READIN

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006

A really nice thing about Carson McCullers is her range. I said yesterday she was reminding me of J.D. Salinger -- and was reminded of him again this morning when I was reading "The Jockey" -- but not at all last night, when I was reading "Untitled Piece". All of it feels somehow familiar, but the linkages it is calling up are all over the place and most of the time, I am not certain where they are pointing.

posted morning of August 8th, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, August 6th, 2006

Carson McCullers is a name I have always had floating around in my consciousness as somebody I ought to read and would probably like. I've always associated her with Flannery O'Connor as a female southern writer of short stories from the mid-20th century. But come to find out, she is not really like O'Connor too much. This is kind of out of left field but I'm thinking her writing reminds me a bit of J. D. Salinger's.

I have not read any Salinger in a number of years -- but the thing I remember best about it is the excellent description of people feeling discomfort around other people and failing to connect with them. And I'm picking up on that same discomfort as a major them in the few McCullers stories I have read so far. I think there is a similar way of using language too, but I might just be making that up. McCullers is (thankfully) missing the stuff that annoys me about Salinger -- the precious Glass family situation and the bogus mysticism.

I am wishing now, that I had read these stories as an adolescent -- thinking they might have been really helpful.

posted evening of August 6th, 2006: Respond

On Wednesday the 23rd at 8, Jennifer Egan will be reading from The Keep at Rocky Sullivan's, 28th and Lexington. If you're interested in meeting up there, drop me a line.

posted morning of August 6th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, August 5th, 2006

🦋 Southern authors

At last year's Unfogged meetup, I arrived carrying a copy of Flannery O'Connor's collected short novels -- I had been reading The Violent Bear It Away that morning, and I gave the book to John Emerson, since I had a couple of other copies of the same material. By a weird coincidence, yesterday morning I started reading Carson McCullers' Collected Stories, so I had it in hand when I arrived at the Unfogged meetup. I came away with the book still in hand though -- fortunate since it is looking like a great read.

I'm a bit pissed at The Gingerman (bar where the meetup was held), or at myself (for not divining that Gingerman would not allow children in) or something. My meetup experience only lasted until 6:00, when Ellen and Sylvia showed, at which point the weirdly hovering waitress informed us they had a over-21-only policy. So I only got to chat with Jackmormon and with Teofilo, too bad. We went over to the Pierrepont-Morgan library, where there is currently an excellent show of Rembrandt's drawings. I was very taken with his "Monk in the Cornfield", which could almost have been drawn by R. Crumb. Dropped by The Gingerman briefly on the way home, where I had a nice chat with LB and Becks, and got to meet Adam Ash.

posted afternoon of August 5th, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, August third, 2006

🦋 The Last Chapter, the First Chapter

So Bookslut (in the person of Maureen McClarnon) thinks The Keep would be a better book without the final chapter. And I can sort of see where Ms. McClarnon is coming from -- the end of Chapter 15 would make an excellent book ending. And 16 takes the book off in a new direction. But, well, I like the new direction. I've been wanting throughout the first 15 chapters to learn more about Holly. I'm glad 16 is in there.

On the train this evening I took a look back at Chapter 1 and was shocked all over again, at what a beautiful piece of writing this is. The structure of the whole book is contained in the first chapter, in amazingly compact miniature. Ray's first intrusion into the narrative -- wow! Also -- I looked through the book and realized that there really is not a lot of space devoted to Ray's story; it stands out in an exaggerated way, in my memory of the book.

posted evening of August third, 2006: Respond
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I finished The Keep this morning on the way in to work; and let me just say: wow. What a perfectly crafted book this is. I want very much to read more by Egan -- I am going to lean on Ellen about finding her copy of Look at Me. And hope she writes more novels soon.

posted morning of August third, 2006: Respond

Wednesday, August second, 2006

I am ripping my way through The Keep -- it is utterly mesmerizing reading. Danny's paranoia and half-hearted fight against same has me nodding in sympathy; I'm anxious to find out what links his story up with Ray his author's.

posted evening of August second, 2006: Respond

A note on The Keep: I very strongly identify with Danny's relationship to the telephone/internet -- the bit where he gets his satellite hook-up working and listens to his voicemail, with a combined feeling of "wow messages for me!" and "oh god, this again" resonated for me. Also I think Danny would be right at home in the comments at Unfogged. (Indeed I am tentatively identifying him with coolest-guy-I-know Joe D., although the resemblance is admittedly inexact.) (And speaking of people I know in the story: Ray's cellmate talks exactly in Bill's voice. Not skinny like Bill but.)

posted morning of August second, 2006: Respond

Tuesday, August first, 2006

Tristram is born, maimed and misnamed; and I am lapping the reading group. So let's leave him to his own devices a little while, when A White Bear puts up her Volume II post I will return there. In the meantime: this weekend I read a book review that interested me very strongly. So today, when Jennifer Egan's The Keep was published, I went by Coliseum Books and picked it up. (I believe it is the second book I have ever bought on the day of its publication, the other one was Mason & Dixon.)

Started the book on the way home and am being blown away by it. Funny, this is the second book I've read recently in which the protagonist is just my age. (The other was Absurdistan.) This is giving me a funny sense of generational presence that I have not felt before. (Note -- Shteyngart is indeed my coeval; Egan is a couple of years older than I.)

Ellen read Egan's Look at Me previously, and doesn't remember much about it except that she loved it, and thinks she has it around the house.

posted evening of August first, 2006: Respond
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Friday, July 28th, 2006

This is exciting: Gary Shteyngart has an op-ed in today's Times.

posted morning of July 28th, 2006: Respond

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