose and annoying. In the end I was also confused by what lesson I was meant to learn. Reading the reviews for this book, mostly people applauded the style and how he held nothing back, but never seemed to touch on what, at its core, this novel was truly all about. Certainly the style had, as Philip Roth said, "amazing power" and it was (most of the time) a fascinating read with some fantastic characters. But I didn't empathize with any of the characters and, as I said before, I'm still not certain I understood the moral. I don't need a G.I. Joe PSA at the end of a novel, but I fear the message here is that we're all fooked (though Jaime seems to right her ship). There's an outside chance I need to read this book again. Considering how quickly I devoured it, I may have missed something (only when we're faced with death do we understand that love for our fellow man is paramount? Hell, I don't know). There's also an outside chance that Johnson is simply saying we're all doomed. I hope he's wrong.

What had become of that time when a person could depend on his neighbors?

Super sad true stories

2011-03-06T21:54:00.002-05:00

There is a golden rule as a bartender that says we should avoid three topics with guests: religion, politics and sex. It's vital, in my opinion, to avoid the first two, but I have breached the third on occasion. It's impossible not to talk about sex, right? With that aside, however, I think I can add a fourth topic to the list: literature.

The other night two good-looking, intelligent, well-read ladies were sitting at the bar. We weren't that busy so I was schmoozing them with my patented charm (read: trying not to drool on myself) and they were talking about The Hunger Games, a trilogy about teenagers who fight to the death. I didn't know anything about these books until they told me about them so far be it from me to criticize them—with that said, however, I'd imagine it's trash.

Perhaps I'm only judging by the author's last name, which is Collins. My first ever job out of college was at the Barnes & Noble on La Cienega Blvd. I had this garrulous Brit for a manager and I wanted to kick her in the throat. I saw a couple of stars, or at least people who were on TV. John Mahoney perused the fiction section one day I was there and supposedly Brian Austin Green came in once, but I wasn't there. I can only assume he bought a copy of Acting for Dummies. Amirite?

Anyway, one day Jackie Collins stopped by and had a tete-a-tete with my British manager. Jackie wasn't pleased that her titles weren't displayed at the main entrance. Rumor has it she lost her head—she probably learned to fight from her sister. I quit the job after about two months. I took my break in the morning, jumped in my car and left.

Meanwhile, at the bar...

One of these lovely women asked if I had ever read Super Sad True Love Story and before she made it to "True" I was practically shouting about how much of a hack the guy was and how I thought he should change his name to Cancer because that's what he is to literature. Perhaps I overshot. One of the women almost choked on her brandy and ginger cocktail after my mini-Collinsesque tirade. I continued by telling them that Zadie Smith is the only other person close to as bad. To which she said Zadie was one of her favorites. Surprisingly the tip wasn't bad.

This list over at Reading Ape is fantastic and does not include Smith, Shitgart or either of the Collins' mentioned above. And that was the point of this post, to give you this list since a friend of mine asked me where I get ideas for reading. And besides suggestions from friends or finding out about authors in books I read, lists are the best way to get reading ideas.

So a quick review: lists can give us great reading ideas; Joan Collins is a certified bee-otch; Shitgart is actually named Cancer; and I need to learn how to shut my mouth about personal opinions when I'm serving drinks. I really feel like we've both grown here.

Amazon Wednesday "is not in depth enough"

2011-03-02T16:07:00.003-05:00

I wasn't in love with Melville's Billy Budd. The themes were strong but the story was weak and boring. I thought the Amazon reviews were a little harsh, though. Calling it the worst novel ever written is a little over the top. Of the nearly 50 reviews, nearly a quarter of them were two stars or less. I have trouble believing that even at his worst, Melville doesn't have a lot to give us. Soup being spilled on someone's boots does not a plot make; but, with that said, the symbolism fills in such holes, right? At any rate, the reviews are as boring as the book (and this post), but you should be happy I even bothered to post something. Blogging is so 2005. I should be Tweeting. "Read Billy Budd. More like Billy Dud. Amirite?" On second thought, I'll keep posting on this blog even if it, like Budd, "is not in depth enough".

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More like "Hell"ville, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Billy Budd (Mass Market Paperback)

I must say, this is the most horrible book I have ever read. As the mandatory subject for one of my term papers, I suffered through Billy Budd for an entire semester. By the end of the book, my classmates and I had yet to find a plot anywhere. We believed there had to be a hidden plot somehwere: Billy and Claggart were brothers, the captain was the father, and the Dansker fit into the family tree somewhere. Alas, no. My advice: do not, under any circumstances, read this book unless forced.

3 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Billy "Dud", December 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Billy Budd (Mass Market Paperback)

After taking three weeks to read this hundred or so page book, I was perplexed. The whole book does not have a plot. Melville's development of character is horrendous. He made it as if readers are supposed to already know who Billy Budd or John Claggart is. If it were not for the Cliff Notes, perhaps, no not perhaps, no one would understand what in the world is going on. The book is not in depth enough. THANK HEAVENS there is not a Billy Budd 2.

Pass the Budd

2011-02-28T17:00:00.005-05:00

The individual is absorbed by the herd and the authority figure over the herd squashes any hope that the individual, despite good intentions and innocence, will ever break free. Seems about right.

This seems to me the message in Melville's Billy Budd. Wrapped in a story that, at times, moves at a snail's pace and relies on cumbersome language—seemingly more cumbersome than other titles by Melville—the message is nonetheless clear that the individual doesn't have much chance against society.

Billy Buddy, a happy, innocent, good-looking sailor on the Rights-of-Man (pay close attention, as usual, to the names in Melville's story) is recruited to join the crew of the Bellipotent ("the power of war"). Claggart, the master-at-arms on the Bellipotent, doesn't care for Billy. Billy—aghast!—even spills soup on his boots.

"Claggart, the master-at-arms, official rattan in hand, happened to be passing along the battery in a bay of which the mess was lodged, and the greasy liquid streamed just across his path."

Billy has a stutter, perhaps to add to the innocence he represents, and is also illiterate. Claggart, of course, represents deception and malice. Eventually the two meet in the climax of the story and we are presented with the theme I discussed earlier.

"The next instant, quick as the flame from a discharged cannon at night, his right arm shot out, and Claggart dropped to the deck."

This idea of individuality tickled my fancy, but the verbose language and the story boring the socks off a cheap whore dragged more than it kept my attention. I think the same story could've been told in about half the pages. But, then, I think that's the case a great deal of the time. So, I'm left asking the question I usually ask: what the hell do I know? And the answer, as per usual, is not a damn thing.

As with most of Melville's stories, it could probably be read as a Christian allegory. Billy's innocence and the way he's described could be comparable to Jesus. Captain Vere is the perfect Pontius Pilate—damning the innocent—and the novella is riddled with religious allusions. Worth reading but be prepared for the sludge.

"Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges..."

Lego authors

2011-02-28T16:35:00.003-05:00

Lego versions of authors is guaranteed to make you laugh. It was linked from biblioklept. The more I read other blogs, the more I think this one sucks. But at least it's not as bad as this Lego video.

Down with the sickness

2011-02-25T11:48:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday I woke up hungover and I landed on the couch where I finished up reading Albear Camoo's The Plague. Of course I felt like death sans the open sores and dead rats. Little did I know, however, that under the blanket of the hangover there lurked a plague-like sickness. The next morning I wanted to get Dr. Bernard Rieux—the protagonist from The Plague—on the horn. Long story short, a week later, several piles of drugs and hot toddies later, I can breathe again. I apologize about not updating the blog, but I literally felt like my days were numbered. I have to wonder how the hell Giovanni Keats, whilst hacking up a lung above the Spanish Steps, could hammer out great lines of poetry. Seriously, I couldn't even post a shitty blog entry when I was sick and that guy was writing lines like this months before he stopped breathing? I am Jack's lack of determination.

I survived—lucky you—and am here to tell you that before you kick the bucket, you should read Camoo's Plague. Pretty straight forward tale: in Oran, Algeria, rats start turning up dead in the streets and it doesn't take long to find out the city in the grips of a plague.

"The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits."

Faced with the sick truth that the city was in for a long fight, Rieux, established as a man who "had resolved ... to have no truck with injustice and compromises with the truth," takes center stage in the fight against the disease. Surrounded by a cast of great characters, we get 300 pages of people reacting to and living through the plague.

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves."

In the midst of all the dying and decay, it's evident Camoo wanted to show man's resolve and ability to survive, even in the face of what seems to be certain death. We're all in this together and the sooner we're able to realize this, the sooner we realize we're all on the same team, the better off we'll be. There is more to admire in each of us than there is to despise. Or so the lesson goes.

"The evil intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding."

One of my favorite characters is Joseph Grand, a clerk who fancies himself a writer. He spends the entire novel brooding over the first sentence of his book. I like to think Camoo was trying to tell us not to brood over one or two words; instead, just write. Just do what makes you happy and don't ruin it with too much thinking. Of course, that could just be me reflecting my own thoughts on the character. Then there's Cottard. At the beginning of the novel he tries to off himself, mostly because he hates seeing people happy. As the plague takes hold of the city, he gets progressively happier. In other words, he finds pleasure in others being miserable (hard to argue with that). His ultimate fate shows us what happens when we are steadfastly against the happiness of our fellow man.

"Yes, it was quite true that men can't do without their fellow men..."

Raymond Rambert is one of my favorite characters, too. A journalist trapped in the town after it's quarantined, he spends his time waffling between whether he should try to escape or stay and help his fellow man. This waffling, I think, shows how much indecision is inside all of us. Camoo's ability to write drastically different characters carried this novel, though, I must admit, it dragged a bit at times.

"...destruction is an easier, speedier process than reconstruction."

There are plenty of lessons to be learned here. Chief among them, perhaps, is that we are all in this together, no matter what the circumstance, be it plague, famine, war. And behind all of this, I think, there is our need for survival. Like some of my favorite novels taught me—Gravity's Rainbow and Catch-22—survival is, beyond all else, our major function here on planet earth. At the end of the day I don't work so I can own a big ass television (though it's nice). I work so I can eat food and not starve to death. To survive. Camoo's theory might differ slightly, because I think he was saying we could sacrifice a little bit for our fellow man, and help each other in the struggle. That's a novel idea. Now who wants to bring me some chicken noodle soup?

Biutiful

2011-02-15T22:14:00.006-05:00

A friend of mine emailed me about a week ago and told me I had to see Biutiful. He didn't say it like that. He said he saw a movie and Javier Bardem was magnificent and then the hook: it reminded him of a Bolaño work. I made plans to see it during my next free afternoon. What I found was a mix between magical realism of Marquez (Bardem's character, Uxbal, can speak to the dead and there are scenes of the future that are haunting and, pardon the pun, biutiful)—and, exactly as my friend had said, the disjointed and yet somehow perfectly structured film was reminiscent of Bolaño's work. Bolaño's work crawls with characters in desperate situations—reeks of death and decay (how many chapters did I read during Bolaño week about dead women?)—and yet there is this overwhelming feeling of hope that seems to pervade the work. That could be me reading into it, but isn't that what you're supposed to do? And I've only read 2666 and a collection of short stories, so I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. At any rate, the same could be said for Biutiful. Don't take my word for it. See it for yourself.

No. 85b

2011-02-14T15:01:00.003-05:00

I hate to have an 'a' and 'b' that have no literal connection—"Well, there isn't a literal connection, Dude"—but I'm afraid that's what I've done here. But it's my list so go piss up a rope.

I read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha—coming in at 85b here on this pointless list—while on safari in Africa. There is so much pretension in that last sentence I wish a large sock full of manure would hit me across the face. But, then, it is what it is and that's where I read the book so you can't change history. If I could do that I'd go back and never drink vodka. Or as I like to call it, Bad Decision Juice.

I was in Africa in 2002, so there's been a lot of books and a lot of booze under the bridge, so I won't pretend to remember the exact plot or wax poetic on his journey. I know Siddhartha was a thinker. Deep introspection and worldly experience led to his eventual enlightenment. Self-discovery, for me, led to the same realization this guy had. And since I have recently taken to Jerry Fielding's advice": "We've made it this far, let's not ruin it by thinking," I can honestly say that I'm glad I read Siddhartha when I did. The wisdom might be lost on me now.

As much I'd love to be disciplined enough to adhere to the principles of Hinduism or Buddhism, I'm not suited for such pursuits (Dionysus represents my best bet for finding spirituality). But I would probably argue—for nothing but to defend the reason this book is on my list—that Hesse was more interested in the journey, the gathering of experiences through movement. After all, life is movement. Of course at the end of the day the novel is about self-discovery. Finding oneself and the happiness that is unique to each of us. For me, life is about travel and friends and reading and writing—like Siddhartha I found the material world, especially money, doesn't really mean diddly-squat poo in the whole scheme of things—and maybe I would've found this out for myself without any help from Hesse, but I get the feeling that Siddhartha somehow legitimized my desires and dreams. Do what I want to do and everything and everyone else be damned. So much for not waxing poetic.

And within the pages there are some of my favorite quotes about writing and about life. If there was a chance of finding a to practice even half the axioms in the book, we'd all be a lot better off.

"Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast."

"Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better."

"...there is no such thing as time."

"Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity."

"Nirvana is not only a word, my friend; it is a thought."

Around this same time I was reading everything I could find by Kerouac. I read Big Sur (my least favorite book by him because he sounded like a whinging old man who was pitying himself, or so that's how I recall it) and he berated Hesse's Steppenwolf, which I then picked up and though it was not the best book I ever read, it was better than Big Sur. That story doesn't have anything to do with the price of butter but it's written now so I'll leave it here.

Anyway, any book worth a shit should lead to questions, either about yourself or about the world. And it should lead you to seek out even more knowledge. And that's another thing about Siddhartha: it led me to read the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads—two texts worth visiting if you're looking for a spiritual kick in the pants. If a book can spark curiosity and prompt other readings, there's no reason it shouldn't appear on a top 100 list. Even a shitty one like this.

No. 85a

2011-02-11T15:00:00.009-05:00

There are not many books on the list from my high school days. I have Catcher in the Rye on the list, though it is more of an accoutrement to other titles by Salinger, and Heart of Darkness will also appear and both of these titles I read in high school. Five out of 120 titles or so shows how very little I read in high school—or how much Sega I played back then.

I would argue that had I read War and Peace as a teenager my comprehension and enjoyment would have fallen short of how much I enjoyed it as a 30-year-old. As with most pursuits, life experience and perspective greatly influences our reactions and opinions. My senior year English teacher was adept at turning kids into literature fanatics—I suppose her zeal turned an equal number off. For me she was one of the biggest reasons I started reading everything I could put my hands on. She told me if I liked Heart of Darkness I'd like most of Conrad's stuff and I should check out Ernest Hemingway and Faulkner and even if you thought the Gatsby was garbage, read it again; in fact, read that one until it's good.

And that's what happened in high school. Authors opened doors to other authors and the domino effect led to the discovery of authors I'm still reading today. A classic example would be John Steinbeck. Though I haven't read Of Mice and Men since I was 16—which appears here as 85a on my list—it's impossible to deny that the book lit a fire inside of me. Writers from 1920-1950 have consistently been my favorites. Perhaps I would have eventually discovered this without reading Of Mice and Men, but there's something to be said for the seed which was planted then.

Curley has to be one of the greatest characters ever put to paper. Written so perfectly, I'm certain Steinbeck must've known a man in real life just like him. And that's the part about Steinbeck's writing I most enjoy; he often wrote portraits of people that are so lifelike, you are able to relate to them, love them or hate them.

And this little trip down memory lane reminds me: I should pick up some Steinbeck soon.

Amazon Wednesday stuck in a storm

2011-02-09T14:42:00.004-05:00

I want nothing more than to get back to reading The Plague by Albear Camoo so I'm gonna make this a quickie. I can always count on the reviews of Shakespeare to bring the heat. Here's a short one but it sums up every play the Bard ever did, in my opinion. That old-timey language is just too much for this person.

As for the second reviewer, I am not sure whether they are a genius or whether they are full of beans. There are some legitimate points. There is a chance that I only found it worthwhile because I put it next to the first. It also annoys me that they chose to use a numbered format. The reviewer also read the thing as literal as possible. I used to read Dianetics literally. But then I watched this and now I'm just confused.

1.0 out of 5 stars I totally didn't understand this book, May 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Tempest (Shakespeare, Pelican) (Paperback)

I hated it because I didn't understand it. It was those old kinds of English that people used to talk a way long time ago.

1.0 out of 5 stars a saccharine bagatelle, November 1, 2009

Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Tempest (Kindle Edition)

The "Tempest" shares the distinction -- along with "Love's Labor's Lost" -- of featuring a plot mostly contrived by Shakespeare himself. And it shows. Thank God for Amazon reviews, since it would be suicidal for somebody in the academy to point out all the obvious flaws of this crud. So allow me:

1. We're constantly being reminded about Ariel's upcoming freedom: Was this meant to be the real tension of the play? Because even at final curtain, we never actually see him freed. This is dramatically unsatisfying.
2. Prospero breaks his staff and drowns his books before sailing back to Milan. So what's to prevent him from being stabbed, thrown overboard, or dispensed with once everybody reaches the shore? He's made tons of enemies - and now he hasn't his magic to protect him. Admit it: this was in the back of your mind as the play ended, marring its grace.
3. Doesn't anybody in this play ever have a look around before jumping to three pages of high-blown philosophical conclusions? (E.g., "This is some monster of the isle...")
4. On this island, what has Miranda been using for tampons and stuff?
5. You get leery when thinking what a cruddy job Prospero does of vetting his daughter's future husband. I suppose the idea of having him make Ferdinand's pursuit of Miranda fraught with difficultly so's he'd appreciate her more was serviceable enough, but all it really amounts to is making him schlep some logs around for an afternoon.
6. It would appear that Prospero was usurped with good reason. He apparently had his nose in books all the time, whereas his brother evidently has the wherewithal to manage affairs of state with a more hardheaded realpolitik. (He's just concluded, for example, a valuable alliance-by-marriage with Tunis.) If Prospero really had the makings of a Prince, he would have demonstrated same by offing Alonso and company right there and then, since permitting them to live is bound to lead Milan into civil war later, when they regroup.
7. That sappy, stilted, and pretentious "masque" scene doesn't belong there. Or at least not at such length. The young lovers aren't even married yet! That's another thing:
8. The subplot between Ferdinand and Miranda is resolved far too early in the play, making the ending intolerably long.
9. The introductory shipwreck scene is totally unnecessary! What does it add? It's like Shakespeare was trying to show off his command of nautical terminology.
10. Most of the poetry is forgettable. Some of it blows outright. E.g.: "You sunburned sicklemen, of August weary, / Come hither from the furrow and be merry. / Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on, / And these fresh nymphs encounter everyone / In country footing." Uh, you're joking, right?
11. What's up with Prospero having Ariel maliciously taunt the bereaved Ferdinand about his drowned father? What did Ferdinand do to deserve that?
12. Seems like there more characters than are really needed. If this has been bandied about as a script these days, any Hollywood studio would have immediately made the obvious decision: combine Antonio, Sebastian, Adrian, and Fransisco into fewer, or delete them. And that studio would have been right.
13. Uh . . . has anybody noticed that the entire five-minute scene between Prospero and Miranda just after the shipwreck scene is nothing more than bald, unimaginative exposition? Master playright, eh? Heck, same thing goes for the scene just after that with Ariel, now that I think about it.

Oh, you're being too literal, too realistic, you might complain. You've been ruined by the 19th century. Okay, then let's take the play on its grander meanings. Here's what it teaches us:

12. Usurpation is bad. Everybody should know their place in society and not rock the boat by getting uppity. Caliban was wrong to have pursued his freedom: he should have known his place as a slave.
13. It's the height of wisdom to marry somebody you just met yesterday without investing a greater effort in trying to get to know them.
14. Women must not have their "virgin knots" broken, or they are impure and will not make acceptable wives.
15. Getting drunk helps you make stupid decisions.
16. Big psychological insight: Instead of endlessly justifying themselves, people have sudden epiphanies where they immediately and clearly perceive their guilt, causing them to change their worldview and lives on the spot (e.g., "Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded.")
17. As always in Shakespeare, prophecies always come true, so it's pointless to try to change one's destiny. Just once I'd like to see some withered old hag utter some omen of doom, then at the end of the play it turns out to be nothing. That, at least, would constitute some insight into the human condition: people can't tell the future!

So literally the play is a flop. And as for the play's deeper meanings - can somebody tell me why such sentiments are thought to be worth our time these days?

I think people find this play gratifying because the setup (i.e., a remote, green, magical island; a shipwreck; a benign magician; a beautiful and innocent daughter; a misshapen fish-like beast) is such an alluring daydream: people like to picture themselves in such a setting. Hard for me to play along, though: apparently that island won't shut up long enough for you to take a nap.

Baby sloths

2011-02-04T14:35:00.004-05:00

This is lovely. The internets is such a wonderful place. If it were a dog I would buy it ice cream. And to prove my point, look at this dog eating an invisible ice cream cone I found on a Gogol search! Oh, internets, how I love thee.

Amazon Wednesday cannot help you

2011-02-02T18:12:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned before I'm not always certain which books I've featured on Amazon Wednesday and which I haven't. Because I have to hurry out of the apartment tonight to drink Wild Turkey—because a huge snowstorm has given me the night off—I'm not going to search the archives. With that said, let's look at these two waterheaded reh-tards criticizing Dubliners by J.J. Even if I've featured these before, it's worth reading again.

"...every single word has an impact on the meaning of each story as a whole."

Yeah, each word does impact the story. Isn't that a good thing? Would you rather have him fill it with fluff and meaningless words in a meaningless story? I can't even understand what would possess you to write that sentence. You can't be helped. Walk into oncoming traffic.

You know who should be whacked in the genitals? Any moron who spells existence without an "e". If you're going to make an argument against a man who was the quintessential man of letters, at least spell the words correctly. Follow your friend into traffic. Wild Turkey awaits.

5 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No one should read Dubliners, February 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dubliners (Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

This book is so full of crap. It's awful. If you really wanna read it, set aside 15 hours of your time for each story! Criticism is non existant and high school seniors should NOT be made to read this book. Yes, I know all of the stories have some sort of "greater meaning" behind them, but it is so full of detail, every single word has an impact on the meaning of each story as a whole. I recommend that you find another book to read that you will actually enjoy, like Mercedes Lackey. Actually, Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes is a very well-written book and very enjoyable. Much more so than Dubliners.

9 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Complete Rubbish, January 25, 2002

C. H. Ratliff "Heath Rat Su" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dubliners (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

James Joyce is the most unreadable author to ever have been washed into xistance from the womb of Ireland. It is an indication of the non-relevance of education today, that this book is required reading for many of our youths. This novel belongs on the mantle of some poor sod who can't find anything better to do with his time other than perhaps wacking himself repeatedly on the genitals with a blunt object ad infinitum. Beleive me, this book is less painful, but only in that it ENDS. Avoid it at all costs, and punch anyone who recommends it to you square in the gob.

Birthday

2011-02-02T12:13:00.003-05:00

This was linked from here and it's worth listening to. It's James Joyce's birthday. But he's dead. I should write an Amazon review in honor of Joyce. Oh, that's like foreshadowing.

Women as Lovers

2011-02-01T16:02:00.002-05:00

Perhaps it was the title of Elfriede Jelinek's book, Women as Lovers, that reminded me of Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence. The connection, of course, had my mind connecting other dots as I kept reading. In Lawrence's book, of course, a male protagonist struggles with love in a coming of age tale. In Women as Lovers we have a couple of women, Paula and Brigitte, struggling with love in a coming of age tale (I'm not certain it is, by definition, a coming of age tale, but it's a fair description in my opinion).

...once the shit is behind me, i am already in the future.

The ladies live in an Alpine village where a women's underwear factory dictates the lives of most of the villagers. They are haunted by the futures they striving toward. An obsession with who they'll eventually marry and erect picket fences. A critic from The European put the novel in perspective, "Like Thomas Bernhard and the turn-of-the-century satirst Karl Kraus, Jelinek belongs to a long line of Austrian literary outsiders who, while relentlessly satirising the hypocrisy of their native bourgeois culture, have been clasped firmly to the establishment's bosom as cherished examples of Austria's enduring excellence in the arts."

...the old proverb says, women are born to suffer, men are born to work...

I picked up Bernhard's famous novel, Frost, about a year ago from the library. It was fourth in the stack and for some reason I never got around to reading it. Having read and enjoyed this book by Jalinek, I look forward to revisiting Bernhard soon. Jalinek's mastery of both structure (she weaves the tale through clever headings, connecting Paula and Brigitte's lives through similarities and irony) and her similes, though people may not "like" them, are some of the best I've read in a long time (it can take many months, here it's many pages, before the child pops its head out of the womb like a worm out of the apple... or paula is out for love like a pig out for acorns. ).

one out of very many is basically no one at all.

She also pays no attention to capitalization. Perhaps as a way to show the idyllic ways of the village or the idealism and almost childishness of the women who are searching for "true love" and that elusive happy ending. In the end, one of the heroines ends up on the wrong end of the proverbial stick. As a male reader, I think it's important to expose ourselves (that is not meant as a pun) to female authors to get a better idea of how women write women. I don't want to get into a discussion about whether men can write women or vis-a-vis, but I do think it's difficult to write characters of the opposite sex. Here we get a woman writing women perfectly. I can honestly say, aside from perhaps Welty's Optimist—which I didn't really enjoy—or Morrison's Beloved, I've never felt like I've "known" women characters so well by the end of a novel. Now if I can only figure out how to translate this to real life.

and it's not always nice, if a trouble is absent.

A friend of mine from Austria actually sent Jelinek's book to me for Christmas. Her husband recently sent me the video I pasted below. I'm still deciding whether I like the book more or the video. Both stirred up a great deal of emotion. It's great to have such great friends. Anyway, here's to reading suggestions that turn out golden.

Amazon Wednesday touches on flow and understanding a timeline

2011-01-26T15:55:00.006-05:00

If you look to the right, you'll notice my top-100 list. I know you must be getting tired of seeing no new numbers. I'm sure it's keeping you up at night. I plan on knocking about five or six out in the next several weeks to keep the wolves at arm's length. At any rate, take a look at number 100, Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary.

I loved this book. It's a great way to see a future great at work. The book was Thompson's first and went unpublished for years. Inside you find brief moments of the lunatic of letters that would later pen Fear and Loathing and become a voice for the dying (dead) revolution of the 60s. Don't get me started on the greatness of that novel.

Our first reviewer talks about flow.Speaking of flow,we usually use a spacebar after a period and commas.But that's just me.I'm old fashioned that way.

The second reviewer fails to realize that this book was written before Thompson found his voice. It's tough to understand timelines, especially when you've got to put them in order yourself. But that's the beauty of this novel. We get the rare chance to have read almost everything else he did, enjoy an incredible body of work, and then we get this dropped on us: a subtle, simplistic novel that is like a seed before bursting into a big-ass, beautiful tree. I'm a goddamn poet.

1.0 out of 5 stars A Drunk to Nowhere, April 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rum Diary: A Novel (Paperback)

Junk! I'm told to focus on the books content and contex when reviewing.Very difficult for this book, there is none.Hunter S Thomson has nothing to say,no flow,like a rum hangover.

1.0 out of 5 stars Tame as Dental Floss., December 9, 1998

Bill Fedigan: wfedigan@hotmail.com (Metro NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rum Diary: The Long Lost Novel (Hardcover)

What happened to Mr. Gonzo? This book could be read by third graders. It is silly, try-to-puff-out your skinny chest type of stuff. Mr. Hunter, actually drinks rum in this novel. Daring. Makes love to two women. Scandolous. If Thompson's name was not attached to this "novel," it would never have been published. In short, it is Ernie Hem's dental floss.

A tale of a book and a sitcom about a bar

2011-01-24T23:44:00.004-05:00

Remember that Cheers episode when Frasier changes the story of A Tale of Two Cities because Norm and the boys find the original story too boring? That was a funny one.

To be honest, I always tabbed A Tale as one of those masterpieces I'd never get around to reading. Any book that not only has the most cliched opening sentence of all-time, but also, arguably, the most cliched ending sentence of all-time ('It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known,' in case you didn't know it for some reason), has to be a real bore. Or so this was my perception before I opened the book. Couple this with my already shaky opinion of Dickens and the book had a lot of proving to do.

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one with sight.

'Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them among us?'

In case you don't know, essentially it's a tale of London and Paris during the French Revolution. Lucie Manette, a woman of French origin, falls for Charles Darnay, who also has ties to France through a rich uncle. This rich uncle turns out to be the same man taunting the poor and also runs down a poor sap in the street. Meanwhile, we find out Sydney Carton also has a thing for Lucie. All of this is a backdrop for Lucie going to France to get her father out of prison. With this, the revolution and a couple of his strange characters to fill in space, he churned out nearly 400 pages.

'...Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day.'

The best part of the novel, for me, comes midway through when they storm the Bastille and the revolution takes full flight. Though the revolution seems to be little more than a backdrop for the bigger story of Darnay falling victim to the wrath of revolutionaries and their thirst for aristocratic blood, there is something exhilarating about Dickens' writing in this chunk of the book. Normally I'd agree with people who say he dragged his books out, since he was essentially being paid by the word, but if he was, he was doing a bang up job of it in this part of the book.

'...Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.'

As with most of what I've read of Dickens (and I'm going to hit a few more of his titles this year if laziness does not continue to plague me), the plot is, in turns, contrived and eye-rolling-predictable. But there's no denying the artful way he structured his novels and there are dozens examples of fine writing. The ending is somewhat melodramatic, but I got to say I liked it. And maybe that's the thing about Dickens: he always has a story with a beginning, a middle and a definitive end. Aristotle said it was essential and Dickens nails it every time.

Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild.

The only puzzling part for me was that Dickens chose to paint the revolutionaries, after they got power, in no more of a favorable light than the aristocrats they had replaced. Whether or not this was for the story's sake, for he had to do this to get his ending, or—more frighteningly—whether Dickens believed all revolutions eventually swirl into chaos and are seldom worth the effort and hoopla that went into them, is something I'm sure a scholar has tackled in some criticism somewhere. And I'd love to go find it, but I think I'm going to watch Cheers instead.

Amazon Wednesday mispels words and cuts dictionaries out of my diet

2011-01-19T14:20:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine recently finished Post Office by Charles Bukowski, per my urging. The book is funny and intellectual and void of pretension that often plagues books that are trying to be funny and intellectual. It's also one of the most honest books you'll ever read. Anyone who would kick their lady friend off the couch is probably really crazy. And being crazy lends itself to extreme honesty, at least in my limited experience. If you haven't read Factotum, you should do that, too. And then watch Matt Dillon play Chinaski because it's a treat to see him kick the shit out of some poor sap at the pony races.

This first reviewer, who calls my taste in humor infantile, can kiss my white ass. How's that for infantile? And Ginsberg was a goofy sellout who wrote a few good poems and did too much LSD. As for the second reviewer, I love the statement, "I read alot." No kidding? Da yu spend alot of time mispelling werds, too? Anyway, I agree. Dictionaries are a waist of time. Too fattening.

1.0 out of 5 stars Try Mailboxes, Etc. before you go to the Post Office, February 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Post Office (Paperback)

While I am under no illusions that people and lives like this exist, I believe that there has to be a more talented and profound method of conveying them. Have people enjoyed this "novel" to sound liberated and intellectual? Or, is Bukowski's audience merely deprived of great literature. Bukowski's narrator, the postal temp, nymphomaniac alcoholic, gave me such an ill feeling that I turned the pages to see if he could possibly redeem himself in my eyes. His numerous encounters with women, while they may be true to life, seemed to be void fillers within the work. It was as if Bukowski was trying to emmulate Allen Ginsberg with his raw and outrageous nature. His attempts were meager and artificial. Mr. Bukowski, You are no Allen Ginsberg.

1.0 out of 5 stars Post Office by Charles Bukowski, March 1, 2006

Debbie J. Ranchhod "Book Mom" (Fort Collins, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Post Office (Paperback)

This was one of the worst books I've ever read, and I read alot. This was a book picked for the book club I'm in and not one person enjoyed it. It was a chore to even finish. Don't waist your time. Horrible.

Montana

2011-01-17T11:24:00.012-05:00

I spent last week in Montana snowboarding and drinking Wild Turkey, so you'll have to forgive my absence from blogging. As Merle Haggard once said, "turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montana."

And that probably sums up the week perfectly. I landed in Helena and picked up my rental for the drive. Luckily it was a beast since the weather was dicey.

When the weather cleared, however, the view was—hyperbole coming—majestic beyond anything you have ever seen!

The weather proved perfect for snowboarding and one day we drove about two hours to find a foot and a half of powder waiting for us at Lookout Pass, right on the Montana-Idaho border. Though I didn't read a word (and ignored the news and television), I did find this Huxley novel in Helena at Aunt Bonnie's Used Bookstore. I love the cover and for a dollar there was no question I had to make the purchase.

Before I left I did finish Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and as soon as the bourbon flushes out of my system, I'll be sure to give you my opinion on the novel. For now, my mind is drifting back to Montana and I don't think you can blame me for letting it go.

Adaptation of Blood Meridian

2011-01-06T14:47:00.002-05:00

My favorite film blog, Filmdrunk, is reporting that James Franco wants to adapt Blood Meridian. The fact the writer compares Royal Tenenbaum character Eli Cash to McCarthy is pretty much genius and hilarious.

They rode on.

Anyway, I would imagine since Oprah and McCarthy are such great pals, she might be involved in producing such a picture. Considering that it would take a massive, ugly, evil person to play Judge Holden, she could also star in the film. Zinger!

Another blog to waste my time on

2011-01-06T14:27:00.001-05:00

I recently stumbled upon this lit website, called biblioklept. I liked it because it features death masks of various authors, including James Joyce. Where's the eye-patch?

Browsing the site, it's full of great posts, including several thoughtful posts on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The site also posted this video below, which, despite not capturing the true essence of the passage from Infinite Jest, does include one of my favorite quotes from the book. "I have administrative bones to pick with God, Boo. I'll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I'm not crazy about. I'm pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I'm not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I, Boo."

And if all this talk of death and metaphysics has you shaking your head in disgust, well, then give this music a listen and chill the fuck out.

Amazon Wednesday finds out it was George who died, not Paul

2011-01-05T17:10:00.003-05:00

I am almost finished with A Tale of Two Cities. I'd be lying if I said ol' Charlie didn't bore me a bit from time to time. Overall, however, it's shaping up to be my favorite of his novels. My sampling size is regrettably small, but I plan to read more Dickens in the New Year. It's sandwiched between two other important resolutions: drink more bourbon and find a good supplier of opiates.

Below you will find some amazing critiques of the novel. The reservoir for stupidity deepens by the minute. Long live Amazon Wednesday—too bad we can't say the same for George.

"The royal we."

1.0 out of 5 stars An excessively long, boring book, March 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Tale of Two Cities (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

This has to be one of the worst books we've ever read. Dickens spends entirely too much time describing unimportant details and events. What should have been a 50-page novella was extended into a masterpiece of boredom. We don't understand why this book, like so many others, is hailed as a classic, when the ideals portrayed in the book could have taken up much less space. It is a typical Dickens composition: long and boring. Though better than Great Expectations, it was still paralyzingly boring. We rest our case.

This argument makes as much sense as this one: If you hate turkey stuffing, you'll hate Beijing.

This review is from: Tale of Two Cities (Dickens Collection) (Paperback)

I feel this could have been a better book had he not been paid for its length. It takes him too long to say simple things. If you hated Old Man and the Sea, you too will hate this.

We may not need another depressing book, but it looks like you need a dictionary. Amirite?

1.0 out of 5 stars A Tale of One City Would Have Been Plenty, October 31, 2006

Suzanne C (Vienna, Va) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Tale of Two Cities (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

Dont buy this book! Or buy it and tear it in two pieces because it is much to long. Wow I mean talk about boreing. Is it the best of times or is it the worst of times? You cant make up you're mind on page one sentence one even!?!

If I am this guys editer I would have told him to just write about the best of times. Thats plenty and people dont need another depressing book in this day and age anyhow.

Only ONE STAR for you but keep trying youll get there!

I have no idea what this means.

1.0 out of 5 stars IT WAS THEN THE SCARLET LETTER, NEED I SAY MORE?, November 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Tale of Two Cities (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

This book was so bad, I considered it bad. MY eyes burned out. I almost was at the point of suciude after the first page. MY friend George suggested I read it for a book report. I didn't relize it was April Fools. Now Goerge is dead.

Nicanor Parra and friends

2011-01-03T14:53:00.004-05:00

Ever hear of this guy? A friend told me I should read his stuff. Friends tell people about these sorts of things. I guess me telling you would then mean I'm your friend. Don't get excited, though. That doesn't mean I like you. I hate most of my friends.

Amazon Wednesday gets hit by a train

2010-12-29T12:03:00.004-05:00

A week off from my blog for the hectic schedule of Christmas leads right into the hectic New Year at work. I have a lot of prep to do at the bar, so that's my excuse this week for lack of posts. But there's no reason to miss out on another chance to make fun of gits on Amazon.

I have gushed about Tolstoy at every turn. I even suggested his masterpiece, War and Peace, was the greatest thing I've ever read. Hyperbole aside, I love his stories, even if he got paid by the page and tended to draw things out on purpose. Certainly in Anna Karenina, more so than WaP, he seems to be writing to hear himself write. Passages are brutally drawn out and if it wasn't for the philosophical ramblings of Levin—a character I truly connected with—the novel would have been, for me, a total bore.

But this philosophy is present, so I am dumbfounded when people don't notice and revel in it. The melodrama takes a back-seat, in my opinion, to the ideas Levin meditates on. Does a learned man have time for politics, since metaphysics and truly deep thought is absent from it? Will a classless society ever truly exist? And should it? isn't life all about distractions, addictions, love and work? These are just some of the notes scribbled in the margins of my Penguin Classic. A person who reads this novel and fails to have a Jack Handy, has missed something. And by something I mean everything.

In the end, I think Tolstoy hoped to tell us that life is not about contemplating the stars, it is about living. One could argue that such a message in a 900-page book drips with irony. I would probably agree. But if I want to waste a little of my life star-gazing, I want it to be while reading Tolstoy.

Oh, the names were too hard! How about keeping some notes, you lazy bum.

1.0 out of 5 stars Too Tedious of a read, July 25, 2009

Elizabeth (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

Couldn't wait for it to end....it was pure drudgery for me...but it was Tolstoy, right? :)

All the Russian names were confusing, and they changed what they called each other....my goodness.

The love story was good, but all the detail about Russian life in the wheat fields and such was just too much for me.

I made my way through it, but it wasn't a pleasurable read...well a few parts weren't bad, but for the most part, I didn't like it.

So was it Leo's fault the book was falling apart?

1.0 out of 5 stars bad shape, October 24, 2008

Randy A. Credico "iconoclast" (new york city) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

the book is a great book even though it has fallen apart piece by piece during my read

Lamb. Picoult. Tolstoy. Yeah, perfect congruence.

1.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly Boring!, August 29, 2005

J. E. Hutton (Pensacola, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

Some of my recent favorite books include: She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

When I picked up Anna Karenina, I thought I might have found a treasure. However, after I started reading it, I found the book to be incredibly boring and hard to follow. There were too many details, none of which were that interesting. I kept skipping through pages of words that seemed to drone on and on just to finish the story. It was a tedious text and extremely disappointing.