Amber Sparks and I recently arm wrestled Samuel Beckett to what I consider an even draw as part of Necessary Fiction's ongoing "first footing" writer-in-residence project. Much thanks to the mighty, mighty Steve Himmer for letting the Dream Team participate in yet another cool project.
Speaking of Steve Himmer: you can now pre-order his novel The Bee-Loud Glade and I promise you the book is well worth your time and money. In fact, I dare say once you figure in $ and the time spent ordering that The Bee-Loud Glade safely chimes in at quite a bargain.
More to follow.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Recent Reading goodness
A few books I've read this year:
1) Fur, Fortune, and Empire by Eric Jay Donlan was a fair overview of the fur trade and, more importantly, the habits of various mammals slaughtered the last few hundred years in North America.
2) American Green by Ted Steinberg was a very enjoyable read. It is one of those non-fiction books where the topic (in this case the perfect lawn) becomes a sort of metaphor for America and, in this case, a criticism of American indulgence (among other famously American traits).
3) Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom is the only novel I've finished this year and the best novel I've read in some time, although I'm sure much of the satire is lost on me. Yet any reader from any culture or country will understand the anxieties, the fears, the horrors of this novel as witnessed by its insane narrator: The baby was still lying on his stomach. I put him to sleep, even though I still didn't know where I was going to cut. I tried desperately to suppress this drive of mine to mess with the child, I tried pacifying it with a simple enema, but to no avail.
What Dolly City has going for it other than the invention and horror and humor shown on every page is that the madness of the narrator is given little perspective. What I mean is, the text then becomes an insanity, a surreal series of bloody "operations" performed with no more thought or preparation than opening a pack of gum, and the relationship between events are given with a crazed person's logic. Late in the book there is an amount of distancing that allows the reader to understand what it needs to understand, but for most of the book this is not a book illustrating the madness of a mother, but is the madness of a mother. The politics of the book aside, I found it the truest story of the mother/son relationship I'd ever read.
Also, as I mentioned a few weeks back, I am now a book reviewer at Red Fez. My first review, of Andrew Borgstrom's rather excellent Explanations, is now up for consumption.
I should note, now, how glad I was that my first book as a reviewer was a book that, from the first page, was, as you'd expect from a writer of Borgstrom's caliber, a very strong bit of prose. I encourage everyone to check out Explanations (and, of course, check out the reviews, comics, poetry and other doings at Red Fez).
1) Fur, Fortune, and Empire by Eric Jay Donlan was a fair overview of the fur trade and, more importantly, the habits of various mammals slaughtered the last few hundred years in North America.
2) American Green by Ted Steinberg was a very enjoyable read. It is one of those non-fiction books where the topic (in this case the perfect lawn) becomes a sort of metaphor for America and, in this case, a criticism of American indulgence (among other famously American traits).
3) Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom is the only novel I've finished this year and the best novel I've read in some time, although I'm sure much of the satire is lost on me. Yet any reader from any culture or country will understand the anxieties, the fears, the horrors of this novel as witnessed by its insane narrator: The baby was still lying on his stomach. I put him to sleep, even though I still didn't know where I was going to cut. I tried desperately to suppress this drive of mine to mess with the child, I tried pacifying it with a simple enema, but to no avail.
What Dolly City has going for it other than the invention and horror and humor shown on every page is that the madness of the narrator is given little perspective. What I mean is, the text then becomes an insanity, a surreal series of bloody "operations" performed with no more thought or preparation than opening a pack of gum, and the relationship between events are given with a crazed person's logic. Late in the book there is an amount of distancing that allows the reader to understand what it needs to understand, but for most of the book this is not a book illustrating the madness of a mother, but is the madness of a mother. The politics of the book aside, I found it the truest story of the mother/son relationship I'd ever read.
Also, as I mentioned a few weeks back, I am now a book reviewer at Red Fez. My first review, of Andrew Borgstrom's rather excellent Explanations, is now up for consumption.
I should note, now, how glad I was that my first book as a reviewer was a book that, from the first page, was, as you'd expect from a writer of Borgstrom's caliber, a very strong bit of prose. I encourage everyone to check out Explanations (and, of course, check out the reviews, comics, poetry and other doings at Red Fez).
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Throne of Blood
Last night we watched Akira Kurosawa's Macbeth remake, Throne of Blood, for the first time in a half dozen years. I always enjoy much about this film: the Noh music, the acting (especially during moments of frenzy and guilt), the sparseness and Buddhist sensibilities, the various ghosts and spirits. What I like most, though, is how Kurosawa manipulates (some may say "destroys") Shakespeare's text into something visually compelling (therefore appropriate to film) and completely unShakespearean. Most notably: the final scene when our "Macbeth" is shot through with arrows by his own army. It is a disturbing and horrific conclusion and one that is very satisfying. This conclusion has nothing to do with Shakespeare but it has everything to do with the movie we have been watching.
Too often filmmakers stand beside Shakespeare and say "You see what a good writer he was".
Here, Kurosawa doesn't sacrifice himself as an artist before the alter of Shakespeare any more than Shakespeare sacrificed himself before the alter of Macbeth.
For me, Throne of Blood and the other Kurosawa adaptations of Shakespeare do exactly what a film adaptation of a literary work should do. There is little more dull or offensive to me than the bland Hollywood adaptations of "serious literary" works by "literary writers" like E.M. Forester. These movies "faithfully adapt" a text into something quickly and easily digested by a viewing audience, very often with completely faithful accents, attire, and setting. You are not watching a movie, but a representation of a book you do not have the time or the inclination to read. You are watching a 50 million dollar translation of a work that, to me anyhow, does as much of a disservice to literature as recent editions of Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick do, essentially reducing literature into something safe and dull and convenient.
These versions essentially say: We know you are bored with reading, but you are cultured and interesting people, people who like interesting and cultured and dare we say literate movies. Movies about adults. Or, at least, movies about characters with ideas and conflicts. Here is a work that is highly literary indeed based upon a, dare we say, literary work.
This is why I'm all for Baz Luhrmann's remake of the Great Gatsby although I don't believe it will make for a good film. At the least, though, it will be its own thing, which is all I really ask for. I only ask for a film to stand up as a work of film, not as a visual and easily, blandly, digestable version of a book.
The choice of Gatsby itself, of course, is something safe and dull and obvious, like an Oprah book club selection of Tolstoy or Faulkner (or the choice of Shakespeare, of course, in a way), but the idea of Gatsby transformed into something other than Gatsby, into something large and bombastic with show-tunes and dance numbers and 1990s MTV editing and 3-D is something, at the least, beyond the Hollywood conception of a literary adaptation. Which sounds good to me (even if the movie sounds dreadful to me because I hate show tunes and dance numbers and 3-D).
This idea of film is one inspired by a literary work, not an adaptation that doesn't treat literature like 90 year old woman walking across a block of ice. It is an adaptation more in the spirit of Orson Welles remaking The Trial than it is in the spirit of the dull and lifeless 1970s Robert Redford take on Gatsby, a version that has effectively served as a Sparknotes stand in for several generations of high school students.
Honestly, I'm surprised this movie is being made, but to my mind if a book is being made into a film it is either: A) a book that a producer has heard of therefore a very "famous" book B) a big seller. So, with this in mind I propose two other filmmaker/"classics" pairings.
1) Wes Anderson remaking Moby Dick.
2) David Lynch remaking In Search of Lost Time.
Others?
Too often filmmakers stand beside Shakespeare and say "You see what a good writer he was".
Here, Kurosawa doesn't sacrifice himself as an artist before the alter of Shakespeare any more than Shakespeare sacrificed himself before the alter of Macbeth.
For me, Throne of Blood and the other Kurosawa adaptations of Shakespeare do exactly what a film adaptation of a literary work should do. There is little more dull or offensive to me than the bland Hollywood adaptations of "serious literary" works by "literary writers" like E.M. Forester. These movies "faithfully adapt" a text into something quickly and easily digested by a viewing audience, very often with completely faithful accents, attire, and setting. You are not watching a movie, but a representation of a book you do not have the time or the inclination to read. You are watching a 50 million dollar translation of a work that, to me anyhow, does as much of a disservice to literature as recent editions of Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick do, essentially reducing literature into something safe and dull and convenient.
These versions essentially say: We know you are bored with reading, but you are cultured and interesting people, people who like interesting and cultured and dare we say literate movies. Movies about adults. Or, at least, movies about characters with ideas and conflicts. Here is a work that is highly literary indeed based upon a, dare we say, literary work.
This is why I'm all for Baz Luhrmann's remake of the Great Gatsby although I don't believe it will make for a good film. At the least, though, it will be its own thing, which is all I really ask for. I only ask for a film to stand up as a work of film, not as a visual and easily, blandly, digestable version of a book.
The choice of Gatsby itself, of course, is something safe and dull and obvious, like an Oprah book club selection of Tolstoy or Faulkner (or the choice of Shakespeare, of course, in a way), but the idea of Gatsby transformed into something other than Gatsby, into something large and bombastic with show-tunes and dance numbers and 1990s MTV editing and 3-D is something, at the least, beyond the Hollywood conception of a literary adaptation. Which sounds good to me (even if the movie sounds dreadful to me because I hate show tunes and dance numbers and 3-D).
This idea of film is one inspired by a literary work, not an adaptation that doesn't treat literature like 90 year old woman walking across a block of ice. It is an adaptation more in the spirit of Orson Welles remaking The Trial than it is in the spirit of the dull and lifeless 1970s Robert Redford take on Gatsby, a version that has effectively served as a Sparknotes stand in for several generations of high school students.
Honestly, I'm surprised this movie is being made, but to my mind if a book is being made into a film it is either: A) a book that a producer has heard of therefore a very "famous" book B) a big seller. So, with this in mind I propose two other filmmaker/"classics" pairings.
1) Wes Anderson remaking Moby Dick.
2) David Lynch remaking In Search of Lost Time.
Others?
Monday, January 3, 2011
Returned from [the blackness of] His throat
Happy 2011:
So ends December and so too ends a month of collaborative projects. Many thanks to James Tadd Adcox for being me and for allowing me to wear his prodigious skin.
Also, thanks to Steve Himmer at Necessary Fiction for allowing me to spend a month working with a truly brilliant crew of writers. Thanks goes, also, to those writers who participated in (really, you all carried the entire show if I'm honest) what I believe was a successful month of remixes.
So now I'm back to the man I have ever been. Returned now to the voice from my own black.
To that end:
I'm in the midst of a new novel, although this novel is mostly a revision of an old novel. Yes, I believe this book is essentially a more traditional version of my novel in stories from last year, The Ancient House. By more traditional I mean I am thinking more in terms of Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (a book I am forever laboring through--I mean, it's a tremendous read but I simply cannot fit the physical structure of the text in my book bag) and Faulkner's Absolam, Absolam whereas the first version was a little closer to Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas and the novels of David Ohle.
To prep for that project I'm reading about embalming, the history of death in our culture, the fur trade, Abaham Lincolin, Sarah Palin, alligators. I essentially want to write the strangest, funniest, most disturbing work of literary fiction... ever. Or at least since Rabelais walked the earth. We will see.
Finally, in other news:
I'm also going to be doing some reviews for Red Fez. Should be fun. I'll update as that happens. Should be interesting as I've spent the last year or so developing a style of writing that is in every way anti-antalytical. However, I do have opinions.
So ends December and so too ends a month of collaborative projects. Many thanks to James Tadd Adcox for being me and for allowing me to wear his prodigious skin.
Also, thanks to Steve Himmer at Necessary Fiction for allowing me to spend a month working with a truly brilliant crew of writers. Thanks goes, also, to those writers who participated in (really, you all carried the entire show if I'm honest) what I believe was a successful month of remixes.
So now I'm back to the man I have ever been. Returned now to the voice from my own black.
To that end:
I'm in the midst of a new novel, although this novel is mostly a revision of an old novel. Yes, I believe this book is essentially a more traditional version of my novel in stories from last year, The Ancient House. By more traditional I mean I am thinking more in terms of Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (a book I am forever laboring through--I mean, it's a tremendous read but I simply cannot fit the physical structure of the text in my book bag) and Faulkner's Absolam, Absolam whereas the first version was a little closer to Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas and the novels of David Ohle.
To prep for that project I'm reading about embalming, the history of death in our culture, the fur trade, Abaham Lincolin, Sarah Palin, alligators. I essentially want to write the strangest, funniest, most disturbing work of literary fiction... ever. Or at least since Rabelais walked the earth. We will see.
Finally, in other news:
I'm also going to be doing some reviews for Red Fez. Should be fun. I'll update as that happens. Should be interesting as I've spent the last year or so developing a style of writing that is in every way anti-antalytical. However, I do have opinions.
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