Kurt Vonnegut: Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/kurt-vonnegut-at-the-blackboard.php?page=all

I just went ahead an copied and pasted into my blog. No commentary other than this is great and needs to be read. Oh, Kurt, you slay me.

I want to share with you something I’ve learned. I’ll draw it on the blackboard behind me so you can follow more easily [draws a vertical line on the blackboard]. This is the G-I axis: good fortune-ill fortune. Death and terrible poverty, sickness down here—great prosperity, wonderful health up there. Your average state of affairs here in the middle [points to bottom, top, and middle of line respectively].

This is the B-E axis. B for beginning, E for entropy. Okay. Not every story has that very simple, very pretty shape that even a computer can understand [draws horizontal line extending from middle of G-I axis].

Now let me give you a marketing tip. The people who can afford to buy books and magazines and go to the movies don’t like to hear about people who are poor or sick, so start your story up here [indicates top of the G-I axis]. You will see this story over and over again. People love it, and it is not copyrighted. The story is “Man in Hole,” but the story needn’t be about a man or a hole. It’s: somebody gets into trouble, gets out of it again [draws line A]. It is not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began. This is encouraging to readers.

Another is called “Boy Meets Girl,” but this needn’t be about a boy meeting a girl [begins drawing line B]. It’s: somebody, an ordinary person, on a day like any other day, comes across something perfectly wonderful: “Oh boy, this is my lucky day!” … [drawing line downward]. “Shit!” … [drawing line back up again]. And gets back up again.

Now, I don’t mean to intimidate you, but after being a chemist as an undergraduate at Cornell, after the war I went to the University of Chicago and studied anthropology, and eventually I took a masters degree in that field. Saul Bellow was in that same department, and neither one of us ever made a field trip. Although we certainly imagined some. I started going to the library in search of reports about ethnographers, preachers, and explorers—those imperialists—to find out what sorts of stories they’d collected from primitive people. It was a big mistake for me to take a degree in anthropology anyway, because I can’t stand primitive people—they’re so stupid. But anyway, I read these stories, one after another, collected from primitive people all over the world, and they were dead level, like the B-E axis here. So all right. Primitive people deserve to lose with their lousy stories. They really are backward. Look at the wonderful rise and fall of our stories.

One of the most popular stories ever told starts down here [begins line C below B-E axis]. Who is this person who’s despondent? She’s a girl of about fifteen or sixteen whose mother had died, so why wouldn’t she be low? And her father got married almost immediately to a terrible battle-axe with two mean daughters. You’ve heard it?

There’s to be a party at the palace. She has to help her two stepsisters and her dreadful stepmother get ready to go, but she herself has to stay home. Is she even sadder now? No, she’s already a broken-hearted little girl. The death of her mother is enough. Things can’t get any worse than that. So okay, they all leave for the party. Her fairy godmother shows up [draws incremental rise], gives her pantyhose, mascara, and a means of transportation to get to the party.

And when she shows up she’s the belle of the ball [draws line upward]. She is so heavily made up that her relatives don’t even recognize her. Then the clock strikes twelve, as promised, and it’s all taken away again [draws line downward]. It doesn’t take long for a clock to strike twelve times, so she drops down. Does she drop down to the same level? Hell, no. No matter what happens after that she’ll remember when the prince was in love with her and she was the belle of the ball. So she poops along, at her considerably improved level, no matter what, and the shoe fits, and she becomes off-scale happy [draws line upward and then infinity symbol].

Now there’s a Franz Kafka story [begins line D toward bottom of G-I axis]. A young man is rather unattractive and not very personable. He has disagreeable relatives and has had a lot of jobs with no chance of promotion. He doesn’t get paid enough to take his girl dancing or to go to the beer hall to have a beer with a friend. One morning he wakes up, it’s time to go to work again, and he has turned into a cockroach [draws line downward and then infinity symbol].

It’s a pessimistic story.

The question is, does this system I’ve devised help us in the evaluation of literature? Perhaps a real masterpiece cannot be crucified on a cross of this design. How about Hamlet? It’s a pretty good piece of work I’d say. Is anybody going to argue that it isn’t? I don’t have to draw a new line, because Hamlet’s situation is the same as Cinderella’s, except that the sexes are reversed.

His father has just died. He’s despondent. And right away his mother went and married his uncle, who’s a bastard. So Hamlet is going along on the same level as Cinderella when his friend Horatio comes up to him and says, “Hamlet, listen, there’s this thing up in the parapet, I think maybe you’d better talk to it. It’s your dad.” So Hamlet goes up and talks to this, you know, fairly substantial apparition there. And this thing says, “I’m your father, I was murdered, you gotta avenge me, it was your uncle did it, here’s how.”

Well, was this good news or bad news? To this day we don’t know if that ghost was really Hamlet’s father. If you have messed around with Ouija boards, you know there are malicious spirits floating around, liable to tell you anything, and you shouldn’t believe them. Madame Blavatsky, who knew more about the spirit world than anybody else, said you are a fool to take any apparition seriously, because they are often malicious and they are frequently the souls of people who were murdered, were suicides, or were terribly cheated in life in one way or another, and they are out for revenge.

So we don’t know whether this thing was really Hamlet’s father or if it was good news or bad news. And neither does Hamlet. But he says okay, I got a way to check this out. I’ll hire actors to act out the way the ghost said my father was murdered by my uncle, and I’ll put on this show and see what my uncle makes of it. So he puts on this show. And it’s not like Perry Mason. His uncle doesn’t go crazy and say, “I-I-you got me, you got me, I did it, I did it.” It flops. Neither good news nor bad news. After this flop Hamlet ends up talking with his mother when the drapes move, so he thinks his uncle is back there and he says, “All right, I am so sick of being so damn indecisive,” and he sticks his rapier through the drapery. Well, who falls out? This windbag, Polonius. This Rush Limbaugh. And Shakespeare regards him as a fool and quite disposable.

You know, dumb parents think that the advice that Polonius gave to his kids when they were going away was what parents should always tell their kids, and it’s the dumbest possible advice, and Shakespeare even thought it was hilarious.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” But what else is life but endless lending and borrowing, give and take?

“This above all, to thine own self be true.” Be an egomaniac!

Neither good news nor bad news. Hamlet didn’t get arrested. He’s prince. He can kill anybody he wants. So he goes along, and finally he gets in a duel, and he’s killed. Well, did he go to heaven or did he go to hell? Quite a difference. Cinderella or Kafka’s cockroach? I don’t think Shakespeare believed in a heaven or hell any more than I do. And so we don’t know whether it’s good news or bad news.

I have just demonstrated to you that Shakespeare was as poor a storyteller as any Arapaho.

But there’s a reason we recognizeHamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.

And if I die—God forbid—I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, “Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?”

Mark Twain's Autobiography Hits Shelves After 100 Years ... ?

 So, Mark Twain's autobiography will be published mid-November. The clever chap banned its publishing until 100 years after his death. Genius. Am I excited? Oh, yes.

And yet ... I'm a little bummed. My papa (my favorite grandparent and the smartest person I've ever known) was a Mark Twain know-it-all. A bit of interesting trivia: he was also a very accomplished Mark Twain impersonator. I know - I've got super-cool relatives. So with the publication of the autobiography, I really miss my pop and wish he were here to read it. But I'll read it in his honor and think of him the whole way through.

Is There a "Number One" Writer Today?

I found this article semi-interesting, especially in a day and age where we seem stretched for solidly authentic writers, those who could ascend to the pantheon of literary greats. Who is Number One? I know a lot of us have debated this around the keg water cooler. I tell you this with the utmost conviction - tis Martin Amis!

And I'm glad to see his name mentioned. Because he is seriously brilliant. If you're unsure, just do as I did: Read Money by Amis and then immediately after, read Water for Elephants. You won't even be able to read Water for Elephants. You will read the first paragraph and then set the book on fire and then you'll search the pubs of London for Martin Amis and kiss his satirical feet. Okay, I didn't go to London, but I would kiss his feet if ever they were placed before me.

Now I haven't read every contemporary writer out there - come to think of it, I haven't read many - but I've noticed that literature has evolved into this monster of easy, immediate satisfaction. Contemporary novels are easy to read, easy to access, and easy to forget. They are easily made into movies that easily make a huge profit and are easily forgotten. Nothing of value stays. Contemporary fiction is like a Twitter feed: something meaningless yet slightly entertaining is delivered to the masses and then it disappears with the next twenty bits of meaningless entertainment.

But Martin Amis hails from the class of writers exclusively focused on delivering art. And by art, I mean creations that add value to life. He is of Saul Bellow, of Philip Roth, and of Vladimir Nabokov. He believes in the art of the written word and has dedicated his career to mastering it. Amis's writing doesn't revolve around his plot, but his plot revolves around his writing. And that's what literature should be. I don't want to read the Jodi Pecoults, the Nicholas Sparks, and the Stephenie Meyers. The stories are entertaining, yes. The writing? I need a little more entertainment in that department. They read like high school essays, like user manuals with adjectives piled on top of adjectives. The grammar is correct, the message clear and understandable, but nothing takes a risk. Not one thing is ballsy.

Even the writers a few steps above Stephenie Meyer - Jonathan Franzen, Sara Gruen maybe - they're good writers .... in theory. Sentences are structured well; they're clear and concise. But they don't have balls. I realize that Sara Gruen is a gal, but writing needs to take a risk. You can't follow a formula, you can't be safe and great. Martin Amis never plays it safe. And he gets flack for it. Even his own father (Kingsley Amis, a renowned British author) accused Martin of "breaking the rules, buggering about with the reader, drawing attention to himself." The younger Amis is an exhibitionist, his obscenely large vocabulary on 24-hour display. It can be a bit offensive for those who don't have a great sense of humor. But finish one of his novels, and you'll realize that there wasn't one cliche in the whole book. And if there was - have no fear! - it was written with brazen irony. I love Martin Amis, because he's a scientist. He experiments, he challenges himself and his readers, yet he knows the rules. Amis knows the confines of his discipline and he knows how to navigate them, to disrupt them without destroying them. He shakes things up a bit. Martin Amis is Number One, because he's been a student of great writing his whole life and continues to be even into his literal and metaphorical professorship. He consumes it. He emanates it. He believes in great writing, challenges it, and delivers it.

This is my ode to Martin Amis, my only idol. If you have not read anything of his, I recommend that (some of you) do. He's not for everyone. Here's a checklist:

1. You like a challenging read.
2. You enjoy an ironic, slightly perverse sense of humor.
3. You long to bask in the glory of immaculate writing.

If all of the above apply to you, then go buy a Martin Amis novel from Amazon for God's sake! Okay, not for God's sake, but your own, for mine, for the future of creative writing! Go forth and spring life unto the earth!

So Weird

I was just plotting my next poem - the theme to center around The London Blitz - and what is the first article on New York Times' Books section of their website?

Oh, just a book review about WWII poetry, particularly that of air bombing .... It's a creepy sign. I love those.

UPDATE: If this isn't creepy enough, check out what happened last night (for clarification, last night is the same day I wrote the above, so it's über creepy, okay?):

At the recommendation of the pictured book, I started reading a little TS Eliot (he's a big player in WWII poetry, so I figured, Inspiration, eh?). Then I moseyed around, played with the kid, put him to sleep, then started my "Mad Men" night cap (like I do every night), but something eerily coincidental happens, something out of the ordinary: I get another sign. The character, Kinsey, is lying on his back reciting:

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

You know what that's from? No? "The Hollow Men" by TS Eliot. The end.

Shout Out to Ben Sullivan

I received my alumni magazine the other day. Hoorah! ..... Actually, I was not anticipating anything cool and unusual to be published between its covers. There was a familiar-looking guy on the cover - long hair, plaid shirt, faded jeans - but every guy at Texas State looks like that, so I paid no mind. Then I flipped open the mag ... lo and behold (by the way, why can you never use lo by itself?) the man on the cover was a peer of mine, Ben Sullivan (Sully). Is it weird that I'm writing about him and hardly know him? I don't think so. I just want to take a few minutes out of my day to pay him some respect.

Sully and I took a poetry seminar together my last semester. He is a fantastic poet, and I always thought he would "make it." Some way, some how, he just has a gift. Here's the link to the article: http://www.txstate.edu/rising-stars/ben-sullivan.html.

Here's a run-down:

Sully was assigned a research paper in his class about baseball and American culture, and he chose to write about Lou Gehrig. What was supposed to be a research paper turned into a story about Lou Gehrig's life/battle with ALS. What's unique is that Sully's mother died from the disease when he was eighteen, and he intertwined his firsthand experience with ALS into the biography of Lou Gehrig.

Now, I never knew any of this in our workshop together. All I knew from his poetry was that his mother was sick ... and I couldn't even be sure of that since not all poetry is biographical. The poetry that seems biographical usually is, though. I spoke maybe ten words to him total. But I always admired him. I think it's very cool to see a peer writer get recognized. The workshop environment is just very intimate, and even if you never hang at the bars with your classmates, or whatever it is you do to be best buds, you know them in a way that their family could never. When you write, and not just write, but open yourself for criticism from fellow writers, you really bare everything, you open some of the darkest, most vulnerable corners of your life. You write about things you could never tell the people closest to you. So in a way, I feel very connected to Sully, even though I didn't immediately recognize him on the cover of the magazine.

Anyway, his poems were so well-written that I kept them ... you know, just in case. I feel a sense of pride, really. Read the article, it's very interesting. And I'm including one of his poems without his permission. Hey, at least he gets credit. And I got his back in a court of law. But I want to give him some more publicity because I have mad respect for him and we went through workshop together and I'm totally proud of him as if I were his sister.

Untitled by Ben Sullivan

A mother and two sons make Alabama
with soccer games and Chinese food
sometimes fight with lots of church.

Then sick came into her, to what was
ours, to what we owned, and stayed.
Step father for a mother and two sons.

A lingering drunk with a leather belt
pulled tight, welting fresh skin, taught a
stupid mother with stupid sons blisters,

picked a stick and beat Alabama bloody
and sent a crying mother to freezing Massachusetts
And two stupid sons to scorching Texas

Where they fry their egg rolls in rancid milk
And feed pinches of soccer to the pigeons
While their churches whisper thumbtacks and shoelaces.

Then what was ours was no longer ours but hers
And hers alone. Her and Massachusetts and the sick.
It ate her legs, then arms, then throat, then the rest.

Texas smiles her crooked yellow teeth
And serves warm guacamole as a show of good faith.
Two stupid sons scrub their hands at the kitchen sink.

I'd love to include more - I have three more - but that's pushing it. So I bid you adieu. Congrats, Sully!

*Chuckle Chuckle Chuckle*

See this link for even more chuckles (Better Book Titles): http://betterbooktitles.com/page/1

Ulysses

The Dictionary

The Sun Also Rises

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

I wrote this critique last semester of college. I'm sort of proud of it and so was my professor. Score! So, in keeping with my literary blog, am posting the following:

Critiquing, much less reading Ariel is a chore. It is a dying woman's elegy, a world where critics could never exist or matter. Ariel acts as a lens into Plath's only retreat from unhappiness. Though the poems are filled with a desire for death, they are full of energy and life. it is overwhelming to anybody familiar with Plath's life to experience this vivacity she has for her art.

Beyond the succulence of the personal content included in these poems, their construction is nearly flawless. One of the difficulties critics have had regarding Ariel is the tendency to focus on the content and the effectiveness of Plath's use of her personal life. Because the biographical information is so important to the reading and the legend of Ariel, people have difficulty looking beyond it. But after doing so, the book becomes a true portfolio of poetic genius. Sylvia Plath used the energy of words like nobody else:

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Considering her personal life, the energy in her poems is magnificent. It's as if Plath put all of her vivacity into writing and therefore had none left for her own life. She gathers so much momentum through the use of not only word choice, but line formatting, which are especially apparent in "Paralytic":

My God the iron lung

That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not

Let me relapse
While the day outside glides by ticker tape

After reading this, I feel suffocated and anguished, which was no doubt intended. The real pinnacle in this passage is the last line. The length reflects the world around her; it "glides."

Two of Plath's most effective tools are unarguably rhyme and repetition. These both have become a little passe in recent years - about the past two hundred - but the best poems use rhyme and repetition provocatively. The rhyme isn't cliche; it's ironic and unsettling. See this excerpt from "Daddy":

There's a stake in your fat, black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

The end rhyme is of the nursery order, and the contrast between the rhyme and the content is almost too much to handle. It is wonderfully appealing, the idea of schoolyard songs about "Daddy," the "bastard." And "you" is repeated in three consecutive lines. One of the most important rules for rhyming is not to repeat words, be innovative. but Plath is obstinate, and she knows how to break the rules with ease. She doesn't just call "Daddy" "you bastard;" he is "you," "you," "you," "you" "bastard." The repetition is mischievous; it reveals a sardonic anger, not self-loathing. It speeds up the poem, invigorates it. Plath's voice is always victorious, which gives Ariel a mammoth serving of irony. Plath saw victory in death, in suicide. It's a completely unfathomable thought, but she uses it to the greatest, most perturbing effect and catapults her work to a monument of poetic fierceness.

Plath also energizes her collection by flipping the mood like a light switch. Most poets have a difficult time changing moods and themes from one poem to the next in a collection of novel-size. Plath not only changes from poem to poem, but even stanza to stanza, even line to line. Ariel is so fun to read because it is manic:

How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

She wants to let the bees out, but they appall her, they fascinate her. "The Arrival of the Bee Box" is a whirlwind of temptation. The whole of Ariel tends to mirror this poem, and it garners as many feelings from us as the bee box does from Plath.

Ariel does contain a lot of sad content, but Plath contrasts it with overpowering energy throughout. She even lends her vigor to a few elated poems like "Letter in November," so there is plenty of variety within the book. Ariel stands as such a great piece, because the poems are not mundane. With the book filled with musings on death, it could have easily been uninteresting, but instead it serves as a shocking and completely memorable collection of one of the greatest poet's last works.

Wedding Bed(s)?

Ohmigod, what is it with me and blogging?My last post was on May 21. Nice. I never was very committed to anything.

Anyhoo, this post shan't be about books. Go ahead. Wipe the sweat from your brow. Although. I did finish 2666 by Roberto Bolano ... Okay. You caught me. I got through half of 2666 by Roberto Bolano. And I will not recommend it to you, even though I'm a big fan of cruel and unusual punishment. I am not, however, a fan of self-mutilation, and that's what you would do if you read that novel. Moving on. I saw a very cool article in the New York Times today. And by very cool, I mean something that brings me closer and closer to normalcy. Check it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/fashion/25FamilyMatters.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&ref=style&adxnnlx=1280862077-ch3zhEP8/QB8PsiCBVzAlw

For those of you who don't have the energy to click and read - even though I'm sure all of you are very proactive people - here's a run-down: it is common, so "they" say, for married couples to have separate beds - Nay! - separate bedrooms. This proves that I am not a cold-hearted, unromantic shrew.

In my fantasy marriage - which I daydream about all the time, let me tell you - I will have my own room. And apparently, this is fairly common. Do you think this is weird? I don't. I hated sharing a bedroom with my sister, so why would I love sharing a bedroom with my fantasy husband? I know, I know. I will undoubtedly paste myself to his glittering pecs of steel, but I still don't want to share a room. We can rendezvous from time to time - maybe hour to hour in our twenties, day to day in our thirties, even year to year in our sixties. I'm all for some lovin'. Having separate rooms will bring that extra zest - not that my fantasy marriage would ever need zest - to our lives. We can pretend we aren't even married: "My place or yours?" Isn't that cool? I think it most definitely is.

And I can stay up late and watch The Notebook whenever I want (I know your intruder-alert signal is buzzing but most girls like doing this so I figured I'd use it as an example, ahem), he can stay up late and watch Sports Center whenever he wants (really enjoying that solo room right now), I can talk in my sleep to Johnny Depp without his ego shriveling up, he can snore as loud as his nose pleases, and I can sleep at a cool (and room temperature) seventy-five degrees Farenheit since his big, fat - and highly flammable - log of an arm isn't hurled over me at an incredibly uncomfortable ninety-six degrees. Pshew.

So, my fantasy house for my fantasy family will have two master bedrooms.

On a separate and much more somber note, my friend Bailey is moving to ... Pennsylvania? What's a girl to do? Read, I guess. Until next time - which, hopefully won't be too long from now - see ya later.

Run-Down on the Past Couple Books I've Read:

I need to get my ass back in gear. You took it outta me, JD. I think I've recovered my affection for literary review, but not completely (hence the title). I don't have the fortitude (or one of the books, for that matter) to quote, thus rendering my critique a "reader response." Plus, these past two were non-fiction - Ewwww. It squishes when I touch it.

First up: Blink by Malcom Gladwell. Mr. Gladwell argues the merits of split-second decision-making. I should have done more than flinch at Malcolm's best-seller status - this never fails to be a red flag. But I felt an after-flinch about three paragraphs in and an estimated five I thinks. Really, it's a novel on science; you don't think, you research. Somebody wasn't listening in freshman psychology. Tsk tsk. But Malcolm does research, and praise be to Jesus for that. Everything but his commentary is bearable, and on occasion, interesting. Unfortunately, the way to connect studies is through authorial guidance. Although Gladwell is an eager captain, we readers lack direction. As an aside, I apologize - the lack of quotation makes my argument more of a disgruntled opinion. To hell with it. It's my blog; I've already proliferated my opinion throughout. Blink reads like a college research paper, which surprises me. I thought a journalist of New Yorker caliber would have this point-proving thing down. But Gladwell lacks assertion, ever the necessity when asserting. He lacks organization, necessary when presenting ideas. And it's clear that the book is too ambitious for its size. His argument requires more comprehensive support, and I end Blink thinking: "That's a nice idea."

Second up: Songs My Mother Taught Me by Marlon Brando. I'm not going to review this book, because, well, it's an autobiography. My interest in Brando extends from his work in film (inspiring). How is one so familiar with the motivations of other people? My question is never really answered, though Brando asks this himself frequently. But I am certain after all 468 pages that Marlon devoted his life to mastering human impulse. The book is indulgent and pretentious, as autobiographies are. But Brando's charade is a mocking spit in the face, not a product of affectation. My theory is that he's so ashamed of his willingness to do most anything for money (Example A: Publishing his autobiography) that he sells out to the nth degree. "Fine, if you want an autobiography, I'll give you an autobiography" (not a direct quote). Brando was a master manipulator. If he didn't agree with a director, Marlon delivered such a horrible performance that the director would finally relent. Every word is so affected that the autobiography defeats its own purpose. We can no longer consider it an autobiography, because hardly any of it is believable. Brando proves to be stubborn and manipulative, but only because he has to be. These are his defense. Although I take most of Songs with a grain of salt (forgive the cliche), I feel more acquainted with Brando at its close.

Analysis: Nine Stories by JD Salinger

For those like me who couldn't find any insightful analyses about this collection on the Internet: You're welcome. I have finally figured out what this is about (I think).

So the fancy book club met a couple weeks ago to discuss Nine Stories by JD Salinger. Much despair was had because of our varied and confused insights into Salinger's stories. Was Seymour a pedophile? What's up with the random last line in "Just Before the War with the Eskimos?" How should we interpret Nine Stories? And although I haven't answered most of these questions, I can at least answer the last. So for those of who don't know how to absorb the collection, here's a little solace:

All of these short stories are about the loss of innocence and the attempt to gain it back. The characters are stuck between innocence and adulthood. And, interestingly, nearly all of the stories feature an interaction between a child and an adult, the child generally being an ideal or a tool for the adult to regain innocence - but not always. In some, even the child is struggling with the loss of ideals.

Seymour Glass is the main character in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," and he's recently returned from the war with mental wounds serious enough to require psychiatric help. The first half of the story shows a telephone conversation between his new wife, Muriel, and her mother. Their discussion revolves around Seymour's problems, and - when compared to our firsthand experience with those problems - we realize how little they grasp and how little either of them has invested in his well-being. In the second part of "Bananafish" Seymour speaks with a young girl named Sybil about catching (mythical) bananafish - a fish whose quest for food leads to its a demise. The encounter is a bit disturbing - sexual language abound - and we get a feel for Seymour's anguish, although specifics are murky. Salinger uses every word to his advantage - in a very subtle way - and, needless to say, the encounter is quite unsettling. We have that distress confirmed when, at the end of the story, Seymour retires to the hotel room - where his wife is sleeping - sits next to her, and shoots himself.

The significance of the bananafish is, of course, Seymour's alignment with it. The fish's quest for food translates to Seymour's quest for innocence. His quest, like the fish's, ends in death. Sybil represents Seymour's ultimate goal, which is why their interaction is so unnerving. It seems, on the outside, like he's preying on her (like the bananafish does its food), but he's actually after what she represents: innocence. He gets his fill and bloats so that he can't fit back into a world where people like his wife and mother-in-law rule. They are Sybil's antithesis, and Seymour is caught between the two different existences. It's in this limbo where Seymour - and many of Salinger's protagonists in Nine Stories - perish.

Eloise and Mary Jane are former college roommates who reconnect in "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (my personal fave). Mary Jane visits Eloise at her house, and thus ensues a night of drunken revelations. Immediately, Eloise appears unhappy to the point of severity, and Mary Jane takes a back seat to Eloise's readily apparent issues. We learn that Eloise lost the love of her life in the war (a common villain in Nine Stories) and has resigned herself to a lackluster, unwanted marriage. She's so unsatisfied with her life and her past that she takes it out on everyone, especially her daughter Ramona who has an imaginary friend - symbolic of dreamy innocence and also indicative of a void she's trying to fill (the lack of compassion from her mother). In one poignant scene in "Uncle Wiggily," Eloise berates Ramona with incredible rage. In the end - after a LOT of alcohol - Eloise admits her weakness: transposing her anger onto others. She resents the loss of her first love, resents her loss of innocence, and resents the people who still have it. It's really an agonizing story about lost hope, the recognition of no longer having hope, and the desperation to - if nothing else - remember what it's like to have hope. She's trapped in a sort of external realm, watching herself, aware of her circumstance, and yet not being capable of moving forward.

"Just Before the War with the Eskimos" is about a frugal young girl, Ginnie, who comes into her friend, Selena's home to collect a cab fare and encounters her brother, Franklin, a grubby Holden Caulfield-type of character. "Eskimos" really eludes any obvious meaning, but it's in there ... somewhere. Okay, here goes .... the larger theme is war. It's the backbone of most of Nine Stories. Franklin was not drafted, because he has a bad heart, and he and Ginnie talk about this briefly, but long enough for Ginnie to connect it with what they are subconsciously discussing: rejection. From the get-go - with her demanding to be reimbursed for the cab fare - Ginnie appears to be a girl who takes things for granted; she gets everything she wants. Ginnie's not deliberately mean, but she doesn't accept things as they are, but rather demands that they be how she wants them and easily dismisses things/people she doesn't care for. She wants to throw the furniture in Selena's home out the window, for example. Then, in walks Franklin, who is boldly himself. Their conversation begins with his rejection from the draft, then moves to his rejection by Ginnie's sister, then Ginnie's rejection of the sandwich he offers her. Ginnie is connecting with a person who has been rejected his whole life by people like her and the types of institutions that she represents. Unconsciously, Ginnie links her behavior with the behavior of war, and in the end, decides to keep the sandwich - a growth in character. The sandwich is sort of symbolic of the rejection Franklin has experienced in the past(his loss of innocence), and it parallels the dead Easter chick (death=death of innocence/hope) in the last line. I may be stretching it, but the story is so tightly wound that it's hard to unravel. Ginnie is undoubtedly changed for the better because of her interaction with Franklin. Her taking the sandwich may have given him hope for future acceptance, and he gave Ginnie forgiveness and a little child-like compassion. Eh?

"The Laughing Man" - Yeesh. This story is a mind-squeeze if I ever saw one, but I think I've got it figured out. The premise is that a college-aged guy takes a bunch of young boys on little "field trips" - to the baseball diamond, for example (What are his motives? Where are these boys' parents and how do they feel? I don't know, but alas ...) During these outings, The Chief - as he's called - narrates a fable about The Laughing Man, a sort of creepy-roguish-Robin Hood character with a deformed face, a sense of adventure, and an Inspector Clouseau type-of-character after him. "The Laughing Man" may or may not be narrated by Buddy Glass, a member of Salinger's Glass family. The boys-only routine comes to a halt when The Chief's girlfriend, Mary Hudson, starts tagging along, presumably because of dentists' appointments she has in the city. With the entrance of Mary, the Laughing Man's fate takes a turn for the worse. The narrator notices frustration between Mary and The Chief, and in the end, the Laughing Man meets his maker and the boys never see Mary Hudson again.

"The Laughing Man" is primarily a story about lost innocence. The Chief, a college student, spends his afternoons with relatively young boys - questionable, but without a doubt, an attempt to sustain his youth. Immediately, with the entrance of Mary Hudson, the narrator senses stress between her and the Chief. The Laughing Man symbolizes boyhood and innocence, and when Mary Hudson arrives, the Laughing Man's fate becomes less certain. Thanks to Wikipedia, a plausible explanation would be that Mary Hudson is pregnant and is actually coming into the city for doctor's visits, not dentist appointments. (Who has frequent dentist appointments?) This is most likely the case, but it's irrelevant. The moral of the story - and what the Chief is teaching the boys through the Laughing Man's story - is that boyhood ends. Innocence ends. Kind of depressing, but there it is, consistent with the rest of Nine Stories.

"Down at the Dinghy" opens with two house servants discussing Lionel, the son of Boo Boo Glass (their employer). (Another Glass appearance - woohoo!) We gather from their conversation that Lionel has a penchant for running away. One of them is also concerned that Lionel will repeat something she said (apparently, he has a penchant for that as well).Thus, after Boo Boo arrives at the house, speaks with the women for a moment, and goes down to the pier to see Lionel, he's trying to sail away. Where the Wild Things Are? anyone? The rest of the story is devoted to Boo Boo's attempt to entice Lionel back to shore, as it were. She tries to go with him, tries to find out why he's leaving (one of the house servants called his dad a kike), and then finally challenges him to a race back to the house. (Lionel wins.)

"Down at the Dinghy" is so understated that it seems like a "day-in-the-life." But Salinger isn't a "day-in-the-life" kinda guy. Soooooooooo .... I'm gonna squeeze this baby open. Two instances in this story are noticeably darker than the rest: the housekeeper calling Lionel's father a kike and Lionel wearing Seymour's goggles. (Seymour was Boo Boo's brother). Now, Lionel's problem isn't as shallow as "a boy with a penchant for running away." These two instances are more significant than the anatomy of "Down at the Dinghy" would lead you to believe. This young boy has recently (I'm assuming) lost his uncle, and additionally, he believes that other people think poorly of his father. It's a double-blow, and Lionel reacts by running away. What seems like a story about a kid just being a kid, read from this perspective, transforms into a story about a person grappling with the loss of ideals. Lionel is realizing that the world is not as it seems; there's more going on. I believe he feels blindsided. Lionel throwing Seymour's goggles into the water is so significant, because he's disposing of distractions from the truth. Finally, Boo Boo coaxes him back into being a kid, distracts him from his disillusionment. So there is Lionel, another of Salinger's characters who is straddling the line between innocence and adulthood.

"For Esmé - with Love and Squalor" is one of Salinger's more obvious stories. During the war, Sergeant X recollects his brief but impressionable meeting with Esmé, a young girl in a restaurant before the war. "Esmé" is totally simple, thus it doesn't need to be dissected; I don't even need to give you a rundown of their interaction. Basically, Esmé represents innocence for Sergeant X during the war, a time of "squalor" and adult concerns. Innocence and squalor both constitute the sergeant's existence.

"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" relates a phone call between Lee and Arthur. Arthur believes his wife, Joanie, is having an affair, while we're led to believe that the woman with Lee is in fact Joanie. Arthur's life appears to be in shambles (lost a court case, wife cheating on him, etc.), but soon after the two men hang up, Arthur calls Lee back and makes up a story about Joanie coming back home even though she's still with Lee. Arthur is, for all intents and purposes, a man who prides himself on having a trophy job and a trophy wife, two naive ideals. When those ideals are torn down - in a sheer act of childish pride - Arthur pretends they still exist. This would generally go unnoticed, but is readily apparent to Lee and Joanie, hence why Salinger chose to tell the story through their points of view.

"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" is about a pretentious young man (De Daumier) who fakes his way into a professorship at an art school. Once there, he reviews his pupils' work and struck by a religious painting by a nun. That's basically it. De Daumier-Smith is a wayfarer, devoid of spirituality and ideals, extremely pretentious and this piece of art forces him to question his convictions. "Blue Period" is about a man who pretends to be a complex "adult" but is stripped of his pretensions through an artist who evokes spirituality and idealism.

"Teddy" is a boy genius/profit who has an existential conversation aboard a ship with Nicholson, a curious grad student. Teddy believes in past lives and karma, and - from what I know about Salinger - represents his spirituality du jour. Salinger, in every one of his Nine Stories, is painting innocence the protagonist and adulthood the villain but is concerned with those characters torn between the two. "Teddy" rounds out the collection nicely, because its main character lives and dies by his ideals. Teddy is the martyr of Nine Stories and he's meant to be the example for its characters, readers, and even its author.

(Dude, this seriously took me like a week *tongue rolls out and eyes turn into little X's*

Middle O' the Week Musical Happenings

Concerts in the middle of the week? I usually say no. I do. But when such a rare occasion as both Muse AND Black Rebel Motorcycle Club coming to town occurs, I say yes. YES YES YES.

So here's the dizzle: I bought tickets to Muse for mis amigas' Xmas presents - I know, good friend, huh? - which took place on Wednesday night. Silver Sun Pickups opened. We jetted over to Ft. Worth after some minor traffic scares, settled into the hotel, walked over for some burgers and beer, then back to the hotel to get ready. Thank God for Deandra, because she booked us this hotel that was within walking distance to EVERYTHING - well, everything we wanted to frequent. Right next to the concert and a couple blocks away from bars. Woohoo!

The concert was pretty cool. Silver Sun Pickups were good, but I'm not a huge fan of theirs. I know a lot of people are. They put on a good show, but I have an inkling they're better-suited for smaller venues. They just don't put on a wow show, and you gots to if you're playing for thousands. Muse puts on a wow show. Insane. See below for ridiculous tower projectors/platforms, nuts-o light show, and just overall badassness. We had fun. Then went out - St. Patty's day, keep in mind. Yeah, so beaut-ee-ful night with my girls. Glad they could come.

Night Two: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Kickass, I say, kickass! They are a new favorite of mine. And I was super excited to see them, because I'm just now getting into them. So my style. Anyway, my friends could not come. Not a one of 'em. Busy busy busy. So, I invited people from work. Busy. Invited people on Facebook. No such luck. Finally I had to beg my sister to go with me, and she obliged - she always does. Then her boyfriend came with us. Now, my sister and her bf are NOT rock n rollers. They like country, folk, singer-songwriters. But they still came. What sweetie pies! I've got to say, even though I didn't have my spectacular friends who would have enjoyed the show there, I still think that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is in my top three favorite concerts. They did their thing. And I liked it. Can't wait to see them again. Hopefully next time, I can bring my lovely friends who would totally get a kick out of these guys (and gal, sometimes). Here is another video for your viewing pleasure:

Oh my, they're cool :) Live long and prosper, boys (and gal, sometimes).

Had a blast this week!

Sean McConnell

March 3 - Went to one of the best shows ever with my sis and her friend .... You guessed it, Sean McConnell. And I bet you've never heard of this guy. You shouldn't have.

One azure day, Kylie (my sister), was listening to the Ranch out of Ft. Worth and heard one of this guy's songs, fell in love, and the rest is history ... Not really ... I'm actually going to tell you the rest of the story. So she looks up some vids, songs, info, the whole she-bang, shares it with me, and we plan to attend this small show at Hat Trick's in Lewisville together.

Good God, this guy is phe-nom-en-al. Sound it out. He can sing circles around anybody. He can play guitar. He's an outstanding lyricist. And his band kicks ass. Those three guys sound huge. It was just an outstanding performance. I can't really give you a good idea of Sean McConnell in writing, so here's a video. Keep in mind, the live experience is a force to be reckoned with.

Critique: Money by Martin Amis (Spoilers)

This book! This book! How fantastic is this book? (Rhetorical question). Awesome! Martin Amis, you are a God. To prove this: Martin Amis puts himself in a book written in somebody else's point of view. And it isn't stupid.

So this is Money: John Self, moviemaker, is living in straight-up debauchery. I'm talking porno, sadomasochistic sex, greed, lots and lots of drink, and as the narrator clarifies, "Unless I specifically inform you otherwise, I'm always smoking another cigarette." But all these things at this particular moment are converging, and John Self is destined for a wake-up call.

There's not much of a plot, save for John trying to make a movie whilst dealing with all the psychos in his circle. He deals with a skeezy girlfriend, a skeezy financier, a skeezy father, skeezy colleagues, and his skeezy self. That being said, he don't need no stinkin' plot. Amis is the thinking man's writer. He delivers ambitious, extravagant prose. You will be doing double-takes through the whole book. You will never catch a break, because he deprives us of our ease of reading. If you don't like or appreciate that sort of writing, don't pick this book up.

I put writing above plot. If you can construct an intriguing sentence, I'll forget about a so-so plot. But let me tell you, mister, I cannot forgive dull, sloppy writing just because you got a great story. Here's the deal with Amis and plot: his writing is so complex, requires so much reader involvement, that it would be too much to have both. Nothing should take away from his talent, which is a clever sentence. I feel as if an intricate, "moving" plot would seem superfluous next to his on-the-fly wit.

Amis has been criticized for depicting the gratuitous and obscene ALL THE TIME. He's the "Bad Boy of British Fiction." But, Christ, he does it so brilliantly. I was reading and thinking, "God, this is such boy fantasy," but I cannot for the life of me find anything remotely cliche about Money. In theory, it should be typical, but it's everything except.

Also, I love the narration in Money. It's in first person (from the point of view of John Self), who talks to us like he would his therapist. Again, in theory, talking to your readers would be totally lame, but Amis turns it into a strength. I will say that, because of the POV, Amis's wit gets the better of him. I love love love it - as stated above - but I don't necessarily believe the wit coming from John Self.

Anyway, this review is all over the place. I told you it would require more thought, and I just don't have it in me. But I want to put down something about this book. It's one of the best I've ever read for sure. Go out and get it - highly recommended. I feel like I can't do it justice; this review sounds like a bunch of gibberish, but just take my word for it. You won't be sorry.

Ideal Banking

Am I more satisfied with a bank when all runs smoothly online? You bet your penny-saving pants I am. Let's face it - I haven't seen the inside of a bank in eight months .... and I'm likin' it. I can deposit and withdraw through an ATM, transfer and check my balance online, all of which constitute most of my banking activity, and thank God for direct deposit. I don't like waiting behind the eighty-year-old who takes five decades just to fill out a deposit slip (What's up with the slow pace, old timer? You don't have all the time in the world. Get to steppin'); I'm tired of the banker asking me how I want my cash (Straight up. Whatever. I'm not selling crack); and I'm tired of that cheeky little teller calling me by name like we've been buds for the past three years.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just anti-social. But I have no illusions about my relationship with the bank. They're nice to your face, then they screw you out of money behind your back. And there's no avoiding it. I'm not about to hide my stash in the backyard. This is 2010, people.

I like where I stand with the bank right now. We have a mutual disregard for each other, and a mutual recognition that we need each other. The less I interact with them, the easier it is to forget how much money they're costing me. I know, I know, I should be spewing, "Screw the bank! It's my money!" But at the end of the day, I still have my dough in their safe, and it honestly doesn't bother me (Shhh!). What does bother me is that cheeky little teller thinking I want customer service. No! I just want my money. You are a piggy bank. Nothing else. I want you to be as invisible as a piggy-bank. House my money and I'll come dump it out of you when I please. I don't need your stupid Dum-dums. They might shut my kid up for five minutes, but I know it's all a conspiracy. Damn you and your candy, your popcorn, your annoying white smiles, and your manager who comes from behind his marble desk to ask if I need anything (another account, perhaps?) No! I just want my money! .... On second thought, can you find some solution to my dilemma? I want to be as unaware of your existence as possible. How do we accomplish that?

Pssst! .... online banking.

Critique: Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

So, my bestie and I decided to form a book group. I know, cool, right? You can join, too, if you should so choose. Just hit me up and we'll get to crackin'. Anyhoo, the first official read was Money by Martin Amis, but I'll get to that in my next post. Delicious, by the way, but will require a little more critical thought on my part. Thus, I have decided to critique our second book, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I've had immediate reactions to this puppy.

So, Sara, dawg (Sorry, I've been watching too much Idol), it was okay for me. I've got a few small-ish pieces of advice for you -

Number One: DON'T USE PRESENT TENSE! It does not make you cool and hip and different. I know, I know, it seems like a good idea at first, but all you're doing is hindering your talent and creativity. This is the deal: a great story is told in retrospect. It's more believable. There are some creative back roads to present tense, but I did not see them. In reality, the present is hard to follow; everything is whimsical. Most authors use past tense, because that's how we tell stories to other people, and because in the present, we can't delete uninteresting details. For example, one minute, I find out my mother dies, then the next minute I have to pee. You can't put the latter piece of information into your book, so you're forced to splice up the interesting stuff into "flashes." Do you catch my "hindering your talent and creativity drift?" There's so much you can't do, because you're writing in present tense.

I know Jacob is an old man having "dreams" about his past - thus present tense is sort of necessary - but this is my solution:

Number Two: Don't have Old Jacob "dreaming" about his past. The flashback is cliche. It doesn't happen like that in real life, and it's just plain typical. I would prefer Old Jacob telling the nurse or the new-age circus guy about his heyday, a much less annoying cliche. If you want my honestly honest opinion, though, I would axe Old Jacob. I found myself bummed when I'd hit a nursing home chapter. I hate to say it, because I think Old Jacob is light years more interesting than Young Jacob, but Old Jacob doesn't strengthen the story, which brings me to....

Number Three: Your protagonist are B-O-R-I-N-G. Does this guy do anything naughty without feeling guilty? He is a geeber, for real. The worst part of the book: when Marlena and Jacob have sex. She's basically raping him. Marlena is supposed to be this sweet girl, and you have her doing everything. No way in hell am I leaving my paranoid schizophrenic (and much more experienced, might I add) husband to have sex with a virgin (pretty much). I think in reality, Jacob is a queen. No, but really, I think you being a woman and all, ain't helpin' your character's case. And so ....

Number Four: Female writers, do not take on male protagonists ... in first person. Even if you had chopped your name down to initials (ahem, JK Rowling), I would still be perplexed by Jacob. He has all the traits of a woman, except for morning wood. I like how you added that, by the way, just in case I forgot he was a he, proving my point even further. Hardly any male author would insert that into their novel. It's intriguing, yes, to speak for a boy, but it doesn't work. It is impossible for a woman to write like a man. Period. I don't wanna catch you doing that again, sister.

Number Five: Your Depression-era language is a little pushed, slightly off. (The adjectives are killin' me, smalls.) I'll leave it at that. And, I actually think your language dilemma has mostly to do with the whole male-female crux.


Strongpoints: You paint a pretty picture. You think about details. I can visualize everything. I love the environment you threw your characters into. I'm excited about the movie?

Nonetheless, I give you two stars for cognizant yet boring writing.

Signing off

Brideshead Revisited Review (Spoilers)

I was unable to enjoy this novel. Whether reading The Fountainhead previously had anything to do with my apathy, I can't say. I have an inkling that I wouldn't have liked it regardless. (If you're wondering, I gave up on The Blind Assassin long ago. Maybe I'll pick it back up one of these days.)

Brideshead Revisited is sort of your typical aristocratic - circa 1930's-social drama: The characters are just plain disenchanting. Charles Ryder, the protagonist, narrates his 20 year-attachment to the Flyte family, who inhabit Brideshead, beginning with Sebastian, his Oxford schoolmate.

Sebastian, a weeny-ish rich boy, introduces Charles to his family after much unwillingness. The boys' relationship is hard to define: it's verging on romantic, but supposedly they have a platonic friendship. Even a prostitute accuses them of being "fairies." They're both a little too friends-for-no-good-reason, if you ask me, but I suppose there are plenty of rich kids who have zero meaningful relationships. So, alas! When Sebastian spirals into alcoholic turmoil, who is Charles there for? Nope. Not his self-proclaimed best friend. (Granted, alcoholics are a pain in the ass to deal with). Instead of helping his friend, Charles just gets chummy with his family, who don't do anything to stop the self-destruction. They opt for the easy way out: sending him booze money every month and hoping he snaps out of it. By the second half of the book, Sebastian is basically an apparition.

After Sebastian disappears, Charles parts with the family for a brief time but picks back up with Julia, Sebastian's sister. Go figure. Apparently he hadn't found her attractive before but suddenly does ten years later. They are both conveniently on the same trans-atlantic cruise and, because nobody else more intriguing is on-board, they decide they love each other. Supposedly their relationship is really meaningful like Charles and Sebastian's WAS (is that possible?), so accordingly they cheat on their respective spouses for each other and end their relationship as easily and randomly as it began. Dang those religious differences. I mean, they've only known each other twenty years by the end of the book. You'd think they would have figured out each other's beliefs by then.

Basically, Charles is spewing about how strongly he feels about the Flyte family, while he fails to give us a legitimate reason why. The whole meat of the book is unsubstantial, making it impossible for me, and others most likely, to appreciate.