Scholar, Essayist, Storyteller, Educator
Someone doesn’t like Against the Day:
Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Against the Day,” reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes.
But she often gets her panties in wad, right? Here’s another take on it. And another. I’ll have to obtain a copy and see for myself, which will take a while, the obtaining and the seeing both.
The 29th issue of Tin House came in the mail the other day, and all I can say is Wow, just wow. It’s subtitled “The Graphic Issue,” and that’s absolutely what it is. There are excerpts from graphic novels, a graphic essay, and get this, the forward from Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated. That’s right, somebody illustrated every page of that book. I have to admit I haven’t finished Gravity’s Rainbow after a number of years, but I love Pynchon none-the-less; The Crying of Lot 49 was awesome. So, who would do such a thing? From the “Editor’s Note” of issue 29:
Zak Smith contributed some of his pen-and-ink drawings from his awe-inspiring project, Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated, in which the Ivy League artist/punk porn star matched all 760 pages of Pynchon’s classic, image-for-page.
Punk porn star! In the forward to Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated you’ll encounter a pornographer with a muted post horn tattoo, and another pornographer named Benny Profane. What’s the porn-Pynchon connection? Check it out.
ETA: the illustrations online….thanks davidbdale for the link!
Wired (a great magazine) gives us Very Short Stories: We’ll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.
A sampling:
Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
– Joss Whedon
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
– Margaret Atwood
Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
– Richard Powers
I came across the Killer Year website, and it looks pretty cool. I love to hear about writers and others in the publishing world coming together to create new communities. Novels don’t exist in a vacuum and neither do debut novelists.
Killer Year is an elite society of debut mystery and thriller writers. The purpose of Killer Year is to further the writing, publishing, and marketing goals of the 15 members by providing an interactive community with potential readers, buyers, reviewers and publishing professionals.
Appropriate to the site name, all the members of the group have books upcoming in 2007, the Killer Year. The group also has a myspace page, where you can get lost surfing through the various writer’s personal profiles which are on the Killer Year friends list. It’s more interesting than the usual myspace procrastination, so, even if you’re at work, it’s a Friday, go check it out. From Killer Year member Derek Nikitas’ page, about his upcoming novel, Pyres:
When a folklore professor is shot dead in his car, the crime smashes together the lives of three disparate women: his anguished teenage daughter, a detective facing her own family’s collapse, and the pregnant former-junkie girlfriend of the killer. These three women must choose where to aim their last shots at redemption, even as they face a gang of barbaric thugs who torch homes and lives for a thrill.
How can you not want to read that? Murder and anguish and thugs! As a person who has realized the initial manuscript of her novel is essentially plot-less (things happen, but, happening is just not the same as a classically exciting plot), a hook like this is appealing. And it’s nice that a group has come together to give us not only murder, mystery, and intrigue, but also debuts of especially good writing.
Toddler T-shirt logos at McSweeney’s.
Plus, Baby Be of Use books.
I’ve read a bit about networked books, specifically non-fiction books, often books about technology, applications, new media, that kind of thing. The idea of a networked book is that the author or publisher releases the book initially on the internet. Early readers (other experts in the designated field, those using the book to learn applications, other self-appointed interested parties) read the book on-line and in various ways can contribute to the end product; sometimes readers can change the book outright a la wikipedia, or maybe they can only email the publisher or author with suggestions and or corrections. Or, maybe they create forums surrounding the living document, and a real discussion and community grows. It sounds especially useful for tech related non-fiction. A final hardcopy of the book might eventually be released by the publisher, the revisions ultimately being a product of the Internet community. The idea is that for these subjects, this material, is that a collective revision and editing process can only make the text better, more useful.
But can the same idea work for fiction? Do you want to readers to vote on what will happen next, or suggest plot devices? It reminds me of those Choose Your Own Mystery children’s books. Allen Strider is trying to write a novel using the online community at his fingertips:
The world already exists in very exact ways but certain important decisions of major characters will be up to you. At the end of every chapter, I will take the best 2 or 3 suggestions and create a poll. The decision will be made by the popular vote.
Some diligent writers of fanfiction have landed book deals. They’ve been self-publishing on the Web and have been discovered by the big boys:
She writes about a group of young wizards attending the Hogwarts School. She has legions of readers throughout the world. Her name is Hannah Jones, and she’s 19 years old. […]
There’s a librarian in Rathdrum, Idaho, who spent 10 years posting her writings about a character from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” online; Simon & Schuster paid her a $150,000 advance to publish the works as a three-novel trilogy. In Brooklyn, N.Y., a free-lance copy editor has become one of the Web’s best-known “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” fan-fiction writers, and has landed a three-book publishing deal for a young-adult fantasy series. When a comic-book store manager in New Jersey decided to take his first stab at fan fiction this year, entering a contest sponsored by Showtime’s “The L Word,” he got the attention of a literary agent, who signed him last month. And Ms. Jones will soon have her first book published.
This is from “Rewriting the Rules of Fiction,” an article in The Wall Street Journal this past weekend. I’d written off fanfiction, having characterized it in my head as often simply being slash scenarios, Captain Kirk and Spock getting it on or whatever, but maybe it’s time to reassess the playing field.
I’ve been thinking about different kinds of texts lately, different modes of discourse–new ones, old standards. I read an article in The Wall Street Journal about networked books (which hopefully I’ll blog about soon, when time allows) and one about novels sent in text message installments (twice a day) over cell phones. And today I was reminded of an old, but persistent text, a way many people communicate with their fellow man every day: the bumper sticker. I saw one today that made me smile:
I’d rather be reading Flannery O’Conner.
That’s a nice sentiment. And it sure would beat Atlanta traffic. BUT, then I saw one on the back of a black Lexus LX something or other SUV. It was the only sticker, centered right on the back of the car:
Don’t let the car fool you. My treasure is in heaven.
I found a picture of the same sticker on flickr, in case you just can’t believe me. Okey-dokey. So, you’re bragging about your slick (obnoxiously huge) ride, and the fact that you’re so super special you’re guaranteed a place in heaven? Peachy! It doesn’t make that much sense in the first place. If the person who chose this sticker is to be given any credit at all, I can only hope that they do maintain some ironic distance from the reality of the situation. But, deep down, after much consideration, I can still only assume that the driver of this car is a self-aggrandizing twit. I hope your heaven is big enough for your ego.
My husband took my son, Keegan, to the Decatur Book Festival early Saturday. They missed the Cat in the Hat parade, but they did catch a reading by Chris Raschka of Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, which is a book meant to give children a sense of Jazz. My son (20 months old) now struts around the house saying Be Bop! Be. Bop! BeBop. Raschka won the Caldecott Medal in 2006 for The Hello, Goodbye Window (written by Norton Juster). Raschka’s book Yo! Yes? was a 1994 Caldecott Medal Honor Book. I’m a big fan of Yo! Yes? It’s a story about friendship in only 34 words.
All three of us went back to the festival that evening. We stopped by the Five Points booth and wandered around the book market. Unfortunately, we were there between music performances. We hung out at Little Shop of Stories, which is a welcoming kids’ bookstore and a Jake’s Ice Cream store in one. We had to pry Keegan away from a large Elmo doll. He’s never seen Sesame Street, but he has played Elmo rhyming and alphabet games on the computer. And that was enough. He knew who Elmo was, wanted Elmo terribly. So the Elmo phenomenon begins. I thought we’d avoid it somehow because we don’t have cable. We also shared some $5 vegeterian corn dogs. $5! I didn’t plan ahead to attend any panels or readings, and we were sort of just relaxing this weekend, so I didn’t take full advantage of what Decatur had to offer…But, I do plan on planning ahead and being more involved in the 2007 AWP conference, which is to be here in the great Hotlanta.
ETA: I also picked up a copy of Verb: two and a half hours of original ficiton, poetry, and music on 2 cds.
Amber Nicole Brooks 