Ostriching and Generalizing Great Literature

First off, I missed a huge opportunity by living with my head in the sand.

Last weekend there was a rather important writing conference like ten steps from my front door. There were a couple of agents attending that I would have liked to meet and I even have two novels essentially ready to pitch. I put one up for sale on the Kindle store already, but my intent is to still try to get representation with it.

Is that kosher? I have no idea. I guess I haven't really looked into it. But it doesn't matter because I keep writing anyway and will never stop. So I'll always have something to sell. I like to keep forty irons in the fire at once. That way I'll never die. Unfinished business, right?

My goal is to live forever. I'm sure I can. I'm sure they'll have the secrets of immortality unlocked by the time I'm sixty-five. If not, I'll just keep living as a Methusaleh sort of character.

Ok, and another thing I'm thinking about is how derogatory and limiting the term "chick-lit" is. I mean, what gives? I swear I've mentioned this before, but we don't call books that are merely written for a general audience "dick-lit," but I'm thinking we should. Forgive the crassness, please, I'm simply trying to illustrate a point.

So I'm reading a Sophie Kinsella book right now and it's genius. PURE genius. I appreciate it on many levels, one of them being that I'm a writer myself and know how difficult it can be create humor in writing. Perhaps it's easy for Sophie, she seems like the type for whom it might come easy. I haven't read a "chick-lit" novel in some time, so I'm really enjoying it.

Normally I guess I read "dick-lit" because I read things that are not written for women. See? I mean, if you're going to call something that's just about people having hilarious conversations and experiences "chick-lit," then isn't everything else by default meant for men and therefore "dick-lit"?

Ok, so I'm being a bit obtuse, yes. I'll give you that. But it really irks me that Sophie Kinsella's books are being categorized in such a way that if a man wants to read it, he's by default totally emasculating himself, YET if a woman picks up a Hemingway novel, she's being smart.

Totally blows.

And I love Hemingway.

This all relates to feminist theory, and the whole male-gaze bull-crap which also really irks me. The nature of genres and categorizing is to make things easier and I appreciate it all in many ways, but I also think it's highly unfair and a rip-off to target-market in this way. I'd like to be able to say to my husband:

"Hey dude, you really really need to read this Sophie Kinsella book. It's freaking hilarious." And be able to have him say:

"Sure," without being under the impression—given to him by genius marketers and advertisers—that he's about to embark on something that will just bore the hell out of him because it's like, you know, shopping or something (given, some of her books are about shopping, yes, but not the one I'm reading).

Sorry, I must be feeling a bit sweary tonight. I just said hell and it felt right. Yes, I've had one of those long days where you just want to draw a bath, sip some champagne (I don't drink, but it might be relaxing), read, and say, "Calgon, take me away!" But instead I'm writing this blog post and getting more riled up the more I think about the marketing injustices created by absolute genius marketers.

"Hey," I'm sure they say, "better to have an audience than to be lost in the mess of books and bookshelves."

"See," they say, "her books would have ended up falling into those categories without our help. We just did what would come naturally anyway. And we marketed to a built-in audience."

Yeah? Well, they also intentionally give her books pink, flirtatious covers that supposedly attract women also. Right? Pink is well-known to be a woman-magnet, and it's not even that we've been socialized that way! It just happens!

Right. I know. I've watched my son pick between dolls and cars, and without any sort of prompting he picks cars. I'm not joking. I understand these things.

I just find it wrong. Look at an equivalent author to Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding, Nick Hornby. Does he get categorized into being meant just for male readers? No. I've read all his books. He IS the male Sophelen (combo of Sophie and Helen). Nick's books are considered to be just literature. And women can pick them up, read them, and be considered up-to-date.

Anyway. Meh. Bleh. I know I'm swimming upstream here, griping about things that are just, well, the nature of our civilization. It's like trying to stop female singers from singing in loud, screechy, high-pitched voices because it grates on your nerves, you know. They ought to sing in more mellow tones. After all, they have a freaking mike in front of their mouth, don't they? Just sing normal.

But no. They can't. They think loud is better.

Sorry. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, the speaker's right above me, and it's a girl singing to high heaven at eleven the entire time. My ear-drums are shot. I need some ear-muffs.

Well, there you have it. Irritated about everything. But really not. I'm pretty excited that Sophie Kinsella is so good, and all the men out there who don't read her books because she's called chick-lit are idiots. Their loss. A woman wouldn't hesitate to pick up, say a Tom Clancy or Nick Hornby and let them be judged for their writing and not their genres/category.

I guess that's why the world is OUR oyster. Us. Women, I mean. Because we're less limited by societal perception.

Somehow. I know that makes sense. I'll figure it out later. I need to figure out this music situation or else I'm going to die of irritation.

Sing normal!

Oh, thank heaven. Ear-pluggy type ear-buds, life-savers that you are. 

Everyone, My New Book Is Out. It's Called Feed. Go Buy It.

My most recent book is up in the Kindle store. I put a link in the side-bar. It's damn good. Damn. Good. I'm telling you. I had a blast writing it, which is, as far as I'm concerned, the sole indicator of a book's worthiness. It's true.

Yes, it's called Feed. I loved the short story–"Life Feeds"–so much that I expanded it into a novel. And then I shortened the title. And then I designed the cover. Both of which may or may not be mistakes. See, I was in the bookstore today–always a grueling experience, but lovely at the same time because books are beautiful and I love them–however, today I stumbled across this book:

Notice the title? Yes, precisely. It was published in 2002. Similar premise, although the intended audience of this book is teens (also, similar cover, as mine has a head on it as well). Anyway, I got the book so I can read it rather than resorting to suicide.

My book cover:

The other is a National Book Award finalist. And Nick Hornby read Anderson's Feed and apparently liked it enough to write about it in the Believer (which I used to read, and if I've never mentioned it, let me just add that Nick Hornby is one of my author-heroes).

So, my triumphant moment has sadly been reduced to ash. And dirt. And the back of an ugly bald head with the word feed emblazoned across it.

Not that my triumphant moment is that grand. Really. If I think about it. I know what I should do is pretend that I'm a freaking brilliant author. With loads of talent. And feign awesomeness and joy and exude the air that I've arrived when I put a book up in the Kindle store. Because that's success, right?

It's like I'm having a tea-party with imaginary friends, while others are at actual tea in a book shop in London with their agent, a publisher, and a movie studio executive who's trying to option the book for a major huge screenplay that will outdo the Hunger Games and Twilight combined.

"Now who wants to take their top off?" George Bluth, Sr.

I'm not an actress and I'm not very good at faking it. I have the worst poker-face, as I'm sure I've mentioned before and the one time when I had a damn royal flush–yes, no lie ROYAL FLUSH–everyone saw it on my face and on my cousin's face because I leaned over and asked him which I should go with, the straight or the flush (I was very bad at poker), and they all folded. So that amazing moment was deflated by my bad poker face. Once again.

Yep. Bad actress. Right here. Everyone. Look at the bad actress having tea with imaginary friends.

Honestly, I can't pretend that this is what I aspired to. But it's what I want, otherwise I wouldn't put the book up and sell it on my own. I'd be writing query letters and plying my goods at agents, trying to get noticed by them, the keepers of the red carpet and the velvet rope and all that jazz. I don't love them. That's why I'm not doing that. Their rejection letters or even less than that these days, they're lack of response, also has the power to crush writers, especially the ones with bad poker-faces who can't hide their disappointment.

And so I'm going it on my own. And if you enjoy my blog, you'll surely go spend .99 cents on my little book. And if you like it, you'll go back to Amazon and rate it. That's what I need. And here, on my blog which IS awesome, I'm not afraid to ask for it.

Honestly, I expect M.T. Anderson's book to be good. I don't begrudge him/her the name. Great minds think alike, right?

But my own Feed isn't a young adult novel. So please don't expect that. The hero is an awkward engineer and I love him. I hope you will too.

Classics: App Heaven

So far, the best app (I feel like such a dork when I say that) I've downloaded is the Classics app. When I bought it, it was .99 cents. What a bargain. Like ten books for .99 cents! They're classics, so, I mean if you found copies of them at a used book store you could probably get some of them for that much, but I'm talking about portability here.

My favorite author just did a review of the Kindle on his website, and it tempted me. But really there's no contest now. I have an Ipod Touch and I can put books on there! Smaller, more portable, and it makes a cool page turny sound when you turn the page BY TOUCHING THE SCREEN. And you turn back the page by swiping your screen in the other direction!

I am still in love with the magic of the touch screen, yes. It's very enthralling. I'm sorry, but that's the truth of it.

When you're done reading and you press the home button, it puts in a bookmark and then you go back to your bookshelf and there's your book, with a little red bookmark in it. It's beautiful.

I know it's weird to get excited about a virtual bookshelf and a program that disconnects me from the actual textures and sense of reading a book, because I'm very into the reality of books. But it's fun. It's different. And I have real copies of most of the books. But think of it. I'm on a long flight and I don't want to tote around ten books. Oh, look here, in my Ipod I have twelve books!

And I think they add more, and the additions are FREE once you've bought the app. I'm in heaven.

Recently Read: Posts from Goodreads Reviews "Chekhov: Selected Stories"

There's something about Chekhov. I remember reading a review or an essay about him in The New Yorker a long time ago, back when I read the New Yorker (I don't anymore, pretentious jerks ha ha ha), and I remember finding it interesting. But I assumed that Chekhov would be a stuffy old bookish writer whose work I would find boring. And then I began reading, recently, some of Anna Karenina. Some sort of fever started in me to consume as much Russian literature as possible. So I bought this small used copy of Chekhov's work, the very edition you see here. The first story I read was "The Father." I read it quickly and then I read another story, "Peasants," and I was enthralled by his writing and the portrayals of the Russian people. He has such skill with language and my only regret is that I can't read his work in the original Russian.

At the same time I read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway (an amazing book), and I was very pleased to read his impressions of the Russians. He said of Chekhov that people had told him that Katherine Mansfield wrote great short stories, but once he had read Chekhov, Hemingway realized that Mansfield's stories were the equivalent of an old maid's tales (to recall from memory). One man's opinion. I have not read much Mansfield, but I can say that Chekhov is so widely read for a reason. I love his writing and have bought many more collections of his writing since then.

I'm not a huge fan of the short story genre, necessarily. But if you read his work it feels loosely strung together, a vast mural of the late 19th century Russia. It's quite beautiful.

My favorites so far are "Peasants," "He Understood," "The Dance Pianist,"In Exile," and "A Cure for Drinking."

Recently Read: Posts from Goodreads Reviews "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

I loved it, even though I didn't give it five stars. I didn't give it five because at the end I wasn't blown away or something. The end just comes kind of natural like you'd expect, because it's the end of the day. And you know that Ivan is kind of like an animal now, and all he has are days and he doesn't think too hard about the future because if he did, he would go crazy. I've heard that Gulag is a very depressing story, this one is kind of a downer, but not like Gulag, probably. You end up loving Ivan because even amidst this horrible, completely undeserved sentence, he still has a heart and exhibits altruistic behavior.

Sometimes Solzhenitsyn's writing reminds me of Salinger, and I liked that. At times he would speak from this place of "the prisoners, the men" and show their rage at other prisoners who were messing things up for everyone else, or their rage at the injustice and stupidity of the warders. All you can think through the whole book is about how cold it is. Obviously the cold is a strong character, the main element shaping their lives, even stronger than the bastard communist government.

There were loads of things I liked about this story. I like Solzhenitsyn's writing style, although I have to admit I feel weird saying that, knowing he himself was a prisoner and this book was derived from that experience. But it's true, he's a good writer. I ended up liking Ivan, and pretty much all the characters except for Fetyukov, who we're not supposed to like because he's a vulture and a wimp.

I will probably read more of his books because of his skill with words. My big regret is that I can't read Russian and of all possible languages I would choose to learn for the sake of literature, Russian is the language I want to know. I checked it out and Rosetta Stone costs like a million dollars. I'm 30 and my brain is set in stone. Is there any hope?

Recently Read: Posts from Goodreads Reviews "Name of the Wind"

Finished on February 20th:

Very good. I had some criticism but it was minor and based on having studied folklore for my post-grad work. The author does a good job of weaving a story and utilizing language better than most contemporary writers. I liked his style and look forward to the next book.

March 3rd: I have to amend this review. This update comes almost two weeks later. I am still thinking about that blasted Kvothe and what's happened to him. I am planning a way to obtain the next book and read it as quickly as possible. I am making sure my reading schedule will fit it in, still knowing deep inside that all other books shall be set aside to continue the story. I have gone to the author's personal website and read some of his blog entries just to feel like I've somehow been in contact with the world of Kvothe.

p.s. Ordered a first edition hardbound copy, planning to someday meet author at a book signing. Hoping.

Recent Aquisition: The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner

I picked up Stegner's Selected Letters yesterday. It was an urgent thing, because while this book has been in my Amazon shopping cart since l became aware it was out, I never felt rushed to get it until I saw that some doofus had left a ONE STAR REVIEW of it on Amazon.com recently. What kind of moron . . . . ? His reason is that he realized his fictional* college students are RIGHT, Stegner is an elitist snob. And then the doofus goes on to crack a joke, I guess, and mention that he supposes he should read Elizabeth Lynn-Cook's book Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner: A Tribal Voice**.

Obviously I am forced to quickly come to his defense, not that he needs it. His work speaks for itself. He IS not an elitist snob. What is going on is that colleges are now swarming with students who think that being politically correct is proper and that no one should actually speak their mind if it goes against the fashionable current of thought. If a writer uses a word these students haven't heard on Prison Break or American Idol, that writer is clearly not interested in being understood. While I think it's true that some contemporary writers reach for the thesaurus too often and pick the obscure WRONG word rather than the right common word, this is just not the case for Stegner. His writing IS accessible and he is as clear as day. His writing is careful and thoughtful and he creates characters who are real and flawed, though ultimately good.

So far I have read his personal letters, the letters to his girlfriend before Mary Page and the letters to Mary Page (who he would marry). Some good lines from it:

"I am afraid you are a romantic, my love. I am afraid you live in the clouds, and in the future—an impossible future, and I am afraid you are one of these essentially skinless creatures whom every blowing cinder hurts. So am I, or was I. Then I developed a suit of armor, and then you came and undressed me again. I’m not sure that I mind, even on principle. I know that at present I love it, but I’m afraid when I think that both of us are going to get hurt" (p. 21).

And I read this in a letter to biographer Jackson Benson regarding his request to do a biography of Stegner:

"There is the further fact that I have led a very quiet life. I have no marital upheavals, spectacular alcoholism, sexual deviations, madcap adventures, or attempted suicides to report. You might find that even if I told you to go ahead, you would have little to write about. Actually, what I have meant, to myself and I hope to others, is an individual attempt to understand and come to terms with a dynamic, forming, and unstable society, that of the American West" (p. 75).

I like it that he regards his life as quiet and that he is humble about it. He's not thirsting to have someone write about him because he was modest. He recognized that having written novels put him in a kind of spotlight, and so he was something of a public figure, but he wasn't the kind of public figure that relished the limelight.

His son Page writes this about him:

"His letters were not notes dashed off in the rapid-fire, shorthand fashion of today's email. Virtually without exception they were thoughtful, articulate, and carefully crafted, with attention to minutia (spelling, punctuation, syntax); they employed simile, metaphor, poetic imagery, deliberation of voice, and, above all, attention to the melody of language. . . . Like the company accountant in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, he would have been embarrassed to be found wandering about dressed in anything but an immaculate white suit, no matter how remote the exposure to posterity or the likely indifference of his audience" (ix).

The reviewer on Amazon.com who got me all fired up, whose thoughtless review compelled me to rush out and buy the book, wondered why he cared about Stegner after reading half the book. I guess he didn't get it, but I do. Stegner wasn't an elitist snob. Rather, he cared about his words and how he used them. His writing was his way of making sense of the world, of trying to understand and be understood, but in composing his work he wasn't immodest. He had Victorian values to a degree and recognized that one doesn't have to confess every impropriety to be transparent***, and I think this is evident in Angle of Repose when the narrator discusses his disgust about the loose values and hedonism of the 1960s.

Anyway, I know I'm going to give it five stars when I'm done. Stegner was right about his life, he wasn't some spineless, self-absorbed writer whose biographies would reveal a string of affairs and a drug-riddled past interlaced with deviant behavior. He has always struck me as humble, but willing to do hard work and get done what had to be done. And in that way, because these qualities show up in it, his work has always been refreshing and beautiful.






*My assumption. I don't know if they really ARE fictional, but the idiot struck me as too moronic to actually be a college professor. Perhaps they're stocking the colleges with morons these days.
**Both Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly slam this collection of essays. First of all, Ms. Lynn-Cook truly has NEVER read Stegner. She uses his name to simultaneously capitalize on his success and bludgeon him in one breath. What a girl.
***Contemporary style is to confess everything, resulting in graphic depictions of sex, violence, drug-use and every other kind of depravity that does not necessarily move the plot forward or lead to a deeper understanding of character.

Chekhov

There's something about Chekhov. I remember reading a review or an essay about him in The New Yorker a long time ago, back when I read The New Yorker (I don't anymore, pretentious jerks ha ha ha), and I remember finding it interesting. But I assumed that Chekhov would be a stuffy old bookish writer whose work I would find boring. And then I began reading, recently, some of Anna Karenina. A sort of fever started in me to consume as much Russian literature as possible. So I bought this small used copy of Chekhov's work, the Signet edition, from my favorite used book shop in Nashville (Books). The first story I read was "The Father." I read it quickly and then I read another story, "Peasants," and I was enthralled by his writing and the portrayals of the Russian people. He has such skill with language and my only regret is that I can't read his work in the original Russian.

At the same time I read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway (an amazing book), and I was very pleased to read his impressions of the Russians. He said of Chekhov that people had told him that Katherine Mansfield wrote great short stories, but once he had read Chekhov, Hemingway realized that Mansfield's stories were the equivalent of an old maid's tales (to recall from memory). One man's opinion. I have not read much Mansfield, but I can say that Chekhov is so widely read for a reason. I love his writing and have bought many more collections of his writing since then.

I'm not a huge fan of the short story genre, necessarily. But if you read his work it feels loosely strung together, a vast mural of the late 19th century Russia. It's quite beautiful.

My favorites so far are "Peasants," "He Understood," "The Dance Pianist,"In Exile," and "A Cure for Drinking."


View all my reviews