I just finished Project X and thought I might bring some book-talk to the blog. Often when I finish a book, I read every review I can find of it, even the user reviews on Amazon—desperately seeking out a community of readers. I never post my own reviews, so it’s not much of a conversation. Tonight I thought hey, I know a community of readers! Why don't I engage with them? This might be one sided as well, though, since I’m not sure if any one else has read Project X. I finished it an hour ago, but I needed that long just to stand up. I’m still carrying the book around with me, reluctant to let the characters go, unwilling to have that story be over. It’s less than two hundred pages; most of you could finish it in an afternoon. You should, if you have the chance [I hear you: When will you have the chance? You should, now].
In workshop it was well known that I had a penchant for the character driven story. I just started the fiction unit in my 223 class last week, and I think my students already have a sense that I don’t really care what their characters do, so long as those characters are interesting. Project X’s narrator, Edwin, is so painfully real to me that I could weep. I was just talking to the main squeeze (who finished this book a week or two ago) about the narrator’s little brother as if he were a person in my life, like, Oh can you believe that thing Gus said? He’s so funny; I love that kid. And I really sort of do.
The book gets pretty high-tension towards the end, but whatever you do do not do not do not skip to the end. Do you people do that?
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6 comments:
oh, and by 'you people' i don't just mean carnam.
Thanks Zack Powers! Your opinion means so much. Talk to you soon.
I've ordered it from amazon, you convinced me. I was ordering a birthday present for my brother anyway, and it put me over the free shipping limit. I never skip to the end except in murder mystery stories that are getting dull. I wish I had gone to see Jim Shepard read when he was here, if he's that good. Are these blog responses supposed to be like, updates on what's going through my tired little brain, or more like arguments I would urge my comp students to make? will someone tell me what to do?
oh, starrykick, please not arguments you'd tell your comp students to make. or i guess the ones you tell them to make would be great, the ones they *actually* make, however, are strictly off limits. not that there's any danger of that in this place, where even the tired brains are so lovely and lively.
i overuse the word lovely, but i almost always mean it.
also, i think we can do whatever we want in this space. our readers are probably only ourselves, right? my guess is that since we've just come out (or are in) the program here (it sounds so AA-esque when i call it the program) and we're a team not only out of mutual admiration for one another's dancing/karaoke/cooking skills (willingness perhaps a better word in some cases)but because of our shared pursuit of this thing called being writers (or, being ultimate masters of all fine[st] arts) that our topics will lean literary, but I certainly wouldn’t want to limit anyone’s input, and am more than happy to read tips and tricks for keeping those ladybirdbeetle monsters out of the house. I want to be a part of this space (oh, here comes my women’s center vernacular) largely because I hope it will allow us to keep the conversations we had (more) regularly while still in the program going even as we splinter and spread. Maybe I’ll move this comment into a post and open this up for discussion as well? Why not? It’s not like I have any papers to grade or lonely, withering stories to attend to.
"and am more than happy to read tips and tricks for keeping those ladybirdbeetle monsters out of the house."
It seems, rather, that what we've got here is a pretty special compilation of voices, and perhaps this compilation of talent and intellect would be mitigated by the discussion of trifles? I don't know about you all, but I log on to this blog (frequently, as can already be gleaned) for a specific kind of salve and balm, go to the trouble of digitally traveling to this specific place because I want my mind to be torqued and piqued in specifically, and yes exclusively, literary ways. I go to other places to gossip and chat--as I'm sure do you--and it seems, in my life at least, that these places, the chatty ones, outnumber the literary ones, which I believe we're trying to cultivate, and should.
So my two cents to starrykick are this: I would love to hear any and all literary updates from your tired brain, even if they're merely observational (of culture, society, politics, philosophy), and the only thing 'literary' about them is the way they're presented. Also more academic arguments are acceptable (to me, at least, although I will join bizness's chorus and adjure that they not be arguments the students themselves would make).
Here, how about this as a loose guideline: let's make this a sort of online Harper's, or better yet Believer, minus the interviews. Thought-provoking, insightful, (inciteful), witty, stylish. And, eminently, the work of writers. Because that is who we are. Because this, of all things in our lives, is what we cannot avoid.
I checked out Zack Powers's site and it really is about dog houses. I hadn't believed him. But behold: they "sell a large volume of Dog Houses to dog owners." I am ashamed for ever having doubted.
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