The random threads

Here, as always, is the thread to post all your comments and thoughts that don't fit anywhere else.

Biff

Biff's speaking voice, worldview, and penchant for taking credit for major inventions are engaging characteristics that help keep us turning more than 400 pages. But when all is said and done, do you like Biff? Would you want to be friend with him? He seems to have some very negative character traits. He is misogynistic, referring to many women in the book (aside from the Magdalene) as a "shrieking harpy" or besought with demons. He lazes around and sends the other disciples off to do tasks. He has an overactive punching reflex. But he's utterly devoted to Joshua. So: is he the best man at your wedding, or is he the guy you put in your bridal party in order to keep an eye on him?

The Bible in "Lamb"

I was not raised in any particular religious tradition and have never studied the Bible. Despite that, I could recognize reframings of familiar events from Jesus' life as they are recounted in the scriptures. What struck me is the way Moore almost glossed over the major events that we are so familiar with today--for example, the Sermon on the Mount. He seems to be saying that it was the everyday learning and the everyday acts of compassion that made Jesus/Joshua who he was.

The passages that resonated most with me described Joshua's healings, especially the ones that occurred when nobody else was watching.

"Lamb" describes the maturation and coming of age of Jesus Christ. As characterized by Moore, what kind of Jesus does Joshua become? Is he the Jesus you were raised to believe in, or have come to believe in (if in fact you do believe in him at all)? Is this interpretation an old-fashioned or a modern one?

Sex in "Lamb"

Biff has sex. LOTS of sex. So much sex that I began to wonder if Moore included it as part of a larger narrative or characterization purpose, rather than simply for laughs. Was he successful playing [raunchy!] sex for laughs in biblically-based tales? Or did it distract from the story?

FINALLY getting around to this

For the two or three of us that probably managed to read "Lamb," here are some points for discussion. As for me, I really enjoyed this book. My brother has been recommending it to me for years and I'm glad to have finally read it.

An irreverent treatment of Jesus Christ's adolescence and early adulthood can be a really iffy subject. If you Google the book, an equal number of glowing reviews and raging attacks on Moore's character and values pop up. So my first question is: what was your gut reaction to this book? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Do you think Moore was exploiting the polarizing effect the topic might have on readers? Did it change the way you think about Jesus, Christianity, and your faith? Would you recommend this book to somebody else, and why?

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

I know I haven't been the most active reader the last couple months myself (unless you count the innumerable number of crappy essays 100 or so students have been throwing at me all semester) but I won't let this experiment go down on my watch. My next selection, the book I'm adding to the blog pipeline, is Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower.

I chose this for several reasons, but the main one is that we haven't discussed short fiction here yet and I think the blog format lends itself well to a conversation about this type of writing. EREB consists of 9 different self-contained stories and hopefully we can create a thread for each of them. Read one, read none, read them all, whatever works for you. My goal once the semester ends in a few weeks is to catch up on some of the reading I've missed and start on a discussion in EREB in one month's time.

I've read a few of the stories already and what is really striking is the synthesis of comedy and tragedy. The book has been generally heralded with rave reviews. Here are some things:

From the Publisher:

Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his car's windshield doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. Wells Tower's version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. With electric prose and savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a profound new collection of stories.

From some blurbs:

• "Well's Tower's stories are written, thrillingly, in authentic American vernacular--violent, funny, bleak, and beautiful. You need to read them, now." - Michael Chabon
• "There are lurid, ingenious, beautiful, delicate, and very funny stories. Full of pity and terror, they are also great fun to read. Wells Tower has written a brilliant book." - Benjamin Kunkel
• "Wells Tower is a blindingly brilliant writer who does more than just raise the bar for debut fiction: he hurls it into space. With the oversize heart of George Saunders, the demon tongue of Barry Hannah, and his very own conjuring tools that cannot here be named, Tower writes stories of aching beauty that are as crushingly funny and sad as any on the planet." -Ben Marcus

Also, an interview with Tower on Bookslut and, strangely, an animated short I found on Youtube based on an excerpt/adaptation from the title story:




Finally, if you don't want to shell out the cash, you can read the title story in pdf form here and as well a different story from the collection (which is told in the challenging Second Person Limited), "Leopard," as it appears online where it was originally published in the New Yorker. You can read and discuss those puppies for free!

Our next selection is....

Well, I hadn't planned to post a next choice because I was sensing a bit of book club fatigue. Then somebody told me that he was nearly finished with the book that I had casually mentioned I was thinking of choosing, and after that Dan informed me that Book Club was still up and runnning, just more casually than before. (His exact words: "Wife, don't you listen to anything? We're just putting up books and putting up discussion points and if you come late to it, then that's fine. Jesus.")

So I stand corrected, and with a lovely segue ("Jesus") into our next book:

It comes strongly recommended by my brother, Jay, who has an excellent and very irreverent sense of humor.

The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

Just as trivia: Powell's gotten increasingly experimental over the years and his new novel is nothing but questions. He reads it:

Miscellany

Here's some other stuff worth discussing, mayhaps:

• the absence (but at the same time presence) of Theenie
• The Baby Grand and its underage-serving inhabitants
• the "ludicrous as all get-out" (68) faculty party the Doctor throws
• the Ali-Frazer boxing match
• the use of the word "jake" throughout
• race relations, representations of race through location and language and dialogue
• significance of mullet
• custody junkets and their import
• the (confusing?) beginning
  
• the (rushed?) ending
• and a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.
  

The Dutchess, Taurus, and The Progenitor

Simons' relationships with the above three concern the great most of Edisto, as does:

• the Doctor's "paramarital twinings" with both,
  
• the stand-in father figure that Taurus becomes,
  
• the reconciliation of Mom and Dad,
  
• who gets the say in the "books vs. baseball" parenting debate,

and some other stuff that I thought I'd leave unsaid in the hopes of inspiring an open thread.

So have at it.

Call Her My First Love, Fine By Me

Two girls worth exploring here in terms of Simons emerging manhood:

1. Diane Parker, she of the draws-dropping "field trips" (92).
2. Snug Harbor's Altalondine Jenkins Jenkins (133).

These two harbingers of our narrator's puberty--a puberty he's smart enough to know is coming but not mature enough to prepare properly for--sort of punctuate the B-story of Edisto, if you will, and adds to the coming of age story with its frankness. One's the backwoods girl who'll give you immediate answers, Two's the girl that makes those answers emotionally manifest, both of them pull an important curtain back on the mystery of the opposite sex Simons has become aware of.

Show you mine if you show me yours. Kissing underwater. Floating tits. Do kids even have to live these sorts of things anymore to learn about sex? Doesn't Google (and worse yet, 4chan) do all that heavy lifting for them?

The slow burn that was Simons complementing his very grown up adult mind with an increasingly adult body felt to me like a eulogy for the act of simultaneous sexual discovery. Maybe more like an Irish wake--it was fun to watch Simons smooth familiarity with the world betray him in this oh-so-important way.

As kids didn't we all "worry about round, wonderful girls [boys for Mags] with their edges ruined by life's little disasters, who remain solid and tough in their drive to feel good--to themselves and to you--and offer a vison of snug harbor" (137)? And wasn't the arriving at that motto half the fun?

The Paste of Life

"You try to put the world in simple terms when it's complicated" (47).

Who the hell is Simons kidding?

Edisto gets all sorts of things right--things I hope we discuss--but first and foremost this book is a celebration, a luxuriation of syntax. The way syllables form words and words turn into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into chapters and chapters into story and story into themes. Powell practically wallows in the possibilities of the English language.

I'm not sure how discuss-able the language of Edisto is, but I am sure I want to share my favorite passages:

• "And one of the ways to prolong pleasure is to not chop up time with syllables. [Dudes at the Baby Grand] go for something larger than words, but no essays" (9).
• "...I the homunculus..." (46).
• "...that he moved like a fish in cool water because I stocked the tank" (49).
• "TV and the law are both these large things that are technical and controlled by white people, so it nerved her out" (56).
• "I'd heard enough. The good old days were on a respirator. A boarding school and landed gentry snot-nose college prep buggers for Simons Manigault" (151).
  

The Boy Act

One of the ways Edisto skewers reader expectations, I think, is not just by affording an impossibly adult sophistication in such a young man, but by making Simons aware of his precociousness and able to switch it on and off with varying levels of success. Early on, page 17, he decides that "The Boy Act is the best thing when in doubt," and in subsequent encounters, he relies on it when he:

• sizes somebody up,
• gains more information on a situation,
• helps Taurus out.

But does it work? The Boy Act doesn't seem to fool anyone, really. Most of the adults just seem to appreciate the efforts Simons is putting into making them feel more in the company of a child than of a man-boy with perception beyond his years, but his efforts at The Boy Act seem to buttress awkward situations just enough.

So we juxtapose this way. Anybody notice any other such stark differences?

the Swan Thieves

Someone please go on NPR and listen to the interview with Elizabeth Kostovo that aired this morning discussing her new book, "The Swan Thieves." Preston Brooks couldn't have said it better.

New Book Time? New Book Time.

Edisto by Padgett Powell

1985.
Nominated for American Book Award (Best Debut).
Powell runs the MFA program at U of Florida.
192 pages.

"Southern" and "coming of age."
And "kinda experimental."

The Believer interviewed him one time.
Which is how I heard of him.
(I've not read this book.)

I begin discussions on February 1st.
Lost starts back up on the 2nd.
We discuss till the 10th.
Courtney announces the next book whenever she feels like.

Bring a dictionary, if the first few pages are any indication.

Walker Percy: "A novel that has drawn comparisons with the work of J. D. Salinger, Truman Capote, and Flannery OConnor, Edisto centers on one Simons Everson Manigault, a twelve-year-old possessed of a vocabulary and sophistication way beyond his years and a preadolescent bewilderment with the behavior of adults. These include his mother, who is known as the Duchess, and his enigmatic father-surrogate, Taurus. Imbued with a strong sense of place, an isolated strip of South Carolina coast called Edisto, Padgett Powell's novel is truly remarkable . . . both as a narrative and in its extraordinary use of language."

A Very Special Proposal

Happy Holidays Gentle Readers.

As we've passed the first 13 months of this very special book club, I have a proposal that might help the book club blog continue and develop. I think everyone should make of this book club what they want of it. We should think of it as a way to create situations to discuss books with people we normally wouldn't and challenge ourselves to read and experience new things. However, it should not be like homework. That's why I say for 2010 we both tighten things up and loosen things up at the same time. Here's the proposal:

At a regular interval (once a month or every five weeks, six weeks or whatever) a contributor announces a book club selection. Then, at some point after that, the same contributor posts a review/analysis of the book. This follow-up could be as detailed/vague, long/short, and timely as the contributor feels is appropriate or can make happen. After that, everyone can feel free to participate in the discussion or not, whenever he/she feels like it. Regardless (and this is important), a new book get's put into the reading list at regular intervals.

This, obviously, may lead to some overlap, but I don't really think that matters. Some books may elicit long responses and participation by a bunch of people, others may create only sparse discussions amongst a few. In the end, this will allow the everyone to participate as they'd like. However, the structure of such a convention will will help to create an online environment for anyone to come in and discuss what they like, when they like, at the pace that they like. Everything keeps happening, even if it's just new books being announced. Basically, no one is waiting on the book club, the book club is always waiting on you.

This most probably will lead to not everyone reading every book, myself included. I can live with that. I've discussed/developed versions of this idea with several participants and I think it could work. If you think so, just post your "I'm in, you crazy book reading Mofos!" as a comment here. Or, of course, sound off with any ideas or observations--most notably what pacing you think would work for the selections. I'm happy to create a "schedule" of when the selections should be posted if that helps.

Peace, y'all.

So you want to be a famous novelist

I don’t want to ruin a streak, so just as pretty much everyone who has chosen a book has said: “I loved this book!” I mean, really loved it. Since I finished reading it, I’ve evangelized it to everyone who mentions any of the following: books, reading, Barnes and Noble or awesomeness. Or pretty much to anyone who uses words, really. I probably could have finished it in just a few days, but I forced myself to dole it out in smaller pieces and took the better part of a week because I didn’t want it to end. (I’d be interested if anyone else did this, or if I was just being weird.) To me, the most powerful thing about the book was that since I finished it, it has made me very aware in the real world of the different clichés he used to make his own book popular. This does make me a more skeptical consumer of popular culture, which I won’t necessarily value-judge as good or bad. But in fairness, I’d also say that the good that came from reading this book is that it has encouraged me read more than I have in years (I’ve finished three books since I started this one).

I liked a lot about How I Became A Famous Novelist (or HIBAFN). I thought the book managed some sharp criticism, impressively covering all aspects of the writing business. It takes on everything from MFA programs, literary criticism, the business of the publishing industry, the sometimes-ridiculous nature of genre fiction, the editorial process, the mass-reading audience and even Hollywood and a few more that I’ve probably neglected to list here. Additionally, this is one of only a few books that had me laugh out loud while reading. (Yes, I LOLed.) I think the funniest parts of the book were the asides-- the excerpts from other books, the faux NYT best-seller list, the fake reviews of The Tornado Ashes Club and things like that. But like any good criticism, it was so funny because it was so true.

What I didn’t like about the book? Honestly, I didn’t like that Hely felt we needed to learn lessons by having Pete constantly doing the wrong thing. We’re set up from the beginning to see Pete as a kind of anti-hero, a slacker who is only self-interested, skating by doing the very minimum… but I really wanted him to succeed with his master plan. There were many times when I was like “Man, I would have kept it together if that was me.” Now granted, if Pete didn’t mess up all the good he created in the first half of the book, I suppose there wouldn’t have been a very interesting second half. But I kind of felt let down when Pete wasn’t awesome at Polly’s wedding, when he screwed up the Television interview and when he gets pwned at the literary debate. This is probably my own fault for identifying too closely with the main character, but I am also curious if others were looking for that atavistic pleasure of being the badass Pete thought he was going to be when he set out to write the novel.

I wanted to open this section up for general discussion about HIBAFN, or any of the questions above. Further discussion to follow.

Preston Brooks: Flaming A-Hole or no?

Personally, I disliked Preston Brooks as a character, and would have liked to see him get his comeuppance at some point. Even by the end of the book I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t just a bloviating windbag. However, the book sets him up as a sort of voice of truth. In his television interview, Preston Brooks says, “Writing is a cudgel I wield to chase away the brigands who would burn down the precious things of the human heart.” That moment makes Pete realize that Brooks, and very likely all novelists, are “con artists.” Is he right?

Fame? I, for one, want to live forever.

I thought the novel was also very incisive when talking about the nature of fame and mass popularity. Consider the following excerpt:

Anyone who’s paying attention in America can tell you it’s strange which things become famous and popular and why. I like to imagine that, around 800 B.C., somewhere in ancient Greece, a guy, let’s call him Linus, wrote an epic poem. It was pretty good, full of adventures and strange animals and sexy goddesses and five-armed monsters and all the stuff epic audiences go for. Linus started orating it, or whatever they used to do. But somehow, people just liked The Odyssey better. No one could explain why. Maybe a particular king or something insisted on the Homer version, and everybody went along. Maybe Homer got there first, or had a better orating voice, or ran a better marketing campaign. But 2800 years later, we’ve all heard of Homer and nobody’s heard of Linus.

You could argue that The Odyssey was the better work. More intelligent or poetic, or addressing universal themes – and that’s why it lasted. But I don’t think so. There’s not much evidence that fame and popularity follow any kind of logical pattern. And who can tell these days anyway? The whole thing’s more or less a crapshoot. For every Charles Dickens who catches a break, there’s probably some guy named Bartles Osbrook who was just as good but less lucky. In some alternate universe they gather and read Osbrook’s classic A Christmas Fable around the holidays.

After cracking the 23^rd spot on the NYT Best-seller List, Pete spends Christmas with his family. He says that he was “nervous that I’d be called upon to say witty things, but instead everyone assumed the regular things I said were witty.” What does this observation reveal about the nature of fame, or about the nature of family dinner table conversations? What do we think of Hely’s take on popularity?

Is it the message, or the messenger?

Things could have worked out differently for Pete if he had simply not revealed his literary insincerity. In some way, he is like a magician who reveals his secrets, a cardinal sin in that business. Do we think his primary error was admitting his motives, or did he commit a graver sin against Literature, with a capital L? Consider his statement at the bar with the MFA students: “I’d profaned the evening. These people treated stories like sacraments.” Should they be in general, or is it commentary on the literary bubble within these programs?