discarding…books

It seems nowadays that for every 2 books I pick up and read, I always toss one and sometimes both aside. These are very daunting odds.

The first toss-aside was Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell. I wanted to read on but I felt very grind-y with the point of the book. Good God, I'm no Mrs. Gaskell (she wrote…books for young ladies. they had very pronounced and beat you over the head moral messages) but I do want literature to do something for me. So Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell got tossed aside.
I kept tossing more and more aside (finding them boring, too poorly written or just…lacking in humanity in general) and now I come to the Dante Club. I started reading in it a fever. It has literary standards that come to life! well, they did initially.

Now they're just…angelic or asthmatic or dull. Longfellow is clearly an angel reicarnated (boring), wendell holmes is wheezy and a two-dimensional busy body and Lowell…well…Lowell is drama.
The characters started out with promise but now they wither and fade. They might get better but why? why bother reading through horrible character development while other characters still get lopped down in graphic Dantean ways? I mean…isn't it better to develop your characters than go overboard in the description of what charred feet look like or what maggots feel when they eat the brain?

Given the qualifications of the writer (summa cum laude, Harvard with a degree in American Lit and a degree in Law), I should trust him and continue on blindly, knowing that all will be better but come on. He's using Dante to make cheap money. and not only is he using Dante, he's using Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell and quite a few other famous people. His book shows no redeemable Anything. For one being so bright and so shining in accomplishment, I'm amazed he even allowed himself to write this book. I have no respect for him. Even Wilkie Collins' who-dun-it's are better than this trash.

Well. I have to go to work but I mean to say a bit more. about everything.

mixing and plotting and…things

The new year moves nicely. I have more energy, I read more (I'd like to think the two are connected. As I read more, I have more energy) and I am, of course, much happier.

The old themes are coming out again. Land. The Potawatomi. Living. I read “Q Road” by Bonnie Jo Campbell a few weeks back. I remember telling Jeff about it and he made a comment about the characters being “dysfunctional”. That took me back. Obviously what I just related about these characters was messed up but I never saw it in that way.
How can an author speak of horrible things but in such a way that grace bursts from the pages? A mother shoots a molester, her daughter buries him in a barn (did he molest the daughter? did she want to be molested? the book asks). This is a bright and brittle thing. There is no way to get around it. And yet…instead of me turning away tired and discontent, I grew thoughtful and kept reading. Kept deeply reading. But why? How did she keep me reading instead of growing tired?

I know that Campbell wanted her characters to be more than just characters but archetypes. They are still fully human. I can't say she succeeded with making them archetyes- but she has begun to know. At times, she overdrew them but I could forgive her because…because? she wrote beautifully and she was trying to write truthfully. Not truthfully where everything is beautiful or everything is ugly. Not truthfully where we talk about some things and then not others. But truthfully. This writer has a big heart and I think if she continues, she will become one of the best (and probably least known) writers of our generation.

The struggle of suburbia has always been on my mind. It hurts to see fields turned into layouts for track housing. I know people need a place to live but must there be so much greed? So much goneness? In town, it's easier. There's no ripped up fields, no weird mounds where they rip the topsoil up and then just layer it up before it gets carted away. No compressions in the earth left. No flat sinking table for pre-fab houses and their owners. “Q Road” ponders this. and it ponders that. What is the solution to this tearing? It gives none. And yet…underneath…there is some answer. Rachel (the main character- it's really her book. she is the land in a zillion ways) is growing up and will grow up. That is something within itself, something I don't really understand yet. To grow up. To let go. and yet not to let go. Ever. It's hard to say. This is a writer to watch. I'm fascinated to see how she views these problems in her further books.

on the other hand, Jeff is spiffy! and everyone in my life needs to meet him. I realize this means treking around and I'm determined it will happen! I believe in a very short time, this blog will receive some big news.

More till later
-Cat