Chicago Ex-Patriate

Challenging the Challenged (Books)

2012-01-26T09:48:00.011-06:00

In recent years, via this blog and social media platforms, I've enjoyed supporting Banned Books Week, the annual highlight of excellent literature coming under fire for "questionable" material. I've shared links, I've lent my moral support, and that has been the general extent of my efforts. However, in recent weeks, there have been sobering reminders of the need to consistently support the right to read, not just during a single week in the fall. Two stories have been garnering a lot of attention, and they reflect two different sets of communities, two different sets of problems, and the shared problem of a lack of reading material for students, coming in the form of bans/challenges, and a school district budget cut with underlying political tones. I've been reviewing the various articles, and I genuinely hoped to make honest assessments on my take on the issues. Granted, the image I used above may seem a bit drastic, but I genuinely tried to see both sides of the issue. I'm sure some critics would accuse me of liberally jumping to conclusions, but something is truly amiss in these communities.

In Arizona, the Tuscon Unified School District cut an ethnic studies program focusing on Mexican-American studies, and while initial claims of a book ban have been denied, the availability of certain materials has been drastically diminished. I sent this e-mail to a spokeswoman for the Tuscon Unified School district:

"I recently read your statement that the books that were "banned" by the Tuscon Unified School District were in fact not banned, yet are readily available through the district's library systems. However, a Salon article (http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/tucson_says_banished_books_may_return_to_classrooms/) states that there are few copies readily available. Would you be able to comment on this?

Also, is there any truth to the consistent reports of a crackdown on "politically sensitive" material? If not, is there a reason why the school district has cut the ethnic studies program, for reasons not financial?

I appreciate your time."

I received no reply to this, but I'm sure the district was swamped with e-mails and telephone calls.

Budget cuts are not the same as outright book banning; however, it's telling that the majority of the titles listed were takes on contemporary Mexican-American culture, and that "The book ban is part of a curriculum change to avoid 'biased, political and emotionally charged' teaching, CNN reported." I'm obviously not an educator, and I refuse to make any outlandish assumptions about the nature of Arizona's political stances in relation to their school districts. But cuts to a studies program that focuses on Mexican-American history, a history like any other that has both good and bad happenings, would potentially cut classroom discussions of discrimination and the role of immigrants in this country. Again, that's an assumption, but I find it difficult to comment otherwise when every article I've read takes such a strong stance. The district is vehemently denying the ban, but educators (as quote in the linked article) are distressed over the missed educational opportunities. With such a tense battle in that state, the real losers are the students, when the chance to actively engage themselves in intelligent studies are being denied. Naturally, historical discussions have no choice but to examine the conflicting sides of events and politics. I don't think it's too outlandish to say that a requirement for "unbiased" materials would do away with critical assessments of our country's history in favor of a more sanitary study. But again, even that seems to have gone out the window, since the program has been eliminated altogether.

Via Twitter, I follow the articles and postings of Anna Leigh Clark, an excellent writer, blogger, and journalist based in Detroit. Before I read about the Arizona ban, she posted a link to her own blog posting about a community challenge of the books Beloved (Toni Morrison) and Waterland (Graham Swift)
. I've only read parts of Beloved, and I have not read Waterland, but parents in a Michigan community are attempting to have the books banned because of sexual and violent content. Clark's views of Morrison's content very much mirror what I attempted to convey above in my opinions about the Arizona cuts:

"According to the report from the school hearing, the parents also criticized what they saw as "gratuitous sex and violence in the book." This is startling, given that Beloved is pointedly about slavery, rape, and how state-sponsored human ownership influenced those who lived in its immediate aftermath -- particularly seen in how characters come to terms with living in their own bodies, bodies legally not their own for so long. To tell a story about this era in a way that does not integrate violence and sexuality would simply not be honest."

These are not second graders being assigned these titles (and themes); we're dealing with high school students. The easy answer is to say that high schoolers are likely familiar with notions and depictions of sex and violence. But a move to ban these titles goes much farther. For better and for worse, sexuality and violence are parts of life, and in the context of the two books would undoubtedly lead to (again) debates and discussions about themes that do not fit into tidy, unoffensive boxes. We should applaud readers and students who are undoubtedly able to discuss these ideas logically and openly. What is the point of keeping these books (and by extension, the ideas) hidden? If the books are banned within the school, then they're easily available via bookstores and public libraries. In my ongoing career in bookselling, I applaud teenagers who buy challenging works and express enthusiasm. The point of art is to provoke and educate, and if the parents in this district have their way, I would hope the students would read more because of the uproar. Discussions and debates exist because ideas are not always black and white. My best, most influential English teachers from years past were my favorites because of their emphasis on diverse readings and issues that were stimulating and thought-provoking.

I could go on, but I feel as if I've made my points. This country is in dire need of critical thinkers, and these cuts and bans will have the opposite effect. This is 2012, and I'm saddened to realize that there is still this mythical effort to "protect the children" by doing away with pieces of literature that present real histories and problems. One commentator on Ms. Clark's blog made reference to "explicit materials" and applauded the removal via a blog called "Safe Libraries." I'm sure that a lot of people will roll their eyes at my piece, assuming that I'm merely engaging in knee-jerk liberal outrage. But my overall message is for any students who may stumble across this post: don't be safe. Read whatever you can get your hands on. Think. Debate. Assess. This country will be better for it.

"The Art Of Fielding:" Chad Harbach's Hit Parade

2012-01-21T08:34:00.011-06:00

It's very difficult to think of a novel debut that has received the sort of instant praise that came with Chad Harbach's The Art Of Fielding. That's not to say that first novels don't amaze, but normally there is the necessity for attention to build after a publication date. After its early praise and enthusiastic recommendations from my friends, I put the work on my "to-read" list. As is normally the case, I wasn't able to get to it right away, and as its fall publication turned it into one of the holiday season's best-sellers, I found myself to be a bit wary. There is good hype and bad hype, and I was slightly worried that the novel's near-unanimous praise was pushing it into a potential disappointment (I still haven't read or heard anything negative about it, but as is the case with any work, I know it has dissenting voices). Normally, I focus on my own excitement over a piece of writing, but in this case, getting numb to the constant praise seemed to make The Art Of Fielding that much more enjoyable. By going into it with a level head, I was able to let its story and surprises reveal themselves slowly. Having finished it last week, I'm still amazed at how Harbach combined contemporary elements into what feels like an older, established novel.

Henry Skrimshander is the star shortstop for the Division III Westish Harpooners baseball team, a perennial underachiever that has slowly become a championship contender. Throughout boyhood and high school, Henry's defense had served as his best asset, aided by constant practice and by a book called The Art Of Fielding, written by Aparicio Rodriguez, a former All-Star shortstop with the St. Louis Cardinals. As Henry gets stronger (his hitting improves as his team does), he is heavily scouted and projected to be an early Major League draft pick. His teammates have their own unique traits and stories. Mike Schwartz, the catcher and team captain, deals with the aches and pains of being a football and baseball player,is attempting to get into law school, and serves as Henry's mentor. Owen Dunne, Henry's roommate, is openly gay and primarily rides the bench, reading books during games, yet manages to remain a vital part of the team. Adam Starblind (Harbach has a unique system of names that mirrors the offbeat names of baseball players past and present) is their number one pitcher.

Guert Affenlight is the Westish school president, a Melville scholar (hence the team name) who finds himself in a tender and rushed affair with Owen, and these personal complications are both aided and harmed by the unexpected arrival of his daughter Pella, who's fleeing her broken marriage. Pella and Mike quickly become enamored with each other, and these separate affairs become heightened when the sure-handed Henry accidentally throws a routine grounder into the dugout, striking Owen in the face and landing him in the hospital. This seeming unnatural error spirals Henry into a case of Steve Blass disease, leading to personal and existential crises for everyone involved. Relationships become strained, the team struggles to keep their momentum going despite Henry's crumbling defense, and the novel becomes a narrative of the characters' individual and collective pursuits of happiness and confrontations of open and secret problems. All throughout, Harbach manages to combine exceptional narratives of baseball and academia through the sympathetic characters.

While the team's championship run holds the plot lines together, it's far too easy (and potentially misleading) to call The Art Of Fielding a "baseball book," but Harbach's descriptions of the game's actions are superior and realistic without resorting to grandeur. Baseball is too often discussed and written in mythical qualities, but in this book, it's done naturally and realistically:

"Before the pitch he stood at ease, glove on his hip, his face round and windburned and open, delivering instructions or encouragement to his teammates with a relaxed smile. But as the ball left the pitcher's hand his face went blank. The chatter stopped midword. In one motion he yanked his navy cap with its harpoon-skewered W toward his eyes and dropped into a feline crouch, thighs parallel to the field, glove brushing the dirt. He looked low to the ground but light on his feet, more afloat than entrenched. The pitch was fouled back, but not before he had taken two full steps to his left, toward the place where he anticipated the ball to be headed. None of the other infielders had moved an inch (Harbach 68)."

This is a character-driven novel, and is strongly assured for a debut, especially since all of the characters have the potential to be rendered in cliche or stereotype. The relationship between Owen and Guert, while seemingly doomed from the start, transcends their gender and becomes a realization that their positions (school president, student, and their age difference) render anything serious to be impossible. But it's a relationship not solely based on sex, but on mutual appreciation. Guert is worried that he's having a midlife crisis, but their meetings are beautiful and show signs of a genuine compatibility.

"Part of Affenlight felt peeved at Owen for interrupting or dismissing his bliss. Because it was bliss, he felt, to be here with Owen and to read to him, even when he was reading dry-as-dust sentences from a poorly xeroxed course packet. Of all the activities two people could do together in private, Affenlight had a special fondness for reading aloud. Maybe this was part of his instinct for solitude and self-enclosure; a way to reveal himself while hiding behind someone else's words (Harbach 218-219)."

Pella is the only major female character in the novel, and again, her makeup is one that could veer on insulting, especially with the emphasis of the past few years on the lack of dynamic female characters in contemporary fiction. Pella has a strained relationship with her father, and her personal relationships are fraught with unhappiness. However, she acknowledges this outright and comes to Westish in order to forge her own path. She takes classes and works as a campus dishwasher despite her father being the school president and a previous life of comfort with her ex-husband. She's determined to be strong and to be her own person, even as her relationship with Mike hits a few serious bumps along the way. From the beginning, she and Mike seem to make an excellent match, and this description of him manages to unintentionally apply to Pella as well:

"Schwartz prided himself on his honesty. If one of his teammates was dogging it, he busted that teammate's balls, and if one of his classmates or professors made a comment that seemed specious or incomplete, he said so. Not because he knew more than they did but because the clash of imperfect ideas was the only way for anyone, including himself, to learn and improve. That was the lesson of the Greeks (Harbach 102)."

Henry's descent into realizing a potential world without baseball manages to tie in nicely to the literary/academic world of Westish. Athletes, like humanities majors, are often told to have backup plans in case their ambitions don't work out in "the real world." With Henry, baseball is like literature for some people: he simply cannot imagine functioning without it, and it leads him into his own existential gloom, literally roaming around trying to make sense of an alternate reality. Again, much like baseball is often too romanticized (and I say that as a serious baseball fan myself), there is often a tendency to over-emphasize baseball's relationship to literature. However, this is where Harbach succeeds. His writing sometimes winks to this, but is predominantly grounded. Much like the above passage linking Mike and Pella, some passages manage to reflect multiple themes. This one deftly combines the ideals of baseball and writing without being obvious:

"Talking was like throwing a baseball. You couldn't plan it out beforehand. You just had to let go and see what happened. You had to throw out words you knew no one would catch. you had to send your words out where they weren't yours anymore. It felt better to talk with a ball in your hand, it felt better to let the ball do the talking. But the world, the nonbaseball world, the world of love and sex and jobs and friends, was made of words (Harbach 420)."

Chad Harbach is the co-founder and editor of the excellent literary and political journal n+1, and had been working on The Art Of Fielding for over ten years, and the amazement over the novel stems from both its contents and its completeness, a rarity for a first-time novelist. It was initially praised by Jonathan Franzen, and a few months back, a humorous web article stated that people who loved The Art Of Fielding were readers who were just waiting for the next Franzen novel. However, I don't see any immediate similarities between the two. Franzen tends to make his characters unsympathetic at first, until their situations, histories, and developments redeem them. Harbach's characters are all immediately likable, even with their faults. Franzen works in a style that is immediately contemporary and fits well into current conditions; with the exception of the occasional mention of an iPhone or Scott Boras, there are stretches of The Art Of Fielding that feel as if they could be set in any era. With that in mind, it's stunning how the novel works as a contemporary study as well as an unabashed homage to classic literature (however, I personally don't buy the connection between the title and Henry Fielding, of which much has been made in more than a few reviews). That's not to say that the novel is without faults. Harbach manages to write some hilarious dialogue and scenes, but occasionally falls flat (an early passage hints at characters having sex, when in reality they're weightlifting), and I found the ending to be slightly implausible, even if its emphasis is on the metaphor (sorry to be vague, but even now, a revelation would be a major spoiler). However, these missteps are minor. Harbach has written a work that contains almost everything one could want in a novel, and hits the rare mark of being both intellectual and vastly entertaining, and, returning to Franzen, represents one of my favorite sentences: "You call it art, I call it entertainment, we both turn the pages."

Work Cited:
Harbach, Chad. The Art Of Fielding. Copyright 2011 by Chad Harbach.

"The Whore of Akron:" Poor Soul

2012-01-12T12:18:00.009-06:00

Going into my reading of The Whore Of Akron, Scott Raab's latest book on the affects of LeBron James' 2010 signing with the Miami Heat, I had a feeling that the work would go in one of two possible directions. One of those directions was a sociological and psychological look at the city of Cleveland and the harsh business realities of contemporary professional sports. The second direction, which proved to be all too accurate, especially in hindsight, was a grating, uncomfortable rant against an athlete whom people wanted to deliver a long-awaited championship to Cleveland. I even hoped the book's title would turn out to be a slight exaggeration. To clarify: I'm still a passionate basketball fan, and am genuinely excited that the 2011-2012 NBA season has kicked off. No one team, not even the Miami Heat, is dominating the headlines early into this shortened season. It's an open, even season so far, with clusters of games testing every team, and the usual mix of potential playoff teams exceeding (or receding) on early expectations. Back in July of 2010, LeBron James had a public relations disaster when he announced his signing with the Miami Heat on a nationally televised special, and the Heat pretty much crowned themselves champions before training camps opened. Everyone, myself included, had opinions on this, and now that there's a new season (the Heat lost in the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks), Miami doesn't seem to be getting any more attention than any other talented team. The timing of the book's release seemed appropriate. Enough time has passed for true reflections, but in this case, the emotions are still bitter, and then some.

Raab is a contributor for Esquire magazine, so there is an excellent chance that I've read his work before and just don't recall his specific articles. I've never read anything in that magazine that I've heavily disliked, so I'm sure he has had more than one piece that I've enjoyed, or at least tolerated. The subtitle of The Whore Of Akron is "One Man's Search For the Soul of LeBron James," and the opening paragraph is gripping, giving hints to the very themes I was hoping to read more of as the pages progressed, but the reference to Rebecca Romijn sticks out awkwardly in an otherwise terrific passage, and it becomes a prevailing theme in the book: hints of excellence marred by weird personal flights.

"I no more chose to be a Clevelander and a Cleveland fan than I chose to be a Jew transfixed by leggy shiksas. It is my birthright, my legacy, my destiny. My fate was cast in 1964 on a Sunday afternoon at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, while Canadian gusts swept across Lake Erie and through the mammoth double-decked bowl in damp, endless circles cold enough to stiffen snot. I have seen Paris at dusk; I have prayed at the Wailing Wall; I have behold the twin scoops of Rebecca Romijn's vanilla ass; yet never have I been so transported, never so ecstatic, as on December 27, 1964, when the Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts and won the NFL World Championship (Raab 3)."

According to the book's dust jacket, Raab is supposed to be one of the last remaining representatives of Gonzo journalism, but while he fixes himself into the account at multiple times, rarely, if ever, does it reflect the atmosphere of Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson wrote about himself at length: his penchant for drugs and alcohol, his love of guns and explosives, etc. But the emphasis was always on his excellent writing, and his personal narratives never distracted from the main themes or topics. And most importantly, Thompson's personal writings were never self-serving. Raab, on the other hand, keeps reminding the reader of his own sordid details: his fluctuating weight; his affinity for his wife's handjobs; his reckless youth marred by a troubled family and years of substance abuse; and so on. If this was supposed to be a memoir, that would be one thing. But right now, nobody would be faulted for forgetting that this is supposed to be about LeBron James. Raab documents his attempts to interview LeBron, and, after some explicit Twitter messages directed toward the player, his media credentials being revoked by the Miami Heat. Yes, James damaged the morale of a troubled city by humiliating its citizens on his TV special. But after pages upon pages of Raab's harsh and downright violent fantasies, LeBron actually comes across like a sympathetic figure, as sympathetic as a savvy multi-millionaire can be. Take passages like this:

"Enough? Too much. Too much, to ask LeBron to carry a team, and too much to ask him to satisfy the yearning for redemption of millions, and too much--way too much--to ask him to comport himself with any measure of grace or grit in the wake of abject failure. Bad enough? Fucking ridiculous. Our warrior: a feckless child stunted by a narcissism so ingrained that he's devoid of the capacity to respond to failure with even a semblance of manhood. The fans are spoiled? In King James's playhouse, there are no mirrors (Raab 101)."

Raab is trying to play the role of a passionate, lifelong fan of Cleveland sports. He carries around the ticket stub to the aforementioned Browns Championship game. He screams in the press box at stadiums, glares at James during news conferences, and gloats in the player's every misstep. Yes, fans are passionate, and perhaps Raab is trying to highlight how conflicted, lost people find solace in civic community and common ground via professional athletics. But his shortcomings are so documented and examined, in such graphic detail, that one ends up feeling sorry for him, even though he's overcome so much to become a family man and a professional writer. But when he documents passing fantasies of crushing James' skull with a folding chair, said passion becomes everything wrong with the world of sports. The issue of race is touched upon, but only briefly. When Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert blasted James in an open letter to the city of Cleveland, black commentators likened his anger to that of a slave master. Raab mentions this in passing, but a fascinating, if melodramatic, metaphor that could have yielded excellent discussion is passed by.

There are so many times in the book when there is the potential for journalistic or personal analysis, but said potential goes unrealized far too often. He makes plausible comparisons between tribes (Jewish tribes, ethnic enclaves within the city of Cleveland, and a name even reflected in the Cleveland Indians baseball team), but whenever the glimpse of insight appears, it's quickly lost in shouting and scary bitterness, and these conflicting atmospheres, as with the opening paragraph, sometimes reside right next to each other.

"People living in suburbs flung far from downtown--on both sides of the Cuyahoga River--now drive into the city to see the Cavs and get a bite to eat. They are loud, happy, proud to be part of a city many of them left behind decades ago. They are no longer from Rocky River or Solon or Avon Lake or Chagrin Falls; every last mother's son of them is proud to be from Cleveland, motherfucker. Cleveland (Raab 84)."

Is this entire review messy and lacking transition? If so, I apologize, but it was difficult for me to mentally outline this review, let alone tackle it. It's rare that I read a book that I find to be worthy of such consistent criticism, but this book will only speak to Cleveland fans or people who still harbor resentment towards LeBron James. I'm not defending him: as a Bulls fan, he's an opposing player I love to hate, and after the Heat defeated the Bulls in the playoffs last year, I was happy that Dallas took the championship over the makeshift All-Star "team." But one has to realize that people like Raab have lambasted him since then, and few people have the platform as a writer that Raab has used to offer what promised to be an exploration, but fell into a mess of problems. As I've said before, I'm a firm believer in constructive criticism. I'm not hiding behind a blog or an avatar, and I always welcome critiques of my own writing. What angers me the most about The Whore of Akron is that Raab displays the occasional flash of talented analysis, but willfully chooses to come across like any bile-spewing sports fan. Sports writing is a field that has only a handful of consistently good authors, and there is so much more that this book could have done had Raab calmed down or edited some of his exceedingly vitriolic prose. Leave the blind hate to troll comments on sports websites. Mr. Raab, you've come so far, as you've personally documented. Surely you could have done so much better.

Work Cited:
Raab, Scott. The Whore Of Akron. Copyright 2011 by Scott Raab.

Weak, With Marilyn

2012-01-04T11:36:00.002-06:00

I've never give much thought to Marilyn Monroe, not as an actress or as a sex symbol (a term I tend to loathe anyhow). As I've written about with James Dean, in today's landscape Monroe has become a tangible commodity who people try to pass off as intangible. There are those tired lists of the sexiest women of all time, the unabashed, decades-long marketing, and far too many books, photo collections, and consistent retrospectives. Harsh? Possibly, so in that case, why did I actively seek out a viewing of Simon Curtis' latest film My Week With Marilyn? I read some genuine praise for Michelle Williams' performance, and I still, a year later, think back to Blue Valentine and get chills. Also, the film seemed to promise more the trappings of a biopic, focusing on the 1956 filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, a Hollywood vehicle for actor/director Laurence Olivier. I have not read either of Colin Clark's two memoirs about working with Monroe, but if they're anything like the film, they would reek of fantasy and fluff, with so much below the surface waiting to be explored.

The film opens with Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), an idealistic young Brit who yearns for a career in the film business instead of following his stodgy family into academia. He manages to appeal himself into an assistant spot on the production of Olivier's (Kenneth Branagh) The Prince and The Showgirl. The hope for everyone involved is for the film to accomplish two goals: one, to provide Monroe with more esteemed acting opportunities, and for Olivier to broaden his scope with a mainstream Hollywood film. When she arrives in England, problems start almost immediately. Her marriage to Arthur Miller is shaky from the beginning, she's constantly late to the set or affected by an assortment of pills, and to the chagrin of Olivier, she's constantly followed and prepped by Method teacher Paula Strasberg. As Monroe's insecurities and clashes with Olivier mount, she becomes increasingly erratic and withdrawn. When Miller leaves to visit his children, she escapes to the English countryside and asks Colin (who is attempting to be a mediator between her and Olivier) to join her, hoping to have someone on her side as she copes with her personal struggles and attempts to complete the film. Naturally, he finds himself falling for her, and it's up to the viewer to ascertain whether it's puppy love or a true connection.

I'll begin with the positives. Michelle Williams is an extremely talented actress, and while this isn't her best role, she succeeds in her portrayal. I'm sure there are more than a handful of blurbs that say she "inhabits" the role, but in reality, she manages to portray Monroe as most people would imagine her being in real life. She's insecure and seemingly bipolar, but with a naturally flirtatious air and a desire to be taken seriously, both as an actress and as a human being. The physical resemblance is impressive, and Williams adds a flair for the melodramatic, but not in a negative way. When she's happy and confident, she bubbles over with enthusiasm. When she's depressed and withdrawn, she hovers near a seemingly suicidal low. Given that the "mystique" of Monroe has been portrayed many times, the role works best when the focus is on her acting and preparation. Toward the film's end, the insecure side dominates and veers into the "expected" down moments, but through no fault of Williams, but rather writer Adrian Hodges (more on him later). Branagh doesn't quite resemble Olivier, but portrays him not as an artistic tyrant, but rather as someone with little patience doing his best to make the film proceed. Branagh obviously has fun with the role and does well with his interpretation, especially since Olivier's off-screen persona isn't as heavily documented as Monroe's.

Two other performances are small, yet enjoyable: Zoë Wanamaker portrays acting coach Paula Strasberg, and while her strict adherence to coaching Monroe in the Method is portrayed comically, it's fun to see the clash between her and Olivier. In one scene, Strasberg playfully bows in front of Monroe and raves about her genius as a true actress. Instead of being a true guide, she's merely paying her lip service, and putting far too much stock into Monroe's role in what everyone assumes will be a forgettable film. Judi Dench offers a very sweet interpretation of Sybil Thorndike, an actress who also attempts to mediate between Monroe and Olivier. At first, her casting seemed to be based on mere recognition, but Dench plays Thorndike skillfully and comically.

The rest of the film is either downhill or full of unrealized potential. Combined with the above positives, My Week With Marilyn feels like a mash-up of a good film and a bad one, since there are so many alternating ups and downs. Eddie Redmayne does alright as Colin, being affable and genuine, but the character is written in a far too stereotypical manner (the young man who wants to be an artist). Colin attempts to romance Lucy (Emma Watson in a role that does nothing but give her some non-Harry Potter screen time), but is turned down when rumors of a romance between him and Monroe surface. This all seems to lead up to nothing but the chance for Lucy to offer the usual line of "you needed to have your heart broken). The same goes for Dominic Cooper, who was also in a vastly superior British period piece An Education. There is nothing for him to do except offer a terribly written warning to Colin not to be seduced by Monroe, given her history of romancing and disappointing men. The role of Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) comes to its acme when, before he leaves, he crushes Marilyn with handwritten critiques of her acting. This is a major part of Monroe's legacy, her desire for intellectual development, yet the scene is played as a generic insecurity.

The majority of the film's faults lie in screenwriter Adrian Hodges. At its worst, his dialogue is terribly cliched and prone to obvious, "dramatic" declarations of love, opinions, and warnings. These critiques become so much more obvious when balanced alongside some of the well-written scenes. The screenplay could have been superior, but gets weighed down with his need to inject words that are almost insulting to the audience, since aforementioned declarations have clearly been shown onscreen and are not needed to be summarized. Also, the ending title screens mention Monroe's classic performance in Some Like It Hot and Olivier's successful Broadway run and hint that their successes were due to working on The Prince and the Showgirl, even though there's no suggestion in the film that either actor made any real creative breakthroughs. If Hodges' screenplay had been completely terrible, that would have been more understandable. Instead, he did write some hilarious lines and genuinely good scenes, and it's perplexing how the film manages to hold such good and bad developments.

Simon Curtis' direction fluctuates just as much. He ties himself to the screenplay and offers no real personal touches. The ones he does add, however, are fleeting. The filming scenes were actually filmed at the original studio where The Prince and the Showgirl was made, which adds a nice atmosphere of authenticity. Returning to the idea of Monroe's desire for intellectual growth, there are a few scenes that carefully show a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses on her bedside table, and the shots of the English countryside are undeniably beautiful. Otherwise, the movie is shot in a very textbook fashion. His work isn't terrible, but rarely offers any unique atmosphere or production design that blends with the action instead of being a prop to it. And this is a petty gripe, but there are far too many movies that show a character (in this case, early scenes of Colin) being inspired at the movies by sitting in a theater and having his or her face illuminated by the screen.

I always try my best to offer constructive criticism on anything that I review less than favorably. My Week With Marilyn came so close to realizing a lot of potential and so close to exploring famous characters in new ways. It was frustrating to be given a glimpse into something that could have been examined compellingly, only to have the filmmakers quickly move into obvious territory. The biggest error, though, is the constant dialogue that wants to be dramatic and ends up being just as melodramatic as a poor 1950s film. The actors involved are talented, but are unable to elevate the missteps behind the camera. My Week With Marilyn could have been superior, but ultimately feels rushed and pandering. It's worth seeing for its good qualities, but these are too few and far between to warrant a higher recommendation.

2011 Readings, 2012 Goals

2012-01-02T11:34:00.006-06:00

Right after I shared Jeremy's write-ups on Instafiction's best stories of 2011, he posted a list of the books he read in 2011. I had posted a quick summary of my own readings on Facebook, but when I saw Jeremy's classifications, I felt moved to provide my own list here. Jeremy provided some tiered categories for his own readings: 'Masterpiece,' 'Great,' 'Very Good,' and 'Good With Reservations.' I'm going to copy those designations, but with a small caveat: I'm going by my feelings at this very moment, so a given classification may or may not match with the critical emotions of my previous reviews. I read 21 books this year, which is down from my total of 31 in 2010. If I can bump my total up to 25 or so this year, I'll be pleased. I'm not sure why there was such a drastic drop, but some of the books were very time consuming (in a good way), and I'm still fighting a never-ending battle with my filing cabinet of New Yorker back issues. Here goes:

MASTERPIECE:

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

GREAT:

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead

VERY GOOD:

Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Caclida Jetha

Ararat By Louise Glück

As She Climbed Across the Table and The Ecstasy Of Influence by Jonathan Lethem

Tin House #37: The Political Future (various contributors)

Collected Poems by Paul Auster

Hermit In Paris by Italo Calvino

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

GOOD WITH RESERVATIONS:

My Life As An Experiment by A.J. Jacobs

03 by Jean-Christophe Valtat

Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan

Smoking Typewriters by John McMillian

Oh What a Paradise It Seems by John Cheever

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

There Is No Year by Blake Butler

My goals for 2012 are pretty modest. There are a lot of 2011 books that I want to finish early in the year (I'm just about to begin Chad Harbach's The Art Of Fielding), including Ready, Player One, Zone One, The Marriage Plot, and Open City. I also want to squeeze in more nonfiction, especially world history, contemporary politics, and writings by black and female artists. My November publication in The Chicago Reader has sparked a desire to increase my freelance work, and if I can do so and help Instafiction at the same time, so much the better. As for my own fiction, I have a lot of ideas and half-sketched stories that need attention. That is all I'm going to say about my creative endeavors, since my history has been one of talking a lot about it, but without actually having much to show for it.

Are you a reader or an artist? Do you have a reading list from 2011, or a list of resolutions and creative goals? I'd love to read your notes. Comment away.

"There Is No Year:" The Ups and Downs of Blake Butler

2011-12-29T11:26:00.008-06:00

My final post of 2010 was a look at two aspects of literature--Karen Russell and Tin House--that I became fond of and looked forward to reading more of in 2011. This final post of 2011 is sort of the same. My work with Instafiction has been a joint project of discoveries. I'm now familiar with some excellent writers (David Yost and Jessica Forcier come to mind) whom I likely wouldn't have known about if it weren't for my project research. Jeremy's selections have also introduced me to some compelling literary artists, one of whom is the basis for this review. The stories of Blake Butler (The Copy Family and The Many Forms of Rain ____ Sent Upon Us In Those Days Before the Last Days) managed to stick with me long after my initial readings. In the span of a few pages, across two stories, various themes and styles pop up seemingly at random: dystopian fiction, fables, allegories, horror, and so on. I recently picked up a copy of his latest novel, There Is No Year (The Copy Family is an excerpt from this), and upon reflection, my feelings about his long-form work are contradictory. He's an undeniably talented writer, but at times a reader wouldn't be faulted for thinking that his elaborate set-ups and styles are too much when packed into a single volume.

As a personal rule, I almost never read other film or book reviews before I'm finished with my own write-ups; I want my thoughts to be solely influenced by my own critical background. However, I went through about three different review of There Is No Year, because I was sure that I was missing something. However, the thoughtful reviews explored the text exactly as I understood it. A plot summary of this novel will not give anything away, nor will it fully explain it. An unnamed family--a father, mother, and son--live in a house inhabited by copies of themselves, with minor differences.

"The copy family would not go away. The father worked himself into a state, shouting curse words, splaying arms. He went out to the car and got a softball bat he'd used for pickup games in college--he's not once had a hit, though he'd been beaned more times than he could count on all the hands in all the houses on the street where his house stood--he could often still remember how the ball felt each time, banging fast into his muscle--how his chest would scrunch then expand--how he sometimes seemed not there at all. The father stood at the window with the weapon. He threatened legal action. He spoke in unintended rhyme. He said his own name to the copy father. The copy father seemed to have more hair than him (Butler 13-14)."

After awhile, the mother takes it upon herself to kill off the copy family. After this is done, the three family members become isolated in their own problems and surreal happenings. The father's job is unsatisfying, and he notices the streets to his job growing to the point that his commute takes up most of his day. The mother falls into a state of madness, and discovers an egg-like object that produces intense orgasms. The son seems to suffer more than anyone. There are hints to a previous (and possibly ongoing illness); He develops a relationship with a mysterious girl in his school; and his online communications veer from mystical to creepy. Throughout the novel, the family tries unsuccessfully to sell the house, even with offers of exorbitant cash. Mysterious visitors drop in, and the house has its own life force, with hallways and movements and ominous objects discovered by the family. Plague-like occurrences become almost normal: ants burrow through the house and the son, and the mailbox becomes infested with caterpillars.

On their own, these plot points would seem like the basis for a compelling horror novel. There are moments in There Is No Year that definitely constitute horror:

"The black creation that'd been seated on the neighbor's house's front lawn all this time had by now spread around the structure, further on. It had covered over the old doors and windows with new doors and windows, such as the one the son had come to stand in front of, sopping wet. The son did not see the swelling structure. The son did not see the street, nor his own house there beyond the pavement--the same house they'd lived in all these years, they did not know they'd never moved. The son couldn't see much for all the glaring--even if he had seen, even if he wanted, his house would not be there. The son felt sure that he'd arrived (Butler 243)."

There are also elements that hint to a kind of surreal science fiction:

"At sudden nodules in the network, the father found holes where he could see back into the house--the living room, the upstairs hallway--the walls there had been painted over black--in some rooms orange or yellow--screaming neon--though here the vents went so thin he could not see them, not even partly, just his arms. Some rooms had been filled with dirt or smoke or foaming. Some rooms were full of skin--other families, people, bodies--smushed. One hole into one very far room was the exact same size as his eye--through the hole he could see another small eye seeing. His eye. Light (Butler 263)."

Through all of this, the initial confusion becomes accepted. The reader is not supposed to "get" what "the novel is about." When I read a book, I have a tendency to underline multiple passages and take a lot of notes in the margins. Going back through There Is No Year, I realized that my markings were nearly nonexistent. There is such a wealth of detail and activity, but unless a certain section is repeated or expanded, the novel works as a progression of what the family experiences. I eventually gave up on trying to find active threads or connections and let myself get lost in the atmospheres. Keeping with the personal contradictions in my reading habits, Butler has created a work that is its own contradiction: it's a blend of minimalism (no names, no mentions of a specific city, and stark details) and extravagant forms. The pages are dark shades of grey, there are occasional photos that may or may not reflect the immediate text, and some of the chapters are poetic stanzas or drawn out over multiple pages. The overall atmosphere calls attention to creativity in all its forms. It would be too easy and tempting to make a reference to "the medium is the message," but it seems that Butler intentionally takes this to the extremes.

There Is No Year won't work for everyone; I can only imagine how divided people can be over this novel, especially since I felt personally divided--there are multiple passages of terrific writing and atmosphere, yet I occasionally found it to be lacking or unsuccessful in its execution. However, I still have the utmost respect for Butler's creativity, and more than once, I found specific chapters that would work exceptionally well as their own short stories, thus turning back to what started my first appreciation for his work. While not every novel needs a tidy conclusion, the ending of the book is far too succinct. Readers can draw their own conclusions and attempt to create hypotheses to why the family experienced what they did, but for the most part, there's a too-familiar pattern of compelling details that draw the reader in, yet never get mentioned again. Butler is a masterful storyteller who is intentionally audacious in his forms and philosophies, but there's an unnerving wonder as to whether he built the work up so much that it collapses under its own weight. Some of the jacket blurbs hint to Butler creating a new form of American fiction. There's definitely a potential for that, but in due time. There Is No Year has definite hints to further brilliance, but its problems are just scattered enough that breathless praise is too much, too soon. I love his writing, and for now I appreciate his shorter pieces. There Is No Year certainly has its merits, but tries to go in too many directions. I don't want Butler to reign in his styles, but this work could maintained its aura and questions and could have been even better with just a bit more condensing.

Work Cited:
Butler, Blake. There Is No Year. Copyright 2011 by Blake Butler.

Instafiction On Longreads

2011-12-27T23:19:00.003-06:00

Instafiction has yet another major market appearance this week. Editor/founder Jeremy P. Bushnell wrote up synopses of our five favorite stories of 2011 on behalf of the excellent curatorial site Longreads (beware of this site; even if you're the most casual of readers, there's enough material linked to move one to tears). The folks at Longreads have been very kind to us, linking and retweeting our selections from the very beginning, and now offering Jeremy the chance to expand on some of the more vibrant pieces.

The original link is here. And this link is a compilation of multiple lists of 2011's best long form writings. Enjoy and support!

"Instafiction's Jeremy P. Bushnell: My Top Fiction Longreads of 2011" (Originally published in Longreads, December 27, 2011)

1.) "Backbone," David Foster Wallace (The New Yorker)

During his lifetime, David Foster Wallace made massive contributions to the worlds of fiction and nonfiction alike, and I still miss his presence in the world acutely. The Pale King was a towering book of my summer, and although it didn’t quite yield the pleasures that a truly finished work might have, many of its fragments and episodes had the power of great short stories. See, for instance, this chapter, published as a standalone piece in The New Yorker.

2.)"Zone One," Colson Whitehead (excerpt, Esquire)

Whitehead’s Zone One is a great 2011 novel about government, bureaucracy, urban space, and human population. Oh yeah, it has zombies in it, too. Esquire gave us the first 20 pages—detailing a four-zombie attack on the book’s protagonist—right before Halloween, but it’s just as good a read now, at year’s end.

3.) "Female Explosion Syndrome," Jessica Forcier (New Delta Review)

Women all over the globe begin spontaneously combusting. Men don’t. Feminist? Fabulist? All of the above? Either way, this one stuck with us. Thanks to New Delta Review for publishing it.

4.) "The Empty Room," Jonathan Lethem (The Paris Review)

Lethem hasn’t put out a short story collection since 2006’s How We Got Insipid, but he’s still writing short fiction, and this year he placed a memorable tale of domestic collapse with the Paris Review. The setup: Upon moving his family into a sprawling farmhouse, a father makes a decision: one room will remain empty. “The empty room is like a living organ in our family’s house,” he claims, although in actuality it becomes the hollow core around which the family implodes.

5.) "Becoming Deer," Rachel Levy (PANK Magazine)

This fall, in the Chicago Reader, our Associate Editor Jamie Yates praised this story (from PANK Magazine) as a story that straddles the line between “the realistic and the mythical” and derives strength from each. You could also say it does the same with the line between the human and the animal. All this line-crossing makes the story into a kind of tangled skein, humming with tension. Taut, terse, and eerie: the best of a certain kind of experimental work. **

I think I speak for Jeremy when I say we're excited to carry Instafiction into 2012. Thanks to our readers and the excellent literary community for the excellent work that we find and share.

Chicago Flame Archives: Michael Cunningham Interview

2011-12-22T11:29:00.006-06:00

As is the case when I present one of my Chicago Flame, pieces, I'm currently a bit behind schedule on my other readings, especially with the holidays in full swing. After flipping through my copies, I came across this phone interview I conducted with author Michael Cunningham in conjunction with the film version of his novel The Hours. I've now seen the film about four times, and while I wouldn't immediately list it as one of my favorites, it seems to get better with every screening. While several years have passed, and since it was conducted via telephone, I clearly remember Mr. Cunningham to be very engaging and genuinely humbled by the response to his work. I'm ashamed to admit that I still have not read any of his novels, but I'm going to make sure that I include one or two of them on my 2012 reading list. For the most part, this is the full article, but I had to make some edits based on my then-faulty factchecking (A Beautiful Mind was NOT a novel as I originally stated). But otherwise, I present this in full, stylistic problems and all.

Cunningham Reflects On the Impact Of The Hours (Originally published in The Chicago Flame, February 18th, 2003)

A bulk of the best films in the last decade share a little-discussed bond. Forrest Gump, Fight Club, Jurassic Park, and scores of others have been based on novels. An author pens a tale that becomes modified into a screenplay, and hopefully it becomes a feature film. The original storyteller often becomes lost in the shuffle, and probably has every right to feel spited. However, Michael Cunningham is anything but bitter. His novel The Hours is the source of one of this season's best films, a movie set to take home several Academy Awards. Cunningham couldn't be happier for the movie's success and critical acclaim.

"It's life-affirming," he comments. "The movie is about life going on in the worst of situations. It's a beautiful film with its own life."

Authors are also known for disliking the films based on their stories. However, with better acting and filmmaking, this trend seems to be changing. Cunningham seems just as moved by the film as any regular moviegoer. He's especially touched by Nicole Kidman's amazing performance as Virginia Woolf. "I was surprised. She was magnificent, and we've been really underestimating Nicole as an actress. It's a respectful, compassionate portrait."

"The film shows what an actor can do. Meryl Streep breaks an egg in a way we've never imagined. Julianne [Moore]'s able to break down and cry, yet still be composed," he says, regarding the small yet power scenes in The Hours that not only define the emotional intensity, but also show the talent of the film's leading actresses. Cunningham loves the film, and feels satisfied by having written the novel and nothing else. "I wouldn't have wanted to write the screenplay. I got along with [The Hours screenwriter] David Hare. He's English, formal, and kind of standoffish, yet deeply involved. We had a long discussion, yet he wrote the screenplay alone. It needed a fresh eye."

He is not totally modest about his importance to The Hours' legacy, both as a novel and a film. "I feel that I'm part of the team, but I was instrumental. But not for a second did I think it [the novel] would be such a hit. It's shocking and daunting." As satisfied as Cunningham is, the adaptation doesn't come without setbacks, albeit mild ones. "The pattern and symmetry are better in the film," he says. "Things had to be cut out of the film, including characters. But, the characters are more rich onscreen."

The art of writing is a passion that is easily open to influence. Any author will be more than happy to discuss the writers who came before him or her, the idols that shape both styles and serve as motivation for originality. Cunningham best exemplifies this idea, being forever grateful and indebted to the life and work of Virginia Woolf, especially her visionary novel Mrs. Dalloway. What better way is there to honor a novelist than by writing a novel that intricately relates to her life? "Any great artist is fascinating," says Cunningham. "Especially people who beat the odds. Woolf's life was colorful, and she lived in a time when changes were taking place."

His response to Mrs. Dalloway is simple, yet profound: "How does one produce such a thing?...Woolf was the first great author that I read. I was forced to read Mrs. Dalloway [in school], and I saw the complexity. She did what Jimi Hendrix did to music. I hoped to do something 1/10th of that."

"She writes so beautifully about London. It tells more than a document or a photograph."

The Hours is a homage to Woolf in virtually every single aspect, including the title. Cunningham acknowledges that The Hours was Woolf's original working title for Mrs. Dalloway. "She thought it was the simple story of a hostess who eventually kills herself. Then she realized that it really was Mrs. Dalloway. I even tried some different endings for The Hours, just like Woolf. I just wanted a modern day Mrs. Dalloway."

Cunningham is happy to see Woolf's novel continuing to be a required reading in college classes, for he feels its influence will touch impressionable readers for years to come. "It's great to see anything living on. Virginia wrote about the joy of being alive. We're supposed to look at the big things in life because we're only here for a short time. There are no mundane things in life. The clock is always ticking."

"The Hours doesn't belong to any genre, it's a member of its own. There's no real target audience."

The film presents scenes that depict the three leading women displaying homosexual tendencies, which some critics claim supports a "gay agenda" in today's movie business. Cunningham downplays these comments with optimistic views of today's more accepting climate. "There's no gay agenda. Hollywood shows different lifestyles. None of the women in the film are gay or straight. We're all complicated. We don't fit political roles. Today even men can be feminists. The terms gay, straight, and bisexual don't say anything about the ambiguity of sexuality." The notion of a male writer exploring the female mindset doesn't faze Cunningham, as complicated as the subject can be.

"As a male author, I get the character or I don't. The gender doesn't matter. I don't know anything about women that nobody else doesn't know. We may or may not have knowledge of a woman's sexual ambiguity. I like to complicate sexuality." He brings up a crucial fact that applies to all writers. "If I didn't empathize with my characters, I wouldn't care about them." That is extremely important from a writer's point of view. As influenced and touched as Cunningham is by Virginia Woolf, his growth as a writer has yielded immense self-discovery and inner gratitude.

"I started off in writing workshops. I went in confused and young, but came out as a confused, young writer." Cunningham is an alum of Stanford University, where more exposure to creative writing changed his life. "Stanford creative writing taught me how to write," he puts it simply. "It turned a hobby into a passion. The line between talent is blurry. I'm interested by the notion that I could write about my surroundings."

The great writers have influenced him, both past and present. Flannery O'Connor, Gabriel Marquez, William Faulkner, and William Gibson are just a handful of the writers who have helped Cunningham. He's prepared to be a role model himself for any writer who needs someone to identify with. He offers this tried and true advice: "It took me ten years to get published. Don't give up." Fortunately for us, Mr. Cunningham never gave up. A devotion to a legendary author guided his goals, and now he'll forever be associated with the creation of a groundbreaking novel and a surefire film classic in The Hours.

"The Ecstasy Of Influence:" Titular Truth In Advertising

2011-12-14T12:13:00.006-06:00

Last year, after consistently reading a good majority of Jonathan Lethem's novels, I picked up his essay collection The Disappointment Artist. The slim volume was enjoyable, especially his take on John Ford's The Searchers (I wrote a film and textual analysis of it, which has proved to be my most-viewed post ever, but mainly because of Google image searches; however, I hope people read my work instead of just browsing the film stills). While I highly recommend Lethem's nonfiction, I would be hard pressed to recap the majority of the topics contained in that volume. That's not to say that it's forgettable, but after a year and a half, only small fragments stick in my mind. Nonetheless, I was excited to read his next batch of essays, the recently published The Ecstasy Of Influence. The work is longer, the topics are more varied, and while the pieces scan multiple years, Lethem has, like any good writer, grown wiser (in its many definitions). It would be difficult and pointless to compare two very different collections, but I'm sure that the newest collection will be sticking with me much longer. I went into both books with the same mentality (I always enjoy checking out the nonfiction work of my favorite fiction writers), but The Ecstasy Of Influence feels much more determined and curated.

As with any collection of separate pieces, it would be much too time consuming to analyze every essay or story (in Ecstasy, there are a couple of fiction pieces, too). With that in mind, it's also difficult to select the most representative works as well, since Lethem has assembled one of the more eclectic volumes in my recent memory. There are analyses of various writers and texts, poetic sketches of Brooklyn, and fantastically entertaining interviews with James Brown's band and Bob Dylan. A good starting point is one of the opening pieces. I had no idea Lethem spent years working as a bookseller, and his memories are pitch-perfect for anyone who works or has worked in this noble trade.

"I was what I would be if I wasn't a writer: a clerk in a used bookstore. No other possibility. I worked in eight bookstores in fifteen years, five years during high school and college, then ten years straight after that. Shelving, running registers, re-alphabetizing sections, learning the arcana. I was bitter, intense, typical, holding myself superior to customers who could afford the best items I could only cherish in passing, part of a great clerkly tradition. I was certainly aware of the tradition. I still repair broken alphabetical runs and straighten piles on tables, absently despite myself, whenever I'm in stores. It calms me during book tours (Lethem 29)."

Reflections on relationships to women, from teenage years to adulthood, have been written about constantly by the usual grouping of white male authors. There are other views out there, from women, homosexuals, and nonwhites, that bring this cycle to completion. But much like his bookselling memories, Lethem's memories of teen angst in dating and coveting are painfully true. He seems to sum up what was going through my mind (and still does, occasionally), energies that I personally put into terrible fiction, poetry, and self-exile.

"These girls blew hot, and could be mockingly affectionate or even briefly lusty in my direction, but in their willingness to show disdain, to crush unworthiness like a bug, they were fundamentally cool, cool, cool. I had a lot to learn, and I put my own enthusiasms and provenances on the table very carefully, or so it felt to me. They had a name for what they despised, 'green,' a word which seemed to encapsulate being lame, unenlightened, feeble, corny overreaching or straining for effect, and much else. I lived in fear of being cast in that shade (Lethem 40)."

In addition to feeling solidarity with Lethem's memoiresque remembrances (he's one of a good handful of writers I dearly hope to meet someday), I was immediately reminded of his skill of literary criticism (and also reminded of The Disappointment Artist and the brutally compelling essay on Edward Dahlberg). Lethem knows his way around genre fiction, literary fare, and the often-critiqued combination of the two. There is a definite feeling that this collection is merely an appetizer of further thoughts. In addition to "clerkly traditions," Lethem also understands the tradition of writerly influences and reasoning. So many books, essays, and interviews have long debated the reasons why writers and artists create, and while Lethem is not attempting to sum up these seemingly metaphysical possibilities, he manages to provide one of the better hypotheses.

"Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying of oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing (Lethem 97-98)."

At his best, Lethem combines the technical aspects of writing with the intangible (sometimes these distinctions are mutually exclusive, sometimes not). For as intelligent as he is, there's never a feeling that he claims to have all the answers for the never-ending questions of fiction and writing. But even with his opinions, he manages to illuminate some of the shaky definitions and assumptions. Anyone who has read my essays consistently knows of my fascination, disdain, and collective confusion over what constitutes postmodernism. Lethem understands that it's a mess, and his definition is both right on and comical in its showcasing of that very mess.

"Let's wade into the unpleasantness around the term 'postmodernism:' Nobody agrees on its definition, but in literary conversations the word is often used as finger-pointing to a really vast number of things that might be seen as threatening to canonical culture: author-killing theories generated by French critics, collapsings of high and low cultural preserves into a value-neutral fog, excessive references to various other media and/or mediums, especially electronic ones (ironically even a Luddishly denunciatory take on certain media and or/mediums may be suspect merely for displaying an excess of familiarity with same), an enthusiasm for 'metafiction' (a word that out to be reserved for a specific thing that starts with Cervantes, but isn't), for anti-narrative, for pop-culture references or generic forms...(Lethem 79)."

He can also be intentionally contradicting. The above reflection on art coming from art can sometimes lead to hoisting up a biased debt of gratitude:

"The crime of Literary Rushmore, the one that anyone notices first, is that which ought to dissolve Rushmore forever in a bath of shame, but never does: The stone heads are white American men. There's never a Cather or Ellison or Baldwin or Oates or Ozick or Morrison on that mountain, no matter how unmistakably said person may have knocked one out of the ballpark that particular year, or decade, or century (Lethem 368)."

This review may very well come across like a giddy fan's adoration of a given literary hero. However, while I could easily cite other great passages, namely Lethem's thoughts on Italo Calvino and his problems with the style and demeanor of literary critic James Wood, there were a few essays that didn't grab me like the other ones. I've never been a major reader of graphic novels or comic books, so while I appreciated the effort, I didn't think twice about his essays on Spider-Man or Marvel comics (as much as I adore him and Michael Chabon, there's only so much academic writing I can take on those subjects). The latter half of the collection is dominated by writings on Brooklyn, some of which are vivid (and one, "Ruckus Flatbush" is a cool, almost hip-hop poetic freestyle on the borough's idiosyncrasies), but sometimes a bit repetitive. Granted, the majority of these essays were published elsewhere, but the mental image of a person wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap without a bill, resembling a yarmulke, was repeated often and lost its metaphorical shine after awhile. These are minor, almost squabbling complaints, and there is so much in The Ecstasy Of Influence that reaffirmed by literary beliefs and gave me genuine material for deep thought. The collection might seem like Lethem's hand-selected "best-of" anthology, but it's really so much more. For someone like me who loves to be entertained and educated at the same time, this is a nearly perfect book, especially since I came out of it energized and further appreciating Lethem's stances on a myriad of issues. Upon immediate reflection, Jonathan Lethem quite adept at selecting his own material for a single collection. He knows his strengths, he lets his intellect do the talking, yet he's just humble enough to offer critiques of his own essays with honesty.

Work Cited:
Lethem, Jonathan. The Ecstasy Of Influence. Copyright 2011 by Jonathan Lethem.

"1Q84:" Love and Trope

2011-11-30T11:38:00.012-06:00

To say that Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 was an anticipated release is the very definition of "understatement." Annually, dozens of books have a lot of true build up and excitement long before publication, but not since the last Harry Potter release has a title warranted over a year's worth of speculation and midnight release parties. As I've mentioned, I'm still behind on the majority of Murakami's bibliography, but I couldn't help but join the communal anticipation. In Japan, the novel's 2009 release became the bestselling title in the country's history. Even the slightest hints (the titular pun, the online preview of the first chapter) really didn't give much away, plot-wise. Granted, I'm sure I could have snooped online and found summaries or concrete previews, but it would have taken the fun out of actually going into the book with no notions or knowledge. I finished reading it a few days ago, and have waited to gather my thoughts rather than jumping right into a review; granted, this is my standard method for any book review, since I'm not only any real deadline. The more I think about 1Q84, the more I'm torn between my genuine appreciation and some of the book's small problems.

The novel manages to be both massive in its scope as well as relatively basic in its plot lines. The chapters alternate between two main characters. Tengo, a young Japanese math teacher and fiction writer, is secretly commissioned to re-write a novella entitled Air Chrysalis, originally dictated by a mysterious teenage girl named Fuka-Eri. The story reveals the secrets of the religious cult in which Fuka-Eri was raised, and when it becomes an instant bestseller, Tengo and his editor try to keep the ghostwriting under wraps as unwanted attention begins to pile up. The other main character is Aomame (Japanese for "green bean"), a young fitness instructor who moonlights as an assassin for a wealthy widow, carrying out hits on pedophiles and abusive husbands. Aomame is haunted by her own past in the religious cult, her one true love from childhood, and the realization that she is experiencing two separate worlds. She has moved from 1984 into 1Q84 (the "q" stands for "question mark," and is also a play on the Japanese character for the number 9). The world of 1Q84 features two moons unseen by anyone else, as well as subtle differences between the true reality and the alternate present time. After Aomame carries out her final mission, the two separate realities begin to merge, with reflections of Air Chrysalis and the side-by-side convergence of her and Tengo. Other minor yet important characters come into play: Tamaru, the intimidating gay bodyguard of the dowager; Ushikawa, a seedy, ugly private investigator for the religious cult; the cult's Leader and the fantastical creatures known as the Little People; and the passing friends and lovers of Tengo and Aomame.

Given the wealth of ideas and plots, it's remarkable how easy 1Q84 is to follow, and much like the story, its form is also a separation between the postmodern and the standard genres: romance, thriller, and science fiction. In some of the book's best passages, Murakami goes off on metaphorical tangents that sometimes give thematic hints, but mostly work as their own little vivid slices:

"Tengo was just then dreaming about crossing a long stone bridge on a river. He was going to retrieve a document that he had forgotten on the opposite shore. He was alone. The river was big and beautiful, with sandbars here and there. The river flowed gently, and willows grew on the sandbars. He could see the elegant shape of trout in the water. The willows' brilliant green leaves hung down, gently touching the water's surface. The scene could have come from a Chinese plate (Murakami 64)."

The thriller aspects, namely Aomame's assassin work and conversations with the dowager, are as blatantly satisfying as any such scenes found in an action film, and they alternate between gripping and beautifully evasive. When Aomame and the dowager discuss an "assignment," everything is left between the lines.

"'Of course a person's existence (or nonexistence) cannot be decided on the basis of mere practical considerations--for example, if he is no longer there, it will eliminate the difficulties of divorce, say, or hasten the payment of life insurance. We take such action only as a last resort, after examining all factors closely and fairly, and arriving at the conclusion that the man deserves no mercy (Murakami 219).'"

Some people may disagree with me, but I found the asides and the intentionally vague descriptions to be extremely well-written. Murakami's metaphors may not be the best examples, but he crafts them to be evocative and extremely visual. However, and most people will agree with me on this point: 1Q84's biggest problem is repetition. Various passages and ideas are constantly reflected and rephrased: Fuka-Eri speaks in a halting, direct style devoid of punctuation or inflections; Tengo is haunted by early memories of his mother standing by his crib, having her breasts suckled by a man who is not Tengo's father; Ushikawa is ugly with a misshaped head. These range in plot importance, from immediate to passing, yet Murakami repeats these descriptions constantly and steadily. After awhile, a reader wouldn't be faulted for thinking to him or herself: "Okay, I get it. Move on." In certain cases, this would be insulting to the reader, since the atmosphere would be one of a writer assuming that the reader had forgotten these elements. However, for someone as established and revered as Murakami, it seems to be a constant need to address the book's unusual atmosphere, even though the descriptions are enough to be mentioned once or twice and not revisited. I would never be one to complain about a novel being too long; however, such a massive work would have benefited from a scaling back of repeated ideas.

On the flip side, some of the passages demand further explanations and do not get them. Toward the novel's end, Fuka-Eri disappears, and aside from a long letter sent to Tengo, she's simply forgotten about. Air Chrysalis is summarized and shown to reflect the actual workings of the religious cult, but its late appearance is obvious, providing no new insights into how the story ties into reality. Tengo's memories of his mother are repeated, but never explained, except in vague connections to his affair with a married woman. Murakami gets very close to impassioned critiques of religious movements and cult mentalities, but just when he gets into what could be revealing insights, the story jumps away to another part of the plot, leaving a potentially sociological/cultural aspect virtually untouched. There is so much good to enjoy in 1Q84: the science fictional elements are seamlessly integrated and made out to be realistic in their own ways, and there is a genuine joy and excitement in figuring out how Tengo and Aomame are connected. However, the novel as a whole nearly suffers from a death by a thousand cuts. The little problems, both stylistically and thematically, bring down what is very close to being one of the best novels in recent memory.

I won't go into a long discussion of the book's sex scenes, but it is worth noting that 1Q84 has been nominated for the 2011 Bad Sex Award: The Guardian has linked the more dubious passages here. From Philip Roth to Jonathan Franzen, the literary merits and distractions of bad sexual writing have been discussed in many ways. Murakami's descriptions can be embarrassingly comical at times, but they tie into my above critique. It's not so much that they are bad, but they are repeated far too many times. Aomame has misshaped breasts; her friend Ayumi has perfect ones. Tengo's penis is described both hard and flaccid. Other writers have written worse, but when the ideas and images are constantly refreshed, the repetition calls far too much attention to already shaky passages.

While I am being pretty critical, I do want to stress that this is a work of redeeming merit. Murakami has a keen sense of blending genres and everyday situations that cross multicultural boundaries. Again, the science fiction never feels out of place, and the initial set-up draws the reader into the strange world without question or hesitation. While I'm no expert in contemporary Japanese life, Murakami is an expert at conveying societal norms and the isolation of people who want to live their own lives. The Tokyo in 1Q84 is daunting and crowded, and Tengo and Aomame are perfectly captured as the classic lost souls in an unforgiving metropolis. With this in mind, it's saddening to realize that little mistakes mar this otherwise excellent novel. There is so much left unspoken and undeclared, and it's difficult to imagine why Murakami left these holes in an otherwise meticulously plotted work. Tengo and Aomame get their happy ending, but the reader will likely be left only partly satisfied. I do recommend 1Q84, but cannot help but wonder if I've missed something. I don't think I'm being too picky with the fine details, but they are what separates it from being a classic instead of just a very fine novel.

Work Cited:
Murakami, Haruki. 1Q84. Translation copyright 2011 by Haruki Murakami.

Chicago Reader: Culture Vultures

2011-11-25T22:08:00.002-06:00

This has shaped up to be an excellent week for Instafiction. Our Twitter and Facebook pages have experienced some small measures of growth lately, and we've been extremely happy with our dedicated readers and supporters. Jeremy and I have e-mailed some press releases to a few publications and websites, hoping to get feedback, some possible acknowledged support for our endeavor, and more exposure to people looking for a good variety of short fictions. One of the releases I sent went to the esteemed Chicago Reader, and I was offered a chance to write one of their weekly Culture Vulture features, a revolving assortment of Chicago based writers, actors, and artists who share what they're consuming, creative-wise.

For this, I had to select a certain literary magazine to write about, and I kept coming back to PANK Magazine. Jeremy recently selected two of their stories for our daily Instafiction links (Rachel Levy's Becoming Deer and John Jodzio's This Is All the Orientation You Are Gonna Get), and the stories in the magazine are some of the best, most consistent pieces of writing. So in addition to having Instafiction's name in such a respected Chicago newspaper, it was extremely satisfying to share the name of what has become one of my favorite literary journals. I'm sharing my piece below, but please visit the original link (or, if you're in Chicago, pick up the paper this weekend) for other pieces. Alongside mine are excellent recommendations for a Thanksgiving weekend of "Deadwood" and the upcoming productions of the DePaul Theater School.

Chicago Reader Culture Vultures: (Originally published November 24, 2011):

"Researching literary magazines is often an exercise in repetition. For every genuinely innovative print journal or webzine, there are, quite literally, dozens of tired attempts at "edgy writing" failing to stand out or offer anything beside the claim of being different. With this in mind, PANK Magazine has forged an impressive spot in the online literary community.

"Bios are boring," states its Twitter description. Although this is a defiant statement, it reflects the magazine's lack of pretense. With the exception of themed editions, the only real mission for PANK is quality short fiction. The stories are genuinely heartbreaking and compelling, the contributors work in a variety of genres, and the end products get the most out of the realistic and the mythical. Rachel Levy's story "Becoming Deer" offers a truth lying in the soul of any great piece of writing: "Slice open a word, and it will bleed." PANK Magazine's writers and editors do this with a measure of increasingly rare consistency."

***

In their wonderful Thanksgiving blog post, the magazine offered us some kind thanks for our article. Because of this weekend and its quick descent into holiday madness, I'd like to ask serious readers to think about small presses and journals this year. If you have readers on your Christmas lists, do some research and give subscriptions to some of the better journals out there. Not only will you expose your friends and family to some under the radar works, you'll also be financially supporting organizations and writers who need it.

Occupations

2011-11-18T12:23:00.007-06:00

For the last several weeks, I've been trying to find time to visit Chicago's Occupy movement, with the hopes of seeing it firsthand and possibly interviewing some of the attendees. Originally, I made a decision to not write about it until attending, but I haven't been able to make the trek downtown, and my desire to share my thoughts cannot wait any longer. Writing this from afar, even separated by just a few miles, seems to go against the spirit of the nationwide Occupy movements. However, one part of that spirit is solidarity, so lending my opinions in essay form is something, I suppose. I've read countless news articles from both mainstream and grassroots media outlets; I've bantered via social media, even taking time to read dissenting opinions to make sure I have a balanced foundation; I've heard varying thoughts, from extreme support to extreme disapproval to hints of being in the middle. After taking all of this in, weighing various themes, and simply sitting deep in thought for stretches of time, there is one thing that everyone has to agree upon: the system is flawed. The one idea a lot of people will disagree with me about: the Occupy protesters are engaging in their patriotic duties. Of this I am unequivocally certain.

With unregulated activity, banks and corporations have dug this country into a hole that we're all desperately trying to get out of together. From stock market manipulations to risky spending to flat-out criminal activities, the financial landscape is frightening. Do I claim to have all the answers and understandings? No. But I do know how this personally affected me. I was laid off from a bankrupt company (with no severance) while its executive officers received lucrative bonuses after running the company into the ground. Our customers, dealing with their own financial problems, couldn't spend money as freely as before. Sometimes financial woes are singular, but in this case, there has to be a connection. All the while, the gap between the wealthy and the poverty-stricken has grown at an alarming rate. Nobody is saying that the wealthy cannot earn money, but there is a problem when the top 1% decries fair tax rates while people like myself spend long stretches clinging to unemployment. During my jobless phase, I opted to pay my taxes outright, even though it meant less immediate money, and never once did I question my requirement to pay my share...yet some wealthy people refuse to accept higher taxes, even though they would still be able to live luxuriously. Yes, some may call me a tree-hugging, whiny liberal. But after months and months of desperate job hunting, I finally landed a temporary bookselling position. While I'm grateful to have income that's slightly higher than my unemployment rates, I realize that there are still millions of people, some much more educated than myself, clamoring for dwindling career opportunities. And still, people do not want to hold the perpetrators of the financial crises accountable, and claim that people like myself are lazy and demanding handouts.

My friend Rachel (the founder of Booksellers Without Borders)has been a consistent presence at Chicago's Occupy rallies, documenting her thoughts and experiences via social media, and also via regular newspapers. On October 30th, The Chicago Tribune published her article "Why I Occupy," a strong, pointed account of her reasons for making multiple visits downtown. She engaged in no name calling, no snide remarks, and made many a valid point. A sample of her letter:

"I occupy because I believe in the First Amendment and the civil liberties it grants us.

I occupy because the system is not broken but relies on this kind of active participation to remain strong.

I occupy because it is exciting to see democracy working.

I occupy because after seven years combined of undergraduate and graduate studies, I have student loan debt but not the gainful employment necessary to pay it down.

I occupy because I have been underemployed since finishing school, often working two or three part-time jobs to try to make ends meet.

I occupy because I have spent half of this year unemployed altogether, through no fault of my own. I occupy because the unemployed cannot afford to be invisible statistics any longer.

I occupy because the alternative is sitting in my parents' basement writing cover letters that won't even be rejected, just ignored.

I occupy because if it weren't for the safety net my parents have provided, I would be sitting on a street corner all day asking for a different kind of change."

I am in the same position. If it weren't for my parents, I would have been on the street a long time ago. Of course, since I know Rachel, it's easy for me to have her back. She and I are two educated, intelligent, hard-working people with our hands tied due to the current economic system. For anyone who has not been unemployed recently, it's hard to convey just how daunting it is. Again, it's easy to assume that everyone is lounging around and milking unemployment benefits. Critics of the Occupy movements love to make jokes about the protesters being a bunch of drumming, stoned hippies who have no idea how the system works. Currently, the system benefits the elite and is leaving everyone else trying to stay above water. Are there people at the Occupy movements who are there "just because?" Of course. Are there people who don't know what they're protesting? I'm sure of it. However, the vast majority are Americans who realize that something is wrong, and if some attention can be called to a broken system, so much the better. Perhaps this is naive, but I like to think that some of the people have followed the Occupy movements and have come out more educated. Critics have fallen back on the notion of "they don't know what they're protesting!" But the movement has been flexible. It's making people aware of the problems.

Naturally, Rachel's letter received a lot of feedback, both positive and negative. I'm going to cite some of the responses, all of which are available online at the Tribune's website. I'm not going to use the names of the people who replied, but only out of respect. If I knew them, I would ask for permission, or I would attempt to engage them in dialogue. Another reason is that I don't want it to seem like I'm criticizing AND hiding behind a blog. I'm only using their cited rebuttals to offer my counter-arguments in relation to Rachel's letter and my own opinions. Again, like Rachel, I'm not engaging in name-calling or needless criticism. If someone is against the Occupy movements, that is his or her opinion.

"You occupy because you are anti-military, anti-capitalism, anti-government, feel that society owes you something, are well-educated and unemployed but too good to take a temporary job, still living at home, frustrated, bored and, yep, liberal."

Occupiers are NOT anti-military. Our men and women in uniform also suffer from job insecurity and constraints, and the War on Terror has been draining the national budget for nearly ten years. Soldiers are doing their jobs admirably, and we support them unequivocally. What we do not support is them being in danger due to dubious decisions on the part of the government. And I find it curious that a supposedly conservative person would claim that Rachel is anti-government. If anything, if the government had imposed the proper regulations, the recession might not have been as drastic. And if the government held Wall Street accountable, there would be a sense of justice instead of frustration. And the current GOP candidates are trying to promise an end to proper government regulations. To me, that's much more anti-government. I find it to be very hypocritical that the same political ideology that claims we have too much government is turning around and claiming that another ideology hates government.

"I do not occupy because while working menial jobs during my college career, I chose a major that would be attractive to employers instead of majors such as History, Gender Studies or English-Literature; and I then paid off my loans."

This letter troubled me the most, for multiple reasons. If someone desires to study subjects in college with the sole purpose of making him or herself attractive to employers, that is their choice and that cannot be argued. However, the implication is that subjects such as History, Gender Studies, and (my major) English are dead ends. I've been hearing this long before the Occupy movements began. Even at the very naive age of eighteen, when I decided to major in English, I knew there wouldn't be immediate jobs available, that I would have to spend time honing my craft and educating myself. However, why can't one study what they're passionate about and have that lead to gainful employment? I will never be someone whose sole purpose is to make money. I majored in English because I love writing and literature and wanted to devote my life to these subjects. If the above-mentioned majors were not beneficial in some way, why would colleges offer them? Artists and critical thinkers are invaluable to society. I'm not making any assumptions about the writer, but I'm criticizing the opinion. I'm sure he/she has various passions unrelated to the line of work. But the current landscape makes the pursuit of passions for employment next to impossible. People like me and Rachel are trying our best to be self sufficient. We're not relying on our parents out of laziness. We're trying to forge our paths in an economic world ruled by a lack of jobs and opportunity. The unemployed are decried for "looking for handouts," but it's okay for a bank to receive a government bailout while its CEO makes more money than most people can imagine?

I know this has been a pretty rambling essay, and I know there are much more eloquent pieces out there. But this is one of those moments where I'm writing from the heart as well as my brain. There are so many other concerns and questions I could have raised, but I wanted this to be a small part of support to Occupiers and their message. Keep exercising your first Amendment rights, keep questioning our current state, and let's actively work to make a better world. And my final message is for the critics: we respect your opinions, even if we respectfully disagree. However, do not claim that Occupiers are anti-American. The beauty of this country lies in the realization that such movements and rallies are possible. During all the criticism of the Tea Party movements, not once did I hear anyone question their right to protest. Change is needed, and the Occupy movements are proving to be a necessity. Believe it or not, these movements are really the definition of patriotism. We have so much potential for positive changes, and while our current state is not perfect, we're not completely hopeless. And least not yet.

Chicago Flame Archives: Derek Luke Interview

2011-11-09T19:12:00.004-06:00

Once again, I find myself slightly behind schedule on my readings, so I figured I'd fill in some gaps with another archival piece from my college newspaper tenure. After digging though my copies, I came across this interview I conducted with actor Derek Luke, in conjunction with his starring role in Denzel Washington's directorial debut, Antwone Fisher (2002). While Luke has definitely made a name for himself, it seems as if he hasn't really captured the genuine excitement that came with this performance. He's worked with some acclaimed filmmakers (namely Spike Lee and Robert Redford), and recently starred in Captain America: The First Avenger, but his debut performance garnered serious award nomination talk, and I remember him being genuinely excited about the film's potential. At the time of this interview, Derek and I had a brief talk about America's race relations, and sadly, I never got the conversation going further, so none of that piece of the interview found its way to the page. I was nineteen when I met with Derek Luke, and while this piece does contain the occasional youthful embellishment, shoddy transition, and weak sentence, I feel that it represented my gradual development as an interviewer.

Derek Luke: Cinema's Latest Potential (originally published in The Chicago Flame, January 14, 2003)

Film debuts are about as common as the commercials and posters that hype these new talents. "A new film by so-and-so", "introducing so-and-so," or "an electrifying debut by so-and-so are the common blurbs in film advertising. For every Edward Norton there are a hundred David Carusos whose screen presence and potential will never materialize. The scenario is similar to big league baseball. Sure, you might get called up, but there's no guarantee that you'll be talented enough to stay. Last month, Derek Luke made his film debut playing the title role of Antwone Fisher. In addition to a strong performance which is creating Oscar buzz in Hollywood, Luke was teamed up with the biggest of big shots in Denzel Washington.

Derek Luke is no shady newcomer, nor is he a potential "so-and-so." Luke is a lit fuse, primed and ready to shake the foundations of American cinema. On top of that, Luke has one of the living legends vouching for his talents.

"Woo-hoo!" is Luke's only response to the emotional magnitude of being able to work with Washington, or as Luke constantly refers to him, Mr. Washington. Not once does the name "Denzel" leave his lips. After starring in a film focused on respect, it is only appropriate that Luke shows that for Washington. "I was allowed to break off of him," says Luke. "But, I did pursue him [from an acting standpoint]. He wasn't a credit to my account."

Antwone Fisher focuses on a sailor haunted by his memories of child abuse. Luke's character is prone to violent outbursts that threaten to lead to his dishonorable discharge. "We're all angry," says Luke. "We all get pushed to the snapping point, whether due to bullies, disrespect, or getting made fun of."

Fisher is sent to see Naval psychiatrist Jerome Davenport (Washington originally just wished to direct the film, but decided to play Davenport for the film's financial backing). The two are only scheduled for three sessions, but Davenport's influence stretches outside the office to help Fisher overcome his problems.

Antwone Fisher is Luke's film debut, but he also has two other films slated for release in 2003. Pieces of April will be screened this month at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival. Luke has started off mainly with dramatic roles, but he hopes that the future will bring more variations. "I like everything, I'm open," he says with a sly smile. Luke is a true actor, proven by his body language. His hands constantly move, and his face shifts from one sort of smile to the next. At one point, he even chooses to jump on his hotel windowsill to emphasize a point. "I've made three films with three new directors," he says. "I'd love to try new comedy, new drama. Comedy, suspense...as long as it works."

As far as specific roles are concerned, Luke doesn't have a steadfast preference. "But it is much easier to play a real-life character," he says in reference to Antwone Fisher. The film also has not-so-subtle undertones of racial conflicts. It is obvious that Antwone Fisher goes to certain lengths to show a young black man feeling racially at odds with some of his fellow white sailors. In a film era affected by the lack of black contribution to American cinema, Antwone Fisher is noticeable for black influence--the new star, the director, and the screenwriter are all African-American. Derek Luke is optimistic that the future will be more integrated with little to no focus on skin color. "The world becomes different as it grows," he says. "With time rising and some fine tuning, it won't be about race."

Fame has not gone to his head at all. With the onslaught of accolades and publicity, he simply has to turn towards his family for calmness and reassurance. "It's a new world with my nieces and nephews," he says with glowing pride. " They range in age from five to seventeen. When they touch my face and call out 'Uncle D,' 'Uncle D,' that's all that matters." That statement is almost eerie with its relation to the film. Luke plays a young man striving to attain a family that he never knew. In real life, he has a family that makes him visibly happy.

Being so new on the Hollywood circuit, it is impossible to predict what fortunes that Derek Luke will receive. Oscar speculation for his role in Antwone Fisher is growing steadily. Whether he's nominated or not doesn't matter. Whether he becomes a legend in American cinema doesn't matter, either. Derek Luke has already succeeded. He knows what truly matters in life. Peace of mind will not be a problem for this man. He only needs to look toward his nieces and nephews, his biggest fans. However, don't be surprised if Derek Luke becomes a very hot commodity in the future. He's already halfway there.

Doctored Interpretations: "The Rum Diary"

2011-10-31T19:02:00.010-05:00

I found Hunter S. Thompson's early novel The Rum Diary (it originated in the 1960s but remained unpublished until 1998) to be beautifully written when I first read it years ago, and while my memories of it are somewhat hazy, I remember thinking that it could be a decent film adaptation. It contains a vibrant locale (1960 San Juan, Puerto Rico in the midst of political turmoil), and a balanced mix of characters and conflicts. Before seeing its adaptation (written and directed by Bruce Robinson), I became worried that it would try to mimic Terry Gilliam's film version of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Yes, the two different books contain vastly different material, but given the cult success of the previous film, and especially since star Johnny Depp again inhabits the lead role, one wouldn't be faulted for expecting another attempt at the same hedonistic style. However, The Rum Diary, in addition to being one of Thompson's few available pieces of fiction, is also one of his most straightforward narratives. Fear and Loathing was a successful attempt at visualizing a long drug binge, and Robinson's version of The Rum Diary smartly embraces the storytelling, thereby giving audiences an interpretation of Thompson that remains honest, even if, in this case, the book proves to be more memorable.

After waking up from a night of binge drinking, journalist Paul Kemp (Depp) heads to the office of the San Juan Star, an English language newspaper in the heart of Puerto Rico. The paper is under heavy financial strain, but Kemp is nonetheless offered a job by Lotterman (Richard Jenkins), and he immediately becomes close with the staff photographer Sala (Michael Rispoli) and the often fired/rehired junkie journalist Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi). While working on dead-end assignments (including a memorable scene in which he interviews, off-camera, an American couple who are vacationing in San Juan but refuse to visit any places besides their hotel and the bowling alley), Kemp becomes acquainted with Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), an American businessman who wants Paul to help write promotional material for (illegal) real estate deals that will eventually drive the locals into even worse poverty. Kemp quickly becomes enamored with Chenault (Amber Heard), Sanderson's fiancee, which adds further complications, especially after Sanderson bails him and Sala out of jail after a reckless night on the town. With the Star on the verge of shutting down, Kemp, Sala and Moberg attempt to bring the shady business dealings to light, even though the paper cannot risk controversial material.

With the exception of his voice, it's refreshing to find that Depp plays Kemp as an original character, rather than as an imitation of Hunter S. Thompson (even though the original novel is semi-autobiographical, it's impossible not to imagine Kemp, both on the page and on the screen, as a stand-in for the Doctor). Yes, Kemp is prone to heavy drinking and a commitment to journalistic integrity, and much like Thompson, he manages to be a detached outsider even when he's in the middle of the most important scenes. Only at the end of the film do Thompson's characteristics become consistently noticeable, and even then, Depp is as reserved as an actor can be, with the actions being based on the plot developments, rather than the character's personality. It would be too tempting to see Sala as the Dr. Gonzo character, but this only comes after a brief drug hallucination scene (the only blatant reference to Fear and Loathing) and after a long sequence of a drunken night out. Sala is written as a stock "buddy" character, but Michael Rispoli plays him exceptionally well, employing equal parts integrity and comic relief without being terribly obvious. At first, I found Giovanni Ribisi's Moberg to be grating, but I quickly realized that the character is supposed to be annoying. Moberg, while technically a journalist, is seen walking around the island like a vagrant, dressed in a comically over-sized trench coat, producing dangerous moonshine and drugs, and happily blaring phonograph records of Adolf Hitler speeches. I always consistently notice film characters who would be terribly hammed up by certain actors, but Ribisi manages to create an air of perverted slapstick. Eckhart has an strange ability to play seriously flawed/demented characters yet maintain a seductive edge; even when the audience knows he's being conniving or wrong, it's easy to see why characters would fall for his schemes. Sanderson is not nearly as twisted as Chad in In the Company Of Men, but Eckhart uses the same acting gifts. For better or for worse, his unsavory characters are compelling. That's the whole point.

The relationship between Chenault and Kemp is very basic and provides some of the film's faults. It's hard to tell if Heard is a good actress, because her character is, for the majority of the film, nothing but a trophy fiancee for Sanderson. The sexual tension between her and Kemp isn't exactly sly (their first meeting is in the ocean while she's skinny dipping), but their long stares and near-physical interactions become too obvious, and the audience is merely left counting down the seconds until they actually embrace. After that, the film's closing title sequences are too easy of an ending. However, Heard does what she can with Chenault. Even though she's an object for everyone but Kemp, the character is not played as dumb or insulting; she's merely tied to her relationship with Sanderson before she's able to break away. Depp and Heard are enjoyable to watch together, but are victimized by the script's occasional misstep.

A lot of credit has to be given to production designer Chris Seagers. The San Juan settings, especially given the era, doesn't have a lot of happy mediums. The locales are either poverty-stricken or tastefully wealthy (Kemp, Sala, and Moberg are the only whites to live in destitute dwellings). However, even though both types of settings are integral to the story, they feel authentic. Kemp and Sala's apartment is somewhat comically rendered, but the dive bars, slums, and dance halls of San Juan aren't marked by obvious (read: insulting) indicators of depression. Sanderson's residence is a classy beach house, but isn't depicted as a ridiculous mansion. Combined with the subdued cinematography and costume design, The Rum Diary works as a contrast of bright and dark hues, both casually and intentionally, with a lot of jumps between the two. Even in the extremes (Kemp's apartment, specifically), the exaggerations are pointed out in the script, but Seagers does an impressive job of creating a classic movie feel to the environments.

After leaving behind directing due to disillusionment with the Hollywood system, writer/director Bruce Robinson finds himself with a decent piece of material with which to return. His script is much stronger than his directing, but his directorial style is fairly straightforward in this film. The Rum Diary moves toward expected climaxes and developments, but Robinson writes exceptional dialogue with well-placed one liners and a knack for comedic timing, and the direction moves along with it. Again, some of the developments are cliched and can be seen coming several minutes beforehand, but these are small faults, especially since the majority of the film, combined with the excellent cast, works so well. I've yet to see Withnail and I, lauded as an excellent British black comedy, but The Rum Diary definitely has its moments of dark humor, and it will be interesting to see the differences between his smaller work and this more big budget production. On top of that, Robinson's attention to detail makes some negative aspects--binge drinking, chain-smoking, and even cockfighting--blend together as merely parts of an era, without moralizing or apology.

I would guess that the majority of people who seek out The Rum Diary will be Hunter S. Thompson fans, and I hope that they have read the novel beforehand, lest they be disappointed. Atmospherically, it's very true to Thompson's work, and shows that even his standard storytelling manages to convey his beliefs without the almost trademark insanity. Strange as this is to imagine, the film also works nicely on its own, even for people unfamiliar with Thompson's journalism or fiction. With another other people involved, I might be harsher with the criticism of the film's ending and antagonism. However, the cast and filmmaker do their respective work very convincingly, and overall, it's a lot of fun and beautifully styled. And the best compliment to Thompson is that his ideas can be separated from his constantly portrayed public persona without anything being diminished.

The Other Moneyball: Notes On the NBA Lockout

2011-10-29T12:15:00.008-05:00

For the last few weeks, I've been toying with the idea of doing a piece on the current NBA lockout, but a few troubles and issues have delayed it. At first, I wondered why I cared so much, especially given my other interests and goals: the impressive fall book season; much needed, behind the scenes work for Instafiction; getting used to a seasonal position back in bookselling; and so forth. The bigger picture, however, is literally a bigger picture. With so much going on in the world, namely the passionate Occupy Wall Street movements, why am I concerning myself with the squabbles and ridiculous back-and-forth between billionaire team owners and millionaire professional athletes, men who wring their hands over lost revenue and income, but in reality could never work another day in their lives and still have a better quality of life than the often mentioned 99%? But then again, even as I plan to visit Chicago's Occupy groups in the very near future, and as I focus on my literary goals, there's no shame in my being a basketball fan and annually looking forward to cold winter evenings with drinks, friends, and a game on TV. Last year's playoffs, even with my Bulls falling to Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals, proved to be some of the most exciting postseason basketball in recent memory. And right now, with NBA games canceled through November 30th (at the time of this writing), fans could be "treated" to a repeat of the 1998-1999 season, which was cut to 50 games and featured watered down playoffs that didn't feel complete, especially since no team had a truly full season.

Right now, the NBA Player's Union and league executives are trying to pass a new collective bargaining agreement. There are many contractual stipulations at hand, but the most divisive issue has been BRI: Basketball Related Income. The team owners want a 50-50 split of basketball revenues, whereas the players want to get 52%, which is down from the 57% given to them under the previous agreement (these stats are taken from this article from The Associated Press). Much like the recent NFL lockout, another instance of "billionaires fighting with millionaires," the average person likely has little sympathy for either side. The owners purchased their teams, and like any business, profits are the bottom line. They pay millions in player contracts with the hope of putting winning teams on the courts, and therefore increasing income via the fans. But suddenly, with the potential for even more money on the table, the owners frantically point to fiscal losses and demand a salary cap. The players, while directly responsible for the income that a team generates (executives cannot hit three pointers or play defense), have the option of playing overseas for less money, but still for thousands and even millions. This also doesn't take into account advertising and income related to endorsement deals. Again, these are just the details. I'm a basketball fan, but after months of unemployment and still living drastically beneath my meager means, these details aren't meant to give an edge to either side. In reality, no matter what the final agreement is, both sides will be financially well off for life, and the whole cycle will begin anew when the future agreement expires.

Billy Hunter, the Player's Union Executive Director, and David Stern, the NBA's Commissioner (pictured above), keep going back and forth in the media, thereby, perhaps intentionally, giving sportswriters the obvious angles in which to pursue the story. Sometimes, this is done humorously, making for a read that is at least enjoyable, even if it sheds no new light on the subject (see some of the articles in Grantland, such as this one from Jonathan Abrams). More often than not, sportswriters are naturally critical of the whole debacle, but sometimes for the wrong reasons. Yesterday, Hunter claimed that he (and the union) feels "snookered" by the owners' attempts to bring the two sides closer together. Sean Deveny of The Sporting News offered this statement in a recent article: "The rest of the world—normal folks, the ones who watch the games, the ones dealing with a battered economy, not just here but all over the world—are looking at a group of 400 players and 30 owners fighting over 2 percent of $4 billion." His claim is that the fans are the ones who should feel insulted, since they are the ones who financially support the organization. However, much like the aforementioned NFL lockout, it's tiring to see the fans help up like neglected children who are watching their parents fight. In the scheme of things, basketball fans can turn to NCAA basketball and other winter sports, but there's something insulting about the idea that the consumers are always portrayed as innocent pawns who just want to give their money and time to the NBA. I personally watch games, but I never purchase licensed products or find myself swayed by commercial advertising, but that goes for areas outside of the NBA as well. In this economy, both the players and owners should realize how lucky they are to have this much money to fight about.

The problem is that NBA fans have not made major complaints about the lockout, which is fascinating to me. I'm a very casual football fan, and I wouldn't have been deprived if the NFL season had been scaled down or canceled, but at that time, football fans were constantly taking to social media to bemoan the potential loss of that game. Yes, football is much more popular than basketball right now, but the media members are the ones attempting to create fan backlash where there is none. However, where are the fans who were rooting for various teams during the playoffs? I saw a variety of impressive commentaries via Twitter last spring, yet nobody seems to care if the entire NBA season is lost. However, there is a much more important angle that has been lost in the shuffle, and does tie into the money that fans end up spending.

In the above AP article, Commissioner Stern was said to have apologized to the people whose livelihoods are directly connected to the NBA: the salespeople, concession workers, cleanup crews, maintenance workers, and regular employees who work at the twenty-nine NBA arenas. However, there wasn't even a direct quote from Mr. Stern, only a recapped line at the end of the article. To me, this is the biggest travesty of the entire lockout. At the end of a given workday, I'll have plenty of things to occupy my time if there are no basketball games to watch this winter. NBA players will have other sources of income to live better than the rest of the world. Owners, people who amassed staggering fortunes that allowed them to purchase their teams, won't be counting spare change in order to buy a gallon of milk. However, nobody is thinking about the people who earn money directly or indirectly (restaurant/bar owners and staff, the aforementioned stadium workers) who are losing money that is the difference between getting by and being poverty-stricken. In this sense, my opening mention of the Occupy Wall Street movements could also apply to the National Basketball Association. In this case, there is a true representation of the divide between the 1% and the 99%. With an entire month of the season already canceled, the league needs to come to an agreement, and fast. If fans do become apathetic, their withheld dollars won't affect the players or the owners, but rather the faceless worker who very well is working at a stadium to support a child or a family. At the end of the day, there is so much more at stake than the ability to watch a game. If more people called attention to the plight of average workers, if priorities were truly in order, none of this would be happening. Instead, fans and readers will be fed the same recaps until the agreement is met, when in reality there should be outrage, not for the players, but for the people who depend on their abilities to draw fans and supporters. Once the agreement is reached, there will be smiles and handshakes all around, and the fierce divide will be conveniently forgotten. But none of those dollars will go to the people who need it the most. Much like the Occupy movements, this isn't about handouts, but rather equality and the rights of people to earn a living.

So this is my message to the league and the union: try to think about the people you pass in the hallways at the arena. You probably won't, but imagine your survival depending on an extra paycheck. There are thousands depending on you.

Roughly 39 Problems

2011-10-18T13:02:00.003-05:00

To get into the spirit of Halloween, I had planned to write at least one review of a horror film or a collection of good scary stories, slated for the end of October. However, a recent, random film screening has moved this plan up a couple of weeks earlier than anticipated. Reviews of horror, especially film versions, are often produced by niche websites and publications that strive for comedic or far too serious angles, but with the occasional positive. Two of my fellow bloggers are must-reads for excellent horror film reviews: Bob Turnbull has a wealth of essays at Eternal Sunshine Of the Logical Mind, many of them focusing on rare or under-the-radar movies from Japan and the world abroad. Vincent Sassana's HTML Slop contains reviews of sometimes terrible movies, but his writing is finely balanced between the critical and the hilarious. I recently saw Christian Alvart's Case 39, a seemingly forgettable horror film that was released in the United States last year to very little attention (my first awareness of its existence came when it popped up on my girlfriend's Netflix queue, and we watched it with a shrug, wanting to see a random scary movie). I lack the skill of writing funny takes on bad films, but after a lot of thought, Case 39 is actually a good example of questionable horror craft and misguided films in general. I never write about a piece of media unless there are at least some positives, but even a throwaway film does have the potential to educate.

Renee Zellweger plays Emily, a social worker who begins to investigate a troubled young girl and her eccentric parents. Lily is bright and caring, but her grades are slipping drastically. Emily's first visit is obviously unexpected and unwelcome, and she takes an immediate, sympathetic liking to the girl, telling Lily to call her if she needs anything. A distressed late-night call leads Emily and police detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane) to the house, where they save the girl from being killed by her parents. Afterward, a young boy in Lily's support group brutally murders his own parents, and calls are traced from Emily's house, leading some to believe that the two young children communicated right before the killing. Emily investigates Lily's old house and finds signs of her parents attempting to barricade themselves from the girl. While evaluating Lily, psychiatrist Douglas Ames (Bradley Cooper) is questioned by the girl and is made to reveal his worst fears. Once all of this comes together, and after seeking out the former parents for questioning, it becomes apparent that Lily is a mind-controlling demon, and is seemingly impervious to control or elimination. Emily must fight through everyone else's disbelief to vanquish the "little girl."

It has often been said that some of the best horror films are psychological, but there's nothing wrong with a combination of the psychological and the supernatural. However, re-read the above plot synopsis: the genre rarely provides ground for originality, since every possible scary movie element has been done, done again, told from different angles, and so forth. However, Case 39 commits some pretty basic errors, ones that become all the more unnerving when the rare decent moment comes up. First of all, I've often wondered why horror films with famous cast members tend to do poorly. Perhaps higher production costs, given the cost of the actors associated, make horror movies too glossy and sacrifice emphasis on direction and writing in favor of seeing well-known faces in precarious, CGI-infused situations. In my opinion, scary movies are better when seemingly done on the fly, with relatively unknown actors seeming more like characters instead of having the audience make mental notes of "Hey, _____ is about to get killed!" I've never really considered Renee Zellweger a favorite actress, but I've never really disliked her. Her performance is fine, but given the limitations and obvious developments of the story, any actress could have been cast and able to frown and look stressed out. Ian McShane (Deadwood) is physically cast as a stock type, a grizzled yet caring detective. Bradley Cooper's role is actually important for unexpected reasons (more on that later). Child actress Jodelle Ferland actually works quite well as the demon child. She doesn't overact and makes a convincing portrayal as a seemingly bright, innocent girl. Later in the film, CGI takes over, but she manages to be unnerving and unsettling when letting the hints of her true character come out. She's soft spoken, direct, and in one of the film's best scenes, adds a lot of creepy atmosphere to the simple, childhood act of spinning around in a wheeled office chair.

In such a film, any actor is reliant upon the screenwriter and director. Screenwriter Ray Wright seems to have not expended any energy into the story, following a "paint by numbers" formula that manages to foreshadow every so-called twist and turn. For such a weak film, he at least attempts to build up the climaxes instead of revealing the demonic forces early and often; then again, even someone like me, a film lover who is behind on noted horror movies, gets used to the cliches and the supposedly scary moments. However, there are three key moments in the film that should make an audience wonder how much better the final product could have been. This isn't a horror-comedy, but at one point, Emily tells her boss that Lily's mother is an emotional slave to her husband; he turns and asks if she had actually interviewed his parents. Toward the end of the film, Emily confronts Mike outside of his church and asks why he believes in religious forces and not the ones outside. Religion and horror have been explored many times in film, but this loaded question could have possibly provided more intriguing angles. And finally, when Lily asks Douglas about his fears, she tells him that she doesn't like him and finds him smug. I sincerely hope that this line was added after the casting was done, because it works as unintentional comedy: she seems to be saying that to Bradley Cooper, not his character. Director Christian Alvart doesn't provide any directorial touches other than the ones seemingly mandated by horror conventions. Of the technical aspects, the best work is done by cinematographer Hagen Bodanski. The colors are drab and gray, and every setting seems to be muted and depressing. It might seem like an obvious atmosphere for such a film, but it's done well without being ominous to the point of distraction.

In any case, this film will ultimately be forgotten, but will probably benefit from the impulse rentals and screenings around this time of year. I was also taken aback by the title. Case 39 is a reference to the final case examined by Emily at the end of her workday (another cliche). However, it recalls Brad Anderson's vastly superior Session 9 (2001). If this was meant to be a homage, it backfires terribly, since it subconsciously reminds viewers of the better films out there. Or is it supposed to reference The 39 Steps? I couldn't find any plot similarities, but again, it's a bad titling decision to salute films that work on a better psychological level.

In searching for images to use in this piece, I came across a review written in the British newspaper The Guardian. This is a slight spoiler, but the article's headline was nearly perfect in its jab at the film's quality: "If only the producers had been sensible and marketed this Renee Zellweger horror as the movie in which Bradley Cooper vomits bees."

The Past Is the Present: Wilco's "The Whole Love"

2011-10-05T11:32:00.003-05:00

Ever since falling in love with Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot back in 2002, I've grown as a music listener, as far as branching out into the various bands and musicians I count among my favorites (before that landmark Wilco album, my tastes were limited, to put it mildly). In that time, I've also tried to develop my skill of music critiques, and, inadvertently, the band's subsequent releases have helped in that sense. From 2004's A Ghost Is Born until last week's release of The Whole Love, I've followed a pretty consistent pattern. I become extremely excited when one of their new albums is announced, and I acquire it the day it comes out; as with certain authors and books, there's a limited number of releases that I anxiously await. With Wilco's developing sounds, they haven't released anything in the last ten years that I've immediately embraced. A Ghost Is Born remains one of their most challenging albums, since it's such a painstaking mix of sounds, technical accompaniments, and was drastically different than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. However, once I had listened to it a few times, it became one of my favorites. Today, 2009's Wilco (The Album) is their only release that I would say I dislike, only in comparison to their previous works. It's fine on its own, but given what they're capable of doing, I found it to be a step back, but it has grown on me more in recent months. Therefore, I was cautiously optimistic about last week's release of The Whole Love, Wilco's first self-released album on the dBpm label.

While not reaching the creative peak of their late 1990s-early 2000s work (which isn't mean to be a criticism, since that output would be nearly impossible to match by anyone), The Whole Love does prove to be an impressive mix and match of songs that highlight the band's styles and previous efforts, and the two opening tracks are the best examples of this. "Art of Almost" is a wonderfully audacious opening track, going all out immediately. It's a seven minute song that ends up going in several different directions, but without being distracting. It opens with a grainy techno beat before seamlessly moving into a steady rhythm, with Tweedy's voice blending with the myriad of sounds going on behind him. Lyrically, it's mildly poetic and doesn't insist on offering a lot to take in, but the focus is on the music, which stuns with its ups and downs and alternations between dance and drone. Normally, this would seem like too much, or like a band trying to show off, but instead, it works as a potential culmination of the styles for which the band is known. They're at home with softer, more introspective songs that feel like poetry set to music, but they can also veer into experimental use of noise. Only after this is the album's first single presented, and having heard "I Might" first, it's an excellent set-up.

When "I Might" was released, it felt like a throwback to 1999's Summerteeth, a catchy, hard-rock jam that allows the contributions of everyone in the band to be heard, a far cry from the arc and technical flourishes of "Art Of Almost." Going by "I Might" alone, one wouldn't have been faulted for assuming that Wilco would revisiting their early sounds. Taking the songs alone, this is true, but having the stunning lead-in only leads to more intrigue. After two drastically different openers, the listener becomes more curious as to what follows. Most importantly, The Whole Love doesn't start off feeling like a "best-of" collection, but rather a reminder of how their previous works have evolved. It's also a nice reinforcement of the concept of the album, rather than a "concept album;" the openers feel strategically placed for this purpose. Again, there's nothing particularly inventive about Jeff Tweedy's lyrics on these songs, which emphasizes everyone else's contributions.

Afterward, the album maintains a continually strong effort. The lyrics end up coming into focus, especially on "Sunloathe" and "Born Alone," the latter containing pieces that rank right up with some of Tweedy's most evocative words, with many potential avenues of interpretation. Unlike the opening tracks, it becomes a better blend of music and lyrics, and also another example of The Whole Love's multiplicities. Sometimes, even the most somber lyrics are presented in the album's more up-tempo songs.

I am the driver at the wheel of the order, marching circles at the gate/
My eyes have seen the flurry, so flattered by fate

For all the mention of Tweedy, the album does feel like one of their better collaborative efforts. Nels Cline's guitar playing always works amazingly well in two ways, featured and as part of the combination, and Pat Sansone has a hand in the album's production. Even though Tweedy's troubles with the late Jay Bennett have been heavily documented, with each passing Wilco album, there's a definite feeling of mutual creativity. While Tweedy is still their face and primary songwriter, there seems to be much more cohesion and input from everyone.

There is only one real critique of The Whole Love: it seems to be the least "album-like" of any of their previous works. For all of the unity of both the band members and the variations on the sounds, it does feel like a collection of (very good) songs, rather than a piece that has any real connection as a whole. However, given their unsteady nature as of late, this can be easily overlooked and forgiven. This is easily their best album in the last seven years, and their independence seems to have made them flourish. I hope that the future brings even more experimental work with their sounds. It's rare to hear a work, or a band, that manages to slip between minimalism, all-out experimentation, and just plain classic rock songs. So in a sense, The Whole Love truly is a Wilco album: they haven't fallen, and there are still new areas of creativity to explore as their years go on. Their identity is the album's theme.

Journey To the Center Of the Self: Murkami's "A Wild Sheep Chase"

2011-09-30T16:49:00.006-05:00

I will admit to being my own worst critic at times, especially when it comes to self-critiquing my own writing and reviewing. My friends tell me that I'm too self-deprecating, which is not untrue. Therefore, perhaps as a personal defense mechanism, I'll occasionally administer an open confession in regard to literature. For example, if I'm reading a well-known writer for the first time, I might introduce an essay with a bewildered wonderment of how I've gone as long as I have without having read him or her. However, I feel this is warranted when it comes to the writings of Haruki Murakami. My readings of his works have been scattered at best, limited to a lot of his short stories and not his regarded novels. Like many in the literary community, I'm getting more and more excited about the upcoming publication of 1Q84, which is shaping up to be his most acclaimed novel. Since October is coming up very soon, I simply had to read one of his novels lest I come across like a poser when I get caught up in his newest work. Picking a Murakami novel to read is daunting, especially given that there are so many to choose from, and each one of his works has its own dedicated fan base. My best friend recently finished A Wild Sheep Chase and gave me his copy when he was finished. The timing worked out quite well. Unlike my foray into the works of John Cheever, I'm starting at Murakami's general beginning, rather than at the end. For such a briskly paced work, it's a strong mix of themes and styles, and an early indicator of what was to come.

A Wild Sheep Chase tells the story of a nameless advertising executive, a plain, logical, chain-smoking divorcee who uses a photo of a mountain-dwelling sheep herd in a small pamphlet. In addition to dealing the effects of his divorce, his interactions are limited to his new girlfriend (a woman with ears so perfectly formed as to overshadow the rest of her body), and his alcoholic advertising partner. The sheep photo catches the attention of a mysterious, potentially criminal organization. Unbeknownst to the narrator, one of the sheep has a black star image on its back, and the organization demands that he find the sheep immediately, or face the elimination of his company. He's given an envelope of money and vague instructions, and along with his girlfriend, he embarks on the journey to locate the mysterious sheep. Along the way, the reader is introduced to an estranged man known only as the Rat; the proprietor of a run-down hotel and his father, a man known as the Sheep Professor; and at a remote mountain home, the stakes get weirder with the appearance of the fast-talking Sheep Man. Like many mystery stories, implications and personal detours abound. The search for the marked sheep is part of many journeys that are part of a larger destination. While some of the above summaries might seem like they're taken from an average mass market mystery, Murakami's early prose manages to make the novel enjoyable.

My previous look at Murakami's writing led me to make favorable comparisons between his own style and the story elements of Raymond Carver. With the exception of Jonathan Lethem's occasional homage to the old school mystery genre, I'm not familiar with the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. While A Wild Sheep Chase isn't a detective story, Murakami sets the story up with a heavy dose of confusion, ominous characters, and rapid dialogue and development that would undoubtedly be at home in a noir-like atmosphere. However, it's also mixed with psychological undertones just begging to be dissected.

"The room was utterly silent. Now there is the silence you encounter on entering a grand manor. And there is the silence that comes of too few people in a big space. But this was a different quality of silence altogether. A ponderous, oppressive silence. A silence reminiscent, though it took me a while to put my finger on it, of the silence that hangs around a terminal patient. A silence pregnant with the presentiment of death. The air faintly musty and ominous.

'Everyone dies,' said the man softly with downcast eyes. He seemed to have an uncanny purchase on the drift of my thoughts. 'All of us, whosoever, must die sometime (Murakami 124).'"

These passages are also balanced nicely with excellent metaphors and phrases that seemingly come in passing, yet stick out in their meticulous details:

"It took ten minutes for the beer to come. Meanwhile, I planted an elbow on the armrest of my chair, rested my head on my hand, and shut my eyes. Nothing came to mind. With my eyes closed, I could hear hundreds of elves sweeping out my head with their tiny brooms. They kept sweeping and sweeping. It never occurred to any of them to use a dustpan (Murakami 151)."

"The conductor was so totally without expression he could have pulled off a bank robbery without covering his face (Murakami 249)."

Murakami has been criticized by Japanese literary critics for his Western influences, but for all of Americanized touches, there's a definite atmosphere of Japanese solitude and hints of the dire consequences of nonconformity. For example, the aforementioned Sheep Professor's early life is presented in detail. He works in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, yet his mental and spiritual harmony results in being ostracized. In any culture, claiming to be in a "spiritual communion" with a sheep would be cause for being outcast, yet a knowledge of Japanese societal unity makes his tale that much more saddening, even if it's just a mysterious element in a fictional setting.

"February 1936. The Sheep Professor is ordered home to Japan. After undergoing numerous similar interrogations, he is transferred in the spring to the Ministry Reference Collection. There he catalogues reference materials and organizes bookshelves. In other words, he has been purged from the core elite of the East Asian agricultural administration (Murakami 215)."

I haven't gotten into the core of the novel's climax, partly because full explanations would be grave spoilers, but also because the last half of the novel takes on fantastically different themes. Plus, a complete summary, when done as a recap of the plot points, would render A Wild Sheep Chase as unintelligible. The star-marked sheep takes on quite a few potential meanings: in another review I skimmed, the case is made for it being a symbol of postwar Japan. However, there's also a case for the journey leading to a change in the narrator's life: in the mountain house, he's left alone and makes necessary life changes. He becomes accustomed to solitude, takes up running, and is forced to quit smoking. He doesn't present these changes as life-altering, but merely as an adaptation to his surroundings. At times, the sought-after sheep becomes an afterthought. The foray into realism then gets completely flipped as he communicates with potentially paranormal forces, taking them in stride as he does with every other detour in his life. This buildup of the other-worldly then descends into a seemingly casual ending, as the narrator tries to make peace with his associates and his journey in general.

A Wild Sheep Chase is the conclusion of "The Trilogy of the Rat," a series of Murakami's first forays into novel writing. While there is the possibility that the first two works could shed light on the open-ended meanings of the final work, it does manage to stand on its own. Murakami does manage to make the different elements connect, despite the consistent twists into different themes and settings. I can't immediately say that this will end up being one of my favorite novels, but it is genuinely surprising and gives the reader no choice but to ponder the underlying metaphors, and given that this is one of Murakami's earliest works, it's truly admirable in its scope, especially since it's such a fast, dialogue-heavy novel. It's not for everyone, especially if a reader is not accustomed to having to balance the mythological, the realistic, and the supernatural. Placing this into a single genre is impossible, but all of the elements tie together into one destination. It's easy to imagine this written by someone else and having it be a mess, but Murakami doesn't resort to any real trickery. It's ultimately up to the reader to decide what's real and what's not, and that in itself sums up the work as a whole.

Work Cited:
Murakami, Haruki. A Wild Sheep Chase. Copyright 1989 by Haruki Murakami.

Chicago Flame Archives: Gael Garcia Bernal Interview

2011-09-23T11:08:00.005-05:00

My reading schedule has been sporadic lately, and the bulk of my upcoming reviews will be taking shape in the next two weeks or so. Therefore, I'm continuing with my Chicago Flame archival process. Back in 2004, I had the great fortune to interview Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who was promoting the 'Che' Guevara biopic The Motorcycle Diaries. Not only did I love Walter Salles' film, I had counted Gael Garcia Bernal among my favorite actors for a few years before the interview, and continuing until today. I admired his acting and willingness to take on daunting, exposed roles, as well as his intellect and mastery of languages. Upon meeting him for the interview, I was taken aback by his genuine courtesy, making sure that a handful of college journalists had the time to ask questions, and personally offering to get us something to drink. This article was written when I was twenty-one, and while it's not my best sample (I dubbed him the world's greatest actor; little sentences like these make me cringe years later), the memories of the interview were far greater. This is my third archival piece reprinted on this blog: the first one was my interview with Chuck Palahniuk, and the second one was my interview with Robert Duvall.

Portraying the Enigma That is 'Che'(originally published in The Chicago Flame, September 14, 2004)

Ernesto "Che" Guevara is among the most famous yet little understood political figures to have ever lived. Stroll downtown and you'll almost definitely see his image printed on a T-shirt or a backpack. His life story is very unbalanced, a struggle between the images of being a leader of the people and a crazed radical. Opinions vary to this day.

"He's well known but he's not," says Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who portrays him in The Motorcycle Diaries. "He's an icon that people recognize, but people don't know [about him]. We [Latinos] relate strongly to him. He's still so alive."
Going about portraying a famous figure in a movie is a challenge to any actor. Bernal is no exception.

"It was heavy and overwhelming. We prepared exhaustingly for six months, and then I still didn't feel ready. I wanted to do it well. It's who I am." Bernal adds: "He [Guevara] needed our experiences to be alive [on the screen]."

The new film by Walter Salles is astonishing. It tells Guevara's story from the beginning, based on his memoirs. We don't necessarily see a revolutionary in the making, but a young man being exposed to the world's harsh inequalities. Guevara was a medical student from Argentina when he and Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) embarked on a motorcycle trip across South America.

The two men have a couple of strikes against them. Granado's motorcycle is in anything but good condition, and Guevara suffers from a severe case of asthma, which plagued him throughout his life.

"He was weak," says Bernal. "He was quiet and observant."

But, in the tradition of any "road movie," the two men won't let anything stop or postpone the journey.

The first leg of their trip is to visit Celia, Ernesto's love interest. The two are definitely made for each other, but are plagued by sexual frustration and the looming continuation of his trip. She gives him fifteen American dollars to buy her a bikini, should he reach the United States.

The interactions between Guevara and Granado (both before and after the first detour) are very important in setting up the mood for the rest of the film. Their dialogue is playful, humorous, and juvenile.

"I could use my voice," comments Bernal, "and not be so heroic and dramatic."

We know that the film will detail Guevara's ideological changes, but the script and the acting are very natural. Neither man gets weighed down in tiresome, scripted dialogue. It's very likely that they engaged in banter like that. The film doesn't rush the central message.
As their travels continue, they get into some hilarious misadventures. While in Chile, in order to get their motorcycle fixed for free, they interact with the locals, getting on their good side while over-hyping their medical skills. Why would they do that? Well, it's enough to land them in the local newspaper, which is good to flash at the town mechanic when they're low on cash.

Once they enter Venezuela and Peru, Guevara gets a hard look at the downtrodden citizens. They meet an elderly mining couple, desperate for work and persecuted for their communist beliefs. Their work at a Peruvian leper colony further shows Guevara the separation between rich and poor.

His journal entry at an ancient Incan city sums up the discrepancies: "The Incas had astronomy, knew brain surgery, and mathematics. The Spanish [who destroyed the Incan civilization] had gunpowder."

To properly analyze this film, one must begin with the acting, led by Gael Garcia Bernal. He is arguably the greatest actor in world cinema. His past films (Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Crime of Padre Amaro) quickly showed American audiences how talented he is, in addition to drawing a lot of controversy for their subject matters. Bernal has no problem with controversy over his or anyone else's films.

"Controversy is when a personal point of view is exposed," he explains. "It's healthy."

Rodrigo de la Serna provides a wonderful parallel as Granado, being both the main comic relief and a touching mode of understanding for the youthful Guevara.

Like any political leader, "Che" Guevara was by no means perfect. He was a leader of the people, and his opposition to U.S. intervention in Latin America led to his assassination in 1967.

"Democracy is very fishy," says Bernal. "There's no real representation or way of governing. The U.S. is not a great nation, it's a great people."

"That's what cost him [Guevara] his life."

Most importantly, Guevara was human. The Motorcycle Diaries shows the compassion and determination of a young man during a crucial stage in his life. All politics aside, the film is a moving, beautiful tribute to the desire for equality.

The film will surely add to Bernal's growing reputation as the world's greatest actor.

"[I'll only do a movie] if there's something meaningful," he says. "I feel shitty not doing something comfortable. It's not for the money...if it was, I'd be living in LA and trying to be a star."

Most importantly, Bernal is optimistic that The Motorcycle Diaries will be an inspiration to people everywhere.

"It re-affirmed my priorities and challenged me. It's an approach, a pathway to knowledge. You can understand the human condition and work to change it."

A Lost Paradise: John Cheever

2011-09-14T13:29:00.007-05:00

Oh What a Paradise It Seems, a novella that proved to be John Cheever's final published work of fiction, is admittedly a strange starting point, especially when placed next to his much more esteemed bibliographic selections. Perhaps I should be embarrassed that it has taken me this long to get around to him, or perhaps I would have been better off beginning with The Stories of John Cheever, which I've owned for a few months. As for novels, Falconer is his most acclaimed work. I was at a community yard sale last month, and the final house had by far the best collection of 'for sale' books: Cheever, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and a giant anthology of Japanese stories. I began reading Oh What a Paradise It Seems on a whim, but then I realized that beginning with a "lesser" work might be better in the long run. A natural inclination is to begin an introduction to a given writer with the most highly praised pieces, but what's the harm in beginning from the edges? If his other works do prove to be much better, then they may be that much more satisfying.

Oh What a Paradise It Seems is nothing if not ambitious, even for such a slim volume. It opens with Lemuel Sears, an older New York man taking a trip to the small mill town of Janice (named after the original mill owner's wife) to skate on Beasley's Pond. His daughter lives in the town, and Cheever sketches the surrounding areas with a mix of old-time nostalgia and then-contemporary observations (the town has no fast food restaurants due to a corporate computer glitch). Afterward, a vast assortment of subplots come into play: Beasley's Pond becomes an environmental dumping ground; Lemuel begins a torrid affair with a younger woman, a relationship highlighted by confusion, elusiveness, and a lead-in to a homosexual fling; and two of the families in Janice begin a feud that culminates into public showdowns. Major events are also presented, almost as asides: the murder of a dog, the accidental abandonment of a child, the murder of an environmental scientist, and acts of local terrorism. These are all blended into an otherwise standard narrative, which, given the plot points recapped above, may seem impossible, especially since the novella runs for only one hundred pages.

In addition to the numerous happenings, Cheever manages to expand upon various ideas, to the point of going off into wild tangents. None of them are exactly distracting, nor do they take away from the regular narrative; then again, with a close reading, a reader has to wonder where exactly Cheever intended to go with the narrator's hypotheses. The passage below is a good example. The book is rife with potentially biblical references, yet more often than not veer just slightly into other ideas.

"At the north end of the town was Beasley's Pond--a deep body of water, shaped like a bent arm, with heavily forested shores. Here were water and greenery, and if one were a nineteenth-century painter one would put into the foreground a lovely woman on a mule, bent a little over the child she held and accompanied by a man with a staff. This would enable the artist to label the painting 'Flight into Egypt,' although all he had meant to commemorate was his bewildering pleasure in a fine landscape on a summer's day (Cheever 4-5)."

There is undeniable beauty in the passages. The beauty of rural life is depicted with the sameness of urban life, and while this may seem like an obvious literary trope, Cheever handles it with careful phrases, and ultimately, both settings end up being equally critiqued and praised.

"The offices where she worked struck him as being characterized by a kind of netherness. They were on the nether floor of a nether building in a nether neighborhood, and when he entered the place he saw nothing that was not distinguished by its portability. The reception room decorated with a vast urn, filled with artificial grasses and weeds, the receptionist's desk, the receptionist herself all seemed highly mobile as if they could be moved, at short notice, to another building, another state or even another country (Cheever 13)."

With even the most basic knowledge of John Cheever's background, it's easy to see Lemuel Sears as an autobiographical reflection, and it's almost impossible not to be moved. In the years since Cheever's death, biographies and published letters have shown him to be conflicted by feelings of inadequacy, especially in his sexual makeup as a closeted bisexual. I have a tendency to mention this too often, but a rule of thumb is to never confuse the author with the text. However, given that Oh What a Paradise It Seems was composed near the end of Cheever's life, the text has potential insights into his state of mind, whether he expected it to be apparent or not. The textual sketches of homosexuality are outdated (the work was published in 1982), but seem consistent in attempts to explain it.

"Just following her to a table in a restaurant inaugurated an erotic competition that would leave the waiters, and any other players, obliged to dismiss Sears as an old man who, with his clothes off, would present nothing interesting but a costly wristwatch (Cheever 42)."

"'Your male lover is a traditional invention of the neurotic,' said Dr. Palmer. 'You have invented some ghostly surrogate of a lost school friend or a male relation from your early youth (Cheever 60).'"

Even with sometimes outdated reflections, Cheever does manage to create some very timely sketches, especially later in the novella. A hearing is set for the state of Beasley's Pond, and an argument erupts between the town's mayor and Chisholm, the environmental scientist. It's a strong balance of ideas, and mirrors today's political battle between environmental woes and a conservative political landscape. In one extended diatribe from the town's mayor, an entire cycle of American problems comes to light, and it's very tempting to visualize the mayor as a composite of today's GOP candidates. Perhaps I'm going out on a limb, literary-criticism wise, but the passage should back up this claim.

"'I haven't finished,' said the mayor. 'I've described this meeting as a courtesy, and I've encountered nothing but troublemakers. You, Mr. Chisholm, have, I happen to know, never served in the armed forces of your great country and you have no understanding, of course, of our wish to raise a memorial to our patriotic dead. You would like, I know, to prove that our fill in Beasley's Pond is comprised of leachates and contaminants. My father was an honest Yankee fisherman. He was a soldier. He was a patriot. He was a churchgoer. He was the husband of seven healthy and successful children. If I spoke to him about leachates and contaminants, he would tell me to speak English. 'This is the United States of America, my son,' he would say, 'and I want you to speak English.''Leachates' and 'contaminants' sound like a foreign language, and to bring governmental interference into our improvements of Beasley's Pond is like the work of a foreign government (Cheever 90).'"

I haven't touched upon the entirety of the plot, as I mentioned in the opening summary. None of the themes are loose ends; everything ties together, even if the ties are somewhat forced or rushed. Again, for all of this to be packed into a novella is a strong feat, but there are some limitations. Cheever keeps the scope of the work open to a diverse list of potential meanings, and even though there's value in the problems of the characters, there's a nagging sense of a writer, even one as prolific as Cheever, trying to do too much with limited space. It's easy to make assumptions, much like I did with the linking of possibly autobiographical themes. However, was this the work of someone who knew he was dying? Was it an attempt to create a small capsule of contemporary life? There is much to consider in the pages, but for me, satisfaction came from analyzing the themes individually, rather than as interlocking parts. Cheever's Wikipedia page states that the first reviewers praised the work with the understanding that Cheever was dying. With this in mind, the praise is warranted, not in a patronizing manner, but for the attempt to explore numerous sociological and psychological elements in a limited space. I'm going to return to his earlier works in the near future, and it should be fascinating to see the differences between the writer as a young man and the writer as someone making a final statement.

Work Cited:
Cheever, John. Oh What a Paradise It Seems. Copyright 1982 by John Cheever.

Film Stock: "Our Idiot Brother"

2011-09-05T11:37:00.005-05:00

Jesse Peretz's Our Idiot Brother is one of the most genuinely enjoyable films to be released this summer. On the surface, this is an impressive feat, since the majority of the film is a mix of plot lines, characters, and developments that have been done numerous times, in a variety of ways, both good and bad. A family's black sheep member returns home and wreaks havoc. Seemingly successful people have problems and limitations. Integrity and success are found to be conflicting interests. Plot twists and climaxes can be seen a mile away. Now that these "faults" are out of the way, the positives come into focus. The truly "original" film is a rarity, so even with often-used tropes, good writing and acting are essential. Our Idiot Brother has both, and while it does have the occasional limitation, the actors make it extremely enjoyable.

Ned (Paul Rudd), is an eternally optimistic hippie, working with his girlfriend at a biodynamic farm. At a farmer's market, he listens to the pleas of a uniformed police officer and is duped into selling him weed, and thereby being arrested. After being released from jail, he goes back to the farm, only to find that his girlfriend has taken up with a new man and even keeps his dog out of spite. Believing that he needs to save up money to rent space in a goat farm on the property, Ned returns to his mother and sisters. Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), a journalist for Vanity Fair, is on the verge of beginning her first major interview. Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a spoken word performer, conflicted about her commitment to her girlfriend and her attraction to a young male painter. Liz (behind Rudd, Emily Mortimer has the best performance in this film) has two young children and is struggling with a strenuous, sexless marriage with Dylan (Steve Coogan), a snobby documentary filmmaker. Ned lives and interacts with all of his sisters for various lengths of time, and their desire to help him out leads to individual conflicts. He gets along fabulously with his nephew, but Liz and Dylan look down upon Ned's influence, especially since they're trying to raise an impossibly cultured child. His complete honesty leads to tension between Miranda and her unspoken love for her neighbor, Jeremy. A misunderstanding about Natalie's confession to her girlfriend completes the family's strain. When added to his ex-girlfriend's stubbornness and an off-hand remark to his probation officer, Ned must use his simple life philosophies to help bring closure and understanding to everyone.

For a long time, I've believed that Paul Rudd is one of the most underrated actors working today, and a testament to his skills is his ability to help elevate what could be substandard material. A role as an optimistic hippie has unbelievable potential for hamming, yet Rudd manages to make Ned lovable and, most importantly, believable. Even in the most dire circumstances, none of his actions are malicious. Honesty is his best policy, and his lack of living in a regular day-to-day world is his only fault. He is continually called out on his openness, but his comments and interactions are genuine; usually, when a film character is described as "brutally honest," that means dick jokes or mean-spirited dialogue in inappropriate scenarios. Ned just wants to foster open communications, and he doesn't live life as a means to hiding true beliefs. He's not a man-child, either. His interactions with his nephew are the few times that the child is able to act like a regular kid, and in the film's biggest outburst, Ned puts his sisters in their place, showing an understanding of their situations that belies his usual goofiness. With a warm smile or an understated piece of dialogue, Paul Rudd makes Ned a combination of excellent qualities, just in the wrong situations.

The roles of Miranda, Natalie, and Liz are very strong, but also seem to be heavily influenced by the films of Woody Allen. On the surface, these are stock female characters: the career woman (Miranda), the creative younger sister (Natalie), and the modern mother (Liz). Add Dylan, the cheating, conniving brother-in-law, and the women in Our Idiot Brother could be a mixture of the women in Hannah and Her Sisters and Interiors. During one of the film's climactic scenes, the three sisters sit down with the intention of discussing Liz's predicament, and it turns into an argument over their personalities. It's a relatively tame scene, but does mirror some of the dialogues Allen has employed in his earlier works. These are not rip-offs at all, and are too fine-tuned to be coincidental. If the sisters were intended to work as a homage to Allen, it works quite well. (Note: the following hypothesis is not mine, but an extension of a point made by my friend Eric) Natalie's bisexuality, and Ned's comic interaction between a sexually open couple are important plot points, but are also admirable uses of homosexuality in a manner that doesn't make the sexual orientation itself the butt of any jokes, but rather, like all sex and comedy, it leads to extensive comedic scenarios. Woody Allen has been criticized for the lack of gay characters in his film worlds, so it's a commendable nod to Our Idiot Brother's writers. The film works as nod to another screenwriter, but with their own flourishes.

The film was written by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall, and the two have done an admirable job. The transition between the comedic and the dramatic is sometimes uneven, and while none of the conflicts are left unresolved, Our Idiot Brother ends obviously, with seemingly happy endings for all of the characters. However, going back to my opening, everything is handled well. Even with shaky transitions and closure, the resolutions aren't preachy or insulting. The dramatic scenes are not overdone, and the comedy never veers into unnecessary gross-out humor or slapstick. The funniest lines in the film are the most casually uttered ones, and are only quotable to people who have seen the film. A common mistake with novice screenwriters is the belief that humor has to be obvious or highlighted; here, it's blended and occasionally requires attention to pick up on the nuances. Therefore, the writers do a fine balancing act, making the rare unrealistic scenes seem plausible. Nothing is overdone, and for first-time screenwriters, everything is handled well. Peretz doesn't add any flourishes to his direction, but sometimes the best directing is the type that isn't immediately noticeable. The script and the actors handle the work, and there's no need for any obvious cinematography or flashy camerawork.

Our Idiot Brother is a highlight for everyone involved. Rudd continues to be enjoyable and charming, and can elevate even a terrible movie (which this is not). I've always enjoyed Elizabeth Banks, and her acting, like that of Rudd, is a continually strong balance between playful and serious. Is this the best comedy ever made? No, but it doesn't need to be. The diverse cast does exactly what's needed, and the film could even reveal more comedic highlights after multiple viewings. It's an excellent example of an above average film that gets the most out of average expectations, therefore being entertaining without stooping to insult the audience or relying on stupidity for laughs. It's been playing for a week and might need time for more word-of-mouth recommendations. I highly recommend it for people who enjoy smart comedies. People who go into it expecting stupidity and obvious laughs? They'll be very pleasantly surprised.

Colophon: A Newspaper For Stories We Found On the Web

2011-09-02T10:52:00.003-05:00

For the last two months, I've been co-editing Instafiction.org, a collection of web-based short stories designed for daily weekday feeds, compatible with storage devices such as Instapaper, mobile devices/e-readers, and updated via the site, Twitter, and Facebook. I wrote a brief introductory piece during our official launch, and I've had the details listed to your right in the sidebar. We've developed a small, yet enthusiastic following, and various literary magazines and authors have supported our project. While we are chugging along, we decided to see if we couldn't experiment with a new format as a way to support writers.

Jeremy Bushnell came up with the idea of creating a newspaper version of some of the Instafiction stories. Our site is possible because of the digital transformation, but there is simply no denying that reading on paper is its own aesthetic pleasure. No matter how much they try, the creators of e-reading devices can never truly replicate the feel of a printed page. To make this project more feasible, Jeremy created a video and page with Kickstarter, a website that allows people to pitch creative projects in the interest of gaining financial backing. If we can raise enough money, our limited-run newspaper will be called Colophon. The complete page of details can be found here.

So yes, this is a plea for both donations and for spreading the word. Yes, this is a world of tight finances. However, one can donate a little as $1, yet, as the page explains, the more you donate, the more you'll receive. Most importantly, if we can raise $1,000 by October 2nd, not only will we be able to see this project to completion, but some of the finances will go toward the authors who have been featured in Instafiction thus far. So if this sounds promising, make a donation. The closing paragraph of the Kickstarter page sums this up nicely:

"With a dose of support from even a small group of enthusiastic readers, we can get it done. For as low as just $20, you can get a copy of the completed paper. Whatever proceeds remain once we pay Newspaper Club and our Kickstarter/Amazon fees will be split evenly, with half going to cover the ongoing costs of the Instafiction.org project and half going to support the hardworking authors who agree to let us print their work. The more money we raise, the more money the authors will receive.
We hope you’ll consider helping us to make something really cool happen. Thanks!"

Italo Calvino: Tales From the Cities

2011-08-31T11:12:00.007-05:00

Recently, I wrote a guest review of The Long Goodbye for the website Booksellers Without Borders. I was pleased with my submission, yet looking back on my introduction to the piece, I found myself incredibly harsh with my critiques of the memoir industry. Granted, I was careful to specify that my arguments were directed at certain memoir sub-genres, and certainly not the entire category. Meghan O'Rourke definitely amazed me with her work, and I recently finished Italo Calvino's Hermit In Paris: Autobiographical Writings. With Calvino's work, even more potential disclaimers arose, at least initially. I've been an admirer of his fiction for many years, so it's (personally) odd that I haven't read his non-fiction writings beyond Six Memos For the Next Millennium. While this is an older collection, a lot of regarded writers have had their personal writings published, sometimes posthumously, with those volumes sometimes seeming like no more than collectible items for completists, rather than worthy additions to a given canon.

However, I was grateful to find that none of those initial worries ended up applying to Hermit In Paris. It's a collection of autobiographical sketches from magazines, translated/transcribed interviews, and the occasional insight into his writing process and political leanings. The majority of the pages are devoted to his then-unpublished "American Diary 1959-1960," an illuminating, vastly entertaining account of his first American visit. In Six Memos, Calvino shared his views on the few qualities of fiction that have multiple impacts. As I've mentioned previously, his enthusiasm for the subject permeated that text, creating a work that was a combination of the technical and the joyous. In Hermit In Paris, Calvino's non-fiction style goes in a different direction. While there's no doubt that he feels passionately about his work and life, most of the topics are explored in a very matter-of-fact tone. For someone noted for grand, fabulist novels and stories, it's interesting to note how his takes on reality are equally as grounded. At the same time, the wealth of information and detail are gripping, with no need for stylistic embellishments.

"American Diary 1959-1960" is the heart of the collection, but not for the obvious reasons. His entries provide sketches of mid-twentieth century America that seem to fit the understood mental images that people have of that era, even if he or she didn't live through it. However, being an Italian visitor, his descriptions are intended to be neutral, even with his accounts focusing on the positive and the negative. He's looking at the country through new eyes. Some of the scenes and writings apply perfectly to today's American landscape, but having them exposed back then was probably jarring.

"In the land of consumption where everything must be thrown away so you can rush and buy new goods, in the land of standardized production, one learns, surprisingly, that there is a whole underworld market of goods which no one would ever imagine could be bought or sold in America. There are huge stores of second-rate goods, as in the Italian area of Chicago, which are the same as the stores downtown except that the goods are rejects which exude an air of poverty even when they are new (Calvino 71)."

I'm not trying to fit his older passages to modern times, but really, his accounts of some Texas citizens could nicely apply to the likes of Rick Perry and his supporters:

"What comes over is an impression of a country in uniform, these middle-class families marching in formation all wearing stetsons and fringed jackets, proudly displaying their practicality and anti-intellectualism which has developed into their mythology, fanaticism, and alarming belligerence (Calvino 105)."

Arguably the most famous and stirring accounts in the American diaries are Calvino's travels to Montgomery, Alabama. He witnessed the most savage examples of American racism, and depicted it honestly. Some of the most shameful acts in American history are written about without moralizing or grandiose images. These accounts and images are painfully well-known, but coming from the voice of an outsider who's witnessing it firsthand makes the racism, segregation, and violence even more shocking.

"This is a day that I will never forget as long as I live. I have seen what racism is, mass racism, accepted as one of a society's fundamental rules. I was present at one of the first episodes of mass struggle by the Southern blacks: and it ended in defeat. I don't know if you are aware that after decades of total immobility black protests began right here, in the worst segregationist State in the country: some were even successful, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, a Baptist minister, advocate of non-violent protest. That is why I came here to Montgomery, the day before yesterday, but I did not expect to find myself right in the middle of these crucial days of struggle (Calvino 111)."

"This famous Southern aristocracy gives me the impression of being uniquely stupid in its continual harking back to the glories of the Confederacy; this Confederate patriotism which survives intact after a century, as though they were talking of things from their youth, in the tone of someone who is confident you share their emotions, is something which is more unbearable than ridiculous (Calvino 116)."

In terms of this essay, it's difficult to make such a vast transition from Calvino's sobering accounts of the segregated South to his more personal writings, but his detailed autobiographical chapters are insightful. Some of the information is repeated multiple times (his youth, his parents' occupations, his growth as a writer), since some of the pieces are interviews, but for the most part, every piece provides a wonderful look at his views. His travels, embrace and rejection of Communism, and fighting in the Italian Resistance are detailed honestly, but some of his best quotations come in abstract forms. In "Political Autobiography Of a Young Man," he states his views on literature in a global community, hypotheses that, again, apply to our modern times without being an act of "picking and choosing" statements that just happen to apply to the twenty-first century; instead, these are the views of a keen mind in an expanding world.

"I would like to point out here at least two things which I have believed in throughout my career and continue to believe in. One is the passion for a global culture, and the rejection of the lack of contact caused through excessive specialization; I want to keep alive an image of culture as a unified whole, which is composed of every aspect of what we know and do, and in which the various discourses of every area of research and production become part of that general discourse which is the history of humanity, which we must manage to seize and develop ultimately in a human direction. (And literature should of course be in the middle of these different languages and keep alive the communication between them.)(Calvino 155)"

Calvino is also very candid about his own work, much along the same lines as his views on future literature in Six Memos. Many authors, past and present, seem to take no middle ground in discussing their own works: they have a tendency to be overtly dismissive of how their literature works, or they can be unnecessarily overwrought. Calvino seems to know that his canon has its ups and downs, and regards his critics openly, rather than spitefully.

"The few critics who have been unfavourable are those who intrigue me most, the ones from whom I expect more: however, I have not been lucky enough to have received a negative critique which is both serious and in-depth, one which teaches me useful things. I did receive an article by Enzo Giachino, when The Path to the Spiders' Nests came out, a total, absolute dismissal of the book, a real hatchet-job, but also extremely witty, which is perhaps one of the best articles written about my books, one of the few which every so often I like to reread, but not even that taught me anything really: it attacked only external aspects of the novel, which I could have improved by myself (Calvino 8-9)."

And even in the most metaphysical atmospheres, he manages to make a description of his writing honest and true:

"My desk is a bit like an island: it could just as well be in some other country as here. And besides, cities are turning into one single city, a single endless city where the differences which once characterized each of them are disappearing. This idea, which runs through my book Invisible Cities, came to me from the way that many of us now live: we continually move from one airport to another, to enjoy a life that is almost identical no matter what city you find yourself in (Calvino 168-169)."

Hermit In Paris is one of the rare essay collections that works on its own, being accessible to someone unfamiliar with Italo Calvino's fiction. But then again, non-fiction and fiction collections seem to go hand in hand for fans of a given writer (for example: would someone who has not read John Cheever's fiction be inclined to pick up The Journals of John Cheever? That's unlikely). The essays provide their own merit, and are not just a random assemblage of posthumous writings. These are excellent examples of an intellectual mind that navigates fiction and sociology with ease. Given that idea, doing a concrete "review" of Hermit In Paris is almost impossible; one is either going to agree or disagree with his opinions. I would assume that most Calvino readers have already read this work, but also, for anyone curious who consumes political and personal essays, its admirable to have a book that manages to stand on its own merit, rather than being an add-on to a diverse bibliography.

Work Cited:
Calvino, Italo. Hermit In Paris: Autobiographical Writings. Copyright 2003 by the Estate of Italo Calvino. Translation copyright 2003 by Jonathan Cape.

A Plea to Literary Magazines and Journals

2011-08-24T12:24:00.008-05:00

Since beginning my work with Instafiction, an obvious realization has been affirmed: the world of literary journals, both domestic and international, is its own version of Jorge Luis Borges' Library Of Babel (it was no accident that Jeremy selected this story as the introductory piece for the website). When we began the project, I quickly found some excellent stories featured online, and my already great enthusiasm multiplied. Just as quickly, I ran into several walls. Publications, both esteemed and obscure, tend to feature 'archive' tabs, yet many of those links take the reader to a list of the previous issues, with no previews or true archives. Jeremy and I have exchanged dozens and dozens of e-mails as we've continued with Instafiction, and some of the most passionate exchanges of ideas centered on the lack of online availability. Jeremy toyed with the idea of writing a "rant/manifesto," and I also felt strongly enough to make my own opinions heard, and that's what this essay is about. In my research of the past few years, most critiques of literary magazines come in the form of dissatisfied writers who are tired of rejection letters. At worst, these are just snippy arguments, but at best, said anger has led people to create their own journals or websites. I love the world of short stories and publications; the last thing I want readers to think is that I'm raving. I also don't want to shoot myself in the foot: the openness of a lot of publications is one of the reasons Instafiction exists in the first place. Therefore, I want this to be a plea, with the critiques coming in the form of tough love.

Economically, if an organization maintains both a website and an actual print publication, the editors and publishers need subscriptions to survive, not to mention the noble goal of trying to provide writers with rewards for their efforts, rewards above "publication and a free year of issues." The question is: outside of immediate friends, families, and supporters, how do these publications get subscriptions? With the demise of bookstores, the viable market of impulse buyers is dwindling. As a bookseller, I was one of those customers: my bookshelves have more than a few literary magazines purchased on a whim. Granted, it's not financially feasible for most people to subscribe to multiple journals. However, having issues available for public browsing has certainly led to a select percentage of purchases. In today's world, publications have done their best to strike a balance between physical and digital copies. If more and more of these reputable outlets are going to be strictly digital, or see the majority of their work consumed online, it is seemingly obvious that making a portion of the work available for free would help expand readership.

Yes, there's still a problem of media consumers wanting everything for free, which doesn't help in an economic sense. This isn't a new problem. In the 1930s, baseball teams didn't want to air radio broadcasts, fearing that making their product available for free would mean that fans would stop coming to the actual games. It took time for owners to realize that expanded exposure would lead to greater audiences. Some critics feel that all information and creativity should be free, since it has the potential to be re-worked and manipulated for even more examples of creative outputs. My plea is not to have all publications revert to complete, free archives....however, I have come across several that have done so, and most of us wouldn't complain if this was the case across the board. Personally, I'm all about the happy medium, and I feel that most niche publications would benefit from at least some free material. Of course, it all depends on the quality of the stories, poems, and essays. The majority of the websites I've browsed have at least some redeeming quality. More availability would lead to more website hits, and potentially more income than relying on a small circle of subscribers.

I wish I could take credit for the following argument, but this is Jeremy's idea: with a lot of literary magazines offering the sale of back issues without archival samples, some are making logical mistakes. With rare exceptions, who is going to buy an old back issues sight unseen? Good, revered publications have their share of collectors and completists. For the random web browsers who stumble upon a given site, wouldn't the odds of a purchase increase with more comprehensive samples? Again, it's up to a given organization to make that decision. But returning to the baseball example, offering more can do more good than offering nothing. The New Yorker, for example, can get away with limited free material. For a fledgling literary magazine, virtual closed doors can be harmful.

Am I being selfish? Yes, actually. With Instafiction, I've seen too many promising literary magazines with no archives, and therefore no way for us to promote what could be an area worthy of more attention. Jeremy and I have had decent success in reaching out to publishers and writers, accommodating folks who are more than willing to help by creating web pages or navigation tools to make a story available in a web-friendly format. Our "selfishness" is actually a desire to promote. We're behind the scenes, and our goal is to feature terrific fiction, as well as give exposure to writers beyond the usual Facebook pages or Twitter feeds. While asking for requests for available material has been fruitful, sometimes time is limited. If stories were available and worthy, they'd be featured. But with no way to know, sometimes it makes more sense to simply move on to other sources.

At the risk of sounding sappy, I very nearly titled this piece "A (Tough) Love Letter to Literary Magazines and Journals." But really, this is true. From publishers down to readers, the majority of these small writing markets are not created and consumed for money, but for the passionate base of readers and writers who want to see quality work out in the world. Our work with Instafiction aside, it's a joy to be able to stumble upon a particularly creative website or piece of fiction, especially not knowing it existed ten minutes before finding it. Even if audiences remain small but dedicated, the potential to reach out to more people should be one of the guiding forces behind literary magazines. Again, the desire to produce income based on the sales of current and back issues is understandable. However, stories and poems aren't sold like groceries or lawn equipment. So I humbly urge these publications to open their doors, give their writers the exposure they deserve, and in time, hopefully create an open atmosphere of creativity and reading for everyone involved. I've also seen too many story websites that haven't been updated in years, probably due to folding and not being able to continue as a source of writing. I sincerely hope that the smallest of markets continue to succeed, and exposure/availability can only help, not hurt.

(NOTE: The photos I've taken and used in this piece are strictly for illustrative purposes. I'm in no way directing any of my above opinions toward the publications featured in the photographs.)

Inside Voices: The Poetry of Paul Auster

2011-08-13T10:49:00.006-05:00

While researching previous essays on Paul Auster, I was reminded of the criticisms he receives. My review of Moon Palace highlights some of the major ones, namely his lack of dynamic female protagonists and his tendency to repeat common themes throughout his fiction. However, since I've read only one of his novels so far, the majority of these critiques are taken from secondary readings. Rare is the writer who lacks personal or creative faults, especially when various writings are open to vastly different opinions. Then again, I'm personally able to take the bad with the good with some of my favorites. I've written many pieces that stress my admiration for the style and philosophy of Jonathan Franzen, yet I've disagreed with more than a handful of his statements. Getting back to Auster, I was perplexed to re-read the words of literary critic James Wood, who likened Auster supporters to dutiful stamp collectors, and in a roundabout way expressed dismissal over Auster's prolific output. The man has written many books. Recently, I was browsing his collection at Chicago's Harold Washington Library, and I scanned titles that I hadn't recalled seeing before. The pros and cons of a vast bibliography seem like new arguments, but ones lobbed at only a select few writers. One could make the case that, for example's sake, Don DeLillo works in similar fashions, with seemingly annual works that occasionally blend themes and settings. Since I have a long way to go in reading the rest of Auster's works, I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of his Collected Poems. I'm an ardent fan of his nonfiction, and more readings of his novels will come in the future. By reading his poetry, I was able to introduce myself to his writings in a different format, and in the process discover new traits (as well as sketches of his older ones).

The selections in Collected Poems span the 1970s, and also include some of Auster's French translations from the late 1960s. Given the fact that these are the works of a young poet (as Norman Finkelstein writes in his introduction, Auster's later poetry was the precursor to his fiction), especially when written in a time of social upheaval, one wouldn't be faulted for assuming that the works would be biting. He does bring the occasional outline of (then) contemporary culture, but the majority of the poems are striking in their combination of thematic simplicity, expanded into complex poetic atmospheres. Subjects and metaphors that can easily be overwrought are presented in sometimes minimal context, hitting their marks and moving on before they have the chance to be redundant or weighed down. The human senses are prevalent, and one of the best examples is the third poem from the collection "Unearth:"

"The blind way is etched
in your palm: it leads to the voice
you had bartered, and will bleed, once again
on the prongs of this sleep-hewn
braille. A breath
scales the wick of my stammering,
and lights the air that will never
recant. Your body is your own
measured burden. And walks with the weight
of fire (Auster 39)."

In a strictly basic sense, I found myself continually reminded of Moon Palace, in that the poems jump back and forth between urban and rural atmospheres, even if the settings are only passing hints. The reader is transported to literally timeless scenes, and sometimes the balance between a poem and its title can hint to both the urban and rural conditions. The easy "answer" is that perception is the same, no matter where one comes from; it's what we perceive that changes, not the actual act. To make more sense of this, the poem "Northern Lights" helps. There is no hint of any outside influence beyond natural phenomenon, therefore making the poem a wonderful moment that could be experienced anywhere.

"These are the words
that do not survive the world. And to speak them
is to vanish

into the world. Unapproachable
light
that heaves above the earth, kindling
the brief miracle

of the open eye--

and the day that will spread
like a fire of leaves
through the first chill wind
of October

consuming the world

in the plain speech
of desire (Auster 125)."

Granted, fiction and poetry, and essays are their own forms. Even with his general lack of well-rounded female characters, Auster has a place as one of the strongest writers of masculinity and male creativity. With this in mind, his poetry is amazingly neutral, and goes back to my aforementioned hypothesis of creating emotions that fit into multiple categories. The strongest theme in his poems is communication, or lack thereof. Voices are stifled, intention is lost, and communication in all of its forms is highlighted in both complexity and the ability to be limited. The emotional looks at love and communication are left open to be potentially uttered by male or female speakers. Given his background and knowledge of the French language, some of the stronger imagery could be broken down as masculine or feminine words, if they were translated into French. But for the most part, disaffection and the struggle to voice feelings are sociological as a whole, and not meant to give one gender more illumination than the other. Finding the best poetic representation of communication in his work is daunting, but some are excellent introductory examples, like "Choral." Also, this is a good example of how Auster continually leaves explicit communication at the end of a poem, making the reader go back to make sense of how it fits into the whole.

"Whinnied by flint,
in the dream-gait that cantered you across
the clover-swarmed
militant field:

this bit
of earth that inches up
to us again, shattered
by the shrill, fife-sharp tone
that jousts you open, million-fold,
in your utmost
heretic word.

Slowly,
you dip your finger into the wound
from which my voice
escapes (Auster 70)."

The collection closes with "Notes From a Composition Book (1967)," a collection of thirteen brief passages in which Auster attempts to make sense of the world and language, and, given the date, to potentially provide potential themes of his future works. Of course, these are not set in stone, and given their brevity, it would be far too easy to pick and choose the most adaptable passages. However, the passages are universal to creativity, and not just Mr. Auster's. Mission statements, hypotheses, representations, and conflicting styles are always present in contemporary writing. Writers and critics champion some forms while disparaging others, and vice-versa. Auster is no stranger to being disparaged, yet the breadth of his work and styles manages to illuminate many themes, or at the very least, open various topics to discussion. His tenth note (cited below) manages to convey this, and as a whole, is hard to argue, since it neatly simplifies the act of writing while still leaving it open to its vast potential. I found a lot of good in his poetry, and while there is still much that I haven't read, I'm happy that these early pieces go beyond what I'm familiar with in his canon.

"The eye sees the world in flux. The word is an attempt to arrest the flow, to stabilize it. And yet we persist in trying to translate experience into language. Hence poetry, hence the utterances of daily life. This is the faith that prevents universal despair--an also causes it (Auster 204)."

Work Cited:
Auster, Paul. Collected Poems. Copyright 2004 by Paul Auster.

Stamping Grounds: Colson Whitehead's "John Henry Days"

2011-08-01T17:56:00.009-05:00

Last year, I was highly satisfied with a reading of 1999's The Intuitionist, my first introduction to the work of Colson Whitehead. His fantastical account of warring elevator inspectors was a metaphorical exploration of American race relationships, bureaucratic hypocrisy, and gender identifications, all packaged into a compelling mystery novel. Since then, I've read quite a bit of his excellent book reviews and essays, as well as following his Twitter feed (@colsonwhitehead), which happens to be one of the most entertaining ones I've encountered, a good combination of poetic riffs and genuinely insightful commentaries. Recently, I made time to read his second novel, John Henry Days, thereby continuing my accidental trend of reading his novels chronologically. Published in 2001, the novel is a sort of combination of the above traits. It's a mix of contemporary and older American landscapes and values, along with more explicit looks at racial identity, this time with the metaphorical aspects being more sly. Also, like Whitehead's nonfiction writings, it's another careful balance of the serious and the comical.

In Talcott, West Virginia, various people begin to assemble for the first annual John Henry Days Festival, a celebration of the mythical folk hero and an official unveiling of a U.S. Postal Service stamp commemorating American folklore. Among the people are: J. Sutter, a black journalist from Manhattan who is covering the event for a travel website, as well as trying to set a press junket attendance record; J.'s fellow journalists writing for other publications; Pamela, a chain-smoking young woman who inherited a massive collection of John Henry memorabilia from her father; a nebbish stamp collector named Alphonse Miggs; and a collection of P.R. representatives, local motel owners, and small town politicians. Alternating chapters provide an extensive fictionalized account of the John Henry story, as well as details about how the myth permeated American society through song, academia, becoming a story that takes on almost religious acceptance.

J. Sutter is a career journalist, navigating a world of banquets, release parties, and deadlines. He collects receipts to falsely inflate his expense accounts, wears free clothes accumulated at fashion junkets, and lives for free buffets and food spreads. The John Henry Days assignment isn't glamorous, but he views it as a job. However, he is slightly worried about being a black man in a small Southern town, and has a tendency to project his own stereotypes on the local people. One might be tempted to categorize J. as "disaffected," (this adjective appears on the paperback's plot description) but weary is probably more appropriate. He has seen everything in the world of journalism, and even the novelty of web-based writing is taken in stride. In describing J., Whitehead explores the character's personality, and also manages to be ahead of his time in depicting the internet as just another source of information.

"J. doesn't feel like explaining the web; this guy probably thinks a laptop is some new kind of banjo. Lucien set it up. J. hasn't worked for the web before but knew it was only a matter of time: new media is welfare for the middle class. A year ago the web didn't exist, and now J. has several hitherto unemployable acquaintances who were now picking up steady paychecks because of it. Fewer people are home in the afternoon eager to discuss what transpires on talk shows and cartoons and this means people are working. It was only a matter of time before those errant corporate dollars blew his way. He attracts that kind of weather (Whitehead 19)."

His interactions with the other members of the press are rendered effectively; they aren't friends or co-workers, but linked together through similar assignments. His meetings with Pamela follow an expected trajectory, from initial irritation to friendly acceptance to potential romantic feelings. Upon reflection, J. and Pamela, for all of the past and present details of their lives, are not written for the reader to gain a complete understanding of them. They develop nicely, but the novel leaves their future open-ended. However, Whitehead provides them with enough depth to be realistic. Pamela, for example, is not thrilled about being at the festival; she's merely hoping to rid herself of her father's John Henry collection, and more problems are boiling below her surface.

"Haunted by stuff. Hunched over ramen, in the same clothes she'd worn for days, she felt dazed. She was on the patch. She was off the patch. She was on the gum and smoking in between. She didn't go out that much, partly because she couldn't afford to, partly because going out did nothing for her mood. Her friends understood, her friends told her it was natural. It was part of the grieving process. Therapy diffuses: everyone knew the cant, the correct diagnosis. It was natural. It had nothing to do with her father, however, it had to do with John Henry, the original sheet music ballads, railroad hammers, spikes and bits, playbills from the Broadway production, statues of the man and speculative paintings (Whitehead 45)."

The beauty of John Henry Days lies in Whitehead's depictions of American history. He explores the world of songwriters and the prevalence of John Henry as a time-honored song subject. Pages are devoted to the plight of singer Paul Robeson, who played John Henry onstage. Yet the fictionalized stories of John Henry, while based on American mythology as opposed to the more factual histories of the song business and the story of Robeson, are the most striking and real. Internet research hints to the very real possibility of John Henry being based on an actual black steel driver; like much of contemporary mythology and legend, the truth has been obscured through time, conflicting accounts, and letting the story stand for its own morality and meanings. Whitehead takes these ideas and crafts them into a tale that draws on the humanity of John Henry, the troubles of being a black man in the 1800s, and thereby highlighting the story in ways that are not always apparent.

"John Henry turned to bed early that night. He had never been beaten by another man's hammer but pride is a sin. He took his rest. The payday carousing tried to keep him awake but he willed himself to sleep and dreamed of the contest as a fistfight between the white man and the black man over the fill of the western cut. The dead watched the contest from beneath the rock. He saw through their eyes staring up at himself as he crushed the face of the white man. He did not need his hammer for that (Whitehead 147)."

"If John Henry wanted he could have put faces to the voices but he did not try. He knew all the men. Some were friends. Some were enemies. It did not matter where they stood with him as their talk swirled into one talk about the contest. They laid bets on whether a man could beat a machine. All of their wagers on John Henry before this time were rehearsals for this day. One voice came to him saying it was impossible. Another voice said John Henry was no kind of man like you and me, but a demon and no machine was going to stop him (Whitehead 384)."

John Henry Days is not without its occasional misstep. Aside from J. the other journalists, while occasionally given strong dialogues and important later scenes, sometimes become grating and serve more as obvious personality types instead of true characters. The details of Alphonse Miggs, the seemingly henpecked stamp collector, are incredibly compelling, yet his true worth to the novel almost becomes an aside, rather than a rewarding payoff. However, for a second novel, Whitehead manages to expand on the themes and motifs that made The Intuitionist such a force. In addition to fictionalizing the real questions of race relations, Whitehead has a gift for his take on various settings. The Intuitionist was written in a city that could have easily been alive in the past or set in the future. In John Henry Days, race and settings, both contemporary and historical, are shown in a classic novel format. These books are excellent beginnings and foundations for Zone One, his forthcoming novel set during a zombie apocalypse. I've long disdained the cultural fascination with zombie stories, but if Whitehead can take well-discussed issues and render them unique, I'm sure my reaction to that work will be the same.

Work Cited:
Whitehead, Colson. John Henry Days. Copyright 2001 by Colson Whitehead.

Chicago Flame Archives: Robert Duvall Interview

2011-07-20T19:30:00.004-05:00

Last month, I began a painstaking process of trying to archive my old college newspaper articles. My original introduction (and much-needed caveat) can be found on my first archival piece, an interview with author Chuck Palahniuk. Earlier today, I was going through my physical copies of the old Chicago Flame pieces, and decided to reprint my interview with actor/director Robert Duvall. This interview was conducted as part of a Chicago junket for Duvall's Assassination Tango, a 2003 film that seems to have fallen into relative obscurity. Like The Apostle, Duvall wrote, directed, and starred in this feature. This wasn't my most in-depth interview, but at the time, he was very personable and genuinely interested in interacting with a group of college newspaper reporters. The interview also featured his then-girlfriend and co-star, Luciana Pedraza.

Duvall, Pedraza Dance To a Different Beat: Originally published in The Chicago Flame, March 25, 2003)

Not a movie goes by where a filmmaker does not address a current film assignment as a "life" or "dream" project. Take Martin Scorsese, for example. It seems as if every film he's directed, from 1980's Raging Bull to last year's Gangs Of New York, has been influenced by his life or his ideas. Not to take away from Mr. Scorsese's talents, but Robert Duvall's latest effort, Assassination Tango, redefines the phrase "a labor of love." The film combines virtually every important aspect of Mr. Duvall's life. In addition to writing, directing, producing, and starring in the movie, he shapes it to reflect his personal life and immense attraction to the seductive, fantasy-like world of Argentinean tango.

"It's an extension of myself," Duvall tells The Inferno (note: this is the entertainment supplement to the aforementioned Chicago Flame) about Assassination Tango. "Whatever works, works, from ink to behavior." His reasons to make the film are simple. "I like to tango. My curiosity made me do it."

Duvall is no novice filmmaker, having succeeded with past directorial works such as 1996's The Apostle. Along with financial support from friend and The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, Duvall had little trouble getting the film off the ground. Assassination Tango tells the story of John J. (Duvall), a man leading a classic case of a double life. In addition to owning a string of beauty salons, he moonlights as a hit man. He's able to keep his dark side a secret from his girlfriend (Kathy Baker) and her young daughter, but a problem arises with his latest duty. John is hired to wipe out an Argentine political leader. However, plans backfire, and he is forced to stay in Buenos Aires longer than anticipated. To elude boredom, in a foreign land, he spends his nights at a local tango club, only to become quickly infatuated by the beauty and dance skills of Manuela (Luciana Pedraza). The two have an instant attraction to each other. Interestingly enough, the attraction does not come in the form of blatant romance or lust. The world of tango brings them together, both as a physical dance as well as a mental euphoria.

Behind the camera, the casting choice of Luciana Pedraza was a worthwhile risk. She is not a professional actress, but is Mr. Duvall's real-life girlfriend. The two met during one of his many trips to Argentina, and he introduced her to tangoing. Assassination Tango is Pedraza's film debut, and she learned a lot from Duvall, and very rapidly at that. One of her many lessons was that of small nuances that go into making a feature film.

"Films are a learning process for everyone [involved]," says Pedraza. "I learned a lot from Bobby [Duvall], he's a professional. You listen to Bobby and learn. It was his project. If I needed help, he'd give it to me. Most directors don't." For an acting newcomer, Pedraza knows that acting is no small feat. It involves intense work, seriousness, and above all, patience. "It took me a year [to prepare]," she says. "You work with hair, clothes, and makeup. You need to put up with your moods. There's a lot of working out, about five hours a day. I lost 10 pounds!"

Duvall and Pedraza were able to maintain a proper distinction between their personal and professional lives. "Good directors let the actors bring it," says Duvall. About Luciana, he comments "she never let me forget her performance [in the film]." It's obvious that their experiences while making Assassination Tango have added to their understanding of true acting. "What we do in front of the camera is what we do here," says Pedraza. Upon seeing the film, one realizes how true this sentiment can be. The acting does have a natural flow, without the slightest sense of strain or rehearsal.

"It's like life," adds Pedraza. "I wanted to be truthful. [You have to] remember everyday life and add a sense of reality."

The film is based on Duvall's keen interest in the tango lifestyle, especially in Argentina. If the film's acting was supposed to be natural, then the beautiful dance scenes seem to be instinctual. Duvall and Pedraza epitomize the moves and mannerisms of world-class dancers. According to Duvall's observations, Argentinean tango is an activity that encompasses many layers. "Dance is a continuous thing, a hobby," he says. "You need a physical hobby. [I was] a little shy dancing in public." Despite dozens of trips to the country for the sole purpose of honing his dance skills, Duvall makes a curious comment: "Many Argentineans can't do it." So what makes tango in Argentina so appealing? "The people [European tango dancers] are so skilled and so arrogant," says Duvall. "[In Argentina] it's a social dance, like with the old men at weddings. It's sweet and calm in the clubs. It's more for export, for flash and show in Europe."

Overall, Assassination Tango is yet another solid outing for Duvall the auteur. The plot is simple and relies mainly on thematic dancing and everyday dialogue. Duvall's screenplay lacks some action that would have provided an interesting contrast with the wonderful dance sequences. However, that does not detract from a visually appealing and intoxicating portrait of a well known yet little understood dance.

Booksellers Without Borders Guest Review: "The Long Goodbye" by Meghan O'Rourke

2011-07-14T13:05:00.004-05:00

I've been known to do this in the past: a friend of mine will start a new website, or I'll discover some literary organization that's doing good things in the Chicago area. I'll make an initial essay contribution, tout said website/organization on this blog with excited claims of further information or updates, and, through nobody's fault but my own, I'll get caught up on other projects, and therefore am left with single posts with empty future promises. After being unceremoniously laid off by Borders, a dedicated group of people decided that the lack of a brick-and-mortar store was not doing to deter them from being book recommenders. The website Booksellers Without Borders was created, and it already has an excellent collection of reviews (from history books to children's books) and impressive author interviews (including one conducted with mystery writer John Connolly). I had promised a contribution months ago, yet it took some time to actually make good on it. Earlier this week, the website kindly published my review of The Long Goodbye, a memoir by poet/literary critic Meghan O'Rourke.

I'm re-posting the review in its entirety for my own personal archival purposes, but if you want to read the review, please visit Booksellers Without Borders. And while I genuinely want to say that I will be making more contributions there, I'm going to hold off on that proclamation, since it seems that saying so out loud means that it won't happen. But I'm very optimistic, and hope that the site gains more audience members. Also, you can join their Facebook page and/or follow them on Twitter.

Guest Review: The Long Goodbye, by Meghan O'Rourke (originally published July 12, 2011)

In my career as a bookseller, I had a tendency to disdain memoirs. Let me make a distinction—I’m not lumping biographies into this category, but rather clarifying a much needed division between the two. I generally enjoy biographies, even though supposedly “journalistic” accounts are sometimes revisionist histories, but that’s another topic altogether. Memoirs, however, are sometimes unabashedly biased or skewed towards an almost pornographic/voyeuristic look into private lives. Are you a long forgotten 1980s/1990s television co-star with a former co-dependency? Are you a non-famous person who endured unspeakable personal atrocities? If so, then your chances of selling a memoir to a publishing house are probably pretty high. I’m not trying to sound cold or unfeeling towards these sub-genres, but after awhile, there are only so many (likely ghostwritten) accounts that one can handle. The troubling subjects are explored with the stated goal of continuing the healing process, or reaching out to others with the same afflictions. Noble, yes, but after awhile, readers can become desensitized when so many similar titles have been released.

However, in my last days of corporate book selling, I excitedly came across a galley of The Long Goodbye, a memoir by poet/critic Meghan O’Rourke, a former editor with The New Yorker and The Paris Review, and a current contributor to Slate magazine. My admiration for her writing stems back to 2010. When everyone in the literary community (myself included) was eagerly reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, O’Rourke wrote a stunning essay exploring the role of female authors in the goal of writing “The Great American Novel.” She wondered whether Freedom would have been as highly received had it been written by a woman, and almost immediately after, she was the recipient of several critiques herself, as well as a briefly altered Wikipedia page (“Despite her Yale education and privileged life, she believes she is at a great disadvantage as a writer because she is a not a (yawn) white male”). These attacks were utterly unfounded, and that single example of her writing hooked me. Her arguments were precise, but not attacking; rather, the overall atmosphere was that of someone seeking an honest, open discussion about an aspect of the literary community that needed to be out in the open. Plus, while I’m still a huge fan of Mr. Franzen, I agreed with her statements, and was bewildered that people would take her words as personal attacks. I made immediate mental notes to read more of her bibliography. While my hope was to catch up on her poetry, I found myself beginning to read more of her work with The Long Goodbye, an account of her mother’s cancer and imminent death, and their many personal implications.

A memoir about death can be difficult to critique, since, other than the writing style, it’s impossible to suggest “improvements” on such a personal, troubling experience. However, O’Rourke writes about a variety of topics—family histories, the ordeal, and the aftermath—with a stunning combination of candor and beauty. The reader gets a sense of this in the very first chapter, when she writes

For several weeks before her death, my mother had experienced confusion from the ammonia that built up in her brain as her liver began to fail. Yet I am irrationally confident that she knew what day it was when she died. I believe that she knew we were around her. I believe she chose to die when she did. Christmas was her favorite day of the year. She adored the morning ritual of walking the dogs and making coffee while we waited impatiently for her to be ready; she taught us to open presents slowly, drawing the gift giving out for hours. On that last day, her bed was in the room where our tree was, and as we opened presents, she made a madrigal of quiet sounds, as if to indicate that she was with us. Her hair was swept up behind her, and she looked like the mother of my earliest memories.

It’s nearly perfect that such a loaded paragraph occurs so immediately, since it’s an excellent example of the book’s themes: O’Rourke is blunt with the medical diagnoses and bodily disintegration, evocative with the descriptions of her family life (being open and honest in depictions of friction and arguments without being saccharine in the positive moments), and still manages to craft a non-fiction narrative into creative paragraphs that read almost like a novel. She also explores research into the psychology and sociology of the grief process, and the results have a double benefit. In addition to being a way for her to come to terms with her mother’s death, her studies show the hallmarks of a critic with a supreme talent for empirical data; the reader empathizes with O’Rourke’s journey, but ends up learning along the way.

My pervasive sense of loneliness was a result, I believe, of what I now think of as the privatization of grief. For centuries, private grief and public mourning were allied in most cultures. In many places, it used to be that if your husband died the village came to your door, bearing fresh-baked rolls or soup. As Darian Leader, a British psychoanalyst, argues in The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and Depression, mourning—to truly be mourning—’requires other people.’ To lose someone was to be swept into a flurry of rituals. In many nations some kind of viewing followed the cleaning of the body—what was known as a wake in Ireland, an ‘encoffining’ in China. Many cultures had—and some still have—special mourning clothes.

O’Rourke goes even further, citing literary examples of mourning:

I was struck, too, by how much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences: the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty of how the inner translates into the outer, the sense that one is expected to perform grief palatably. (If you don’t seem sad, people worry; but if you are grief-stricken, they often don’t know how to deal with it.)

Memoirs about the death of a family member aren’t for everyone; granted, had I not been familiar with O’Rourke’s work before, it’s unlikely that I would have read The Long Goodbye. However, there’s an almost daunting wealth of creativity and honesty in this work. She explores how her mother’s death affects her love life and personal relationships; her family is presented honestly, even if some of their emotions and actions are painfully human and not tidy, rose-colored expectations of how one would deal with such a loss. Most importantly, at least to me, is the realization that O’Rourke isn’t necessarily writing to let other people know that they’re not alone in a specific grieving process. Her story is personal and is a look at how her own personality was shaped by the event, as well as how grief manages to be the ultimate paradox: everyone experiences it, but it’s never truly universal. Going by two major samples (her Franzen essay and this book), I’m confident in my belief that Meghan O’Rourke is one of the finest non-fiction writers working today. Her blend of the journalistic and the creative are nearly pitch-perfect, and her work, above all, is extremely confident. As I’ve mentioned in some of my other essays, I hesitate to use the word “poetic” as an adjective for non-poetry writings. However, dozens of passages in The Long Goodbye are almost impossible to describe otherwise:

The night is very long and my mother is lost in it. I can see the world below the plane, the aurora borealis shifting to my right, just outside my field of vision, just beneath the surface of my consciousness, a cold sea, a bright star.

Saying that O’Rourke is talented is simply an empty statement. She is a master of various styles, and, while she’s very respected in the literary community, this latest work could be a gateway to more mainstream appreciation. The Long Goodbye is highly recommended.

(NOTE: The passages were taken from an uncorrected advance copy, hence the lack of page citations. There is a chance that some of the cited passages were altered in the final published work.)

Work Cited:
O'Rourke, Meghan. The Long Goodbye. Copyright 2011 by Meghan O'Rourke.

"The Pale King:" Taxation Representations

2011-07-06T10:03:00.004-05:00

In the introduction to Paul Auster's Collected Poems, writer Norman Finkelstein offers a telling passage: "Yes, this a writer not only with readers but with fans (italics mine)." This is equal parts true and a reason for pause, since it seems to suggest that literary writers are "above" enthusiasm that isn't scholarly or critical. Of course, there's absolutely no reason why certain writers cannot have avid fan bases in addition to more studious admirers. The best of both sides of this parallel is mirrored in the fans/readers of the late David Foster Wallace. In addition to his works being commonplace on university reading lists and being generally revered by the literary community, his followers can also be a giddy, fan club-like bunch. In the months and weeks leading up to the posthumous publication of The Pale King, my friends and I dutifully shared links and news reports about the book. Of course, given that he committed suicide in 2008, any of his publications (both books and articles) that have come out are always bittersweet as well. With some deceased authors, a posthumous release can sometimes be viewed as a way to cash in; with Wallace, even his unfinished works have lasting value, and are worthy for an audience still dismayed over his passing.

The Pale King was pieced together by his editor, Michael Pietsch, and his widow, Karen Green. As it's been recounted in numerous articles, the latest novel was a collection of notebooks, computer files, and discs, with notes that hinted to possible trajectories the novel might have taken had Wallace lived to complete it. It's worth noting that, while rightfully extolling the novel's excellence, Piestch is explicit in explaining that The Pale King is an unfinished novel; it's even the book's subtitle. That's not to disrespect the semi-finished product, but a way to make the reader know that Wallace, sometimes a perfectionist to a fault, undoubtedly would have changed and edited some of the pages and passages that made their way into the "finished" product. While it's much different in scope from his previous novel, Infinite Jest, it's a novel that demands attention to minute details, has a penchant for hilarious comedy, and ultimately demands more than one reading.

The Pale King follows a group of characters in 1985, IRS examiners who work in Peoria, Illinois, following vastly different paths to come to that time and place. Their back stories are detailed, and give hints to their personality makeups that may hint to their reasons for being drawn to a career in a tedious, psychologically challenging bureaucracy. In any other profession, these characters would have the same lives and the same inner turmoils; however, the nature of tax work seems to highlight their personalities, sometimes explicitly and sometimes metaphysically. Leonard Stecyk spends his childhood as an impossible model of goodness, selfless to the point of making adults hate him, and being ostracized by his peers to the point of extreme violence; Lane Dean is a Christian who grapples with questions of faith and a pregnant girlfriend whom he doesn't love; Toni Ware, a woman with a troubling history of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend; and David Foster Wallace, the character/author who provides legal/liability disclosures on providing IRS information, as well as his personal history of unethical behavior as a college student. The novel also has paranormal elements. In the throes of intense concentration, some of the IRS workers see ghosts that haunt the office. There is also the hint of an algorithm that can put someone in a state of immediate, almost spiritual concentration with no distractions, a mysterious entity that echoes the coma-inducing entertainment tape in Infinite Jest.

These brief summaries are not meant to be of any serious help in understanding the story's complete arc. There are numerous other characters, both major and minor, and while this may seem like a sorry excuse, even some established literary critics have professed some troubles with the book, as far as a complete understanding. Some of the chapters, while moving and brilliant, aren't attributed to any specific character. Even the most devoted readers can be forgiven for glazing over pages upon pages of tax law and documentations. Perhaps some of the frustration can be attributed to the novel's unfinished state, but that's not at all to say it's not worthy of attention. The character sketches are sometimes brilliant. For example, the sketches of Stecyk as a dutiful young boy are both funny and discomforting:

"...[his father] offers to take him to Dairy Queen as a kind of reward, and Leonard tells his father he's grateful and that the gesture means a lot to him but that in all honesty he'd like it even more if they took the money his father would have spent on the ice cream and instead donated it either to Easter Seals or, better yet, to UNICEF, to go toward the needs of famine-ravaged Biafran kids who he knows for a fact have probably never even heard of ice cream, and says that be bets it'll end up giving both of them a better feeling even than the DQ would...Leonard takes a moment to express concern about the father's facial tic again and to gently rib him about his reluctance to go in and have the family's MD look at it, noting again that according to the chart on the back of his bedroom door the father is three months overdue for his annual physical and that it's almost eight months past the date of his recommended tetanus booster (Wallace 30.)

My friend Paul , arguably the biggest fan of Wallace that I know, described his reading of the novel as "equal parts brilliant and tedious." The tedium, which comes in the details of IRS tax preparation, is completely intentional. Wallace describes it in a way to make the reader understand how detailed and intense the work is; it's not written to show the amount of research that went into the book, but to give concrete examples as to why tax examination is such a specialized field. It's not so much that it requires care and attention to detail (which it does), but that it takes a certain kind of personality to be able to deal with long days of careful readings and understandings of wildly complicated tax codes. Of course, given Wallace's penchant for footnotes and incredibly detailed non-fiction passages, there's a certain joy and admiration that comes with even the most daunting accounts. There are very few authors who could pull off such passages without losing the reader. We're not expected to understand the codes, but we're shown them for the sake of understanding the characters and what they deal with on a daily basis:

"For ruling requests concerning the classification of an organization as a limited partnership where a corporation is the sole general partner, see Rev. Proc. 72-13, 1972-1 CB 735. See also Rev. Proc. 74-17, 1974-1 CB 438, and Rev. Proc. 75-16, 1975-1 CB 676. Revenue Procedure 74-17 announces certain operating rules of the Service relating to the issuance of advance ruling letters concerning the classification of organizations formed as limited partnerships. Revenue Procedure 75-16 sets forth a checklist outlining required information frequently omitted from requests for rulings related to classification of organizations for Federal tax purposes (Wallace 248-249)."

Taking this even further, there are passages that even work to explain boredom, both historically and socially:

"Word appears suddenly in 1766. No known etymology. The Earl of March uses it in a letter describing a French peer of the realm. He didn't cast a shadow, but that didn't mean anything. For no reason, Lane Dean flexed his buttocks. In fact the first three appearances of bore in English conjoin it with the adjective French, that French bore, that boring Frenchman, yes? The French of course has malaise, ennui. See Pascal's fourth Pensée, which Lane Dean heard as pantsy (Wallace 383)."

I'm still convinced that Wallace, for all of his talents, never gets full respect as a humorous writer, and in several sections of The Pale King, it's evident that Wallace's knack for humor was as strong as ever. Sometimes that can be lost in the shuffle, but along the same argumentative lines as the "reader/fan" debate, there's also a need to understand that hilarious commentary can easily be great writing in its own right. There are very few authors who make me laugh out loud, and I did so more than once while reading The Pale King.

"'My earliest memory of shit is dog shit. Remember as a kid how potent a presence and threat dog shit was? It seemed to be all over. Every time you played outside, somebody was stepping in it, and then everything stopped and it was like "OK, who stepped in it?" Everybody has to check their shoes, and sure enough somebody had it on their shoe.'
'Embedded in the sole. In the pattern.'
'Impossible to scrape off.'
'New was always wet and yellow and horrible, the most horrible. But old got embedded more deeply in the sole. You had to set the shoes aside until it dried and then try to scrape out the sole's pattern with a sticky or a rusty old knife out of the garage (Wallace 347).'"

"In short, not only was it surprising to be greeted in person with such enthusiastic words, but it was doubly surprising when the person reciting these words displayed the same kind of disengagement as, say, the checkout clerk who utters the words 'Have a nice day' while her expression indicates that it's really a matter of total indifference to her whether you drop dead in the parking lot outside ten seconds from now (Wallace 287)."

The fact that I've been able to cull such varied examples of the novel's themes proves two points: one, even unfinished, The Pale King stands as one of the best books published so far this year. Two, even with his death (understandably) permeating the few reviews that I've read so far, this isn't a work of nostalgia, nor does it exist solely as a lamentation of Wallace's passing. While reading it, I was challenged, amazed, sometimes confused, and ultimately very satisfied. Wallace left behind an excellent piece of literature, evocative of his previous efforts and consistent talents. When getting lost in the book, the events surrounding its release tend to fall to the side, and the novel becomes the focal point, not the author's passing. Of course, those sad events are still there after the book is done, but it's a relief that The Pale King is a work on its own, even if it was a work in progress. Much like Infinite Jest, it's not easy. Careful readings, note taking, re-reads, and pauses for reflection are required. As I mentioned above, there is so much that I haven't touched upon or summarized. Taking it all in, it's a welcome addition to the Wallace canon, and the people responsible for its publication were right to see that it made its way into book form, and its unfinished standing and occasional questionable detours work as smaller pieces to a large, enjoyable puzzle.

Work Cited:
Wallace, David Foster. The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel. Copyright 2011 by David Foster Wallace Literary Trust.

Announcing the Debut of Instafiction

2011-07-04T12:29:00.004-05:00

I'm excited to announce the launch of Instafiction, a website created and designed by Jeremy P. Bushnell. The goal of the site is to provide a quality piece of fiction everyday, available via RSS feeds, online, social media platforms, and mobile reading devices. I was humbled to be invited to join Instafiction as a contributor and associate editor, and so far, it's been a (rewarding) challenge to find pieces of fiction to promote. Our goal is diversity and quality with both classic and contemporary fiction.

From the About Us page:

"Instafiction.org provides one quality short story each weekday morning, formatted in a single page, for ease of use with services like Instapaper.

Our aim is to help short-form literary fiction thrive in the information ecology of the 21st century. To achieve this aim, we use social media and other network technologies to present short fiction in a manner designed to work with the expanding diversity of reading platforms and applications.

We drew inspiration from exemplary sites doing similar work for long-form nonfiction, specifically the great Longform.org and Longreads. But these sites largely stay away from fiction, and so we've decided to step in and fill what struck us as a need.

We encourage authors, literary magazines/websites, publishers, and other parties who are interested in seeing work featured on Instafiction to get in touch. (We're also looking for donors and potential advertisers.) Thanks for reading."

So please pay us a visit for an excellent short story every weekday. You can subscribe for an RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

"As She Climbed Across the Table:" Science Dictions

2011-06-29T17:48:00.003-05:00

Jonathan Lethem's forays into literary-cum-genre fiction are admirable not only as hints of his eclectic tastes, but as proof that good writing can elevate any plot setting or supposedly "lesser" style (science fiction, mystery, and the like). Gun, With Occasional Music was his debut, and its combination of a futuristic society overrun with anthropomorphic animals and an old-school detective novel worked amazingly well; the two different genres were meant to assimilate, and they did, without being distracting and without taking away from the novel's serious tone and mystery. The Fortress Of Solitude elevated the beaten-horse style of "coming of age fiction", added a dash of mysticism, and still did not feel contrived or unnecessarily outlandish. A better way of saying this: Lethem takes the obvious and makes it unique. Even without being strictly genre-based, the uniqueness of his 1997 novel As She Climbed Across the Table follows the aforementioned patterns. It's science fiction, but in a strictly literal sense: it's fiction, there's a heavy dose science, and the plot revolves around the potential of other worlds. However, these do not add up to an expected result.

At a California university, professors/lovers Philip Engstrand and Alice Coombs are at an impasse. Their relationship is unstable, and takes a serious blow when Alice and her fellow particle physicists create "Lack," a black hole situated in the physics lab. Philip's attempts to win her back are fraught with problems, none greater than the realization (and admission) that Alice has fallen in love with Lack, both as a potential scientific breakthrough and as an organism that, even without having physical qualities, seems to have a defined taste in what it allows to be absorbed. It "eats" various things such as a cat (which leads to a wonderful spoof of a typical campus protest), but repels things such as aluminum foil and a batter's helmet. As Alice falls deeper in love and deeper in delusion, a cast of secondary characters provide the links between the estranged couple. Evan and Garth, two blind men recruited by Alice for their potential ways of "seeing" various particles, eventually move into the apartment at Alice's request; Professor Soft, Alice's mentor, understands her problems and attempts to recruit Philip's help; a team of Italian physicists, led by Braxia, visit the campus to study Lack; and a woman named Cynthia Jalter serves as a potential new love interest for the spurned Philip.

At its heart, As She Climbed Across the Table is a love story. With the surrounding elements stripped away, the interactions between Philip and Alice are saddening, especially since Lethem does an excellent job of evoking the fact that their relationship used to be healthy. They both know it's going downhill, fast, and the dialogue reflects crumbling unions without resorting to cliche or climatic confrontations. They speak honestly, and at times, it's easy for the reader to lose track of the absurdity of the situation, that Alice is falling for nothingness as opposed to a physical lover.

"Don't address me, I wanted to say. Philip isn't here. This is Omnipotent Voice you're speaking with.
'You're in love with someone else,' I heard myself say.
'Yes.'
A change came over me, a phase transition. A flush rose through my chest and neck.
'You're in love with Lack,' I said.
'Yes.'
Should I have known sooner?
Love is self-deception, remember. And my competition was so improbable.
But now that it was named, Alice's Lack-love seemed obvious, a foregone conclusion. Probably the whole campus buzzed with it, and I was the last to know (Lethem 75)."

Some of the novel's most vibrant passages are the recreations and careful satires of academia and college life. In one chapter opening, Lethem summarizes the passage of time on a university campus, and it manages to be comical and true at the same time.

"Days passed. Classes were taught, seminars held. Papers were handed in, graded, and returned. The team won something, and the trees filled with garlands of toilet paper. It rained, and the toilet paper dripped to the pathways, and into the wiper blades of parked cars. A group of students seized the Frank J. Bellhope Memorial Aquarium to protest the treatment of Roberta, the manatee savant. The protest was a failure. I called a symposium on the history of studen seizure of campus buildings. The symposium was a success. In the larger world, the team invaded something, some hapless island or isthmus. A letter of protest by the faculty was drafted, revised, and scrapped. Bins of swollen pumpkins appeared in the produce sections of Fastway and Look 'n' Like (Lethem 25)."

In addition to providing the major rift between Philip and Alice, Lack's presence also offers a lot of scientific and philosophical hypotheses. It's decried as inhumane for enveloping the cat, but it's also a source of potential as a scientific breakthrough. What is the meaning behind its tastes? Does it lead to another world or dimension? The far-fetched nature of having a black hole situated across a table in a science lab is rendered realistically. The existence of Lack isn't meant to be critiqued or viewed through a lens of literal science fiction. Even the most educated physics professors are baffled by its actions. However, Alice isn't the only person mystically drawn to its power. Its seduction is both scientific and paranormal, a specific metaphor for the wildly unspecific mysteries of life.

" I went back to my seat, heart pounding. Lack would take Alice, he said. The worst possible news. At the same time, I was flattered by Lack's cooperation. I had a scoop. Lack was a Ouija board, and I was the medium. I felt possessive. This was the first time Lack had aimed his seductiveness at me directly. I understood Soft, and Braxia, and De Tooth, and even Alice, a little better.
I couldn't understand this enemy. The temptation I felt was proof of his power (Lethem 154-155)."

I haven't done a complete reading of Lethem's bibliography, but As She Climbed Across the Table is the second novel of his that I've read from the 1990s. Unlike Gun, With Occasional Music, this work is both assured as well as an example of a new author venturing out with some trepidation. The chapters are short, 2-3 page increments, and the work as a whole is a very quick, easy read. This isn't to say that Lethem wrote was if he was unsure of his talents, but in my opinion, his early style is one of great care, since he's introducing and exploring a myriad of topics that have the potential to be unbelievable in a negative way. However, As She Climbed Across The Table is also a sign of his early talents, and his love of science fiction is evident. Being able to master a basic love story with a backdrop of fantastical scientific explorations is no small feat. This isn't his best novel, but in a very positive way, it works as a piece that is both a light read as well as an exploration of scientific and metaphysical questions. At the very least, it proves that fun reading doesn't have to insult a reader's intelligence. If one could create a flowchart of his novels, there would be consistent correlations of themes, but also a definite rise in scope as he grows older. Some novelists tend to avoid discussions of their earlier works. With Lethem, his early writings are vibrant foundations for what he currently creates.

Work Cited:
Lethem, Jonathan. As She Climbed Across the Table. Copyright 1997 by Jonathan Lethem.

Circuit Makers: My Morning Jacket

2011-06-14T20:59:00.008-05:00

I normally hesitate to use the word "evolution" in regard to music, especially regarding My Morning Jacket; it's an easy stand-by term that tries to say a lot, without saying much of anything. However, their discography has shown signs of (slight) changes, or, more accurately, signs of a desire to branch out without completely distancing themselves from their origins. Their first two albums (The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn) were stunning, soulful records from the Louisville group, not exactly rock, but not exactly alt-country. The culmination was 2005's Z, one of the best records in one of the brightest music years. Their sound, combined with lead singer/songwriter Jim James' echoed vocals, seemed to have everything without being distracting: soul, electronica, and arena rock bombast. While topping that album is next to impossible, 2008's Evil Urges was a step back. There wasn't necessarily a need for them to live up to the previous work, but it was ultimately forgettable.

Recently, My Morning Jacket released Circuital, an album that plays like a scaled-down version of Z, but it takes a few listens to get that effect. The first track, "Victory Dance" is a good mix of hushed ruminations with increasing intensity, going back and forth between sketches of pastoral yearnings and frustrations. Lyrically, it leaves a lot open to interpretation, and I found it satisfying to read it as a sort of examination of the band's growth, especially with the rest of the album's sound as a context:

Should I lift the dirt and plant the seed
even though I've never grown
Should I wet the ground with the sweat from my brow
and believe in my good work?

"Victory Dance" segues into the title track, which begins with a wonderfully funky beat and James' voice used in his classic echoed reverberation. Using the above lyrics with my interpretation, the two opening tracks can represent My Morning Jacket's dichotomy/sound combination in a compelling fashion. The songs aren't separated by any break, yet manage to blend well, even with their differences. At their best, the band can be equally at home with songs that are both soft and more intense. While the opening lyrics hint at a division, it's not a problem that the band alternates the musical styles. Rather, it's a testament to their skills that their early works can be evocative in such a different format.

The middle tracks are strong, highlighted by "Outta My System," a song with an almost classic rock sound that elevates its serious musings on youthful mistakes and adult responsibilities. It's one of the shortest songs on the album, expressing its message quickly before moving on. "Holdin' On To Black Metal" is thematically similar, utilizing a strong chorus of voices, and possibility hinting to James' origins as a punk band singer before the formation of My Morning Jacket. However, towards the end, the song "Slow Slow Tune" goes into a completely different direction, a (yes) slow, beautiful song that is intentionally self-aware. It's almost a grown-up lullaby, and its distinction from the rest of the album works very well; it has the potential to be an unnerving break, but winds its way down to Circuital's end.

Circuital was produced by Tucker Martine, best known for his production work with The Decemberists. I'm not as versed in the behind-the-scenes work that goes into album production, so I cannot assuredly say how Martine's help went into the the final product. However, it's safe to say that he didn't seem to intervene too much. Despite the coincidental thematic similarities between the opening tracks of Circuital and The Decemberists' The King Is Dead, it's interesting to note the differences in styles between his production on the two vastly different albums (from two thematically different musical outfits). In the same general time span, Martine oversaw The Decemberists working a folk album as well as My Morning Jacket creating a new album that blends their usual sounds. Overall, it seems like a good case of My Morning Jacket going with what works.

Even though Evil Urges was a bland follow-up to Z, there was never a sense that the band had lost anything, nor does it feel like Circuital is a way to prove that they're still an extremely talented outfit. It's not their best album, but at the same time, it does highlight their strengths as it moves among the varying styles. I can't imagine them branching out farther into other styles, but perhaps I'm wrong; maybe in the future, they will show even more innovation. For now, Circuital would have been the worthy follow-up to Z, and if they stay in their usual styles, it still leaves a lot of room open for growth. Jim James is too talented of a songwriter and guitarist to have a serious lapse, and this album is a sign of the band's staying power.

"Everything Must Go (To Extremes)"

2011-06-10T12:26:00.012-05:00

There is no shortage of potential, literal ways to define what the film Everything Must Go is "about." Going with the depicted events, good cases can be made for the theme being a.) the effects of alcoholism, b.) the crumbling of a marriage, or c.) the growth and study of interpersonal relationships. However, much like a good short story (the film is loosely based on Raymond Carver's "Why Don't You Dance?", a selection from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love), the events provide the journey and the hints of the resolution, but the development ultimately refuses to make any concrete assumptions or tidy explanations. This is not a perfect film, yet it wisely goes about showing the actions while at the same time resisting any moralizing or cheap surprises.

In the span of one day, Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell) loses his job in the midst of relapsing into drinking. Upon returning home, he finds every lock on the house changed, a "Dear John" letter from his wife taped to the front door, and all of his possessions scattered on the front lawn. His credit cards and joint bank account are frozen. His immediate solution to all of this is to head to the store to buy some beer, which, his alcoholism aside, isn't so bad, seeing that having all of those happenings piled into span of a few hours would be too much for anybody to process. He encounters a young boy named Kenny who aimlessly rides his bicycle around the street, passing time while his mother cares for a terminally ill woman down the street. A run-in with the police is avoided when Nick calls upon local detective Frank Garcia (an excellent performance by Michael Peña), who happens to be his AA sponsor. Garcia's solution is to have Nick sell his personal items in a yard sale, as a way to clean up the mess and begin sorting his life out. Nick enlists the help of Kenny, and in the process begins conversations with Samantha (Rebecca Hall), a young pregnant wife waiting for her husband to join her in their new house. These secondary characters (including an old high school classmate played by Laura Dern, and a comedic May-December couple next door) provide interactions and realizations for Nick, not in the expected roles of helping him "find himself," but more in the sense of helping him understand his problems and weaknesses. There is a major difference.

Dan Rush is a first-time film director, as well as the writer of the screenplay. His direction is admirable and not overly flashy, focusing on excellent close-up shots of the character's faces, which, aided immensely by the commendable acting, carefully shows the inner problems that plague every character: Nick's nighttime sweating in the depths of withdrawal; Rebecca's unhappiness and unease in her domestic life, which she tries her best to hide; Kenny's isolation from kids his own age. Everything Must Go was shot and set in Arizona, and Rush includes some occasionally grand wide shots of the region's long roads and rural terrain, which somehow blend nicely into the smaller scenes of everyday suburbia. With the occasional exception, there are no dramatic revelations in the film. Therefore, Rush wisely keeps the direction to the minimum, allowing the story to be told without resorting to trick shots or mixed-up story lines.

The screenplay is a source of both the film's strength and its major weaknesses. Adapting a very brief Raymond Carver story is an excellent example of a new filmmaker tapping into a reservoir of terrific material (and I'll now confess that I haven't seen Robert Altman's Shortcuts). I'm still amazed at the wealth of classic short stories and novels that still have not been adapted into films, but that is a different tangent altogether. Carver's stories, including "Why Don't You Dance?", are more often than not minimalist, open-ended expressions that one wouldn't immediately assume could transfer well to film. Rush is able to express Carver's hallmarks--male isolation, alcoholism, and suburban dissatisfaction--while at the same time leaving virtually none of the events or pieces of the story in the film, with the exception of the idea of an impromptu yard sale and the appearance of a record player and vinyls. In the story, the man is left unnamed, and only interacts with a young couple who stumble upon his possessions on the lawn (they play some records, which leads to the story's title question). At the same time, while Rush skillfully evokes Carver's atmospheres, the screenplay has some nagging problems. The piling of a broken marriage, a man falling off the wagon, and the loss of a job all in the span of a single day might not be totally impossible in real life, but seems to be an exaggerated, hasty introduction to Nick's current state. Everything Must Go is a tidy hour-and-a-half film, but would have been better served with some of Nick's woes drawn out more realistically. Later in the film, the audience is shown two concurrent scenes that are blatantly confusing. In one late night scene, Nick is sweating and trembling from alcohol withdrawal, leading to a revealing confrontation with Samantha. The very next night, he's shown looking strong and avoiding another relapse while out to dinner. The inclusion of a brief scene with Delilah (Laura Dern) is well-crafted and marked by terrific acting, but somehow feels out of place, or, more appropriately, tossed in. It avoids some obvious film cliches, yet its very subversion of expectations leads to its being a strange aside in a generally smooth time line. One of Rush's best decisions was to leave Nick's estranged wife out of the picture, literally: she's discussed and hinted at, and plays a major role in one of the film's later conflicts, yet works amazingly well as an unseen character, with her problems with Nick shown in retrospect, rather than in concrete scenes.

Even with these faults, the acting is nearly pitch-perfect, beginning with the wonderful performance by Will Ferrell. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert gives mentions and examples of comedians who have made the turn into respected dramatic acting. The beauty of Ferrell's performance is its understatement, since Nick's mental state would be perfect for over-acting. Ferrell is somber without being melodramatic, and even expresses Nick's withdrawal impressively, opting for a simple, saddening descent, and using his eyes to convey weariness and depression. There are occasional humorous moments in the film, but these are situational, rather than slapstick. In Stranger Than Fiction, Ferrell combined some excellent acting with scenes that called for his gifted, physical/facial comedy. In this film, however, it's a complete dramatic role, and the ultimate compliment is that audiences can easily get lost in the acting and story, rather than referring to a subliminal understanding that Ferrell is a comedian playing a serious role. Rebecca Hall makes the most of a poorly sketched character, and much like Ferrell, she evokes a lot without resorting to too much emotion, with the exception of one scene. However, much like her role in Ben Affleck's The Town, she's playing a strong woman with recurring troubles, and in both films, she doesn't have the fortune of a screenplay that gives her a chance to realistically overcome her character's problems. Again, this could be another tangent for another essay, namely the often-discussed lack of realistic female roles in contemporary cinema. Then again, she doesn't falter; it's only the screenplay that gives the character the limitations, not the actress herself. Christopher Jordan Wallace's portrayal is sympathetic, and works as a good example of adolescent loneliness and turmoil. He's basically an innocent version of Nick, without the alcohol or the life experience, striving to understand where he belongs. While Nick grows towards acceptance of his changes, Kenny's redemption comes in more confidence. Rush writes the character well, avoiding teenage stereotypes.

With bad acting, Everything Must Go would have been a bland, tiresome indie drama. However, drawing on the actors' strengths, Dan Rush was able to create a vivid film that wasn't weighed down with the occasional limitations of the screenplay. As a feature film debut, it's the sign of a potential budding talent, especially since using Raymond Carver as a basis shows bravery and determination in a first-time adaptation. I'm curious to see if Rush ever develops any original screenplays. Even if he continues to work with adaptations, some stronger drafts will help immensely, and it's not at all inconceivable that he could eventually create even better films. As a start, he aims high and generally hits his targeted goals. With more focus, he could become a highly respected filmmaker, and audiences could eventually look back upon Everything Must Go as an early, noble step in his development.

Thoughts From Printer's Row Lit Fest 2011

2011-06-06T13:35:00.007-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, I gave into temptation and spent some time at Chicago's annual Printer's Row Literary Fest. When I attended last year, I bought about five or six books, which isn't that many compared to other book lovers, but still more than I usually gather in one setting. This year, given my current unemployment, I didn't want to go and end up spending money that I should be saving, so for roughly a day, I had it in my mind that I'd be staying away. Of course, as the afternoon rolled around, I found myself getting awfully twitchy, so I thought "to hell with temptation," and hopped on the train to do some walking around. The sunshine was utterly glorious, especially since I was heavily rained on last year. However, no matter what the meteorological state, dozens upon dozens of tents, filled with books, is always exciting.

This year, the atmosphere was special. As I've documented before, I was laid off from a career with a large chain bookstore (Borders), and even while I was employed, I found myself feeling guilty whenever I browsed one of Chicago's many independent bookstores, since my company was criticized for aiding the decline of smaller booksellers nationwide. Perhaps the special atmosphere was merely internal; however, and I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious. It's reassuring to see that physical books are still popular enough to draw thousands of people to a small area only a few city blocks in diameter. Granted, one has to wade through piles of used James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks paperbacks, but even on the second day, there was more than enough of a great selection. I also do what a lot of people do in that situation, namely browse and hope that a rare or out-of-print title has gone unnoticed and untouched, just waiting to be purchased for less than ten dollars. This isn't the case. However, there's usually a much better chance of finding cool British paperback versions of American novels, and those tend to have much more vibrant cover illustrations.

A few things that were on my mind during and after Printer's Row Lit Fest 2011:

1.) Just like last year, I was delightfully taken aback by the number of books available by Jonathan Lethem and Paul Auster, two of my favorite writers. However, I didn't buy any of them, since logic annoyingly took over. I have more than a handful of books at home by these two that I still haven't read, and buying them would have been a clear impulse decision. Granted, I fully plan on eventually reading their entire bibliographies, but every time I took one of their works off of a shelf or out of a box, I browsed and scanned for a second, bit my lip, and put it back. I'm sure that I'll eventually acquire You Don't Love Me Yet and Levithian, but being in a financial situation that doesn't allow every impulse I want is, for lack of a better word, sobering.

2.) Speaking of browsing: Book lovers, I'm one of you. We're brothers and sisters, and there are few things as soothing and mentally stimulating as getting lost among endless rows of great books. However, given the Lit Fest set-up, this leads to a lot of "traffic jams." Everyone was incredibly nice and polite, but I wish that more people had done what I did, namely browse faster, move along, and allow the lines to flow smoothly. It's hard to look at titles between people's shoulder blades.

3.) In addition to the bookseller tents, various publishers, newspapers, and literary magazines had tables set up along the sides. My girlfriend, ever mindful of my search for a new career (or, at this point, a job of any kind), politely asked if I had taken any copies of my resume with me or picked up any publisher's business cards. I answered a sheepish "no" on both counts, since I'm generally unprepared for random networking (a trait I need to improve upon), and since I also went to the fest on a whim. However, she was right. E-mailing resume queries to Chicago-based literary companies is one thing; actually talking with them is something much better. It goes to show that, while I'm capable of expressing myself with words, deft at handling copy-editing, and generally knowledgeable about most things literary, I tend to lack common sense. That trait is carefully absent from my current resume.

4.) Speaking of networking: I'm always sympathetic to struggling, newly-published writers. In the near future, I hope to be in a position to have material (fiction and non-fiction) ready for potential publication, so currently, I'm a few rungs below people who have actually been published by some of Chicago's small presses. During my time at Borders, there were a handful of small signings, and it was both saddening and encouraging to see authors doing their best to enlighten and publicize their works with an audience of four, with two of the audience members being random homeless people. With this in mind, I struggle with being sympathetic to pushy writers hawking their works at festivals. Of course, word-of-mouth has helped many a title gain proper recognition. However, having a book thrust into my hands and engaging in unwanted smalltalk with an overly-earnest writer is occasionally awkward. I do my best to be polite, and I want to offer them a pat on the back when other festival-goers blatantly ignore them. I just hope that, when I see my works in print, that I go about promoting it in the right way. It's not my nature, but even if it was, I simply can't see myself pushing a book like a used-car salesman. I'm withholding the author's name and book, since I found him to be funny, but the way he went about it felt odd. I wish him the best, I hope he sold some of his works, but that kind of networking isn't for everyone.

I didn't scope out any of the event tents, but my good friend Rachel did some live-tweeting of her own in conjunction with the website Booksellers Without Borders. She jotted down some excellent notes and quotations, and had the foresight to compile them in their own post. Again, had I actually thought ahead, I might have done something similar. Luckily, somebody else was using common sense. Kudos, Rachel.

I should do this without reference to the Lit Fest, but I want to salute and support a few of the booksellers who always do a dynamite job, both in-store and in book festivals. If you're a Chicago reader or book lover, you probably know about and patronize these places, but even so, I want to tip my cap and promote a handful of these fine establishments. If you're not a Chicago resident and find yourself visiting, please take the time to enjoy the offerings and the amazing staffs of the following places. This is just a sample, but they are among my favorites:

The Book Cellar

Powell's Bookstores

Barbara's Bookstore

Unabridged Bookstore

And finally, I did end up making one purchase. I went into the festival hoping to find a copy of Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead or Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell. I didn't find a copy of either, but, as is usually the case in a good bookstore (inside or outside), I managed to stumble upon something. Yes, this may have been an impulse purchase, but I'm not complaining.

Chicago Flame Archives: Chuck Palahniuk Interview

2011-06-01T14:19:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned quite a few times in various posts, I worked for the Chicago Flame newspaper (the student newspaper of the University of Illinois at Chicago) from 2002-2005, beginning as a writer for "The Inferno," the paper's entertainment supplement, before rounding out my tenure as the entertainment editor. Recently, the Flame's website has been retooled, and my old archives have been difficult to find. I've decided to save my physical copies of the old issues, and as I continue my ongoing job search, I'm hoping to scan the papers into a portfolio, but I also feel that it would be a good idea to archive them on this blog.

Throughout the summer, I'll be sharing my old pieces, but I must issue this caveat: with the very rare exception, these are not thrilling writing examples. I wrote for the paper between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two, a young age period that saw me struggling with my creative voice, and simply not having enough experience, media exposure, and points of reference to begin a journalism career (I still cringe when I read the end of this article, in which I gush that author Chuck Palahniuk is one of America's greatest novelists). I'll do my best to check my self-deprecation at the door. For my first archival piece, I present my interview with Palahniuk, conducted in August of 2002 at the Swissotel in downtown Chicago. As I've also mentioned in previous writings about Palahniuk, my literary tastes have changed in the last nine years, but he was one of the most polite, gracious interviewees one could ever hope to encounter.

Chuck Palahniuk: Up Close and Not Too Personal (originally published in the Chicago Flame, August 27, 2002)

Here's a word of advice. Try not to get too sappy with Chuck Palahniuk, because he will get sick of it mighty quickly. Palahniuk believes that today's literature and fiction contains too much emphasis on sentimentality, relationships, and overall predictable niceness.

This is where he comes in, being a writer famous for presenting characters and situations that are anything but wholesome. In the remaining months before the release of Lullaby, his highly awaited fifth novel, Palahniuk sounds off on several topics, including today's fiction.

"I'm sick of it," he says, commenting on the prevalent themes of today's literature. "It's all about family and looking for Mr. Right. There's way too much sweetness and reflection. Also, people define peer groups as family, and [literature] is blatantly about relationships."

Palahniuk feels strong dissatisfaction with actual topics as well as themes. "There's so much focus on parental issues and teen rebellion, also on memoirs. You have teenagers writing memoirs now. It's more about resolving the past than on looking at the future."

With that in mind, the premise of Lullaby is attributable to Palahniuk's knack of writing with graphic themes and mentalities. "It's sort of an evil Harry Potter. We all have fantasies of power and control, and this novel shows what could happen if we really had these powers, possibilities of our dark sides." He keeps comments on Lullaby to a bare minimum, relying instead on the publicity department of Doubleday Publishing to do that job. Instead, he is much more open to discussions on his previously published works.

Undoubtedly, his most famous novel is 1996's Fight Club, fueled by the movie version in 1999 starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Despite the fame, he expresses frustration with the ongoing mystique of the book and the film. To Palahniuk, Fight Club is an example of a silver cloud with a dark lining. "I should have quit writing and stayed as a mechanic," he says, referring to his previous job. "I had a good job as a mechanic, but had to quit because people were constantly calling me about Fight Club. I took my boss out to lunch so I could tell him I was quitting. He put his hands over his ears and said he didn't want to hear it."

Palahniuk also feels a stigma with his constantly being referred to as 'the author of Fight Club.' "It's going to say that on my tombstone," he says with a laugh. "Yes, I want to get beyond the point where Fight Club does not need to be mentioned."

Even today, fans and critics believe he harbors an underground secret. "At book signings, people will come up to me and ask 'So where's the fight club meeting afterwards?' I tell them that there is no fight club, and they'll say 'Oh, I know you're not supposed to talk about it.' Then they get pissed because I don't tell them. Also, newspapers want to send reporters to do exposes on fight clubs. They call me and ask where the fight club in Sarasota, Florida is located. I'm like 'Dude, I don't even know where Sarasota is.' Then they get pissed and hang up."

With Fight Club and Choke, the New York Times bestseller, Palahniuk expresses a fascination with support groups. "I like the dynamic of twelve-step and support groups, because they replace modern religion. You used to go to church, confess, and have all of your sins absolved. Now that happens with support groups."

Choke tells the story of Victor Mancini, a man swept up in a parallel world of sin and highly debatable goodness. Victor is intended to be a representation of a modern day Jesus Christ. "I wanted Victor Mancini to have a tendency to be Jesus for other people," says Palahniuk. "People have a desire to be divine for others." Palahniuk also downplays statements by fans and critics that he is a sort of messenger and critic of society's problems, despite evidence to the contrary in his works. "I don't think that society is going downhill anymore than it has been," he says.

The novel Invisible Monsters is probably the most daring novel he has written, and also the least-praised one at that. It tells the tale of a mutilated fashion model, her friend and cohort (a sex-changed bombshell, Brandy Alexander) as well as their encounters with colorful supporting characters. Subtle criticisms on the world of fashion are weaved into the plot. "I find all these attributes to a piece of fabric [silly]," says Palahniuk. Instead, the main intention of Invisible Monsters is a complete attack on gender roles and norms. Palahniuk has strong, almost controversial opinions on the characteristics of men and women in our society.

"Women watch Lifetime for information on relationships, and men watch The History Channel so they feel as if new information on actions has been taken away." Chuck Palahniuk is not a chauvinist. He is not a radical prophet for 21st century America. Above all, he is a writer, one with simple beliefs on writing that make for the gripping results. The main tool for Palahniuk is the heavy use of non-fictional elements in the fictional settings.

"I love the process of writing," he explains. On the use of non-fiction, he comments "It makes the realistic seem real in an unrealistic situation."

For someone who believes that his skills as a mechanic were more important than the writing talents, Chuck Palahniuk has had tremendous success with the latter. He is unfazed by worldwide recognition, a cult following of fans, and a major motion picture based on his very first novel. Palahniuk is a modest craftsman of words, quietly and calming continuing his establishment as one of America's greatest novelists.

The Ties That Bind: Louise Glück's "Ararat"

2011-05-29T21:06:00.006-05:00

Louise Glück and Mary Oliver are two poets who have been on my reading list for quite some time. The works of Oliver are championed by many of my friends, so much that a copy of her collected poems was given as a gift during a birthday get-together I attended last year. The book was presented, explained, and passed around eagerly among the people there. I fully plan on reading some of her works in 2011, but Louise Glück was the poet who managed to break through first. Her bibliography and past appointment as the United States Poet Laureate were new to me until recently, yet her name has always managed to pop up in various readings, outside bibliographies, and the (admittedly, still) few poetic readings, both actual poetry and outside critiques, which I encounter. I finished reading Ararat several weeks ago, but found the collection to be a challenging one to approach. Had I read this collection years ago, I very well could have been hampered by my earlier struggles with poetic forms; that is, I could have mistaken it for a "typical" book of poems. However, I found Ararat to be a work that could challenge the usual poetic cliches. Glück focuses heavily on family strains, death, and unhappiness. Expected poetic themes? Yes, but they are composed in fashions almost shockingly exposed.

"My sister and I
never became allies,
never turned on our parents.
We had
other obsessions: for example,
we both felt there were
too many of us
to survive (Glück 48, excerpt from "Animals")"

One of my usual "hobby horses" in literary theory is the separation of an author from his or her text, the implicit understanding that, even with evidence to the contrary, a reader shouldn't assume that the words on the page are a true mirror of a writer's personal life. However, Ararat reads like a definite biographical sketch. Glück doesn't use proper names, but consistent references to her parents and her sisters abound. The beauty of the seemingly random citation above is in the fact that Glück manages to provide both intimate personal details ('never turned on our parents/We had other obsessions') that blend seamlessly with phrases that can be read as both personal as well as representations of larger issues. The amazing phrase ('we both felt there were/too many of us/to survive') can be viewed as a representation of the speaker's family life, or expanded to mirror the world at large.

"My mother's an expert in one thing:
sending people she loves into the other world.
The little ones, the babies--these
she rocks, whispering or singing quietly. I can't say
what she did for my father;
whatever it was, I'm sure it was right (Glück 28, excerpt from "Lullaby")"

Glück's poems are sometimes strictly familial, and almost always intentionally uncomfortable in their blunt evocations. "Lullaby" shares the recurring themes of a mother's unhappiness and loss (the loss of children, the unhappiness of a strained marriage), and while these issues may very well speak to people who have experienced the same, Glück renders it into a personal sketch. However, in my reading, her line breaks are crafted as to offer different takes on the given statements. The separation of "she rocks, whispering or singing quietly. I can't say" is broken off from the previous line about babies; these can be linked as a continuous line, but I couldn't help but view the stand-alone line as a wrenching image of the mother rocking, whispering, and singing by herself, a portrait of solitude and sadness. This reading may be off, but in any case, it immediately shifts to the mention of the father, and the idea of "what she did" is intentionally vague. Glück's ability to jump from one idea to the next, mixed with the possibility of a single line potentially meaning something altogether different is startling, in a good way.

Given the themes which speak to human and family nature, I couldn't help but wonder if I wasn't the right reader for the works in Ararat. While not explicit, I found a strong tone of the feminine point of view, as if the collection is meant to speak primarily to the struggles of women and, more specifically, sisters, mothers, and wives. Even with this in mind, Glück does have excellent way of occasionally upending male stereotypes. The passage that jumped out at me the most in this regard (and, separately, the stanza that I found to be one of her best overall) is found in the poem "Cousins."

"It's not that my son's inept, that he doesn't do things well.
I've watched him race: he's natural, effortless--
right from the first, he takes the lead.
And then he stops. It's as though he was born rejecting
the solitude of the victor (Glück 53)."

While these citations and interpretations are merely a few of many, this first reading of Louise Glück proved to be valuable. Granted, there are dozens of equally skilled poets whose works I'm still behind on, but the reading of Ararat began as a way to familiarize myself with an established poet, and ended with me being challenged, occasionally unnerved, and continually finding various interpretations of what appear to be straightforward lines and stanzas. The notion of "challenging poetic cliches" mentioned in the opening might seem misleading. I wouldn't classify Glück as an experimental poet, despite her occasional deceptive line break or double meanings. The true sign of her talent is in the poems themselves, in her ability to take the obvious and make it both personal and universal. Family strife and death have been themes of poetry and fiction since the beginning, yet ways of expressing them are continually changed and explored. In the future, I might have to be in the right mindset to resume further readings of Glück's work, and I'm curious to see how her other collections handle different potential themes.

Work Cited:
Glück, Louise. Ararat. Copyright 1990 by Louise Glück.

Pens and Swords: John McMillian's "Smoking Typewriters"

2011-05-25T09:57:00.008-05:00

While I've been maintaining this blog for a couple of years, as well as keeping up as best I can with dozens of other blogs (whether independent or associated with larger newspapers or websites), I still hesitate to say that I'm part of a "blogosphere," nor do I claim to be the best insider source for literary reviews or happenings (far from it, in fact). However, for better or for worse, hundreds of other bloggers, the majority of them political, maintain conduits of information and opinions that make up a stunning change in media consumption that has been growing for the last decade or so. This is "alternative media" in a literal sense, but, like any groupings of publications (physical or digital), there are a few good sources and a lot of mediocre ones. Perhaps this era will be looked back upon with nostalgia or a better sense of its groundbreaking moments/sources, but as John McMillian's newest book shows, the beginning of the alternative media movement was, because of its time, truly revolutionary, since far-left writings and government critiques were viewed as genuinely subversive. As an earlier review of mine has shown, history books are flourishing, with multiple takes on every possible era, from every possible political point of view. The beauty of McMillian's Smoking Typewriters is, instead of recapping the already documented seeds of 1960s unrest, an excellent exploration of the era's reading materials and writings in correlation with its activism.

The roots of underground media, according to McMillian, begin with the communications of the New Left's activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Port Huron Statement was the group's original manifesto, exploring the need for national activism, but as SDS grew, its mission and policies began to reflect the need for unrestrained dialogues between all members, with no censorship or masking, and those reflections can be seen as the start of the growth of the underground press. McMillian's explanations also provide a key understanding to any revolution, either journalistic or political: it's rare to have a movement that begins seemingly overnight. Beginnings can usually be traced back to smaller events or happenings.

"Although SDS began establishing a democratic print culture with the Port Huron Statement, the ethos they built around their printed communications did not become a pronounced force in the organization right away. Instead, it evolved gradually, over the course of several years, in an effort to retain the harmonious social relations that characterized SDS when it was founded (McMillian 17)."

The SDS began publishing the Discussion Bulletin, which became "an 'organ of intellectual exchange,' a 'dialogue,' a 'forum,' [and] a 'medium (24)." In addition to the sociological necessity for the new media, the advent of cheaper printing presses and mimeograph machines aided the development of low-cost, high volume newspaper and pamphlet production. In essence, besides hinting to the future of more open media, the underground press also provided an excellent glimpse of the eventual punk-DYI movement. This foundation and ideology led to the publication of several famous underground papers, from The Village Voice (which happened to come before the 1960s), The Berkeley Barb, and The Chicago Seed. McMillian's research and writings highlight the well-known papers, but also shed light on some of the lesser known writers and papers that thrived, even with the threat of harassment and physical harm for publishing subversive material. This happened both as a result of a writer inserting himself into a dangerous situation such as an antiwar rally, or simply by virtue of being in an office that was targeted by opposition citizens.

The best sections of Smoking Typewriters highlight the people behind the papers, names that even today tend to fly under the radar, even though they helped define the literary democracy of the times. Not only does McMillian provide excellent details of the writers' and editors' philosophies, their personal backgrounds are often just as compelling, and occasionally sobering, since the majority of them suffered from backlash and a wealth of emotional and mental problems. McMillian doesn't make immediate correlations between the stress of potential violence due to the publications and the occasional aftermath of psychological woes, but occasionally, the connection is impossible to ignore. One of the most sympathetic figures in Smoking Typewriters is journalist Allen Young, a writer who began as a beat reporter with the Washington Post, but ended up throwing himself into the Liberation News Service (LNS), opting to follow his own integrity rather than a potential safety net with a secure, mainstream news source. His story is an excellent example of the humanity behind the underground press, a far cry from the conservative belief that the people behind such material were evil and immoral.

"Though thrilled to be launching his career at the Post, where he was assigned the nighttime police beat, Young felt conflicted in several important ways. First, he resented the fact that he was trained 'to pay serious attention to a murder if the victim was white, and not to worry too much about it if the victim is black.' And while Young regarded the Post as a rather conservative paper, he was surprised to learn that the cops he worked with thought it was scandalously left-wing...another complication was that Young was secretly gay at the time, and as a result he regretted have to spend so much time in the newsroom and the police precinct; the first struck him as a 'boys club,' and the latter was a 'highly macho environment.' But probably his biggest frustration lay in the fact that as a working journalist, he was prohibited from taking an active role in the antiwar activity that was happening right before his eyes (McMillian 145)."

I was very impressed by McMillian's writing style. His introduction and tone present an obvious enthusiasm for his subject, and while he undoubtedly agrees with the legacy and importance of the underground press's beginnings, the book is a scholarly, historical account. He manages to provide the fantastic backgrounds of both the papers and the people, showcasing them as individual components as well as interlinked assets to each other. Given that the start of underground media coincides with some of the most famous political movements of the 1960s (the rise of feminism, the Black Power movement), McMillian deftly writes about the events without going overboard, given that the more famous happenings have already been documented before; rather, his focus is on the creators and the writings, some of which may not have had proper text documentation before. As I mentioned above, a good number of history books have an obvious political slant, both left and right. Smoking Typewriters is an unabashed homage to the New Left, but McMillian leaves his own opinions aside, and instead allows the actual history to do the reporting. I'm sure that it would be easy for a conservative author to provide his or her own critique of the tumult that was the 1960s, as well as a condemnation of the anti-establishment materials that were published. However, this is rare book that has no need for the author's own political commentaries, since the sociological and political aspects are the reason that this book exists. Smoking Typewriters was published earlier this year, and hopefully it will gain more attention as a wonderful historical text, even though, as the past few years have shown, commendable titles can sometimes get lost in the sheer number of political/historical books published every month.

Work Cited:
McMillian, John. Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise Of Alternative Media In America. Copyright 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Rash Conclusions

2011-05-18T11:54:00.006-05:00

The New Yorker has always been a consistent source of essay topics for me, partly because, in between other books and readings, my subscription provides a weekly collection of fiction and current events, and more often than not, even just skimming a given issue is good for one or two brainstorms. I've also been introduced to a good handful of writers I otherwise wouldn't have been familiar with, thanks to the magazine's penchant for publishing fiction from voices both new and established. However, after nearly three years of reading their weekly stories, I've noticed a trend in the styles and themes. Sometimes, the stories are excerpts from upcoming novels, and the slices impressively stand alone as their own works. However, a much more irksome constant is the publication of stories that are obvious attempts to provoke or touch upon "controversial" issues. Of course, the notion of the uncomfortable has been a goal of fiction since the beginning; but in the weekly format, it's occasionally tiresome to read the same ideas. In The New Yorker's May 23rd issue, the story is "The Trusty," a piece by Ron Rash, an established novel and story writer based at Western Carolina University, where he works as a professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies. I don't like critiques that aren't constructive, nor do I like reading or writing pieces that are supremely negative. However, I was simply perplexed by my reading of "The Trusty," to the point that I cannot help but wonder whether I missed an important metaphor, or if Rash was simply having fun by creating a work that was so unabashedly old-fashioned.

A Depression-era chain gang prisoner named Sinkler is deemed by the guards to be a "trusty," a prisoner who is able to be freed to visit neighboring farms to request buckets of well water without attempting to escape. He travels to a farm owned by a middle aged farmer named Chet, with the house attended to by a wife named Lucy, who is half her husband's age. Sinkler takes an immediate liking to Lucy, at first sexual, but then with ideas of the both of them escaping their predicaments; Sinkler leaving his chain gang position, and Lucy leaving her loveless, sexless marriage. With each recurring visit, the two profess their mutual attraction and make a simple plain for their escape. As the story progresses, it becomes possible that the two have different motives, motives which may or may not prevent their journey away from the area.

The above synopsis is intentionally as simple as it can be, but does provide the bulk of the story without spoiling the ending. However, even basically, the summary evokes no fewer than two classic film plots, ranging from Cool Hand Luke to Double Indemnity, not to mention dozens of other cinematic and literary tropes. Rash balances old-fashioned dialogue that reads like a screenplay along detail sketches that manage to be sly and obvious at the same time.

"'What you want,' the woman said, not so much a question as a demand.
'Water,' Sinkler answered. 'We've got a chain gang working on the road.'
'I'd have reckoned you to bring water with you.'
'Not enough for ten men all day.'
The woman looked out at the field again. Her husband watched but did not unloop the rein from around his neck. The woman stepped onto the six nailed-together planks that looked more like a raft than a porch. Firewood was stacked on one side, and closer to the door an axe leaned between a shovel and a hoe. She let her eyes settle on the axe long enough to make sure he noticed it (Rash 69)."

The story makes mentions of Raleigh and Asheville, North Carolina, and Rash's use of his hometown areas, even in a historical setting, reminded me of Daniel Woodrell's use of the Ozarks as a fictional setting, as told to Jeff Ignatius of Culture Snob in a 2010 interview. Without making the mistake of mixing up two different authors and two different locales, I tried to re-read "The Trusty" with Ignatius' notes on Woodrell in my mind:

"And when you start reading, you might be struck that it’s been carved incredibly lean. While relatively plainspoken, the sentences are dense, with a mix of dialect from the Ozarks and artfully turned idioms that feel instantly right. One has to sip Woodrell’s language."

Sadly, I couldn't do it. "The Trusty" isn't a terrible story by any stretch, but I simply couldn't help but think that I was reading a romanticized version of a Depression-era piece of fiction. Again, Rash has a knack for detail, but even these details cannot save what turns out to be a fairly standard tale, albeit with an ending that manages to add a sense of postmodern ambiguity in a strictly "classic" story form. However, he does provide the occasional passage that packs humor, precise detail, and a desire in the reader to keep going, even if, for the most part, there's a general understanding of where the story will end up.

"Sinkler headed back down the road, thinking things out. By the time he set the sloshing buckets beside the prison truck, he'd figured a way to get Lucy Sorrels's' dress raised with more than just sweet talk. He'd tell her there was an extra set of truck keys in a guard's front desk and that he'd steal them, bring them with him, and wait until the guards were distracted to jump in and drive away. She'd know beforehand and be in the woods down the road. They'd go to Asheville and get the first train. It was a damn good story, one Sinkler himself might have believed if he didn't know that all the extra truck keys were locked inside a thousand-pound Mosler safe (Rash 71)."

Overall, I hesitate to immediately criticize a writer based on a lone story, especially since there's the off chance that I might be missing a key moral or metaphor. However, short stories by new writers (in the sense of being new to me) do offer a possible hint of what might be in store in other works. Does "The Trusty" make me want to research more of Rash's work? Possibly, but I cannot get past the simplicity of the overall tone. Is the deliberately old-fashioned story intentional? Does he write in the same consistent style? If I knew the story was meant to be a homage to older stories, it might work on a stronger level for me. Returning to my previous notion of New Yorker stories having a tendency to revel in attempted controversial plots, "The Trusty" is unusually tame by comparison. However, and this can be taken as a compliment or critique: it's one of the simplest pieces of storytelling that I've encountered in the magazine in quite some time. Maybe I'm just slightly jarred by its narrative, but like any piece of art or creativity, there might be a simpler explanation: not everything speaks to everyone. However, in contemporary fiction, attempts to infuse stories with older sentiments is a hit-or-miss act. "The Trusty" feels like a miss to me, but I am curious to see if Rash has any fiction set in the contemporary Carolinas. As a regional writer, I'm sure that his attention to detail would work well in a modern story as opposed to an older one. I don't like writing or reading reviews that are critical without any constructive reasons why, so I hope that this critique reflects not a shake of the finger towards Rash, but merely my not being completely captivated by his attempt to go back in time.

Work Cited:
Rash, Ron. "The Trusty." The New Yorker. May 23rd, 2011.

Swoon Over Miami: Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!"

2011-05-10T13:08:00.002-05:00

Karen Russell's highly awaited debut novel came out in February, and even before then, I was one of many people counting down the days until its publication. I was in the middle of other projects at the time, so my reading of Swamplandia! was delayed longer than I wanted it to be. The Russell story that I cited in the linked post turned out to be an excerpt from the novel, and while the story admirably stands alone as its own piece, it also serves as an excellent microcosm of the entire work. Russell stated her desire to balance the literary with the playful, and in Swamplandia!, the balance is between the literary and a mix of other small genres, most notably a sort of American gothic and fantasy. While not without the occasional problem, the work is proof that Russell's short story gifts are not lost in longer explorations. However, it's not entirely impossible that certain readers would prefer her shorter works over the novel; that's not a critique, but rather an honest assessment.

In Florida, the Bigtree family (parents Hilola and Chief; children Ava, Kiwi, and Ossie; grandfather Sawtooth) runs an alligator park called Swamplandia!, highlighted by Hilola's skills as an alligator wrestler and diver. Her sudden death, not from a diving accident, but from cancer, not only wreaks havoc on the family emotionally, but leads to a sudden decline in tourists to the park, creating a dire financial situation. Ava, the youngest Bigtree, is determined to become a renowned alligator wrestler in her own right, but her goal is beset by her age and her trouble with trying to deal with her family's strife. Ossie, empowered by a spiritual handbook, begins communicating with the dead, falling for the spirit of a Depression-era dredgeman named Louis Thanksgiving. Chief leaves the family to travel to the mainland under the guise of securing finances and loans for the park's continuation. Kiwi, a self-proclaimed academic, ends up defecting to a rival amusement park, The World Of Darkness, attempting to make money to support Swamplandia! When Ossie "runs away" with Louis, Ava is left alone, eventually teaming up with a mysterious figure known as the Bird Man, and the two undertake a journey to the underworld in the hopes of rescuing Ossie in her destination to join into a spiritual marriage with Louis.

The opening descriptions of Hilola's alligator dives are wonderfully descriptive, and immediately reminded me of Binewski family in Katherine Dunn's Geek Love.

"The tourists moved sproingily from buttock to buttock in the stands, slapping at the ubiquitous mosquitoes, unsticking their khaki shorts and their printed department-store skirts from their sweating thighs. They shushed and crushed against and cursed at one another; couples curled their pale legs together like eels, beer spilled, and kids wept. At last, the Chief cued up the music. Trumpets tooted from our big, old-fashioned speakers, and the huge unseeing eye of the follow spot twisted through the palm fronds until it found Hilola. Just like that she ceased to be our mother. Fame settled on her like a film--'Hilola Bigtree, ladies and gentleman!' my dad shouted into the microphone. Her shoulder blades pinched back like wings before she dove (Russell 4)."

I was initially worried that Swamplandia! was going to be a repeat or homage to Dunn's 1989 work, but the beginning similarities quickly melted away. In Dunn's work, the Binewskis, when their intentional deformities are stripped away, are like any other dysfunctional family, with love, anger, and internal fights. Russell's Bigtrees are just a regular group who run a realistic amusement park, and, like virtually any literary family, their problems are genuine. Hilola's death breaks them apart just as much as her earlier presence, both as a mother and headliner, held them together. The majority of the chapters alternate between Ava's narration and third-person accounts of Kiwi's attempts to integrate himself with "mainlanders" in the other amusement park, and Russell's work of making the youngest Bigtree serve as the narrator is effective. The alternation between narrative voices is pretty standard, but the reader quickly realizes that Ava, for all of her youth and innocence, makes the perfect narrator. She desperately wants the best for her family, but her views are not childish or needlessly hopeful. Every other Bigtree has their own delusions and agendas, and while Ava is not completely exempt from this, she seems to have a subconscious understanding of why everyone else is doing what they're doing.

"Was [Ossie] crazy? She was crazy--I hardly needed to ask the question. It was 80 degrees in our room. I tugged at my hair with both hands and watched her performing hygiene in the mirror. My sister didn't look possessed--we were both wearing the same ankle socks and the striped pajamas that we wore to bed every night. Ossie had a green freckle of toothpaste on her upper lip, her hair was pulled into a high ponytail for sleep purposes, her cheeks were sunburned, she looked pretty dumb with her same big-eyed, ostrichy features, and all these outside things were so as-ever ordinary that I wanted to scream at her: You are faking, you are lying! There is no such thing as your dredgeman (Russell 93-94)."

Whether obvious or just hinted, Russell also crafts the novel as a contemporary and historical love letter to her home state of Florida. Nothing is needlessly romanticized, but there is obvious affection for the scenery, wildlife, and culture of the area. Her research is impeccable, but blends very well into the fictionalized details, creating a realistic background to the novel's characters and happenings. As Ava travels deep into the swamps with the Bird Man, the novel takes on a mystical, almost fantasy-like tone, but the details are never sacrificed. As the reader "travels" with the two unlikely partners, the trip to the underworld becomes a blend of the mystical and real sides of certain territories.

"These Seminoles, the 'real' Indians that Chief envied in a filial and loving way, were in fact the descendants of many displaced tribes from the Creek Confederacy. This swamp was not their ancestral home either, not by any stretch--they had been pushed further and further into the swamp by President Jackson's Tennessee boys and a company of scarecrows from Atlanta, a militia that was starved and half-crazed. We Bigtrees were an 'indigenous species' of swamp dweller, according to the Chief and our catalogs, but it turned out that every human in the Ten Thousand Islands was a recent arrival (Russell 191)."

The majority of the characters are revealed to have hidden agendas, some of which are saddening or shocking, but it's difficult to discuss these in-depth without providing major spoilers. Russell presents these revelations in some of the novel's best pages towards the end, blending the individual climaxes without making them obvious or part of any major differentiation in the plot. However, the novel's biggest problem is the very end: after roughly thirty pages of twists that lead to the conclusion, Swamplandia! ends on a sort of apathetic note. The ultimate destination of the Bigtrees is convincingly ambiguous, but it feels as if Russell was rushing to tie up the ending, rushing the final pages in a very standard telling. However, this critique is more of a compliment to the rest of the book: the details are painstaking and drawn out, and it's unnerving to have it end in such a quick fashion. Given Russell's amazing gift of storytelling, the ending is in no way a "mistake" on her part. Perhaps I'll eventually view it as a fitting conclusion, since the characters are mostly drawn out so well that she found it unnecessary to expand the ending to be a section that didn't need more expansion. The majority of my personal enjoyment of Russell's work still lies in her short stories, but for a debut novel, Swamplandia! is an excellent, unique work that contains her previous balance of the literary and the off-beat.

Work Cited:
Russell, Karen. Swamplandia! Copyright 2011 by Karen Russell.

Frankly, There's More: James Kaplan's "Frank: The Voice"

2011-04-30T19:31:00.001-05:00

Whenever I read a book, I can never resist reading the author's afterword or acknowledgement page, even though, most of the time, it's merely a list thanking various people, family members, and editors, people whose names I'll forget forty-five seconds after putting the book away. However, James Kaplan's acknowledgement in his latest book Frank: The Voice offers a simple, yet necessary understanding. In it, he says: "To encourage a first-time biographer to take on [Frank] Sinatra--not only a gigantic subject but, perhaps, the most chronicled human in modern history--might have looked like sheer folly (720)." My own fascination and admiration of Frank Sinatra goes back to my childhood, and has been a constant even though my tastes and studies have grown to include a much wider film and music base. However, to be blunt, there are too damn many books about Sinatra, most of which, while offering the occasional new information, have to restate the obvious biographical facts and tidbits that even the most casual Sinatra fan knows inside and out. The Sinatra biography "industry" began most famously in 1986, with Kitty Kelley's His Way, a book that more or less made Sinatra out to be pure evil at worst, and a common criminal at best. The other end of the spectrum contains biographies written by Sinatra's daughters, Nancy and Tina, which are written with a glow and only a hint of the negativity that will inevitably surround such a famous public figure. However, a few other books provide a much better lens: Anthony Summers published Sinatra: The Life in 2005, an excellent biography that balanced the good with the bad. Tom Santopietro's Sinatra In Hollywood had a tendency to be overly deferential, but proved to be more detailed than most, since it focused exclusively on Sinatra's up and down film career. Last year's publication of Kaplan's book went even further, in a way that is deceptively simple, yet hasn't really been undertaken: it's the first volume of a two-part biography, and instead of cramming Sinatra's entire life into one tome, he explores Sinatra's early life, from his birth up to his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award win in 1954 for the film From Here To Eternity.

Biographers usually tend to go down one of two paths: one is that of straight reporting and detailing, offering facts and scenes with a purely journalistic eye. The other path seems to be gaining much more relevance in recent years, with the writer doing his or her best to "insert" themselves into the history, with alternations between the details and the opinions of the chronicler. In Frank: The Voice, Kaplan does both, and in doing so, manages to create more than a few solid arguments about Sinatra's development, both as a person and as a singer/actor. From the beginning, Kaplan explores Sinatra's relationship with his mother, Dolly, and shows that their love/hate relationship effected Sinatra more than most fans realize.

"Yet that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Yes, Frank Sinatra was born with a character (inevitably) similar to Dolly's, but nature is only half the equation. Frank Sinatra did what he needed to do for himself because he had learned from earliest childhood to trust no one--even the one in whom he should have been able to place the ultimate trust (Kaplan 10)."

In Kaplan's opinion, this early relationship would provide the foundation for more than a few of Sinatra's future relationships, both romantic and personal. Not only did his mother's dominating personality rub off on him, but his relationships with people--from bandleader Tommy Dorsey to his second wife Ava Gardner--tended to run hot and cold, especially when said people proved to have make-ups that included equal dominance. This is all open to interpretation, but Kaplan does make a convincing argument. Tommy Dorsey ran one of the tightest bands in the height of the swing era, and it was inevitable that the unquestioned leader would clash with the rising singer who, even from the beginning, was determined to eventually succeed on his own terms. Refreshingly, Kaplan manages to take a lot of famous Sinatra stories and anecdotes, even the ones that tend to border on apocryphal, and write about them with new vigor. For example, take Dorsey's final words to Sinatra after the singer finally breaks away from the band.

"As for the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing, Tommy Dorsey drank a good bit backstage at the Circle Theater the night of that final broadcast, and liquor always put a fine edge on his cold Irish anger. When Sinatra cried on his shoulder, Dorsey had seven words for him.
'I hope you fall on your ass,' the bandleader said (Kaplan 146)."

Once Ava Gardner entered Sinatra's life, she became a constant, even through their most strained times, and even until her death years after their divorce. Like most biographies, the picture of those two is one of intense lust and love, mixed with bitter fights, jealousy, suicide attempts (on Frank's part), and terminated pregnancies. Scouring Gardner's autobiography, as well as other well-researched and cited accounts, Kaplan gives a compelling new side to the Sinatra-Gardner relationship, even going to far as to highlight stories that might be exaggerated, all for the sake of giving the best account possible:

"Artie Shaw's story about Ava's sexual confession ('it's like being in bed with a woman) may be half-true; it certainly shows Shaw to best advantage, and Sinatra to worst. But it chimes oddly with the [faked suicide attempt by Sinatra] at the Hampshire House. Sinatra certainly had a hysterical side, and was nothing if not hypersensitive. And Ava was all things to him, siren and drinking buddy and mother surrogate, and great artists have polymorphous souls (Kaplan 418)."

The above passage leads to my only real complaints about Frank: The Voice. While the Sinatra-Gardner relationship is an essential part of any Sinatra account, Kaplan seems to bring it up often, even without the sake of transition. The reader is treated to excellent details, but the story is too often steered to yet another tale of the Sinatra-Gardner drama, which very well could be blamed on their relationship, and not the fault of the author. Their fights were so over-the-top and melodramatic that it makes the accounts tiring after awhile. And the last sentence of the above Kaplan citation includes a telling phrase--"great artists"--which is often difficult to ascribe to Sinatra. However, for a man who was never able to read music, his interpretation of classic songs, as well as the occasional great film performances, steer him towards the term "artist," but in all reality, Sinatra's artistic integrity was limited to his vocalizing. Kaplan seems nobly intent on creating a picture of Sinatra as an artist through and through, but in reality, the only times that Kaplan effectively captures this is in details of Sinatra's intuitive singing, his way of making his voice an instrument instead of just the carrier of a given song.

"The next night he recorded four more songs, and one of them, the first--a pretty Burke-Van Heusen tune called 'Like Someone In Love'--had been arranged by [Nelson] Riddle. [George] Siravo's charts were lovely, but this orchestration, with its Debussy/Ravel-esque flute passages (the flute would soon become a Riddle signature), was something special: a gift from one lover of impressionism to another, and a promise of more complex beauty to come (Kaplan 660)."

Overall, Kaplan's account is impressive, given his research into even the most documented aspects of one of the most documented lives in entertainment history. Frank: The Voice doesn't try to be a juicy tell-all, especially since all of the more gossipy parts of Sinatra's life have been detailed to almost no end. Kaplan's tone didn't fit at times; he occasionally attempts to add "tough guy" lingo to an otherwise journalistic approach, and some of the flourishes in the events are a bit too novelistic in what is a predominantly excellent work. However, the attention to detail, and the attempts to flush out smaller accounts instead of attempting to cram a varied life into one volume is one of the rare examples of a writer doing this for integrity, rather than dividing a work into multiple volumes for the sake of royalties (Kaplan will be writing an account of the second half of Sinatra's life). This book would make an excellent introduction to anybody unfamiliar with Sinatra's life; for even the most ardent Sinatra fans, it's an excellent work, and even the smallest new details are enough to satisfy the people who likely know everything about Sinatra's life and music.

Work Cited:
Kaplan, James. Frank: The Voice. Copyright 2010 by James Kaplan.

Everything and More: Dialogue and Voices in "The Recognitions"

2011-04-20T13:19:00.012-05:00

Given the volume of history, citations, sources, and secondary texts in The Recognitions by William Gaddis, the novel has often (rightfully) been referred to as encyclopedic. Even though it works as both a historical and (then) contemporary piece, rife with facts both fictional and non-fictional, I sometimes get the feeling that any novel over 500 pages is sometimes labeled encyclopedic, which if it's not, and merely just a long book, renders said label inexplicable at best, and mildly self-insulting to the reviewer at worst, since it hints at a lack of adjectives on his/her part. Some writers and critics have tried to tear away that label from The Recognitions, and the best argument that I've found comes from writer Joseph McElroy in his excellent essay "Gaddis Dialogue Questioned" (re-printed in Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System):

"[The Recognitions]was a work adequate to our underground history and pretension, carried through no matter how long it takes: this was the Gaddis example, an idea of the book itself, what it could hold. (Forget "experimental"; forget "encyclopedic") Worth writing, worth reading, it will be a book to be in, not just to pass through as so much nowadays passes through us and is gone.....
....The hole so overflows with voices (McElroy 67)."

In my introductory essay on The Recognitions, I mentioned that I would be writing a follow-up piece on "some nuances of the novel." This was a terribly vague statement on my part, but while I tossed around various potential specific essays, I could not escape the winding turns, power and sheer abundance of voices and dialogues in the novel. Granted, albeit with rare exceptions, dialogue is a constant in fiction, postmodern or otherwise, and done in ways that are brilliant, subversive, contradictory, or realistic. However, in The Recognitions, Gaddis manages to combine all of those potentials, presented in standard fashions, but also in labyrinth, multi-character discussions that are compelling, intentionally evasive as to who is speaking, and mysterious. Mix these with radio voices, reprinted news articles, and reprinted personal letters, and the novel manages to combine both Realism, an intelligent caricature of bustling city cacophonies, as well as purely seductive, misleading bullshit. However, every piece is intentional; it's up to the reader to decide what's true, what's blatantly false, and what could possibly be a combination of the two. Nothing is set in stone, yet everything is available for an endless equation of possible meanings.

Critics from McElroy to Franzen have made many notes on Gaddis' use of ellipses, dashes, and unnamed or non-cited speakers. A careful reading makes the majority of the conversations understandable, and in the best cases, meanings are both explicit as well as merely implied. Early in The Recognitions, Wyatt has a transforming conversation with a corrupt art critic, and their back-and-forth conversation is deceptively simple, yet weighed with (mostly negative) implications.

"--What do you mean? Wyatt looked up, startled, dropping his arms.
--I am in a position to help you greatly.
--Yes, yes, but...
--Art criticism pays very badly, you know.
--But...well? Well? His face creased.
--If you should guarantee me, say, one-tenth of the sale price of whatever we sell...
--We? You? You (Gaddis 71)?"

The reader knows exactly what is going on, the two speakers are on the same page, but at the same time, there's an air of deception and corruption, which is an appropriate microcosm of the novel as a whole. Other microcosms abound; it would be far too easy to say that the dialogue is representative of the novel's actions (depending on the form, that could be said of any novel or story), but the pieces work as excellent stand-alone movements. Gaddis has an excellent ear for mixed-up party scenes, perfectly evoking the interjecting, sometimes-confusing, alcohol-fueled conversations that inevitably happen at large gatherings. The example below might not make perfect sense out of context, but imagine it being spoken at a random party: in a slightly twisted way, it makes sense even in its confusion.

"--You write a novel! Who'll read a novel with no women in it?
--But baby, there will be, I'll do it just like Proust did, write it about simply everyone I know and then just go through and change boys' names to girls, I know the perfect Odette...
--You ought to go back to analysis. Or have a vagotomy and get it over with. Just because your analyst killed himself...
--He didn't kill himself, it was an accident.
--An accident! He ties a rope around his neck and climbs out a window, but the rope breaks and he falls forty-six stories, so it's an accident?
--Hannah, I'm going, going to get a drink. Herschel said turning on the room, no idea where he was going, but away.
--I didn't know he was a writer, Otto said.
--Writer! He ghosts. He just ghosted some army general's autobiography. A writer!
--Otto looked after Herschel. --I'd say he was a latent heterosexual, he said, immediately regretted wasting such an inspired line on Hannah, and resolved to repeat it later to someone who would repeat it as his own. He even tried to think quickly of a spot for it in his play (Gaddis 180-181)."

Quiet moments of reflection are scarce in The Recognitions, with background noises, conversations, and mild chaos being constant presences. McElroy's essay is mainly focused on Gaddis' second novel, JR, but I couldn't help but notice how a lot of the dialogue themes could also apply to The Recognitions, especially McElroy's assertion that:

"Apt thus for the strandedness of his principles, dialogue serves Gaddis in other ways. And the tumbling out of broken hopes and tentative, even underground will, and bursts of incipient action and frenetic speeches ma bring from Edward, Amy, Jack [characters in JR] in their voicings of frustration a lost and distracted tragic-comicness like that of some Dostoevsky people in their own messy but awful and true crisis-dramas (McElroy 66)."

Tumbling out of broken hopes...frenetic speeches...messy but awful and true crisis-dramas. These are honored standbys of classic and contemporary novels, but in an amazing, saddening way, Gaddis is able to apply these not only in character discussions, but also in advertising. Radio voices pop up every now and then, and Gaddis' satire of advertising culture is blistering, especially given the time period. While 1950s ads have their own websites and DVDs devoted to their nostalgia, and while advertising today is viewed through a skeptical lens, Gaddis shows that nostalgia was the last thing on his mind. Even then, advertising was ludicrous at times, and laughable in its intense pursuit of listeners and dollars. This "ad" from a child's radio show is an excellent example, both comically astute and stunning in its subject, asking children to talk to their parents about birth control.

"--you friend Laughing Lazarus will be here in a minute, but listen kids. Here's one real confidential question I want to ask you first, just between us. Do you have enough brothers and sisters? I know, you love big brother or little Janey, don't you. But too many can spoil your chances. Look at it this way. When you have pie for dessert, how many ways does it have to be divided up? Do you get your share? If you have enough brothers and sisters, or even if you don't have any and don't want any, tell Mummy about Cuff. Cuff, the new wonder preventative. Cuff is guaranteed not to damage internal tissues or have lasting effects. But you don't have to remember all those long words, just tell Mummy to ask about Cuff next time she visits her friendly neighborhood druggist. Remember, Cuff. It's on the Cuff (Gaddis 366)."

Even in the most basic Gaddis dialogue, there are underlying messages, plays for power, distinctions between class, and accents/untranslated passages that lend The Recognitions a multiculturalism that play easily in a backdrop like Manhattan, or in the various overseas locales to which the characters travel or appear in at random. In one particularly comic exchange, the playwright Otto is in Central America, trying to write while interrupted by a housemate named Jesse. Gaddis slightly exaggerates Jesse's diction, but it's not done in a stereotypical way; instead, it highlights the different temperaments between the two men, the pseudo-intellectual Otto and the more "manly" Jesse:

"--Hello, Jesse.
--Hello Jesse. How do you like that. Hello Jesse. What are you doin anyhow? said the tattooed man, and sat down on the other wooden chair.
--I'm writing.
--Jesse put the bottle and glass on the table and looked around him. The corners of his mouth twitched, momentarily confused about something, but something which was going to be pleasurable. He looked over the table, littered with papers illegibly scribbled upon, and at the pictures on the wall.
--Do you want a cigarette? Otto asked him.
--Yeah, give me a cigarette. Jesse put out his hand, and then waved away the green package of MacDonald's Gold Standard.
--What do you smoke those things for? That ain't even American-made stuff.
--I don't know, I...anyhow it is Virgina tobacco, I...
--Yeah what do you smoke those lousy things for? Why don't you smoke American cigarettes? He knocked one of Otto's clean socks from the corner of the table into the cuspidor with his elbow, and watched suspiciously while Otto got up and went behind him to retrieve it.
--What are you doin anyhow? Jesse asked. Then he said,--You're a religious bastid ain't you (Gaddis 154-155)."

For a novel that relies heavily on communications or lack thereof, it's curious to note that the work famously ends on a fatal miscommunication. Stanley, a deeply religious composer, heads to an Italian monastery to play his composition on the monastery's organ. An elderly monk tells him (in Italian) to not play anything too heavy, given the fact that the ancient system is unequipped to handle deeply resonant music. Not understanding, Stanley plays anyway, collapsing the area around him, and dying in the process. The closing lines of the novel are: "He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played (Gaddis 956)." To me, the telling phrase is "most of his work," and the closing would take on different potential meanings if Gaddis had phrased it as "all of his work." Jonathan Franzen felt that this final statement was an unintentional precursor to Gaddis' life-long reception. To expand my reading of it, the mostly completed work is "noted with high regard." Like the dialogue in the novel, we have most of it, but not all of it. The communications are flushed out, but at the same time, it's impossible to know if, as readers, we're getting the complete picture. Reading between the lines in such a mammoth and (yes) encyclopedic work is daunting enough, but even with the brutal honesty of the characters and voices, they are deeply flawed individuals, and aren't as seemingly open as Gaddis makes them. Once more, a seemingly unrelated phrase from McElroy, in reference to JR, makes for an excellent potential reading of The Recognitions, both regarding its voices and emphasis on communication at the end.

"The voice sort of at the end of the line with dramatic persona nonetheless abstracts itself (McElroy 66)."

Works Cited:
Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. Copyright 1983 by William Gaddis.

McElroy, Joseph. "Gaddis Dialogue Questioned." Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System. Rone Shavers and Joseph Tabbi, eds. Copyright 2007 by The University of Alabama Press.

And Now, Your W---- C----- Chicago Bulls

2011-04-15T22:39:00.004-05:00

Last June proved to be an rarity in Chicago sports: the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup after being the sexy (and logical) favorite for the championship. At the same time, I proved to be a rarity myself, being a Chicagoan who refused to hop on the Blackhawks bandwagon. I've never been a hockey fan, and I didn't feel the need to become a temporary one when the entire city was caught up in the excitement. That's not to say that I wasn't appreciative; the only hockey game I saw all year was the Stanley Cup championship game, when I happened to be at a local bar with my brother. When the game ended, the entire bar erupted. A possibly homeless woman took the time to high-five everyone in the establishment. I applauded, felt a tinge of euphoria, and just as quickly, it subsided. While I'm all about civic pride, I was annoyed by the scores of people who took it upon themselves to don Patrick Kane jerseys because it was the chic thing to do. This year, the same thing might be happening. For the first time since 1998, the Chicago Bulls are a possible favorite to win the NBA championship, and many people, people who stopped following the Bulls after Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Phil Jackson left the team, will be dropping cash for Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah jerseys.

I'm a major fan of the Bulls and the Chicago Cubs, but I've always been diligent about distancing myself from the normal ebbs and tides of Chicago sports. I find it ridiculous that people still cling to the 1985 Bears, and when I attend a Cubs game, I actually watch the game instead of going to enjoy the scene and to get drunk (however, it is possible to consume more than the recommended amounts of Old Style while actually watching a baseball game). The civic pride will be terrific if the Bulls advance deep this year, but a part of me will be falling into the stereotype of a fan. I want people to be excited about this team. I love being able to exchange excited Facebook messages with a handful of my fellow Bulls fanatics. However, part of me wants to talk to everyone who hops on the bandwagon or dusts off the Bulls fanaticism that was tucked away in 1998. I've never stopped being a Bulls fan, and part of me will want to ask a few questions. Where were you? Where were you during the terrible years? Were you drumming your fingers watching Keith Booth and Rusty LaRue? Deep down, were you never buying the drafts of Eddie Curry and Tyson Chandler? Were you hopeful when the Bulls signed Ben Wallace, only to watch it fade rather quickly?

It's easy to get caught up in the potential of the 2011 Chicago Bulls. When Derrick Rose was drafted in 2008, he came with a ton of potential and skill, but nobody was able to foresee his leadership and the development of said potential. He challenges himself and his team every night, and while national commentators love to harp on his "shortcomings," nobody can deny the beauty of his layups and fast-breaks. Joakim Noah came into the league branded as a headcase, but his development is even greater than that of Rose. He matured, toughened up on defense, and made himself into one of the greatest assets on the team. Early in the season, he was rumored to be part of a potential deal with the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Carmelo Anthony. If this had happened, I would have been devastated. Even if 'Melo had dropped 35 points a game as a Bull, he never would have matched Noah's intensity and drive. Last year, the Bulls lost in the opening round to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Even though they lost, their determination was never in question. ESPN columnist Bill Simmons stated that the mentality of Rose and Noah was a sort of love letter to last year's free-agent class: "We're wired the right way. We want to win." Instead of signing LeBron James, the Bulls signed forward Carlos Boozer; instead of landing Dwyane Wade, they signed Kyle Korver to strengthen the bench. While the consensus is that the Bulls "lost out" on the major free agents, the players that they did sign ended up contributing enormously, helping lead the team to the best record (62-20) in the league.

Nationally, the Bulls are sexy again. They have the best point guard (Rose) in the league, and they are a favorite for nit-picky sportswriters who assume that they don't have the talent to compete with the likes of the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, or Heat. Among the Bulls' supporters, a lot has been made about the team's history. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Chicago's first NBA championship, which was won against the Los Angeles Lakers. Along with the Lakers' penchant for being a terribly difficult playoff opponent, a lot of writers and commentators are gushing over a re-match twenty years in the making: The Bulls vs. The Lakers in the NBA Finals. Add a dash of Lakers head coach Phil Jackson (who led Chicago to their six previous titles) claiming that he's retiring after the season, and the supposed pieces are in place for the NBA's final playoff match.

While I would not complain about this if it did happen, the realist in me wants to take things slowly. In today's age of instant analysis and instant gratification, if the Bulls lose in the Eastern Conference semi-finals or conference finals, the onslaught of critiques and opinions will be overwhelming. Of course, living in Chicago adds yet another twist. As sports fans, Chicagoans are obsessed with the past and with history. The aforementioned 1985 Bears will remain the local favorite until a new Bears team finally wins the Super Bowl; the 2008 Chicago Cubs won the most games in the National League during the anniversary of their last World Series title in 1908, and while they didn't succumb to history, they succumbed to reality: a hot Dodgers team (more Los Angeles references) with great pitching and timely hitting. Simply put, Chicago needs to separate the current teams from the glory teams of years passed.

Derrick Rose is not Michael Jordan; he's Derrick Rose. Joakim Noah is not Scottie Pippen; he's Joakim Noah. Even if Rose and Noah had playing styles similar to Jordan and Pippen, it would be ridiculous to keep making the comparisons. While contemporary athletes are constantly compared to their previous counterparts, this year's Bulls team should be respected and loved for their difference. They play the best defense in the league, and with Rose, they have a player who can take over nearly at will. Their bench players can go hot and cold, but in a playoff atmosphere, I'd err on the side of hot. If Chicago fans want to make a comparison to the past, it would be wise to go with this one: Derrick Rose is in his third year as a professional basketball player. It took Michael Jordan seven years to win his first championship. While I'm aching for the Bulls to go all the way, I'm hoping that, if they don't, the fans and media personalities think back to the build-up of the previous championship teams. After years of being close to winning a title, the first one in 1991 was a perfect culmination.

Chicago: get excited when the Bulls tip off tomorrow against the Indiana Pacers. However, don't get caught up in the potential ending, since it could be disappointing or spectacular. Enjoy the ride, and know that if it doesn't happen this year, the foundation is set. In 1991, there were no such things as Facebook and Twitter calling for instant happiness. The current team, much like its predecessors, will get by with practice and sweat. Some things never change with the times.

Data Accessibility: "The Recognitions"

2011-04-10T07:22:00.007-05:00

"...The Recognitions was perfect for the task. Reading the whole thing would also confer bragging rights. If somebody asked me if I'd read The Sotweed Factor, I could shoot back: No, but have you read The Recognitions? And blow smoke from the muzzle of my gun (Franzen 247)."

I recently completed a long-term goal of mine, a project that has been on my to-do list since I was twenty. Back in December, I began reading The Recognitions, the 1955 debut novel of author William Gaddis. Several times in the past, I started it, but never managed to make it beyond the first fifty pages or so. After a couple of months of on-again, off-again struggling, I finally finished the book. Even though I opened with it, the above passage from novelist Jonathan Franzen does not represent my beliefs. I didn't read the book for any bragging rights or literary hipster street cred. And even though I finished it, I'll be the first one to openly admit that I was lost at times, and that the book is packed with allusions and references that I undoubtedly missed. I had to turn to online summaries to pick up on some characters who were lost in the shuffle, and I found myself being slightly passive at times, skimming through parts written in Spanish, Latin, and Italian without taking the time to translate them. Even though this is an admission of literary sins, I still feel as if I made an accomplishment. Reading can be a combination of pleasure and work, and reading The Recognitions was a lot like my reading of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: I knew it would be a challenge, but a good one. The readings were done out of a desire for the literary pleasure, but with full knowledge that I'd have to roll up my sleeves and devote time to vastly long narratives. Admittedly, this was far from easy. Even when the book was first published, a lot of critics and readers found it daunting, as William Gass explains in his relatively famous introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, which works as an example of Gaddis defenders being extremely devoted to the writer's cause, and also offering a glimmer of hope to the first-time reader.

"Its arrival was duly noted in fifty-five papers and periodicals. Only fifty-three of these notices were stupid. But the reviewers' responses to the book confirmed its character and quality, for they not only declared it unreadable and wandering and tiresome and confused, they participated in the very chicaneries the text documented and dramatized. It was too much to expect: that they should read and understand and praise a fiction they were fictions in. You, too, can let your present copy rest unread on some prominent table. A few critics confessed they could not reach the novel's conclusion except by skipping. Well, how many have actually arrived at the last page of Proust or completed Finnegans Wake? What does it mean to finish Moby-Dick, anyway? Do not begin this book with any hope of that. This is a book you are meant to befriend. It will be your lifelong companion. You will end only to begin again (Gass vii)."

My fascination with Gaddis (despite the fact that I've only read three of his books, including the slim essay collection The Rush For Second Place) began at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where I lucked out and studied under Joseph Tabbi and Rone Shavers, two Gaddis scholars who also edited an invaluable critical collection entitled Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System. It was at that time that I began following Franzen's critical work, and professor Tabbi and I occasionally clashed over the issue of Franzen's assessment of Gaddis, in his essay "Mr. Difficult." At that time, I wasn't anywhere close to being ready to read The Recognitions, even though I gave it some attempts. The enthusiasm that Tabbi and Shavers brought to even the most basic studies of Gaddis rubbed off on me. I still have quite a way to go before I a.) complete the Gaddis bibliography, and b.) can profess to have a more complete knowledge of his style and sources. But even with just one basic reading of The Recognitions, the amount of information and genuinely brilliant passages is exhilarating.

The novel follows several interconnected and dissecting plot lines. A preacher's son named Wyatt Gwyon grows up with intense religious fear, partly due to his Aunt's belief that he should devote himself to God, not the emulation of him (namely, recreating God's creations via art). As an adult, his marriage is strained and possibly sexless, his wife is engaged in multiple affairs, and after bad reviews, he takes an offer to forge the paintings of old masters to be re-sold as originals by a corrupt art dealer named Recktall Brown. Wyatt's path crosses with Otto Pivner, a playwright dogged by hints of plagiarism and pursuing a troubled poet and model named Esme. In the beginning and the middle of the novel, the reader is introduced to a counterfeiter whose son is mixed up with Esme. Showing up at a party and taking the dubious center stage at the novel's end is Stanley, a tortured Catholic composer who lives his life under a continually troubled religious code. Granted, in a twisting novel of 956 pages, this is just a sampling of the complete list of characters. Other ones play small to semi-important parts, others drift in and out, and some make mere cameo appearances. Giving a capsule description of each character would be both helpful and pointless, since, much like the novel's themes, picking and choosing their ultimate destinations is challenging.

The novel's themes and sources are many, and the historical and classical references alone are daunting to keep up with (again, as I mentioned above, I know that I missed most of them; some of the historical allusions are even explained within the novel, but a full understanding of their relation to the story requires nearly infinite background studies and resources). However, the implications and questions pop up at the reader from the beginning, and make for a literal whirlwind of ideas. Religious fanaticism and hypocrisy are bluntly explored. The nature of art, art criticism, and reality are debated. Few, if any, of the character relationships are genuine or truly long-lasting, creating a sense of isolation and despair in the multiple cities and countries in which the stories take place, thereby making The Recognitions a truly underrated example of 1950s unhappiness (Franzen hints that, stripped down, the novel is akin to Catcher In the Rye). What is, on the surface, a continual search for happiness is actually a search for integrity and reality in a false, corrupt world. For such a vast work, it's important to read carefully, since Gaddis had a knack for creating intensely philosophical and sociological details in his fiction. It's really the best of both worlds, with consistent, smaller character examinations mixed in with the novel's more expansive, overall messages. For example, look at the details infused in a brief sketch of the marriage between Wyatt and Esther:

"A year later, they had been married for almost a year; which was unlike Wyatt. He had become increasingly reluctant wherever decisions were concerned; and the more he knew, the less inclined to commit himself. Not that this was an exceptional state: whole systems of philosophy have been erected upon it. On the other hand, the more insistent from those depths, became the necessity to do so: a plight which has formed the cornerstone for whole schools of psychology. So it may be that his decision to marry simply made one decision the less that he must eventually face; or it is equally possible that his decision to marry was indecision crystallized, insofar as he was not deciding against it (Gaddis 79)."

Given that the novel was published in 1955, reading it today still renders it fresh, and shocking in the sense that Gaddis' criticisms were almost literally years ahead of the times, even if this is only evidenced in hindsight. As William Gass hinted, Gaddis seemed to poke fun at his eventual critics, but he also shows a deft hand for critiques of the consumer, political, and overall cultures of the 1950s, especially in the face of art and creativity. Some of these critiques are blunt, but at times, they are sly and carefully worded.

"He listened to the radio during periods of political heat, the speech in which one senator told the truth about another (this was known as a 'smear campaign'); and then the raucous gathering where people were paid in five-dollar bills to shout, clap, parade, and otherwise indicate the totally irrational quality of their enthusiasm for a man they had never met to take office and govern them (Gaddis 290)."

For a novel that packs in a stunning wealth of religious history and study, the subject is another one that doesn't escape Gaddis' wary eye. A few of the characters, most notably Stanley, profess intense religious feelings. Wyatt's father alternates between his life as a preacher, as well as a descent into madness, Mithraism, and pagan worship. However, a prevailing sentiment is the fact that religion is fueled by money and hypocrisy, which isn't so far-fetched today, but one can only imagine how daring this was in 1955. Again, Gaddis combines both explicit critiques with ones that the reader either discovers or stumbles upon.

"There was, in fact, a religious aura about this festival, religious that is in the sense of devotion, adoration, celebration of deity, before religion became confused with systems of ethics and morality, to become a sore affliction upon the very things it had once exalted (Gaddis 311)."

I feel as if I'm picking and choosing various aspects of The Recognitions, but its scope is such that one essay on it cannot hope to reveal every question or theme. However, the prevailing ruminations center on art and creativity, and again, the balance of the real (personal integrity) and the false (corruption, monetary aspirations). Passages and pages of dialogue are devoted to these very notions. Some of the most striking ideas come in conversations between Wyatt and Basil Valentine (an associate of Recktall Brown).

"--You? the, what was it you said, the shambles of your work? What a pitifully selfish career! being lived, as you said? by something that uses you and then sheds you like a husk when its own ends are accomplished?......

--No I, it's just, listen, criticism? It's the most important art now, it's the one we need the most now. Criticism is the art we need most today. But not, don't you see? not the 'if I'd done it myself...'Yes a, a disciplined nostalgia, disciplined recognitions but not, no, listen, what is the favor? Why did you come here (Gaddis 335)?"

A substantial part of the Gaddis "mystique" is his lifelong separation between his work and his personal life. While he wasn't a recluse in the sense of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon, writer Cynthia Ozick was famously noted for saying that Gaddis was famous for not being famous enough. His art was meant to stand alone with little to no readerly expectations to wonder or assume how personal or autobiographical his novels were. His most famous interview was conducted in 1986 in The Paris Review (The Art of Fiction No. 101), and his first published statement puts to rest any notions of wanting to be a public figure.

"I suppose because I've got some illusion about finally getting the whole thing out of the way once and for all. In the past I've resisted partly because of the tendency I've observed of putting the man in the place of his work, and that goes back more than thirty years; it comes up in a conversation early in The Recognitions. That, and the conviction that the work has got to stand on its own--when ambiguities appear they are deliberate and I've no intention of running after them with explanations--and finally, of course, the threat of questions from someone unfamiliar with the work itself: Do you work on a fixed schedule every day? On which side of the paper do you write? That sort of talk-show pap, five-minute celebrity, turning the creative artist into a performing one, which doesn't look to be the case here."

Perhaps with this introductory essay, I've committed the same mistakes of the early Gaddis readers. I've sketched some of the themes, I've admitted the work's difficulty, but in reality, I haven't dived into anything truly substantial; in fact, given the impossibility of doing so on a small scale, I've left vast amounts of The Recognitions unmentioned. One of my next blog posts will be a more detailed look at some nuances of the novel, but I felt that a general introduction essay was warranted. The Recognitions has been called an encyclopedic novel, has been noted for its vast amounts of data, almost rendering it as a book of codes to be deciphered. However, while these notions are in part true, for an overall assessment, the novel is accessible for a good majority of readers. Given the passion of Gaddis scholars, and the sheer length of his first two novels (the other being JR), there's a definite sense of intimidation that goes along with any attempts to ease into his bibliography. However, the book is a very real novel, and not an impossible mass that some would make it out to be. William Gass makes the deceptively simple advice seem even grander than it actually is: it just takes time and understanding, but the works of Gaddis are not impossible, but challenging in the best literary sense. Again, this is the first of two essays that I'm planning to write about this book. Perhaps I've introduced the important topics, or perhaps I've glossed over more important themes. I'll be getting into specifics in my next piece, and if anyone reading this is unfamiliar with Gaddis, I'm hoping that this introductory outline helps with perfunctory understanding. I'm also writing this for myself, and hoping that within these notes, I'm working towards a more complete understanding of not only the novel, but of the majority of the Gaddis bibliography.

Works Cited:

Franzen, Jonathan. How To Be Alone.
Copyright 2003 by Jonathan Franzen.

Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. Copyright 1983 by William Gaddis. Introduction copyright 1993 by William H. Gass.

"Chicago Ex-Patriate:" Now On Twitter

2011-03-31T08:41:00.004-05:00

If you glance to your right, you'll see a widget for my Twitter account. Twitter is a new website that enables...okay, okay, you already know what it is, and saying that I'm "late to the game" is an understatement; to expand that metaphor, I'm checking into the game with thirty-seven seconds left on the clock in a lopsided blowout. I've avoided Twitter for years now, but some of my fellow bloggers have been using it, and I figured that it couldn't hurt to give it a go.

I began this blog over three years ago, and wasn't sure what it would become. It took me awhile to get my voice down and to sculpt my posts into consistent book reviews and essays. While Twitter is a drastically smaller format, I'm still not sure what direction I will end up taking it in--but for now, I'm hoping to update it along with my blog, follow various writers and publishers, and maybe it'll end up being a nice compliment to my modest goals. With the occasional lapse, I'm hoping to keep it limited to posts that are book, music, or film based. If you want to know how my lunch tasted, or how terrible my commute was on a given morning, you'll just have to ask me outright.

So here goes: follow me. On a final note, I'm going to be "updating Twitter." I cannot bring myself to use the verb "tweet."