Quote of the Day

But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly that she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
- Haruki Murikami, p.28, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Quote of the Day

... shouted Ivanov with all his strength. The shout had a rending violence, like a claw, but not a claw that did any damage to Ansky's or Ivanov's real adversaries. Instead it was like a claw that pounces and floats in the middle of the room, like a helium balloon, a self-conscious claw, a claw-beast that wonders what in God's name it's doing in this rather untidy room, who that old man is sitting at the table, who that young man is standing with tousled hair, then falls to the floor, deflated, returned once more to nothing.
- Roberto Bolano, p. 725-6, 2666

The Praise is Always Tempered

Terrence Rafferty, in a generally positive review of SK's Full Night, No Stars, tempers his praise for the book by writing things like:

He’s essentially the same grab-you-by-the-lapels literary showman he was in the pulpy, punchy horror stories he used to peddle to men’s magazines... Unlike most writers, he seems never to have become bored with his own peculiar gifts — to have tired of the wonderful toys left under the tree for him when he was a kid.
...
This naked pleasure is King’s secret ingredient: it makes his work — good or bad — weirdly irresistible, even addictive. And it disarms criticism, as boyish enthusiasm often does. You might feel, as I do, that “Fair Extension,” the deal-with-the-Devil story in Full Dark, No Stars, is too glib and casual to bear the moral weight it aspires to, but it seems almost rude to say so. You might also think (as I do) that the long suspense story “Big Driver,” about a woman who suffers and then violently avenges a roadside rape, is a bit too easy for King... You could think that. But you wouldn’t really feel good about it.

I still don't understand why people begrudge SK's ability to just tell a damned good story. Is his prose great? No. Do his quirks - use of italics to indicate interior monologues or mental interruptions, the integrating blue-collar bonding that two characters inevitably share - grate after a while? Of course. But his stories are almost always entertaining, and usually scary as hell too. I don't have any problems with that. In fact, if you turned SK into a better prose writer - if he lost what Rafferty calls his "pulpy" writing - you'd probably lose the qualities that make him so entertaining, and I wouldn't want that at all. Three cheers for lowbrow literature!

Inherent Vice Introduction

This video of someone introducing Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice to the reading public is classic. The ending alone is worth the price of admission.

My Personal Party

Absolutely fascinating article by Jen Paton where she ponders the meaning - and ramifications - of listening to music players in public. Being someone that's constantly listening to music in headphones while working, while doing the dishes, folding laundry, and sometimes even as i drift off to sleep, i've never really questioned if this is a good thing or not. At work, its been more of a necessity as the noise levels in modern office cube farms can reach stunning levels and, since I'm without whatever gene you need to be able to ignore loud conversations that occur mere feet from you, I use music to drown out this noise so I can concentrate on what I'm doing. Since I do a do of writing, this means I listen to a lot of instrumental music, ranging from classical (Bach and Mozart are the best) to electronica (think Boards of Canada or The Orb) with a healthy dose of Booker T and the MGs. When doing chores around the house, I love making the chores go faster with tunes, and the added benefit here is that I really get to hear the subtleties in the songs. So vie never really questioned if this earphone listening was a bad thing. Paton, while not changing my mind, makes some good points, including:

You have to sit down to watch a film, devote your attention to it in a way that is conscious or half conscious. You have to choose to linger over a photograph or a painting. Music or spoken word is simultaneously less encompassing of one’s attention and thus more encompassing of one’s life, and has become, in little over a century since its invention, ever more intimate, moving from our living rooms to our cars to earbuds themselves. ...
By choosing music (or podcasts on anything from chess to Italian language to current affairs) to play in your ears, you change the message from inputs pointed at you to inputs you have chosen. ...
[Audio] represents a sort of personal branding of oneself to oneself... There is some heady hubris that comes from setting your life to music: banal moments acquire emotional heft, and one’s dash to get a sandwich at lunch acquires some extra swagger. It’s a feeling most of us, in the past, could’ve only enjoyed in a clearly public space – the club – or a clearly private one – the car, your living room. Taking that purely private pleasure in public, but in secret, is a relatively new thing.

A Rabid Dog

I was emailing with some friends recently about Cormac McCarthy, who doesn't do a lot for me personally. His writing is good enough but not a lot seems to happen in his important novels - and I'm always on the look out for symbolism! IMO, his more recent work is more entertaining (if you could call the brutal realism of The Road that) if only because the plot is more up front. Anyways, I enjoyed what this blog had to say about Blood Meridian:

I think you need to have read quite a bit of contemporary fiction to appreciate rare his talent is for writing beautifully about horrible things. This book’s the literary equivalent of a rabid dog.

Quote of the Day

"Something about her expression pulled people in. It was as if - this is something I thought of only later, of course - she were gently peeling back one layer after another that covered a person's heart, a very sensual feeling. Her lips changed ever so slightly with each change in her expression, and I could catch a glimpse deep within her eyes of a faint light, like a tiny candle flickering in the dark, narrow room. ...
There are some things in this world that can be done over, and some that can't. And time passing is one thing that can't be redone. Come this far and you can't go back. ... After a certain length of time has passed, things harden up. Like cement hardening in a bucket. And we can't go back anymore."
- Haruki Murakami, South if the Border, West of the Sun. Page 14