Chinese poster saying: "Shatter the old world / Establish a new world."

library book comment

from the table of contents in denis johnson's Jesus' Son comes this comment:

"This is a f**king beautiful book."

the words were penciled in and then erased, leaving only the impressions of the marks on the page. it was still legible. it was signed by E and dated 94.

i assume that the comment was erased by the either a library employee or the next reader of the book. or at least someone who felt it was not true: two conflicting sets of checks and plus/minus marks, these unerased, ran down the margin next to the titles of the stories.

i agree with the author of that comment.

the only other thing i have to say is that if someone is writing comments like this one in my books in the future, i will be happy.

Post Calligraphic Drawing: Brice Marden

the reality line

bloom is an ass. i firmly believe this. still, many an ass since balaam has had much to say that is useful. bloom makes a distinction between two types of stories: the borgesian and the chekovian. the checkovian are realistic, and serve to promote a kind of truth in life, while the borgesian are fantastic, and attempt to turn truth inside out to find another kind of truth. while this does seem a bit simplistic, it is true that all stories brink a certain line at some point in their creation and existence. i have felt this myself. for my own purposes i will call this the reality line.

the reality line is simply the final divide separating reality from surreallity. once this line is crossed, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recross it. if your story exists in both at once, it is more likely to be finally percieved as belonging to the surreal school, by virtue of that element existing within its pages. stories firmly rooted in either mode can partake of the other, but only by relating it to a certain aspect of the story which does not partake, such as a character, or narrative mode. though this seems wordly and complicated it is finally as simple as the question: could this story really happen (or have happened) or not?

we get at this in workshop by asking what sort of a reality the story exists in. is it a true-to-life? does it utilize mythologizing of characters and so fall off a bit in its realism? is it a phantasm masqerading as the quotidian? after adressing these questions, the details can be picked apart so that the reality the story inhabits, whichever that may be, can be depicted with more verity.

recently i was complaining about this very subject to my brother on the phone. my problem being, i seem to cross and recross the reality line frequently--from piece to piece--and often a story started off in one mode will veer off the road into the other. controlling this is a difficult thing to do. perception provides a set of blinders that also cause trouble once the piece is out in the public arena. often a reader/listener will love a piece, but will make assertions about it that are completely wrong. For example, upon assessing a piece that is realistic, but lies near the line to fantasy (read: not what the reader/listener is used to), a reader will state: "this piece is great! i love how surreal it is." when in fact, for an artist such as yourself, this is the most gritty reality, the harsh-facts-of-life version, in which you spared yourself no amount of grief in rendering its limbs so as to be without the distorting twist of the surreal.

back to bloom: he does not prize one of the modes over the other. does this mean, then, that regardless of whichever school i belong to, that i can write in both? or does this mean that at some point i will find myself caged on one side of the reality line, unable to cross it? and which side to i belong to anyway? (i suspect that neither would have me without reservation.) and how much does any of this blather matter? questions that have little to no relevance to life often have the most concrete and decisive of answers.

kafka

strange resonances with kafka here. a few to get you thinking.

last week i workshopped some stuff with the current visiting writer (new one every week). when discussing my story, he said--have you read kafka? uh, yeah. hello. KAFKA. and then he went on to compare my story to kafka. said it was remarkably like his stuff. crazy. then other members of the workshop (read: my peers) echoed his sentiment.

another:

there is a girl in my workshop, a fellow first year, who has tattoos on the underside of each of her wrists. they happen to be sketches kafka did for The Trial. sketches. by kafka. tattooed. on her wrists. just wanted to reiterate and make sure it was clear.

last:

kafka has always intrigued me, for lots of reasons. now i have a new one to add: i am interested in kafka because i apparently write like him (sometimes). what can kafka tell me about myself that i don't already know? this is assuming i am not just aping the man; i can testify that i am not: first i haven't read quite enough of his work to do that, and second i don't read him with great enough frequency to do that, and third, that would be ridiculous. but anyway. kafka. what a great name.

what i like... (do i?)

this in reply to someone who urged positive assessment of my writing:

-i do language well. by this i mean that i occasionally turn out a phrase or sentence that rings true; more true, in fact, than the image that inspired it. for this i am lucky.
-i have a knack for odd names. without odd names i would be nothing. plain names baffle me.
-i sometimes manage a tone, or evocation, of a mood--this is really just an extension of language.
-if i think of anything else, i will add it.
-i work. hard. at writing. this perhaps pleases me more than any aspect of the writing itself: the work i put into it. not sure why this is.

any attempt at making me love my work is difficult, since the moment after the words spill from me i am revising them, worrying them with my teeth, tearing them. so it is difficult to love any project but the one i am currently working on. which is, right now, absolutely amazing. when i finish it will be mundane sludge. such is a writer's life.

the shop

oh they ranted, they raved, they disected, they ripped and tore--but my first workshop is over, and i don't feel too bad about it. They were also impressed or summarily bored and gave me the usual praise: how lovely! this turn of phrase, that description, and yes! I've heard that already. Tell me about the guts, the raw mechanics.

all that aside, i think that my raw 1st draft was enough to impress upon them that i am a peer. which is enough for anyone to ask of a few pieces of paper.

TBR

Yesterday, the mail came. I checked it. Between the grocery store coupons was the latest issue of TBR. Love it. Love that they are still putting stuff out that I edited back in the prime of my internship.

And then the table of contents...

scan, scan, HEY! Myself! scan some more, scan, Myself AGAIN! scan, scan, HEY! no, no more me. But two reviews coming out unexpectedly in one issue was cause for celebration. we bought sour cream donut holes.

now if i could just get some fiction published as well... *


*this may seem like whining, but don't take it that way. i am absolutely pleased and happy publishing reviews. but i would also love getting some of my own stuff published, so that other people could do the reviewing.