D a l l a s R o b b i n s

Fiction Deficient

Learning how to write fiction is a tricky business and that one really only learns by actually doing it, stumbling over words and sentences until something rises up out of the muck that might resemble a story, let alone a good story.  Still trying to figure that out, but never giving up.

For me I can sit down and write something non-fictiony without much struggle, whether a review, essay, or a brief historical exploration. But coming up with a plot and characters is something that still eludes me.  So, for better or worse, I'm returning back to taking a class or two at the local university to kickstart my fiction deficiency, starting in a couple weeks.

In the meantime I came across a great little article on tips from Faulker's writing life.  Most are things we've all heard before, but others I haven't really considered, like "don't worry about style."  I like that idea and as one less thing to worry about it works for me.

Seven Tips From Faulkner on How to Write Fiction.

Reading the good stuff is good for your brain

Just came across this:

Scientists, psychologists and English academics at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of the Bard and other classical writers has a beneficial effect on the mind, catches the reader’s attention and triggers moments of self-reflection.

Using scanners, they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read works by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, T.S Eliot and others.

They then “translated” the texts into more “straightforward”, modern language and again monitored the readers’ brains as they read the words.

Scans showed that the more “challenging” prose and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the more pedestrian versions.

After discussing the implications of this, one of the researcher's conclude:

“Poetry is not just a matter of style. It is a matter of deep versions of experience that add the emotional and biographical to the cognitive,” said Professor Davis, who will present the findings at the North of England education conference in Sheffield next week.

“This is the argument for serious language in serious literature for serious human situations, instead of self-help books or the easy reads that merely reinforce predictable opinions and conventional self-images.”

Full article

 

 

With Shit Like This...

People still get away with writing shit like this?  That seems to be the real tragedy.

"...that the repeated use of “flickering irony,” a doubtfully heard meaning which destabilizes the secure knowingness of the audience, combined with the precarious ironization of everyday words within a temporality of gradual and fragile recognition of the buried life of ordinary language, creates a peculiarly Sophoclean world of discomforted exchange, a world that contrasts both with the fierce, self-implicating metaphoricity of Aeschylus and with the pathetic interplay of cliché, reversal, and rhetorical self-awareness in Euripides. A more nuanced and more worrying Sophoclean irony, if you will."

More, if you dare.   

The New Joyce Bio

Joyce, the man who reinvented fiction for the 20th Century, get his first full biography treatment since Ellman's 1958 bio.

From the jacket: " Gordon Bowker draws on material recently come to light and reconsiders the two signal works produced about Joyce’s life—Herbert Gorman’s authorized biography of 1939 and Richard Ellman’s magisterial tome of 1959—and, most importantly by binding together more intimately than has ever before been attempted the life and work of this singular artist, Gordon Bowker here gives us a masterful, fresh, eminently readable contribution to our understanding, both of Joyce’s personality and of the monumental opus he created. "

Looking forward to getting my hands on it.

Dirda explains.

God's Jury: a review

The Inquisition is a word that evokes a time and place when the world was in the grip of religious intolerance, usually of a medieval, Spanish, or Catholic variety. It was a dark time that thankfully we are glad to have left behind. Or have we? In Cullen Murphy’s new book, "God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World", he offers a broad narrative covering the history of the Inquisition, while at the same time emphasizing the development of modern tools that allowed its extensive growth.

These tools included a system of law and administration, reliable communication systems, a bureaucracy of record-keeping and retrieval, the power to interrogate people, along with a source of power to enforce it all. The Inquisition brings to mind religious institutions, but Murphy points out that the political state are as much a part of the game as anyone, and today are the prime inheritor of the Inquisition’s “achievements.” The Inquisition is the harbinger of our modern society, pioneering methods of surveillance, censorship, interrogation, and torture, common practice in secular society, where “the issues posed by the Inquisition enfold the world we call our own.” (24)

“Looking at the Inquisition, one sees the West crossing a threshold from one kind of world into another. Persecution acquired a modern platform – the advantages afforded by a growing web of standardized law, communications, administrative oversight, and controlled mechanisms of force. It was run not merely by warriors but by an educated elite; not merely by thugs but by skilled professionals. And in its higher dimensions it was animated not by greed or hope of gain of love of power, though these were never absent, but by the fervent conviction that all must subscribe to some ultimate truth.” (23)

What this “ultimate truth” was seemed to change depending on the time and place. Just as there was not one Inquisition, but many Inquisitions, so too the “ultimate truth” would change, but ultimately seemed centered around the power to control. These many Inquisitions are divided up in the book by chapter, starting with the Medieval, then going through with the Spanish, then Roman, then the global Inquisition where it has been in places as unlikely as Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Portuguese colony of Goa off the coast of India. But Murphy continues with another Inquisition, the secular, covering aspects of Elizabethan England, Communist USSR, the Stasi of East Germany, even the War on Terror and Guantanamo Bay.

This modern inheritance was fascinating and made me think a little harder about the political realities I sometimes don’t fully realize, such as the actually physicality of torture. Techniques developed during the Spanish Inquisition included one particular technique known as the Queen of Torments. Typically the hands of the person to be interrogated were tied behind his back. Then by means of a pulley or a rope thrown over a rafter, the body would be hoisted off the ground by the hands, and then be allowed to drop with a jerk. Joints could be pulled from their sockets. Muscles could be stretched to the point where elasticity would never return. Damage to the brachial plexus, the nerve fibers running from the spinal cord to the arms, could cause paralysis. The weight of the body hanging from the arms contorted the pleural cavity, making breathing difficult (the typical cause of death in crucifixion, for the same reason). (90)

This technique is now common use among the torture of prisoners, from John McCain during Vietnam to Manadel al-Jamadi at Abu Ghraib, who died from its implementation.

Another torture development, one I thought only recently invented, is one the imaginative Spanish called the Toca, “the reference being to the fabric that plunged a victim’s upturned mouth, and upon which water was poured,” which one recognizes immediately as a prototype of “waterboarding.” Murphy quotes an expert on the subject, who summarizes “while this is sometimes called ‘an illusion of drowning,’ the reality is that death will follow if the procedure is not stopped in time.” (92) In addition, the water is commonly contaminated with hair, vomit, saliva, mucus, urine, etc…

But let me not give you the impression that Murphy’s book is a long tirade against modern torture. While he provides a fascinating look placing torture in context of then and now, his story is much bigger as he covers a wealth of information in understanding the Inquisition from its beginnings up to the historians today who are engaged in not letting the memory of its importance be forgotten.

And while Murphy emphasizes that secular society inherited many of the Inquisition’s methods, the spirit of the Inquisition has continued within the Vatican establishment up to our own day. The official Vatican institution was called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquistion, which in 1908 was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), a sort of uber-correlation department keeping tabs on potential heretics, tracking dangerous books, and making their influence known by putting pressure on organizations to remove people from positions of theological influence. Some of these high target “heretics” include the novelist Graham Green, theologians Charles Curran and Hans Kung, and Jesuit editor Thomas Reese.

“The instruments available to the CDF are not what they once were. It does not torture, except perhaps in a psychological sense. It does not burn books, or their authors. But it can withhold a license to teach as a Catholic theologian. It can bar people from jobs at certain Catholic institutions, and dismiss people from those same jobs. It can apply pressure through the leadership of religious orders. It can also formally ex-communicate, though that is rarely done. The CDF holds the greatest leverage over Catholics in positions of official influence – and in particular, insidiously, over those among them who wish to remain loyal to the Church as an institution. It has no leverage at all over those who simply decide to walk away.” (177)

I’ll let you make your own parallel conclusions to your own religious or non-religious environment.

Even in talking about these two topics above, torture and heretics, it only scratches the surface of what this book covers. Murphy touches on a bit of everything, from the Cathars of France to Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, from Torquemada to the Aztecs of Mexico, and yes, even Month Python’s famous skit comes up. He has a witty, encompassing style that brings together a vast amount of information distilled in an entertaining, thoughtful reading of the sources and their importance today. Having only read a little about the Inquisition in my life, the book gives a good sense of where to continue particular areas of interest in the subject. I’m already browsing the library stacks to continue learning about this endlessly fascinating and important history.

Back in the City Weekly

Well, after a bit of a hiatus, I'm back in the City Weekly this week.  (Next week too!)

Just got out of the habit, but it's a nice gig when you can get it.

This week I give a brief preview for Utah Opera's production of Beethoven's Fidelio, playing now.  His only opera and one that definately is as powerful today as it was when it originally premiered. 

(Ya, ya, Beethoven, boring, I hear you say.  But remember the ending scene of the King's Speech, when he was giving the King's speech?  Well the music was Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, which underscored that moment perfectly, and created a transcendent, aesthestic moment.  So try an opera for once in your life, it won't kill ya.)

I am hoping to contribute more over the next while to the CW, hopefully 2-3 times a month.  As a writer, it's a nice break from other involving projects, providing me a clear, deadline-driven focus.

Now, back to the novel...

The most cynical and disagreeable character in the history of literature...

Of course I haven't said enough about The Prague Cementery yet, so let's indulge a little more.  I couldn't help but share this perfectly intriguing letter by Umberto Eco for Amazon.com readers.  I know it's just another piece of marketing, but to hear Eco talk about his own book before it is released  seems out of character for him.   Regardless, I find the letter interesting on a few levels.  Enjoy:

Dear Amazon Readers:

The nineteenth century teemed with mysterious and horrible events: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious forgery that later inspired Hitler; the Dreyfus Case; and numerous intrigues involving the secret services of various nations, Masonic sects, Jesuit conspiracies, as well as other episodes that—were they not documented truths—would be difficult to believe.

The Prague Cemetery is a story in which all the characters except one—the main character—really existed. Even the hero’s grandfather, the author of a mysterious actual letter that triggered modern anti- Semitism, is historical.

And the hero himself, though fictional, is a personage who resembles many people we have all known, past and present. In the book, he serves as the author of diverse fabrications and plots against a backdrop of extraordinary coups de théâtre: sewers filled with corpses, ships that explode in the region of an erupting volcano, abbots stabbed to death, notaries with fake beards, hysterical female Satanists, the celebrants of black Masses, and so on.

I am expecting two kinds of readers. The first has no idea that all these things really happened, knows nothing about nineteenth-century literature, and might even have taken Dan Brown seriously. He or she should gain a certain sadistic satisfaction from what will seem a perverse invention—including the main character, whom I have tried to make the most cynical and disagreeable in all the history of literature.

The second, however, knows or senses that I am recounting things that really happened. The fact that history can be quite so devious may cause this reader’s brow to become lightly beaded with sweat. He will look anxiously behind him, switch on all the lights, and suspect that these things could happen again today. In fact, they may be happening in that very moment. And he will think, as I do: "They are among us…"

--Umberto Eco

So, what I really want to know is who is this most cynical and disagreeable character of Eco's creation?  That is quite a set up, which I'm not sure what to make of it just yet.

The mystery of unbelief...

James Wood, an avowed atheist and one of the best literary critics currently working, in a recent lecture tackles the New Atheism's simplistic explaination of religious belief.  Instead he encourages fiction as a better vehicle to explore the nuanced way belief and unbelief actually work in the lives of real people.  Good stuff.

Part of the weakness of current theological warfare is that it is premised on stable, lifelong belief – each side congealed into its rival (but weirdly symmetrical) creeds. Likewise, in contemporary politics, the worst crime you can apparently commit is to change your mind. Yet people's beliefs are often not stable, and are fluctuating. We are all flip-floppers. Our "ideas" may be rather as Woolf imagined consciousness, a flicker of different and self-annulling impressions and convictions...

An essay or work of polemic finds it hard to describe the texture of such fluctuation, whereas the novelist understands that to tell a story is to novelise an idea, to dramatise it. There is no need to make a tidy solution of belief; to the novelist, a messy error might be much more interesting.

I would agree to a certain extant.  In fact I may even go furthur, and suggest that great fiction helps explain the complexity of human nature and offers much wisdom in understanding our world and the people in it, more so than traditional non-fiction narratives.   What say you?

 

With Teachers Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

Another incisive essay about the decline of English depapartments. 

What are the causes for this decline? There are several, but at the root is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to make a strong case to undergraduates that the knowledge of those books and the tradition in which they exist is a human good in and of itself. What departments have done instead is dismember the curriculum, drift away from the notion that historical chronology is important, and substitute for the books themselves a scattered array of secondary considerations (identity studies, abstruse theory, sexuality, film and popular culture). In so doing, they have distanced themselves from the young people interested in good books.

I think that most of these type of essays have really great points, being myself averse to theory-dominated textual "studies".  But while much can be gained from the minority who are critical of the status quo, who is trailblazing new solutions for the future?  What solutions are there?

Remember, Remember the 8th of November...

In my previous post I say that Eco's new book will not be out until Fall of 2012 (which is what the New York Times said, those idiots!).  It actually will be released November 8th, 2011!  While others stand in line at midnight release parties for Harry Potter or George R.R. Martin to get there hands on the freshest copy - I would do the same for a new Eco.  So, please don't bother calling me or emailing me on November 8th - the reading life will be good that day.

"My intention was to give the reader a punch in the stomach."

My favorite living author Umberto Eco has a new novel Il Cimitero Di Praga, which seems to be causing a bit of controversy.  Unfortunately,  English readers will have to wait unti the fall of 2012 to see what's the hoopla.  (At least it will come before the Mayan apocalypse!)

Eco, who made his literary debut 30 years ago with In the Name of the Rose, takes on freemasonry, conspiracy theories, forgery and the unification of Italy amongst other things in this latest novel, but at its core is anti-semitism and perhaps the most famous – and certainly the most pernicious – forgery in the world: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The main character of Eco’s novel, the fictitious* Simone Simonini, whom he describes as ‘the most hateful man in the world’, is a master forger in the employ of various secret services. Fuelled by anti-semitism, he concocts the ultimate conspiracy theory, where a mythic meeting of the elders of Zion takes place in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, detailing their nefarious plan to rule the world.

It’s not the first time that Eco has examined conspiracy theories, or indeed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (for example, they play a significant role in Foucault’s Pendulum, but this time the focus in particular on the most famous anti-semitic conspiracy theory, and his choice of a convinced anti-semitic protagonist has rasied objections.

For those without the mental agility to process irony will certainly object to Eco's latest narrative.  But personally, I cannot wait.

 

 

"The Apostate"

Once in a while you read a work of investigative journalism that blows your mind.  This one did.   You might have already heard about or read this article, but if you haven't, then do yourself a favor. It reminds me why blogging, etc, can not hold a torch to the long-haul work of a journalist discovering a world that needs to be revealed.  Amazing work that deserves the attention of everyone who dares calls themself a journalist.

A Toast to The Professor

Today is the 119th birthday of J.R.R. Tolkein.  There are a million things I could say about the man, but I'll reserve it for another time.  But today is when his friends, admirers, and fans, raise a toast.  From the Tolkien Society:

On the 3^rd January 1892 JRR Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. To celebrate this event, on this day each year Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author 21:00 (9 pm) your local time.

I'm unsure what I will drink, but tonight I will be raising a toast to the man and his imagination.

 

"I hope I have done justice..." - Denis Dutton 1944-2010

Denis Dutton has passed away.  He was a professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and founder and editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature.  But he is most known for creating the indespinsible website Arts & Letters Daily, co-creator of the website Climate Debate Daily, as well as the author of the recent book on bio-aesthetics, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.

Of course I never knew him, but I truly admired him from afar.  A&L Daily is always the first website I check everyday after firing up my browser.  If you are not a vistor, do yourself a favor.   I like what Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels) has said,

The agenda of the English-language press, upon which the sun never sets, was driven to a startling degree by Arts and Letters Daily, produced in Christchurch. I once published an article in an excellent cultural journal of limited circulation about a subject of interest to few of my compatriots. I had forgotten about it; but suddenly, a frenzy of interest erupted in it. In the space of a few hours, at least 20 radio stations contacted me, wanting to talk about the article. I found this utterly mysterious until I discovered that Arts and Letters Daily had posted it shortly before.

A man, however, is not to be measured wholly by the quality of his achievements. I wish only that I were able to turn as fine a compliment of Denis Dutton as Doctor Johnson turned of Sir Joshua Reynolds: that he was the most invulnerable man that he knew, for if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse him. Denis Dutton was of that ilk.

In speaking of Charles Darwin in the introduction of The Art Instinct, Dutton said "I hope I have done justice both to him and to the great artists whose achievements so captivate us."  Dutton has done justice to more than just Darwin and the artists that inspired him, he has done justice to the "humanities and sciences" and honest inquiry in the chaos of the interwebs, and we are better for it.

And last, but not least, he had a great sense of humor.  From his visit on The Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Denis Dutton
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

Books for Christmas!

 To me there is nothing better than getting books for Christmas.  Here's the skinny on what I received this year.  (Friends are awesome!)

Pen of Iron: The simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning--and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today. In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists--from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robinson, and Cormac McCarthy--have drawn on the rich stylistic resources of the canonical English Bible to fashion their own strongly resonant styles and distinctive visions of reality. Showing the radically different manners in which the words, idioms, syntax, and cadences of this Bible are woven into Moby-Dick, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sun Also Rises, Seize the Day, Gilead, and The Road, Alter reveals the wide variety of stylistic and imaginative possibilities that American novelists have found in Scripture. At the same time, Alter demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the style of literary works, making the case that style is not merely an aesthetic phenomenon but is the very medium through which writers conceive their worlds.

 

What Even Happened to Modernism: The quality of today’s literary writing arouses the strongest opinions. For novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici, the contemporary novel in English is profoundly disappointing—a poor relation of its groundbreaking Modernist forebears. This agile and passionate book asks why.

Modernism, Josipovici suggests, is only superficially a reaction to industrialization or a revolution in diction and form; essentially, it is art coming to consciousness of its own limits and responsibilities. And its origins are to be sought not in 1850 or 1800, but in the early 1500s, with the crisis of society and perception that also led to the rise of Protestantism. With sophistication and persuasiveness, Josipovici charts some of Modernism’s key stages, from Dürer, Rabelais, and Cervantes to the present, bringing together a rich array of artists, musicians, and writers both familiar and unexpected—including Beckett, Borges, Friedrich, Cézanne, Stevens, Robbe-Grillet, Beethoven, and Wordsworth. He concludes with a stinging attack on the current literary scene in Britain and America, which raises questions about not only national taste, but contemporary culture itself.

 

The Word Exchange: The dazzling variety of Anglo-Saxon poetry brought to life by an all-star cast of contemporary poets in an authoritative bilingual edition. Encompassing a wide range of voices-from weary sailors to forlorn wives, from heroic saints to drunken louts, from farmers hoping to improve their fields to sermonizers looking to save your soul—the 123 poems collected in The Word Exchange complement the portrait of medieval England that emerges from Beowulf, the most famous Anglo-Saxon poem of all. Offered here are tales of battle, travel, and adventure, but also songs of heartache and longing, pearls of lusty innuendo and clear-eyed stoicism, charms and spells for everyday use, and seven "hoards" of delightfully puzzling riddles.

Featuring all-new translations by seventy-four of our most celebrated poets—including Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, Robert Hass, Gary Soto, Jane Hirshfield, David Ferry, Molly Peacock, Yusef Komunyakaa, Richard Wilbur, and many others—The Word Exchange is a landmark work of translation, as fascinating and multivocal as the original literature it translates.

 

What A Writer Always Wanted but Didn't Know It

If you write, like me, I just wanted to share something cool from Small Beer Press, that little indie publisher that has some of the coolest stuff around, not least of all Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

Starting last year and continuing again for 2011, they have created A Working Writer's Daily Planner.  It's filled with writing advice, prompts, contest deadlines, publishers info, and much more.  It won't help you write more or better, but it might get you a little better organized so you can write more, and maybe, even just maybe, better.

"The perfect supplement to any writer’s life, this new edition of A Working Writer’s Daily Planner is even better than before, packed with more of the information writers need to organize their work schedules, track upcoming deadlines, and learn about grant opportunities, contests, and workshop programs. For 2011 we turned to those who know best what writers want—writers themselves—and asked them what resources they’d find most useful. The result is a unique and indispensable tool that makes it easy for writers to keep track of the practical, business end of writing, leaving more time for them to actually spend writing."

As for me, my one and only New Year's resolution is to write a helluva lot more.  NaNoWriMo got me started a little, but this coming year will put everything to shame I've done up till now.  Or at least that's my plan, and since you now all know (all 3 of you), then I've got some accountability to someone, somewhere.

"There are some Russians who think Dostoevsky wrote badly..."

 

If you read any Russian literature, you have certainly come across the names Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, those tireless translators, who also happen to be husband and wife.  I first came upon them when their translation of The Brothers Karamozov was released back in the early 1990s.  It was one of the most transendent reading experiences I've had. If you have not heard much about them, here's a New Yorker article that will get you up to speed.

Just wanted to point your direction over to Lapham's Quarterly, who has an interview with them in their "podcast" series.  The occassion is on the recent release of their new translation of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, but they talk about all kinds of things, including the myth that Dostoevsky's prose style was poor.  And they even openly consider House of the Dead by Dostoevsky as their next project.  Great interview with some of the best literary minds of our time.

Here's a direct link to the audio. 

Journey of the Magi

Every year I read this poem during Christmas time. Whether you are of a religious persuasion or not, these is much pleasure and wisdom in Eliot's sounds and images.  The picture above, Adoration of the Magi, is from one of the my favorite artists Hieronymous Bosch.

 

Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky.
And an old white horse galloped in away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no imformation, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This:  were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

 

William Blake's America

When I tell people that I read a lot, and that what I read is usually prose written before the last century (though not all of course), I sometimes get the question, "are you taking a class?"  To keep it simple  I answer "no, I just like to read."  The usual comeback I get is "why?"  Why indeed!

Usually people are tied up in their busy lives to take a break and enjoy the pleasure of literature.  I don't blame them.  They do what they know.  And if they "really" want to know what's going on in the world, they'll turn on the cable news talking heads, watch the latest blockbuster smash-fest, or veg out to the latest episode of big brothers dancing with stars on a island.  They do what they know, but it is unfortunate. 

But if the person who asks me "why" really wanted to understand their lives, society, politics, war, death, or life, it would always serve one to look into the wells of literature.  I was reminded of this as I took in the election coverage last night, thinking to myself nothing new is under the sun.  The political sound bites, the manipulative cant, the cable commentary, has already been done to death a thousand times before, and offers me no real wisdom regarding the state of our union, or the character of the nation.  (Though it does provide plenty of easily ridculed personalites.)   I think it's simply beyond the grasp of news-makers, who sole purpose is to report any story that garners the most attention (regardless of accuracy or honesty), thereby increasing their bottom-line commercial ad-revenue.

So, I was pleased this morning to come across an essay by Mark Edmundson on William Blake's poem London and what it can tell us about ourselves, today in America.  From the beginning,

Sometimes you need some help to see what's directly in front of you: It's often the most difficult thing to see. Looking for a compressed vision of the state of America now, I'm inclined to turn not to any of our esteemed journalist-pundits or renowned public intellectuals but in the direction of the poet William Blake, who did his work 200 years ago.

If he were to recast "London," probably his best-known poem, for the uses of the present, he might be inclined to retitle it "New York" or "Washington" and update some of the diction. Other than that, I'm not sure that he would have to change all that much. Grandly, shockingly, the poem reveals us to ourselves.

Though I don't agree with everything in the essay, I encourage you to read the full piece.  It is well worth taking the time to think it over.  And maybe, just maybe, next time you want to get the low down on the latest "thing that's happening", instead of turning on the idiot box, maybe consider turning to a novel or poem that has lasted beyond it's moment, which may tell us more about ours lives than any pundit can profer.  Doing so can bring pleasures that our social media complex can only dream of.

NaNoWriMo 2010

 
Well the madness is about to begin once again.  Just a few days ago I remembered National Novel Writing Month was coming up on November 1st.  I've participated in the past, with paltry results, but I thought I'd give it another shot.  The thing I like about NaNoWriMo is the development of discipline that can occur with a group of people supporting you through the process.   And discipline is what I need.  I already have a story in mind, one I came up with a few weeks ago, and have written some character and plot notes, but haven't begin the actual story yet.  So, here's to the madness.

What to read something disturbingly frightening for Halloween?

Everyone loves Peter Pan.  It’s a perennial childhood favorite, in books, plays, musicals, songs, art, films, the list could go on.  The recent film Finding Neverland in which J.M Barrie, Peter Pan’s creator, is played with the romantic charm of Johnny Depp, leaves the audience with a story of hope, imagination, and tenderness.  Mr. Barrie must have been such a wonderful person, and George Davies, the boy who inspired Peter Pan, what a plum lucky kid he must have been.

Awhile back I was browsing in the a local book store and came across Neverland: J. M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dungeon.  After reading just the first few pages, I was gripped by a story I was not aware of.  Not enough cash on me at the moment, I went to the library to pick up a copy.  I hate to parrot a cliché, but I literarily could not put this book down, until . . .  well I’ll get to that later.  But here is the scope of the book,

 From Michael Dirda at the Washington Post:

There might be scarier books this Halloween season, but it's unlikely that any will be as luridly creepy as "Neverland." Even if you already know a little about the sinister background of J.M. Barrie's classic play, "Peter Pan," you will be in for a shock. In these pages Piers Dudgeon presents a multi-generational history of psychological domination and submission, unnatural family relations, predatory abuse and suicide. He also connects three great works of the popular imagination: George du Maurier's late-19th-century bestseller "Trilby" -- the novel in which the evil Svengali, through hypnosis, transforms a beautiful tone-deaf girl into a singing sensation but in the process destroys her soul; J.M. Barrie's death-haunted "Peter Pan," once titled "The Boy Who Hated Mothers"; and Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance about spiritual possession, "Rebecca."

This book delves into the family histories of several people, exploring the fateful moments, deliberate manipulations, and pernicious abuse that occurred over decades, in which these literary creations were born from.  Even D.H. Lawrence once said after the passing of one Sylvia’s boys Michael, "J.M. Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die."  And I thought Lewis Carroll was a little creepy – he apparently can’t hold a stick to J.M. Barrie.

And it is not an easy read.  After reading for a couple days and getting to the midway point to the book, it had a dark disturbing effect on me.  I didn’t sleep well.  I would become slightly nauseous thinking about it during the day.  I think I even had a nightmare.  It was simply a grisly reading experience.  So after about halfway through, I had to force myself to stop.  I may one day go back and finish it, but at that moment I just couldn’t go on.  It seemed like a tragedy without any possible catharsis.  (The only other time I had to stop reading a book due to sleepless nights and disturbing dreams is Whitley Strieber's Communion, but that's another story for next Halloween.)

And while Dungeon’s exploration probably reveals more truth than not, it is a little on the sensationalist side.  Since I am not an expert in the area of Edwardian children's literature and literary scene, I'm unsure which historical arguments are tenuous and which are more grounded.  The book has been criticised for being too high on emotion and low on some particular details.  But even if half of what is revealed in this book is accurate, it’s tragedy enough.  

Regardless, I highly recommend this book.  It reveals very interesting aspects of later Victorian and early Edwardian culture and customs.  It gave me a deeper respect of Daphne duMaurier as a writer and turned me on to her short story collection, Don’t Look Now.  But most importantly it reveals a story that needs to be told.  Hopefully another writer in the future will expand on Dungeon’s good work, correcting his mishpas, while having a more academic approach.  Even so, it couldn’t be no less disturbing a story than before, and is one helluva frightening read for Halloween.  As one critic has summarized, "I defy you not to be captivated."

"more-or-less-life-size friendly-looking head"

Just when I thought McSweeney's was about to possibly run out of ideas on how to package their literary quartlery (of which the recent San Francisco Panorama was brilliant), they come up with another doozey I was not expecting.

Of the several items inside this head, included is a 100-page annotated lost novel by Michael Chabon.  I'll have to shelve this in my closet - just a little too freaky looking to put alongside my Grantas and Paris Reviews, but funny nonetheless.

How a thirtysomething former Mormon missionary ended up writing the conclusion to the most popular fantasy series since Tolkien.

In the October issue of The Believer, there is a great and fun article about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and Brandon Sanderson's big break in finishing up what Jordan started.  Absolutely worth a read.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

In the latest Sunstone, a special comics-themed issue, I have contributed a review of R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis.  An excerpt::

With his singular artistic vision, Crumb, godfather of the “underground comix” movement during the late-60s and 70s, has inspired literally thousands of comic artists.  Having such characters as Mr. Natural, Devil Girl, Felix the Cat, and Joe Blow, his comic stories didn’t simply push the boundaries of good taste, they ignored them.  Many of his stories are filled with pornographic perversities, earthy obsessions, racial stereotypes, social satire, or just plain indecent fun where censorship is the only offense. With such a long history of unscrupulous sequential art, Crumb’s turn to Genesis may seem odd.  But in the introduction, Crumb shares what attracted his drawing pen to the first book of Moses,

“…I, ironically, do not believe the Bible is “the word of God.”  I believe it is the words of men. It is, nonetheless, a powerful text with layers of meaning that reach deep into our collective consciousness, our historical consciousness, if you will.  It seems indeed to be an inspired work, but I believe that its power derives from its having been a collective endeavor that evolved and condensed over many generations…”

One of Crumb’s primary sources on Genesis, Robert Alter, provides additional reasons for the irreligious to take the book seriously,

 “Nowhere else in ancient literature have the quirkiness and unpredictability of individual character[s?] and the frictions and tensions of family life--sibling rivalry, the jealousy of co-wives, the extravagance of parental favoritism--been registered with such subtlety and insight.”

To read the full review pick up an issue of Sunstone today.  There's lots of good stuff in this one.

Re-Creating the Bible

 
In the latest issue of Dialogue, I have a review of The FOB Bible.  From the intro:

Lately the Bible has been getting a bum rap. Christopher Hitchen's calls it a “nightmare,” and blames it for much of humanity’s suffering - everything from sexism to genocide.  At the same time, literalist approachs to the Bible has produced narrow theology and tendecious unscientific speculation.  With these sorts of extremes touted by reductionist pundits and preachers, people are left with a false dichotomy of Biblical proportions.  Historian of religion Karen Armstrong reminds contemporary readers that, “…many modern assumptions about the Bible are incorrect.  The Bible did not encourage slavish conformity…From the first, the Biblical authors contradicted each other and their conflicting visions were all included by the editors in the final text.”

Pick up a copy to read the full review.

mere words...

"I suddenly saw things, which a thousand times previously I had allowed to slip past my ear as mere words, now clear before me, and soaked with significance in every pore; things I had learnt 'off by heart,' I now 'grasped' at one stroke so that I 'owned' them.  Mysteries hidden in the forms of words that I had never even suspected were now revealed to me."

- from The Golem by Gustav Meyrink

 

Frank Kermode, dead at 90

Frank Kermode, one of the greatest literary critics and scholars, has died in Cambridge at the age of 90.  I'm sad.

From his publisher Alan Samson,

"He's probably the greatest literary conversationalist I've ever known - it wasn't just the lectures and the monographs and the books, it's the fact that just talking about a writer he'd say incredibly pithy, intelligent things which would prompt you to go and read them again . . . He knew he had exceptional gifts, but there was a modest manner about him. He knew he was smarter than everyone else, but he was this pipe-smoking, beguiling man who listened to what you had to say ... It's the wreath of pipe smoke, and the benign smile and wisdom, which I'm really going to miss."

If you have never read Kermode, please do yourself a favor.

re:Joyce!

I just found out about a podcast all about James Joyce's Ulysses hosted by Frank Delaney, author of Ireland.  Great stuff.  Here's the first episode.

For more>>>

Another Meme About Memes

Memes seem to be the newish buzz word around theory/cultural circles in attempting to explain potentially all of human expression. At first I didn't think I understood quite what a meme was, being employed in such a variety of critical ways that made it's use and meaning ambiguous, if not deliberately confusing.

After a bit of reading here and there, I think I have a reasonable grasp of memes, but I just simply still don't "get it."  In reading Signorelli's harsh critique of meme theory in the New English Review, the sides of the debate came into clearer focus, and was a breath of fresh air from all the meme-ish circle-jerking.

In his book The Selfish Gene, noted nihilist Richard Dawkins ushered the faux-concept of memes into the world by declaring it to be a “unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation,” which is exactly like referring to a unit of literary theory, or a segment of talent, or a yard of affection. Such blatant linguistic hucksterism would be startling from any other man but Dawkins, who, after all, cozened his way into authorial fame by attributing a common psychological state to tiny globs of amino acids, and then swearing up and down that he was doing no such thing. With this man, such chicanery is of a course. Indeed, he is so entirely shameless about the matter that he freely professes to employing a “verbal trick” to illustrate the nature of memes. He will have his “unit of imitation,” in despite of common sense, and he will invoke the laws of science for his justification...more>>>

What think you of memes?

Doomed to Partake

I read this a few months ago.  I still can't get it out of my mind.  I'm envious of it's pure eloquence and wise thinking.

Whoever makes the folly of the world his study must oscillate between attempted detachment and involuntary disgust. Neither is satisfactory; nor is either effective, whether expressed in public or kept locked in the privacy of the heart, for the sum total of human folly remains constant—proof against argument, satire, mockery, cajolery, or any other method to reduce it. If ever there were a hydra-headed monster, it is man’s determination to complicate his existence to the point of misery. In my medical practice, I discovered that men of no particular talent or originality of mind were nevertheless possessed of an almost infinite capacity to devise new and ingenious ways to ruin themselves, and did so with a determination worthy of a better cause. The fate of those who try to detach themselves from human folly or who react to it with disgust is similar, for both are themselves doomed to partake of what they detest. Self-loathing is the inevitable result. No man, then, is more wretched than he who knows he ought to know better.

The whole article by Anthony Daniels is not freely available online, but here is a link to purchase the issue in which it appeared.  Find a copy at your library, it is well worth reading.

Where to Begin With Chekhov?

I have not read much Chekhov.  I'm more of a Dostoevsky and Gogol reader, but it seems that Chekhov is in the air quite a bit lately.  The Guardian has a interesting appreciation:

This elusiveness – a feature of both the life and the work – is a large part of what gives him his enduring fascination, as well as his striking modernity. In Chekhov literature seems to break its wand like Prospero, renouncing the magic of artifice, ceremony and idealisation, and facing us, for the first time, with a reflection of ourselves in our unadorned ordinariness as well as our unfathomable strangeness...more>>>

This critique has got me interested.  If one was to begin with his short stories, what would you recommend?

Random Thoughts on MFA Writing Programs, Ponzi Scemes, and Workmanlike Novels

I have occasionally pondered on the possibility of getting an MFA in creative writing.  The idea has never really appealed to me, especially weighing the cost/benefit.  Would it make me a better writer?  Likely, but not certain. Does it guarantee a writing career?  No, not particularly.  Would it put me in a awful state of debt?  Without a doubt. 

I have come across several comments on the pros and cons of MFA writing programs.  I respect a good number of the writers who teach at such programs (Ethan Canin, Marilynne Robinson, Kelly Link, and Tony Early among a few), but they are only a handful.  I suppose if I wanted to teach at a university and write on the side, a MFA would be a good choice.  But being a working full-time writer probably requires a different path.

I like Garrison Keillor's advice,

"Skip the MFA in creative writing…. If you want to write, sit down for a few weeks with the most gripping book you’ve ever read and analyze it to a fine hair—how it’s organized, the structure, the time sequence, the characterizations—and then set out and write something similar. Don’t turn up your nose at genre fiction—which MFA programs tend to do. Learn how to write a workmanlike novel. And if it doesn’t get accepted for publication, no problem—go on and write another one."

Beyond Philip Roth's The Humbling

When Philip Roth's latest novel The Humbling was released, it took a few weeks before the critical reviews catched up with it.  And some reviews I've read (here, here, and here) provoked strong reactions, with some worthwhile critical insights.  I read the book and enjoyed, but a masterpiece it is not.

That's when I came across Leon Wieseltier's review, which is not exactly a review in the traditional sense, but uses The Humbling as an example of what has been lost in fiction of late.  The first three paragraphs of his review are simply stunning in my opinion, and anyone who cares about literature should take the time to read and think about them.  He begins first with a quote:

Bill Owens: Suburbia @ BYU MOA

This week I have a short notice about Bill Owens iconic photography series Suburbia currently on exhibition at BYU's Museum of Art.  If you have not had the chance to visit this particular museum due to it's location, you are without question missing out on one of the best museums in the Western U.S.

In 1972, Bill Owens took a camera and explored Livermore, Calif., every Saturday for one year, resulting in one of the most well-known series of photos on contemporary American life: Suburbia.  Owens captured a time and place that seemed to illustrate the American Dream of the early ’70s generation, where suburbanites’ social mobility and economic comfort were valued above most everything else. . . more >>>

More Sex Please, Camille

While Camille Paglia is on hiatus with her regular Salon column, she recently wrote an opinion piece for the NYT about female viagra.  As with any essay by Paglia, female viagra is simply a door to open up other ideas,  taking a literary critic's skill in revealing larger issues about a society who cares not a wit about literature.  I just wish she wrote more.

In the discreet white-collar realm, men and women are interchangeable, doing the same, mind-based work. Physicality is suppressed; voices are lowered and gestures curtailed in sanitized office space. Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation. Androgyny is bewitching in art, but in real life it can lead to stagnation and boredom, which no pill can cure.

Meanwhile, family life has put middle-class men in a bind; they are simply cogs in a domestic machine commanded by women. Contemporary moms have become virtuoso super-managers of a complex operation focused on the care and transport of children. But it’s not so easy to snap over from Apollonian control to Dionysian delirium.

Read the rest.

The Bakkhai @ Classical Greek Theater Festival: City Weekly

The notion of a classical Greek theater festival may sound stuffy and archaic but don’t be fooled. An inspired tradition at the University of Utah, the centuries-old plays are performed outdoors —Red Butte Garden’s amphitheater, this year—during the morning hours, evoking the performance traditions of ancient Greece.

The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine by Gary Topping: City Weekly

The history of a cathedral is not just about another nice building, but also about the struggles, triumphs, and personal histories of a people. Gary Topping, professor of history at SLCC and archivist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Utah, chronicles in his new book The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the first 100 years of that magnificent building and the stories and voices of Utah Catholics.

Sunstone Symposium: City Weekly

The Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium is an annual gathering of scholars, historians, novelists, feminists, activists, and anyone intellectually curious about Mormon culture and history. Now in its 30th year, the symposium is a forum for liberals and conservatives, heretics and orthodox, atheists and believers, a place where free and open discussion is explored and encouraged.

Keith's Finale, Bernstein's MASS: City Weekly

With his all-American good looks and musical talent to burn, Keith Lockhart has given Utah music lovers more than their fair share of enjoyment. After inspiring us as conductor and musical director of the Utah Symphony since 1998, he now is bowing out from the Utah stage, leaving us all a little poorer.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams: City Weekly

Living in Utah, you’ve heard it before: old creepy guy marries prepubescent virgin on polygamous compound. When explored in fiction, such stories can be as over-baked as last Sunday’s casserole. But Carol Lynch Williams does the improbable in her latest novel The Chosen One. She takes a far-too-common headline and creates a brave, uncommon voice in the character of 13-year-old Kyra.

David Copperfield: City Weekly

In the current milieu of “extreme” magic, David Copperfield seems downright old-fashioned. But his style has inspired countless magicians who have gone their own way, including rebels such as Chris Angel and David Blaine. And while presentation changes over time, the magic remains the same in attempting to connect to another person through story and wonder.

Art of Siddarth Parasnis

In the painting of architecture, the subject is rarely revisited with a new, interesting perspective. Siddarth Parasnis brings something different that shakes our vision and shows unexceptional walls and windows as something more beautiful than we expect.

George D. Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy

With an endless stream of books on polygamy and its discontents, do we really need another one? If the answer includes mention of Nauvoo Polygamy: "… but we called it celestial marriage" by George Smith, it would be a definitive yes. Ten years in the making, Nauvoo Polygamy traces the origins and establishment of Joseph Smith's vision of "spiritual wives" before it ever stepped foot in the State of Deseret. The book should dispel forever the common misperception that Joseph pined after only one wife and that polygamy was Brigham's idea while crossing the plains.

David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife

David Ebershoff’s moving and humorous story The 19th Wife explores the unlikely lives of two remarkable characters: Jordan Scott, a 21st-century “lost boy” and hardscrabble gay man, who travels from Los Angeles back to the site of his polygamous upbringing to help absolve his mother of the murder of his father; and Ann Eliza Winters, the novel’s namesake, who divorced Brigham Young and lectured against polygamy across 19th-century America.

Massacre at Mountain Meadows

The first sentence of the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows sums it up perfectly.

"On September 11, 1857, Mormon settlers in southern Utah used a false flag of truce to lull a group of California-bound emigrants from their circled wagons and then slaughtered them.  When the killing was over, more than one hundred butchered bodies lay strewn across a half-mile stretch of an upland meadow.  Most of the victims were women and children."

Pendergast's Portraits of Malawi

What does a Buddhist orphanage in Africa have in common with a Park City art gallery? The artist Olivia “Holly” Mae Pendergast. On a recent trip to the country of Malawi, she created a new series of evocative and beautiful figurative paintings of people she encountered.

Living Traditions Festival

Where can you eat Bosnian Cevapi, drink Tahitian Otai, and finish off with Scottish apple tarts for dessert, all at the same place? At the 2008 Living Traditions Festival, of course. But food is only the beginning at this annual celebration of Salt Lake City’s folk arts and ethnic culture. Musicians, dancers, artists, craft makers, storytellers and many more come together every May to offer attendees a unique experience.

84th Annual Springville Art Salon

In the small town of Springville, you’ll find one of the best museums in Utah. And now until July 6 is the 84th Annual Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art. With close to 300 works of art in a diversity of styles and approaches, you will find something for everyone’s taste: painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, mixed media, and occasionally pieces that are difficult to categorize.

The Mormon Church on Trial

After Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race, many people gave a sigh of relief that we would not have to possibly endure years of Mormon jokes delivered on late night television. But a century earlier, Reed Smoot—an LDS Apostle who was elected to the U.S. Senate—caused an even greater media controversy.

Utah Opera: Puccini's Tosca

"Why should those two guys over there go to the opera?” asks Guido LeBron, pointing through the windows of the Utah Opera rehearsal hall across the street to two workers taking a break outside of the SpringAir Mattress company. Those “two guys” might be amused to know this conversation is taking place among a talented group of musical artists for their sake.