Trio

Not sure how it happened, but I recently found myself reading three books at once. Three very different books. I was cheerfully reading through the chick lit book mentioned below and a quick book made up of letters and postcards that's part of the Griffin & Sabine series, then came a plane trip and the need for a small, light mass=market paperback to take. Finished the Chick one, and the new Chuck Palahniuk came in through ILL. Then, within two days, I'd finished all three. Weird.

Chick Lit

What is it about chick lit? THere isn't a specific genre of writing pertaining to men, but we definitely distinguish those books by and about women. Chick lit. After reading Palahnuik's Choke I decided to let the brain mush a bit with some YA chick lit, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I liked it. It was feel-goody teenager lit, and I could close my eyes and imagine the cute boys from the movie. I then picked up an adult chick lit book recommended by a co-worker. THere is a great difference between the YA and the adult kind. The latter is often akin to Sex and the City. My current reading is a memoir by a New York City gal who is recently divorced, Stephanie Klein's Straight Up and Dirty. It really is like Sex and the City, only FAR less annoying and no having to look at Kim Cattrall's old lady tits. Plus Klein is hysterical, especially when describing the men she dates. Carey Bradshaw's running commentary was too nice. She never would have described a man's too-small penis as a button mushroom, and then giggled at the thought later while in bed with him. I like Klein's neuroses, because I have some of them, too. I like her bluntness, her honesty, the fact that admits to most of what's wrong with her. More human than those fembots on HBO.
Every once in a while she groans on about something really stupid and fem-culture and I want to hurl. There is only so much I have in common with my gender, and only so much I can take of them. That's why I don't read too much chick lit. It would get to me. Sci-fi and fantasy I can usually take in large doses and often. But chick lit is usually the same - man troubles, shopping, dieting, how do you take your martini?, sex, shoes, men, bitching about other women. You need to space them out so you can forget what happened in the last one.
Why do we like these books, though? Whether fiction or memoir, most are the same or similar. And all are based heavily on mainstrean media and cultural stereotypes about what our culture really is like. I read these words and am amazed that this is a real woman and not fiction. I think that I learn more about the modern woman through these books. Yeah, I am a modern woman, but I've spent a lot of time estranged from my gender culturally. Not in a trans kind of way. They just tend to annoy me. Books and TV help me remember what people are usually expecting when they look at me and see the breasts.

Thus far Stright up and Dirty is good when she's being funny, and drags when she gets too philosophical. I want to sit with a pencil and annotate it (ie "This is like ex-boyfriend so-and-so") and then give it to my cousin to read and do the same. There are sections, I swear, she could have written.

More intrigue! More postcards!

Alexandria
by Nick Bantock
Book 2 of the Morning Star Trilogy, sequel to the Griffin & Sabine trilogy
San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2002
ISBN: 081183140X

I finished up the second book to the Morning Star trilogy, Bantock's continuation of his Griffin & Sabine story. I wrote about the first trilogy here.
The story continues to keep me guessing, keep me enraptured with these fabulously mystical people and places. And the artwork is just as breathtaking as the first one. I am very sad the the third book is on it's way and this journey will be over. I don't want to wait longer, though, because I want the story to remain fresh in my brain.
I keep going back to the way in which Bantock is telling the story, using the postcards and letters. It makes each page so fun - looking over the beautiful artwork on the postcards and envelopes. Does anyone still send postcards that are more than "Having fun in Florida!" using a fifty cent mass-produced card they bought a tourist store? Or put time and effort in to creating handwritten letters and hand-decorated envelopes? I love ephemera so much and collect vintage and antique post cards. I prefer ones that have been sent over the blank ones. They give dates, provenance, and illuminate a moment in two people's lives. Today we sent emails with e-cards for holidays instead of postcards and letters. I feel nostalgic for times I never saw.
It makes me want to send postcards and letters to people, but also to make them beautiful like the ones I collect or the ones Bantock creates for his books. Sadly I have no artistic abilities at all. I have tried, and failed. They come out looking like a 6yr old got herself into the colored pencils, markers, stickers, etc. Cheesy is a good word for it,infantile as well. Crap and "My eyes, they bleed!" work, too.
I have tried all my life to create beautiful things. I've tried drawing, painting, writing, photography. I am successful at failure, though, and I think I do so beautifully. That's something, right?
Last night while reading one of the letters that you full out of the envelopes, I had that wicked feeling of spying come over me. We, the readers, are looking in to these characters' lives from the outside, reading private thoughts and words. Mayby that is part of what makes the postcard so interesting, though. Private thoughts aren't kept private. The other day someone had one on Post Secret that was about wanting to amuse the postman with his/her Post Secret cards. But the letters definitely give that feeling of voyeurism. Here are words spoken written between lovers, secret information about the mystery not to be found by the mysterious and possible evil Frolotti. Here is life being lived, explained on paper, read by strangers. It almost makes the characters, despite the magic and mysticism, seem more real than in others novels. There are no passages detailing their appearance down to the freckles of their face, Gogolian jaunts into their pasts. And yet I think that I know them more than if even Dickens had sat down to write their tale. Their own words speak to so much.
Collecting things like postcards makes me feel like I am sharing in these people's lives. I am not a part of it, and not quite the voyeur since much of what has occurred did so fifty plus years ago. I am sharing because of the tactile action of holding the card in my hands. I had that feeling, too, last night with Alexandria and reminded myself that the letters had not actually been sent by these people. But all of the books I have read have been borrowed. Though I think that some day I will own the two trilogies, at the moment I get all of them by Interlibrary Loan from the library. They come from public libraries and universities. I don't know if I am the first person to read these, but I feel like there is something special about all us strangers gently taking the stiff folded paper out of the envelope, reading it through, and gently re-folding it and putting it back. I have yet to encounter and of these pages ripped or dirtied in any way. Perhaps in a few years I will seek library copies again, seeing if time changes their condition. There is a library subject classification for books with movable or removable parts. They have decided that these books are special. I think they are because they demand an interaction with the reader, but I think librarians may just view it as "things that can and will get lost."

So writing to someone is sharing, communicating, connecting to them. The book, especially when not privately owned but library borrowed, holds its own form of connecting people. Even when it is owned by one person, it holds that special potential because it may be later sold to a used bookstore, given away, lent to friends, sold at a yard or estate sale. These items live lives beyond our creating, using, and owning them. I love old books, not only because they have pretty leather bindings and such, but because they hold history in their pages, they hold lives. I love it when I find one that years ago was notated in the margins. It's this meta conversation between myself and that distant reader. Sharing with a stranger.

Choke

CHOKE
by: Chuck Palahniuk
Anchor Books, 2002

Finally got to reading Chuck Palahniuk's Choke - just in time for the film! Though I would normally would have gone after Fight Club first, this was highly recommended to me by a devout Palahniuk fan. The only other book of his I've read is Diary, which was dark and funny, but at a dark time for me was also highly disturbing.

Choke was pretty much a blank slate for me. Other than being told that it was about a sex addict, and a great book, I went in knowing nothing. This is probably my favorite way to start a new book. You aren't perverted by the recollections of others, by expectations of certain parts. It's a discovery.

It is difficult to go over this book without giving too much away, and Palahniuk is one of those writers who is always messing with his readers, throwing them curve balls. No story is very straightforward. Saying Choke is about a sex addict is so much of an oversimplification, but to say anything else would mean an essay. It's about addiction, society, hope and the lack thereof, people, relationships, happiness. It's about someone with nothing trying to figure out what the hell it all means. This is a theme that I have found runs through other Palahniuk stories, including Fight Club and Diary. He likes the underdog who never wins, the people scraping the bottom of society's barrel, the bottom feeders to the rest of the world. And can you blame him? Sure I love an good Wodehouse story about good 'ol Bertie, Jeeves, and upper crust homicidal antics, but the really interesting stories come from the underground, from the pathetic folks. And Victor Mancini definitely is pathetic. There is also the element of insanity - who is crazy and who isn't. Crazy can be such a relative term, and a relative state. This is another theme with Palahniuk. And Victor, in my opinion, is a touch.

It is always good to remind oneself that this book is funny. Sometimes during some rants or dark portions it is easy to become wrapped up in Victor's broken mind and get down on life. You need to remember the humor. And if you forget Palahniuk will hit you with something and you'll laugh out loud. It's that dark twisted humor that runs so lightly below the surface that keeps this book going. Victor's best friend, Denny, for example. He is always the butt of everything bad that comes down the pike. He is the ultimate pathetic hilarious figure, in my opinion. The guy that always steps in crap. And he shows up every so often, like the fool in Shakespeare, to lighten the mood a bit. Also like the fool ,he sheds a little wisdom upon the situation, proved some sane compass for Victor at his worst. And in the end we see that maybe the only sane, reasonable person in the entire story is inane Denny, the one addicted to masturbation.

At first I really like our anti-hero. I felt for him, growing up with the crazy mother, going from foster home to foster home. The instability, the lack of affection, the twisted relationship with his mother, it really gives a lot of empathy towards him. You accept that this has led him to be a sex addict, to working at a crappy job. Plus, I like crazy people. They're more interesting. AS the book goes on it really turns more from empathy to annoyance. I wanted to step in and slap him for just being ridiculous most of the time. True, this is part of what makes him a humorous character, and pathetic, but sometimes you want to yell at people to stop thinking and just be. I guess that's why I like Denny and how he plays the role of fool, of balance to Victor's mania.

The style of the book, the first person narrative from Victor, gives such a complete picture of the character and the way he thinks. Even the repetitive forms of speech and thought. They add to his humor as well as his crazy. They make you laugh out loud. The jumping back and forth in time makes you really pay attention to what is happening, and when. I like that he unfolds a story in a jumbled chronology. You are piecing together Victor's history lie a quilt. It makes the book go faster, too. He breaks things up in to small chapters and the story moves along at a good pace. There is no getting bogged down in the mire of Victor's brain, because it's just moving too fast.

Overall Choke was very different than what I'd expected. It was definitely funnier. Let's face it, sex IS funny. And someone addicted to sex is funny. The weird ways people have sex is down right hilarious. And the pathetic will always be funny, no matter how much heart you have for them. I loved the ending. I love the whole thing falling apart and only then the light shining through. It is similar to other Palahniuk endings. He certainly believes in the hitting bottom to rise again idea. But he manages to get there in enough different ways that I keep reading his books.


Now, to lighten the mood, a little YA lit. Am starting The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I never read thing kind of thing as a kid or teen. Better late than never, I guess. Just bought another chic lit book that looks interesting. Trying to change things up a bit.

Comics on the brain?

Over the past few years my friends have tried their best to introduce me to the world of comic books and graphic novels. And though I still cannot stand the ugly, annoying, and confusing superhero ones like X-men and all that, there have definitely been many that have struck my fancy. Though I am not willing to learn 50+ years of back story and character history in order to understand a scene with two Justice League members, a twelve trade series is ok. Certain authors have become favorites, and even some series. I'm v. picky when it comes to comics. The artwork has to grab me or I can't read it. I like books because no one can screw up my view of things with something ugly or garish. And there are still those out there that just are too dumb for words.

So what makes me pick one up? First, who wrote it? If it's by Warren Ellis or Garth Ennis I'll probably read it. I just read a dumber than dumb one-shot by Ellis that he wrote after a joke he made. Seriously, I'll pick up anything of his - it's sick. Garth Ennis is also a sick man, and that makes me love him. He's wicked funny. Yes, I just used the word wicked. The only exception is when they write parts of those superhero series I don't like.
I look to see if it's a title that a friend has recommended. These folks are seriously hard core fans of the comics world. They know the evolution and history of a character going back to the Golden Age. At this point most know what I like and I can trust their recomendations (except Bad World which, though well drawn and well written by Mr Ellis, had burned things into my brain that I'd rather not remember).
As mentioned, the art is a big player. Comics are a visual medium and I'm not about to waste my time reading something if it's surrounded by crappy sketching or blinding neon colors (hello New Mutants ones I needed to read for a game). If you value your writing, you'll find a great artist to present it. I started reading The Authority, created by Warren Ellis. When he wrote it there was an artist that I really enjoyed (Brian Hitch, I think?) who made spreads that could never be captured in a page of words. Then the writer and artist changed and I was done with it. Ew - whoever it was turned every guy into this huge, broad-shouldered, no-neck creature. Couldn't take it.
Story topics, of course, comes in to it. Sure there are a few superhero-type ones, but those are usually the funnier ones (like Hitman) and a little off-beat. I like ones that stretch what the medium is about. Most recently I finished Brian K. Vaughan's Pride of Baghdad. It is about the lions that escaped from teh Baghdad zoo in 2003 and were roaming around the city until shot by US soldiers. It's from the point of view of the lions. It's a unique story and beautifully written. The art by Niko Henrichon is moving. One reason for my love of Ellis, besides his wit, is his using comics to explore what interests him. Space travel, you say? Enter Orbiter (see previous entry) and Ministry of Space. He is almost an anthropologist in his exploration of the world and humanity and everything is fodder for the page.


I have found that far more comics and graphic novels are appearing on my LibraryThing than is really representative of my reading habits, choices, and desires. Warren Ellis has taken over my Author Cloud. Because they are so short and quick, I tend to squeeze in one or two while reading a longer work (I'm still getting through Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass - a late edition with all the addins) or when I'm busy reading parts of reference material for research. No one actually reads those long archaeology tomes cover to cover, I swear! I work in a library and many comics come across my path that I don't seek out, and I just read them quickly before sending them on their way. This is what happened with the two recent ones, Pride of Baghdad and Hitman.

There is some merit to this medium (NOT genre, people). It's another means of conveying story, emotion, meaning. It's not the same as Golden Age Superman anymore.

WHEN I HEARD AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol,. still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd,
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh'd, inging, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I though how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face as inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast - and that night I was happy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TO A STRANGER

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me as of a dream),
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste. matured,
You grew up with me, were a by with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, you body has become not your only not left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe in you me soul, the other i am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
~~~~

~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Song of Whitman - an introduction to American verse

I have indeed started Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The inspiration budded from an exhibit and lecture on him and John Burroughs. Knowing nothing about the lives or writings of either, I found it all v. interesting. Other little moments cumulated to my last post and my need to read this early Whitman classic.

Being such a slow reader I am still in the early portions of "Song of Myself" but I can't help but love it. It's been a while since I really sunk my teeth in to a long verse work and I'm enjoying the extra brain power it takes to process it all. He has this style unlike anything I've read. I guess I just read too many classics (he was so highly criticized when he was first publishing for not writing like everyone else).
The short pieces in the Inscriptions section say so much in so little. I am using a borrowed copy, but I feel that I must dig out my copy (I am told we own it, and I assume that we would) just to line it with book darts on sections that really hit me. I keep forgetting my little tin of them and can't bear to put any post-its in this 1912 copy I am using! Certain passages make me smile in spite of myself. Others seem like he was in my head when he wrote them (only my words are never as beautiful or graceful as his). In 2008 I find such meaning in these old words. That, to me, is the true power of a great writer - timelessness. I know that in his own time critics thought him crude, perverse, and near pornographic. I see passages that may have seemed that way then, but today of course seem tame. Sometimes it takes a sharp and shocking image to make an idea clear - often a tame idea, at that!


WHEN I READ THE BOOK
When I red the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little of nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)

This came from the man before John Burroughs read Leaves of Grass, before he wrote copious pages on the life of Whitman and defensing his work. How ironic! Barely read in his own time, Whitman today is considered such an American treasure, so beloved! How terrible, too, that at age 24 I am only reading him for the first time (save for "O Captain! My Captain!" which I should have learned in school BUt I think I read it on my own. It was in a book called What you 5th grader ought to know something that I feel should be given to public school boards. I mean, who hasn't at least heard of it?? It, too, is in this book! I never knew!)

Why isn't he more widely taught? We teach English poetry so much in schools, why not the poets of this country? While you're banging through "The Road Less Taken" add some Whitman in the mix for comparison. He lived and wrote during such a fascinating and dynamic period in our history, making his own path through the wilderness of writing. I didn't take American literature in college (Renaissance, Japanese, and Russian) but I feel like he should be covered in high school. I think that his straightforward style would be v. teachable to that age, and appealing. I don't think that "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is really the style that will inspire students in this day and age to write poetry. It is beautiful, of course. I loved it at once. But I know that any poem beginning with 'Thou' automatically makes half the students roll their eyes or fall asleep. Whitman feels, at times, like he could have written it last month, not a hundred years ago.


Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.
...


I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.


I will continue this journey through American poetry. It feels almost like a journey through myself.