Triumphantly Returning

I've been gone. Yes. I know. I do that. I'll do it again. You can't count on this blog to be updated regularly. But I'll always come back. I'll always have some new musing that needs an outlet, whether you're looking for me to let it out or not.

Anyway, this summer has been a time for reading old favorites, new (to me) old favorites and wonderful contemporary authors alike. I'll single out several. One has been Henry David Thoreau's classic, "Walden" -- a tremendous read. Really, in these times especially it offers up the kind of refreshing alternative point of view that's really needed. It's also reminded me that the more superficial goals we humans aspire to have always been and continue to be, however the form manages to reinvent itself. But I love the notion that the pursuit of luxury can't be enough, as when Thoreau remarks: "When he has obtained these things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced." And if I can distill a little of what Throeau is getting at in what amounts to his thesis (or one big positing, anyway), he's not really prescribing a specific model of life for everyone, all people. He's aware it's possible to take pleasure in your current circumstances, whatever they be. But for those who have become disenchanted and maybe wish to understand why possessions have not filled the void, he offers his own experience, his ruminative and meditative existence, as a possible alternative. He questions the very notion that seems to be a fundament of present day society: things can be no other way. They can be another way. They can be the way that works best for you. Maybe that's living in the wilderness or maybe it's something altogether different. But go out and find it. Listen to another point of view.

Then there's my longtime favorite, the weaver of intricate sentences that flow so musically you feel you're nearly spellbound, or maybe you are, after reading. That'd be Vladimir Nabokov. And this time around I'm catching up with him by way of "King, Queen, Knave" -- which as alluded to is already shaping up to be an amazing read, at least prosaically. There are signs that the plot will be rewarding, too, but I don't feel enough has been revealed to say with any sincere inkling yet. I'm at the pont where one of the main characters, the presumed titular knave, is wandering the streets of Berlin without his necessary prescription glasses, which he'd previously clumsily destroyed. There's comedy and perhaps something more to that.

In the wake of Patrick Somerville's hilarious recent imbroglio with The New York Times that's been covered well by other people, I have finally gotten off of my hump and begun reading his first novel, "The Cradle." I'm excited by its furious pace, especially given that the essential premise is so deceptively innocuous: a man goes on a quest to retrieve the cradle that had once belonged to his wife when she was a baby. As an avid fan of Somerville's fiction (I can't encourage your reading his short fiction collections anymore than Ialready have), I'm curious to see what shapes and forms his long form writing will take. Certainly there's a more serious tone to his writing here, emotionally stimulating and downright enervating in its weight, which I've experienced after reading just thirty some pages. It's evident Somerville has an amazing range of insight and literary acumen, and I look forward to seeing how these powers reveal themselves further in "The Cradle."

Also, while I've been only slightly better at updating my status there, I've begun blogging for Artifice Books in recent months, which you can find by clicking HERE. There's plenty of other worthwhile things being said, arguably more than the few that I've spoken.

A Few Items: bibliographing and Bartleby Snopes

Firstly, Nicole has responded to my literary challenge with a post of her own on bibliographing. so I think you ought go over there and see what she had to say about Patrick Somerville and his very good book of interwoven stories.

I also have a news story up, "An Interrogation." It's readable at Bartleby Snopes. CLICK HERE TO READ IT! (along with the other stories of March). It's actually a section from a longer novel I wrote some time ago. Let me know what you think!

Have a great day!

"The bibliographing Reading Challenge" Challenger Reads Patrick Somerville

Take that Nicole of bibliographing, and that and that! Words and more words. These are what I throw at you in challenge, reading-wise. Of course I'm referring to "the bibliographing reading challenge." Nicole and I are dead set against one another, reading two contemporary authors' latest short story collections. The first, you ask? Well, it's Patrick Somerville and his, "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature."

Honestly, this book is so good I'd say it reads itself if I were one of those people who found reading to be a tedious bore (e.g. the greater multitude of public high school students, perhaps?). But seriously, Patrick Somerville is no longer up-and-coming. The term simply doesn't apply. He's here and now. If he needed anything to cement that fact, "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature" more than does so. It's chock full of the kind of whimsy and humor that is guaranteed to get my approval.

***

The eponymous (and if you haven't noticed by now, I love that word) story, "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature" does much to live up to its being an eponym (boy, I hope that makes sense). It begins as a tale of three friends, art students so-called, working in the muddy waters of a program whose name reminds me of The School of the Art Institute or Columbia College in Chicago, The School of Surreal Thought and Design (SSTD) (also the school's acronym is one letter off from STD, #obviousobservations #horriblediseasescausedbysex).

[inescapable spoilers forthcoming] The protagonist, a girl named Rosie, is working diligently on scale models of a father and son's working on a scale model of the universe in miniature -- hence the repetition, the universe in miniature in miniature (which I think is hilarious, also: both the project itself and the name). It's all for the purpose of graduation, which as Rosie puts it, the requirement is this, "All we have to do, to graduate, is complete our final projects. Our projects are whatever we want them to be."

There are quite a few humorous notes to the story, for example the school in question's campus is located beneath Lake Michigan in "East Chicago." It's accessible through a bakery whose proprietor seems just the right mixture of surly and accommodating.

Then for all its humor, it's touchingly sad. It centers on one of Rosie's friends and fellow art students, Lucy, and her final project. Her final project involves observing (via many secretly installed hidden cameras) the degradation of a young man, up and coming in his employ as a lawyer, who was rendered permanently brain damaged after a slip and a fall.

The weird thing is this story and this project don't start off touchingly. One gets the visible picture that Lucy is studying the young man, Ryan Conrad, for exploitative reasons. In part because, as a Rosie who's our first person narrator also, says, "Her project is to observe the wholesale collapse of a family following major trauma." Rosie thinks at the story's beginning that Lucy might be evil. We learn from Rosie, as the story progresses, that Lucy once dated Ryan Conrad. You're sort of asked to relax on certainty of Lucy's evil as time wears on. The opposite is the case with Dylan, Lucy's boyfriend and the third member of the trio, who starts off seeming somewhat benevolent and sheepish, and in general at the mercy of the domineering Lucy.

Slowly, though, Dylan's motivations seem less innocent. He's working on a novel for his final project, a sci-fi piece about scientists who turn earth's water supply into soda pop. It ends up being a ludicrously lucrative expenditure of his time (which is not in itself evil or bad or anything). I wouldn't call Dylan evil or bad, as I don't think the story offers the opportunity to paint with that broad a brush. What it does do is modify our preconceived notions of each character: Dylan begins to seem less honest, Lucy less driven by her final project's nefarious ends. Rosie is caught in the middle of this, totally uncertain of what she should do and who she should be. The triumvirate is a good one, one that changes fluidly, without willfulness.

And that leads to what ultimately happens, which telling you about would be more than I think a review should offer. This is the teacher in me speaking, I think.

TAKE THAT AND THAT, NICOLE! CHALLENGED!

The thread that ties all the stories of the collection together is a combination of the randomness of any so-called order, here on earth or up in space, and the way perception is altered by a slightly new viewing angle. These stories repeatedly have within them -- very literally -- the depiction of a random stabbing, which is told through many different perspectives, and is often confused by the fact that in certain cases the victim dies and in certain cases the victim is possibly alive and well. The perpetrator is sometimes regarded as crazy and sometimes as a complete unknown. (All of this depends on the source of the information.)

In the first several versions of this anecdote the story seems to come from or to secondhand sources, a man who is just hearing about it by word of mouth or a mother who is being told by the hospital staff that her son is dead. In that way it reads like a news item or a tragic occurrence that has befallen a friend of the family, a friend of a friend of the family, on and on. Never are we the victim, not until the story comes firsthand from the victim.

Further challenged, Nicole, eh? Feeling the literary challenge heat, as they say?

***

Well, here, if you're desirous of more. . .

Another interesting idea that floats through a number of stories (at least two) in "TUIMIM" is what Somerville calls, "The Machine of Understanding Other People." It appears first, as a supposed idea Dylan has, in the short story "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature." (We later learn of the possibility that Dylan stole the idea from Lucy, as she claims he did.) We see it again in the -- gasp -- eponymously named "The Machine of Understanding Other People." This latter tale is the kind of story I wish I'd written (but didn't / can't), because it so perfectly encapsulates all those ideas of contemporary pluralism and social equity of modern liberalism, and the realistic challenges of actually understanding someone else from their point of view.

The machine Somerville offers up to his characters and the reader is both the greatest and most destructive invention in the history of mankind. It allows one to feel exactly as the subject they're viewing, done so by aiming a weird wand attached to a helmet that resembles something you'd wear deep-sea diving (like something out of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea").

But you, who wears it, (the two main characters in the story being Tom, an American and a middle-aged, broken-souled alcoholic and Eliza, a Briton and a relatively young, world-weary optimist given to flights of whimsy), are forced to see things through the eyes of the person at whom you point the wand. This, meanwhile, creates all new problems, as it doesn't swing open the gates of solipsism. You're still an occluded consciousness as you bring all your experiences with you to the experience of "understanding" another person. The difference is that you know what that person now feels and has felt throughout life, what's stuck. The baggage. You feel it, too, through your purview.

Tom and Eliza come into massive inheritances, although each one of them is different. The pair was brought together by the chance happening of an outlying eccentric uncle, who was born out of wedlock, the product of Tom's grandfather and Eliza's grandmother's brief affair. The uncle, Herman, went on to accrue some wealth and a very peculiar kind of machine, "of Understanding Other People." His mother, Eliza's grandmother, Beatrice, was some kind of genius and invented it during the second world war, the result of prompting from the British government to produce some kind of new weapon. By his own unstated means, Herman was able to keep tabs on and took an interest in Tom and Eliza, and upon his death, Herman willed away his monetary wealth to Eliza and his machine to Tom. Eliza, as a do-gooding idealist, has plans to create a university of free-thinking and invention at which whimsy and imagination are, above all else, encouraged. It's called Pangea University. It ends up creating quite a stir, worldwide. I will say no more. Read it!

The point is, "The Machine of Understanding Other People" is spell-bindingly layered, layered not only in plot points but in actual written structure -- at times reminiscent of The New Yorker journalism's unusual bends and folds in their articles. Narratives are strategically left behind and then returned to like so much parabola. Other stories of the collection are again referenced, even the murderer who stabs makes a cameo appearance (we get a fuller explanation of what is happening with him and that, also).

It's just all so much good!

***

But enough, this pugilist of the literary variety needs rest. I have made my literary challenge. It is your move, Nicole!

An Update Post, More or Less

I'm a couple stories into A D Jameson's very recently released (i.e. this month) short story collection, "Amazing Adult Fantasy," available from Mutable Sound (a very cool Chicago area indie press). If you know of Jameson's writing from around these internets, either as a blogger on Big Other or just various fictions made available on web-based and print literary magazines' sites, you know he's not short on thoughtful and entertaining commentary and prose.

So far "Amazing Adult Fantasy" has blended references to my own favorite childhood pop culture icons, Oscar the Grouch, Indian(a) Jones, and Big Bird, with surrealist, humorous literary locales reminiscent of the stylings of writers like Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover and Curtis White. Of course where some of the preceding authors' works get a bit too disjointed for my tastes at times, narrative structure, though oft abstract, is retained in Jameson's fiction (which I hope encourages those of you who've been overly daunted by experimental writers in the past to maybe not give up on Jameson without first giving his writing an honest shot). There will no doubt be more to come on this subject as I continue to read "Amazing Adult Fantasy."

***

Meanwhile, I continue the challenge of reading "VALIS" by Philip K. Dick. I hope to finish this, his trippiest of trippy novels, before the month is out. I think it's hard to argue "VALIS" isn't also PKD's most ambitious work of fiction, likewise. Its features are much more relatable to the difficult structural turns of works by experimental, umbrella-termed postmodern writers than most science fiction authors I've ever encountered. It's also a visible departure from the more well-known stories that have made him a well-remembered author of the genre. This is all very much to say I encourage you to read "VALIS" (but after you've acquainted yourself with his earlier works). More to come on this once I've finished reading the novel, though.

***

I'm also beginning to read two books I've wanted to read for quite some time now, Alissa Nutting's "Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls" and Patrick Somerville's "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature." I'm reading both for bibliographing Nicole's "reading challenge." Wish me luck! There will must needs be more on the subject of this in the coming weeks.

So fear not, readers, while I seem like I'm neglecting this blog , the truth is quite the contrary, I'm striving more than ever before to deliver actual, meaningful content and commentary. Because what would be the point of barfing out whatever comes to my mind (i.e. barfing without clear focus).

(I can't really debate the logorrhea put forth here resembles a kind of word barfing, and for that I apologizes sooo muchs; I blame the Internet and the very nature of blogging, and conveniently not myself.)

"The Instructions" by Adam Levin is COOOOMMMMIIIINNNGGG Soon to me!

Adam Levin is an author floating dangerously under the radar these days. My feeling is that will change with McSweeney's recent publication of his massive first novel, "The Instructions." It's getting called all sorts of things, as press releases and et cetera are wont to put forth, to build positive word of mouth and so forth, one imagines. (I think if you write a novel that exceeds 600 pages and you're under 40 years old you should just expect to be compared to David Foster Wallace, even if in no other way does your work resemble the late great DFW's.) I don't know. All I know is, I expect Levin will bring something decidedly different to the table, all his own. I don't get the impression he's the sort of author who writes a book of this staggering size without having something to say. He's too on the level from what I've heard from and of him to be that kind of self-indulgent. And he has written some wicked short fiction. Don't believe me? Fine. I don't care. I have bought "The Instructions," in any event. I am excited by what its reading may yield.

In related news, I've bought a slough of books lately, of which "The Instructions" is merely one I'm especially excited for. Others I'm similarly excited for (or I would not have bought them) are Patrick Somerville's upcoming "The Universe in Miniature in Miniature," Joseph McElroy's "A Smuggler's Bible," Curtis White's "Memories of My Father Watching TV," and Percival Everett's "I Am Not Sidney Poitier." Oh and Philip K. Dick, always Philip K. Dick. My thoughts on all of these authors and more will be forthcoming, I assure you. Thanks for your patience, small and loyal readership I've imagined for myself.

Know that I love you all very much, what is more!

And Here's My Thoughts About "So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel?"

Harold Ray was a highlight. I'll start there because before anything else I want to say something positive about Sunday night's great show at the Whistler on Milwaukee in Logan Square, Chicago, IL. At the show's conclusion, Ray [Update: a character, I've recently learned, of the Chicago-based writer, Jacob Knabb)] sang, with the musical accompaniment of authors Patrick Somerville (banjo) and Mark Rader (fiddle), a rendition of "Dead Flowers" -- The Rolling Stones' song, but ostensibly done to the tune of the Townes Van Zandt cover featured on "The Big Lebowski" soundtrack. I liked it quite a lot.

The music in general of the Somerville / Rader tandem was a nice surprise for what I had initially presumed was going to be a strictly reading affair (though I can say I would not have been disappointed if it were, just liked the change of pace). I was not disappointed with my last, more traditional trip to the Whistler, for example.

The stories of Todd Dills, editor of the2ndhand which hosted the event, were enjoyable and his stage presence, whether true to his real life form or an affected manner for performance purposes only, was definitely amusing. But some of Dills' comedic attempts left me underwhelmed. (E.g. whatever the deal was behind the repeated interruptions of his Lady Gaga "Bad Romance" ringtone, that got to be too much very quickly). And so with that said, I figure I should just get the few negative opinions I have of a very good event out of the way. Purge the bad blood quick and cleanly, so to speak.

The beginning part, the part with the woman with whom I'm not familiar and who was to her credit noticeably enthusiastic if not quite at ease, that part was not good. It was plainly not good. The audience, while not a rowdy audience, didn't seem to enjoy whatever it was she was trying to do, which I still think was humor but I'm not positive. All I know is the crescendo moment was meant to be when she got seven volunteers to join her onstage for the purpose of dancing to Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker," which again I take it irony and humor were meant to have a role in this, but I failed to see how exactly. And do not misunderstand me -- I'm all for quirky, off-the-wall fun and audience participation / I'm not a total stiff. I just felt the underlying motivation for doing what was done in the opener was undeniably pretentious, on the cloyingly hipster-ish, ugly side of what the literary scene promulgates and perpetuates. The volunteers went with it, but not without a smallish pervading undercurrent of awkwardness.

A perfect counterpoint to what I disliked about the opener was the more softly-stated staring contest put on by Heather Palmer before her reading. The contest was epic and, as evidenced by the cries and exhortations of the crowd, one that seemed to go on longer than was humanly possible. But it was genuine, not poking holes abstractly and for no discernible at some derivation of early modern hip hop and new age, self-help methodology (the opener also featured a monologue dealing with some notion of being addicted to self-help that descended abysmally into having an exorcist for some purpose that mystified me (and to be fair, I wasn't in attendance at the last of this monthly series hosted by 2ndhand, so I may have been missing something vital -- cannot be sure of what, exactly, though)).

Heather Palmer's reading was pleasant. It was not from her work appearing presently at the 2ndhand, and readable here on their website. Still it was a good story, featuring a line that has stuck with me, and I paraphrase like so, "Anna learned to speak with her hands before her mouth." Simple but good. Maybe? What do you think, pray tell?

Patrick Somerville was, as headliners should be, the highlight of the show. The story he read was called, "The Time I Accidentally Fell in Love with the Girl Across the Bay" -- a fictitious telling of his family history, and specifically the exploits of his great-grandfather, Henry Somerville, a "self-taught" dentist. There were repeated musical interludes, as mentioned already, which nicely complimented the rustic vibe of the story. I continue to urge you to read something by Somerville.

And there might be more worth mentioning. I drank a PBR in the heavily trafficked lane between the bar and the bathrooms aloofly, which is never my intention to be but listen you, I'm not exactly world's most outgoing person of the year, so cut me some slack, will ya? You smile at me and I'll smile at you, but you first.

It was a Great show! (aside from the parts that were not)

Patrick Somerville Kills the Short Story (in a Good Way, in a Good Way)

I'm happy to say I've recently gotten around to reading Patrick Somerville's "Trouble," a collection of shorts released way back in 2006. Somerville himself has been on my radar for quite a while, given my enthusiasm and great interest in Chicago-area writers. The whole "reading his work" just made sense, then.

I also realize I've been on something of a short story kick of late, much to my surprise. I love short stories, don't misunderstand me. It's just, I dunno, I've always felt something about them, call it length, hampered their ability to be of real heft. The word "tome" could never, for example, be ascribed to something so un-tome like as the collected short stories of Ernest Hemingway (I've of course excluded Papa's tomes, such as "For Whom The Bell Tolls" -- which c'mon, even sounds like a tome). Tome itself sounds like itself, onomatopoeic and suchlike, right? Right. Tomes are about white whales and wars and peace and wakes for the Irish and the rainbows belonging to gravity.

Well, short stories don't sound weighty and hefty like tomes / aren't about the various things listed -- in the same sprawling detail, but what does that mean? Nothing. They're great. Short stories do it with pith. I mean, not a perfect analogy, but who would you rather watch, a blazing Usain Bolt dashing faster than you thought kinesthetically possible, or some other guy, whoever, distance running for what feels like forever, boringly? I believe I've made my point. Or no I haven't. (I already admitted the analogy was imperfect.) But regardless, a point was made and if that point is anything then it's this: I enjoyed Somerville's collection, was rapt with interest even.

His stories run the evocative gamut of the pathos spectrum: emotionally charged, at times hilarious (see "English Cousin" & "Trouble and the Shadowy Death Blow"), and most of all, earnestly contemplative. It's the keen eye Somerville shows for escalation, which drives his stories (in that way not dissimilar from how Usain Bolt builds momentum) and compelled me to continue reading. Gripped pretty steadily throughout, most of his stories I went through in one sitting. There were only a couple times that I needed to return later to some and not for a lack of interest. It might be akin to the feeling one gets when one is editor of a literary magazine and comes across a piece of fiction with which he or she really connects and thus wants to publish.

The stories of adolescence and young adulthood rang true (for whatever that matters -- I suppose when I use the cliche "rang true" what I'm really saying is they seem to have accomplished the thing the author (Somerville) was going for, which I won't presume to know), and equally successful were his stories depicting the melancholy of old age, a DeLillo-esque spirit to life's winter, particularly well evidenced by "The Cold War." If I were to compare Somerville to two authors with whom I'm familiar, one is Don DeLillo, showcased especially in the aforesaid and "The Future, the Future, the Future," which had a delightfully "Americana" feel about it.

The other would be, yes, sorry, George Saunders -- especially well showcased in "English Cousin" -- which was my favorite of the bunch -- and "Puberty." Concerning "Puberty," I get the feeling Saunders would definitely appreciate the inclination of Brandon, the awkward, early adolescent main character, to imagine himself a member of a group he dubs: "STRONG POTENTIAL" (caps Somerville's).

All in all, the sad stuff is adequately sad and effective; the funny stuff is as funny as the best stories I've read all year. Honest. Check Somerville out. He teaches creative writing at Northwestern University, which makes me want to attend their workshop all the more now.

A FEW OTHER ITEMS: I was kindly lent a copy of the McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 18 featuring stories by another Chicago creative writing prof, Adam Levin, whom I've been chatting about quite a bit of late, also, I know. I read his short "Hot Pink," and, listen, I'm on my short story kick and all, so cut me some slack if you feel I'm a bit prone to hyperbole as a result, but honest, it blew me away. It started a little slowly. I wasn't sure why I should be interested in the seemingly meatheaded narrator, a Chicago Polish kid, Jack Krakow, but by the end I felt I understood. It's a surprising tale, and uses the Chicago approximate west side backdrop nicely.

I mention Levin also because he and other young writers like Somerville will likely, should they stay in these parts, become very relevant within the next couple years. I suspect they could be a part of a new literary guard. I'm keeping my eye on some others. I also enjoyed a short story by the very good Chicago-area writer Lindsay Hunter, which you can read here at Everyday Genius. And in the same issue of McSweeney's (issue 18, January 15, 2005) YET ANOTHER Chicago writer, Joe Meno, (who according to his wiki is currently teaching at Columbia College with Levin) has a nice entry called "People are Becoming Clouds."

Also, FYI, on Sunday I plan to attend this: