BOOKS READ SINCE LAST POST: THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, NATIVE SON, HENDERSON THE RAIN KING
MOVIES WATCHED SINCE LAST POST: THE GRADUATE
And her eyes looked up straight into the blind sun while she counted something in her mind. And then this was the way. This was how it was. - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The black, starlit sky seemed close to the earth. He strolled along the sidewalk, pausing once to knock an orange peel into the gutter with the side of his foot. At the far end of the next block, two men, small and motionless, stood arm in arm together. No one else could be seen. His place was the only store on all the street with an open door and lights inside. - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The singing filled his ears; it was complete, self-contained, and it mocked his fear and loneliness, his deep yearning for a sense of wholeness. - Native Son
I said to myself, "I knew that this place was of old." Meaning I had sensed from the first that I might find things here which were of old, which I saw when I was still innocent and have longed for every since, for all my life-and without which i could not make it. - Henderson the Rain King
Although, when all is said and done, I have grown this portly front and the other strange distortions that attend all the larger individuals of a species...Oh, my body, my body! Why have we never really got together as friends? I have loaded it with my vices, like a raft, like a barge. Oh, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? - Henderson the Rain King
And sometimes a voice has counseled me, crazily, "Scorch the Earth. Why should a good man die? Let it be some blasted fool who is dumped in the grave." What wickedness! What perversity! Alas, what things go on within a person! - Henderson the Rain King
I've actually got another one of these in under a month. Only one book on the list read since the last post but it was a special one. If reading this list has done nothing else, it got me to read Lonely Hunter. I've struggled with what to write in these posts because I didn't really want to get into a synopsis and review type situation. There are plenty of those on the web and really, what does anyone care about my opinion of english lit classics? But reading this book did me the favor of giving me something to talk about, because it got me thinking about why i liked it so much. What about it resonated so deeply with me?
I quoted a passage from the book that really summed up what resonated with me. It has to do with the same reasons I love low budget horror movies. Specifically, it has to do with a sense of scale.
(So much time has passed since I started this post i felt the necessity to note it. It really had been less than a month since the last post when I started this one but that has long since slipped by. So, anyway, to continue...)
A sense of scale. A small storefront open and brightly lit at midnight. The light from inside cast a little dome of yellow warmth on the sidewalk outside. Holding back for a few feet the cold black empty sky. What qualities does a low budget horror movie have? Poor lighting. Threadbare sets. A small cast of piteous actors. Very few locations. The world they inhabit is very circumscribed. Small. Ordered in its on way. The rules that apply to the monster in whatever shape it takes are set. Defy them and you die. Understand them, obey them, use them, and you live. It is the opposite of the world we actually live in. There is no silver bullet solution to rear ending someone or screwing up at work. But in those movies that bullet, a stake, cross, love, whatever, can win the day. The movie starts here the first time you watch and will do so the next time you watch it, and the next. It ends where it does and what happens in between will happen the same way every time you push the tape into the player and press play. The dirt that is on the print will fuzz the movie in the same place. The tracking will roll and fuzz the picture for a few seconds every time as it adjusts. There are rarely police officers and certainly no military that comes to save you. You are stuck with the five or six people on the screen and they run through the plot with laughable earnestness. But, my god, how you love them.
For me they are spending weekends at my dads and getting to stay up all night if I could make it. Plugging one VCR tape after another into the machine while everyone was asleep and just letting those worlds wash into me like high tide. Then, as now, I always gravitate towards sequels. At that point all the rules, the formula, are firmly established. There is less money but a more solid base. Part two is often a direct to video distillation of the essential points of the first film. It's a memory of it, painted in broad clumsy strokes and I love them for that very reason. It is escapist, it's simple. It's nostalgic. I can always "find things here which were of old, which I saw when I was still innocent and have longed for every since, for all my life-and without which I could not make it."
And there you go, a blog about a book that has absolutely nothing to do with the book itself. A study in tangents. Until next time...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wow...it's been a while.
BOOKS READ SINCE LAST POST: I, CLAUDIUS; TO THE LIGHTHOUSE; AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
MOVIES WATCHED SINCE LAST POST: CITY LIGHTS, THE SEARCHERS
Who then could blame the leader of that forlorn party, which after all has climbed high enough to see the waste of the years and the perishing of stars...- To the Lighthouse
It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.- To the Lighthouse
...left-handed honeymoon...-An American Tragedy
And now this American witness to the rule of God upon earth, sitting in a chair in her shabby, nondescript apartment, hard-pressed for the very means to sustain herself...- An American Tragedy
In defense of my poor record in writing these posts, let me just say that I am reading other books in between those on the list and that slows me down a little bit. Also, I'm a very undisciplined writer. The point of this exercise, besides setting a goal and working towards it, was to hopefully kickstart the writing bug inside and push me forward. Its a slower process than I thought...
It's the same problem. Kids, loved ones, fulfilling job, friends, hobbies etc. etc. etc. I wouldn't give any of it up but there is only so much time in the day and energy in my mind. And it's not just me, thank goodness, my wife is struggling with the same basic problem. All I can do is look to Meatyard. Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Husband, father, optometrist and amazing photographer. Also a southerner. All I can do sometimes is look to him.
Like I promise every time...I'm going to post these more often.
MOVIES WATCHED SINCE LAST POST: CITY LIGHTS, THE SEARCHERS
Who then could blame the leader of that forlorn party, which after all has climbed high enough to see the waste of the years and the perishing of stars...- To the Lighthouse
It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.- To the Lighthouse
...left-handed honeymoon...-An American Tragedy
And now this American witness to the rule of God upon earth, sitting in a chair in her shabby, nondescript apartment, hard-pressed for the very means to sustain herself...- An American Tragedy
In defense of my poor record in writing these posts, let me just say that I am reading other books in between those on the list and that slows me down a little bit. Also, I'm a very undisciplined writer. The point of this exercise, besides setting a goal and working towards it, was to hopefully kickstart the writing bug inside and push me forward. Its a slower process than I thought...
It's the same problem. Kids, loved ones, fulfilling job, friends, hobbies etc. etc. etc. I wouldn't give any of it up but there is only so much time in the day and energy in my mind. And it's not just me, thank goodness, my wife is struggling with the same basic problem. All I can do is look to Meatyard. Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Husband, father, optometrist and amazing photographer. Also a southerner. All I can do sometimes is look to him.
Like I promise every time...I'm going to post these more often.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Realizing the time these lists will take...
BOOKS READ SINCE LAST POST: UNDER THE VOLCANO, THE WAY OF ALL FLESH
MOVIES WATCHED: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, VERTIGO
...who knows why man, however beset his chances by lies, has been offered love?- Under the Volcano
There appeared now...a stone wayside cross. Beneath it lay a milk bottle, a funnel, a sock, and part of an old suitcase.-Under the Volcano
Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncomprimisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.- The Way of All Flesh
...and all the little household gods...-The Way of All Flesh
Wow! I am really not getting any better on writing these things. Almost two months since my last one. This time I have good exscuses...got married and have my first jury trial in two days, so it's been a little busy. Also, I had to take a break from the heavy literature just to cleanse my mental palate a little bit, so I read a biography that I had been meaning to read for months. But I do feel it working...I can definitely feel a change in how I think about books and narrative structure and descriptive language. It feels like I'm seeing the foundation and mortar and chinks to so much I took for granted in books and movies.
Again, I'm hesitant to actually discuss or review the books. There are so many places to go on the internet to see what other people think about what they are reading or watching. I think the point of what I'm doing and the point of this blog is just the process. How easy is it to float along in life from thing to thing, night to night, event to event, with nothing to connect, no other goal except the general goal of HAPPINESS that we all have. Its nice to have a goal, to have a project, to be doing SOMETHING. Maybe I'm missing some of that after finishing law school. It can be like floating and I need to remember the smaller goals are important. One book at a time, love the book or hate it for what it is in that moment but draw strength from the overall arch of the task I've set.
I'm just realizing how long this may take. I'm reading about two-three books a month. There are 60-70 books on the list left for me to read. It's daunting but fun to think about at the same time.Anyway, that's it for now. at least it is something...
MOVIES WATCHED: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, VERTIGO
...who knows why man, however beset his chances by lies, has been offered love?- Under the Volcano
There appeared now...a stone wayside cross. Beneath it lay a milk bottle, a funnel, a sock, and part of an old suitcase.-Under the Volcano
Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncomprimisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.- The Way of All Flesh
...and all the little household gods...-The Way of All Flesh
Wow! I am really not getting any better on writing these things. Almost two months since my last one. This time I have good exscuses...got married and have my first jury trial in two days, so it's been a little busy. Also, I had to take a break from the heavy literature just to cleanse my mental palate a little bit, so I read a biography that I had been meaning to read for months. But I do feel it working...I can definitely feel a change in how I think about books and narrative structure and descriptive language. It feels like I'm seeing the foundation and mortar and chinks to so much I took for granted in books and movies.
Again, I'm hesitant to actually discuss or review the books. There are so many places to go on the internet to see what other people think about what they are reading or watching. I think the point of what I'm doing and the point of this blog is just the process. How easy is it to float along in life from thing to thing, night to night, event to event, with nothing to connect, no other goal except the general goal of HAPPINESS that we all have. Its nice to have a goal, to have a project, to be doing SOMETHING. Maybe I'm missing some of that after finishing law school. It can be like floating and I need to remember the smaller goals are important. One book at a time, love the book or hate it for what it is in that moment but draw strength from the overall arch of the task I've set.
I'm just realizing how long this may take. I'm reading about two-three books a month. There are 60-70 books on the list left for me to read. It's daunting but fun to think about at the same time.Anyway, that's it for now. at least it is something...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Getting my footing...
BOOKS READ: THE SOUND AND THE FURY, DARKNESS AT NOON, THE GRAPES OF WRATH
MOVIES WATCHED: SINGING IN THE RAIN, GONE WITH THE WIND
"The last clear function of man-muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need-this is man" -The Grapes of Wrath
"One can deny one's childhood, but not erase it."-Darkness at Noon
"The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I am lost."- Darkness at Noon.
Not the strongest start, set out to write once a week and here we are about a month later. Screw it...moves, flu, sick children, long hours at work...once a month to write is actually not bad. I still have no idea what I actually will write about in a blog. I think maybe just the act of writing is important at this point. Words, words, words, words on the screen. Why is it so hard to put these down?
It is a surprise how hard fiction, good fiction, can become to read if you get out of practice. It took me a little time to get my stride back. My favorite part so far of starting this is the unfamiliar ground it puts me in. Turning 30 has made me a little concerned about my tastes and preferences become fixed and solid. Fossilized. I don't want to like what I like and everything else be damned. i want to make sure I remember that the new builds on the old and complements it even while it tears it down and moves past it. I haven't read any of these books before, many I've never even heard of before and I can feel their magic working on me already. Surrounding and filling my mind, forcing it to take new paths. It's wonderful to see so much pain, misery, obsession, and visceral hatred written into a work and to somehow come out of it hopeful and rejuvenated. Except for the Faulkner. That really was a downer. Southern obsession and meditation on hell as a final resting place. If you come from certain parts of the south and certain parts of the Christian faith, more than your need to eat and sleep is your need to fear hell. It's there in the middle of the night or when you think about getting older and guessing the years you have left. The years until you go to sleep and wake up in that burning lake. This is not frivolity on my part, this is a factual description of a mental state.
Well, there is some hardcore rambling. Something was put down. The years these authors spend on these books. The mental dedication, the editing and rewriting and rewriting and obsessive belief in the worth of what they are doing or at least the obsessive need to do it. To spend a decade on a book or making a movie...what comfort that must be.
MOVIES WATCHED: SINGING IN THE RAIN, GONE WITH THE WIND
"The last clear function of man-muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need-this is man" -The Grapes of Wrath
"One can deny one's childhood, but not erase it."-Darkness at Noon
"The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I am lost."- Darkness at Noon.
Not the strongest start, set out to write once a week and here we are about a month later. Screw it...moves, flu, sick children, long hours at work...once a month to write is actually not bad. I still have no idea what I actually will write about in a blog. I think maybe just the act of writing is important at this point. Words, words, words, words on the screen. Why is it so hard to put these down?
It is a surprise how hard fiction, good fiction, can become to read if you get out of practice. It took me a little time to get my stride back. My favorite part so far of starting this is the unfamiliar ground it puts me in. Turning 30 has made me a little concerned about my tastes and preferences become fixed and solid. Fossilized. I don't want to like what I like and everything else be damned. i want to make sure I remember that the new builds on the old and complements it even while it tears it down and moves past it. I haven't read any of these books before, many I've never even heard of before and I can feel their magic working on me already. Surrounding and filling my mind, forcing it to take new paths. It's wonderful to see so much pain, misery, obsession, and visceral hatred written into a work and to somehow come out of it hopeful and rejuvenated. Except for the Faulkner. That really was a downer. Southern obsession and meditation on hell as a final resting place. If you come from certain parts of the south and certain parts of the Christian faith, more than your need to eat and sleep is your need to fear hell. It's there in the middle of the night or when you think about getting older and guessing the years you have left. The years until you go to sleep and wake up in that burning lake. This is not frivolity on my part, this is a factual description of a mental state.
Well, there is some hardcore rambling. Something was put down. The years these authors spend on these books. The mental dedication, the editing and rewriting and rewriting and obsessive belief in the worth of what they are doing or at least the obsessive need to do it. To spend a decade on a book or making a movie...what comfort that must be.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
To start...
So this is the first post. These are the firsts words and I'm just going to keep typing and hope it makes sense. I wanted to give myself a project, some sort of goal. A journey or quest or what have you. As I type this sentence I have already erased and restarted several times. I need to just move.
I chose the Modern Library 100 best novels list (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html) and the American Film Institute 100 best films list (http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies10.aspx), and will be working my way through them simultaneously and in order. There are a few ground rules. I removed all the books and movies I've already read or seen. I'm trying to expand my set of references and reading '1984' for the dozenth time isn't going to do that. I have to go through the lists in order, I can't change it or save something for later or skip it up because I've been wanting to read it for like 6 years. The list of novels is actually two lists: the Board's list and the Reader's list. They overlap in many instances but are very different lists. And here is where I break one of my rules already, books #3,9, and 10 on the Reader's list are by L. Ron Hubbard. I can't. I won't. I wasted 3 hours on 'Battlefield Earth', the movie, that I'll never get back. Plus, the fact that he has three books ranked above Ulysses, Wise Blood, and Brave New World, sounds suspiciously like vote rigging by rabid fans. No thanks.
I'm ashamed to admit as an english major that I haven't read some of the novels on the list (The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, On the Road). And I'm happy I'm finally making myself watch some of the movies (The Graduate, Vertigo, Midnight Cowboy). The silent movies kind of worry me only because they're the most removed from our time. I mean, they are SILENT. If one word could be used to sum up America in 2010, it would not be silent. Electric hum, sound machines, cars with no mufflers, clacking computer keys, jet wash, ipods, text message alerts, confessional reality shows, talking heads, etcetera ad nauseum. Nothing is silent. And then those movies come drifting back and my television stops talking...for just a little while. It might be nice now that I think about it.
But there is one beast on the threshhold that is looming already. It's massive, it's complicated, and it's probably out of my depth. Actually, strike the probably. Even the title is ambiguous and multi-layered. Finnegans Wake. I've enjoyed reading Joyce's novels and I've read them all a couple of times. I don't claim to understand them fully or get every reference packed onto the pages, but I think I've understood them and rightfully appreciated them for the most part. To clarify, I've read them all except for the Wake. And it waits there at #77, staring at me with defiant green drunken eyes.
I think that is enough for now. I can hit "publish post" and this will float out into the electronic stream and I'll officially be a blogger. In the end, I don't want to read these books and watch these films just to say I've watched them and read them. I hope I can learn something and I hope I can see them for what they are and actually take away a sense of the message their individual creators thought so important to pass on.
I chose the Modern Library 100 best novels list (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html) and the American Film Institute 100 best films list (http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies10.aspx), and will be working my way through them simultaneously and in order. There are a few ground rules. I removed all the books and movies I've already read or seen. I'm trying to expand my set of references and reading '1984' for the dozenth time isn't going to do that. I have to go through the lists in order, I can't change it or save something for later or skip it up because I've been wanting to read it for like 6 years. The list of novels is actually two lists: the Board's list and the Reader's list. They overlap in many instances but are very different lists. And here is where I break one of my rules already, books #3,9, and 10 on the Reader's list are by L. Ron Hubbard. I can't. I won't. I wasted 3 hours on 'Battlefield Earth', the movie, that I'll never get back. Plus, the fact that he has three books ranked above Ulysses, Wise Blood, and Brave New World, sounds suspiciously like vote rigging by rabid fans. No thanks.
I'm ashamed to admit as an english major that I haven't read some of the novels on the list (The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, On the Road). And I'm happy I'm finally making myself watch some of the movies (The Graduate, Vertigo, Midnight Cowboy). The silent movies kind of worry me only because they're the most removed from our time. I mean, they are SILENT. If one word could be used to sum up America in 2010, it would not be silent. Electric hum, sound machines, cars with no mufflers, clacking computer keys, jet wash, ipods, text message alerts, confessional reality shows, talking heads, etcetera ad nauseum. Nothing is silent. And then those movies come drifting back and my television stops talking...for just a little while. It might be nice now that I think about it.
But there is one beast on the threshhold that is looming already. It's massive, it's complicated, and it's probably out of my depth. Actually, strike the probably. Even the title is ambiguous and multi-layered. Finnegans Wake. I've enjoyed reading Joyce's novels and I've read them all a couple of times. I don't claim to understand them fully or get every reference packed onto the pages, but I think I've understood them and rightfully appreciated them for the most part. To clarify, I've read them all except for the Wake. And it waits there at #77, staring at me with defiant green drunken eyes.
I think that is enough for now. I can hit "publish post" and this will float out into the electronic stream and I'll officially be a blogger. In the end, I don't want to read these books and watch these films just to say I've watched them and read them. I hope I can learn something and I hope I can see them for what they are and actually take away a sense of the message their individual creators thought so important to pass on.
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