Reading

Look Ma! No Paragraphs!

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

So, as a counterpoint to the light movies I’ve been watching lately, I’ve started reading Kafka’s The Trial. I’ve never read anything by Kafka, and this work is mentioned rather frequently in the research I’ve done on The Prisoner, so…reading it I am.

One thing that I’ve noticed  about the book is the lack of paragraphs. There isn’t any separation between dialogue; the end result is massive paragraphs that go on for an entire chapter. I find that I can’t skim-read; I must read each and every word to know who is saying what. Otherwise, one missed dialogue tag and I really am clueless.

I hadn’t given much consideration to the separation of dialogue by different paragraphs. It, in my eyes, was a given. A new character speaks and there is a new line.

Not so in The Trial. Lines run together, making it some times difficult to figure out who is speaking when. The result is, though, fitting for the story. The reader, much like main character Joseph K., is left confused. The story, focusing on a man who is arrested and not informed as to what his crime is, leaves the reader in a state of uncertainty. Who is this Joseph K., really? Who are his tormentors? Why has he been arrested?

The lack of separate paragraphs provide a cramped, uncomfortable, almost prisonlike in your inability to escape. The text is closed. When reading, I can’t help but want to escape the bounds of the page, no doubt just as Joseph K. longs to escape the rigid, though ill defined, justice system.

The uncertainty is killing me. But I like it.

Looking to 2011…and back on 2010

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

As I sit on the brink of 2011, staring forward into the new year and back into the new, I can’t help but think that 2010 was a successful year. I failed at many of my goals for 2010 (write 1+short story a month–was successful until October; submit work/enter contests–nope, unless you count the art contest I entered in Florence; read more–success; write another novel–fail, but planned one and am starting a separate one).

Others I was more successful with. I don’t know if I’ve posted more this year than last, but I feel that the quality increased. I didn’t include more pictures (I just forget), but I did start the What’s On the Bookshelf? page, which is continuing into 2011, along with What’s Beth Watching?

But 2010 was a good year. I had a grand adventure in Florence and set my sights on another (grad school in the UK). I came up with an idea for a novel. I met one of my idols (and was not disenchanted by the meeting). And I started work on my epic thesis, which will be done in April (and there will be much rejoicing throughout the land).

So, for 2011, some goals:

1. Write more.

I write every night. I want to write more. Hopefully finish a novel, or work in earnest on the one that I’m co-writing.

2. Continue writing this blog (and Sheer Art Attack)

I like writing this blog. It’s fun. For Sheer Art Attack, I need to create more art pieces. I’m working on some of Michelangelo’s David for my mom.

3. Take time to notice the small things in life.

I’m taking this as my artist’s statement. To celebrate and appreciate the simple things. The Christmas tree lights. The hugs. Family. Nature.

4. Read for me.

Whatever takes my fancy, I’ll read. I’m itching to read Smiley’s People, adoring Les Miserables and anxiously awaiting more 44 Scotland Street books.

La’s Foul Note

What's On the Bookshelf?

When I came home from Italy, I found one of the latest Alexander McCall Smith books, La’s Orchestra Saves the World, waiting for me. Needless to say, I was incredibly excited. I adore AMS’s books, and this one seemed especially up my alley–it centers around a woman, La, who starts an amateur orchestra near an RAF base in Suffolk. Long time readers have probably picked up on my interest in the RAF, and my enjoyment of AMS.

AMS’s works are usually intimate, if lighthearted, looks at every day people in often extraordinary (or extraordinarily funny) circumstances. There’s Precious Ramotswe in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, a strong-willed woman who’s dealt with some tough stuff in her past, but ultimately moves forward. His 44 Scotland Street series features characters like Bertie, a precocious 6-year-old forced to speak Italian and play the saxophone when all he wants is to play with a train set (and have his room a color other than pink).

La’s Orchestra has a strange disconnect. We, the readers, pity and sympathize with La, but we never gain that intimate bond with her. The orchestra barely features into the story. It’s mostly about her and her relationships with men. The book felt very shallow, almost flimsy, at times it was like peering through a veil of smoke. Nothing ever gelled properly.

One part of AMS’s writing is his imitation of the culture through his writing. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency takes place in Botswana (where AMS lived for a time), and the writing style is different from 44 Scotland Street (which takes place in Edinburgh) and is different from Portuguese Irregular Verbs (which I didn’t particularly enjoy, but it certainly captures the occasionally BS nature of academia). It could be that, as a 21st century American, I don’t understand the disconnect of a city woman living in the countryside during WWII. He captures the vibe so well in his other books, maybe I’m just missing it here.

I suppose I was expecting a different book, one more lighthearted and in line with 44 Scotland Street. I hoped for an interconnecting web of characters who shared the orchestra as common ground–La, the conductor, people from the nearby village, the pilots from the RAF base. Instead, I got the disenchanted La, and only her. There wasn’t enough development of the other characters to form an attachment, and even to her. I pitied La for her unfortunate circumstances, but I never connected with her.

I suppose every once in a while, favorite authors are allowed to hit a bum note.

What’s on the Bookshelf? Vol. 7

What's On the Bookshelf?

What would you do if all of a sudden you were resurrected alongside history’s famous and infamous?

Why, explore and start new societies, of course.

I just finished reading Philip Jose Farmer’s To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in the Riverworld series.

It’s an interesting concept. An advanced society nicknamed The Ethicals by protagonist  Sir Richard Burton cloned and transplanted most people who have ever lived to this planet, Riverworld (the River is about 10 million miles long). The reason? Well, Burton isn’t quite sure. He gets different reasons from different people.

It’s an intriguing idea, and I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

What’s on the Bookshelf? Vol. 6

What's On the Bookshelf?

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

CC/sea turtle

CC/sea turtle

I like reading science books on occasion. Not text books, but books on a subject, like Dava Sobel’s Longitude.

Proust… wasn’t of my chosing–it was assigned reading. But I’m glad that it was.

Lehrer examines eight different artists from turn of the century Paris and how their works preexamined (not the right word) ideas that neuroscientists are working on, such as how we taste (Escoffier), and how we process grammar (Gertrude Stein).

My favorite chapter was the one on Escoffier, the creator of the cookbook and (for all intents and purposes) what we think of as French cooking. Of course, I was also watching a Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations marathon before and after finishing this section!

If you want a good, entertaining and educating read, this is the book for you.