Tag: Writers

Leviathan–Jens Harder

Edwin Turner2 Comments

Jens Harder’s Leviathan is a graphic novel in the truest sense. Harder uses scratchy but fluid images to tell the story of a mystical whale who battles a giant squid, saves Noah’s ark, attacks the Pequod, wreaks havoc on a cruise ship, and eventually battles an armada of anachronisms. The only text Harder employs in Leviathan are excerpts and quotes from a variety of sources including the Bible and a host of philosophers; the bulk of quotes come from Melville’s Moby-Dick. Just as that novel begins with an “Etymology” followed by a section called “Extracts,” Harder begins with a section called “Leviathanology,” a collection of quotes about leviathans from the likes of Hobbes, Milton, and the book of Job. These quotes inform the story of Leviathan, connecting the whale to a sublime and unknowable mystery that Harder will explore. Harder’s surreal images often invert notions of “proper” space and time, giving the whale an awesome significance, but also positing the beast as something that denies signification. By eschewing the traditional forms of graphic storytelling, which rely on speech bubbles and clear-cut panel transitions, Harder is able to capture something that is essentially too large to capture. This book works. Highly recommended.

leviathan.jpg

Never Break the Chain–Cath Carroll on Fleetwood Mac

Biblioklept1 Comment

neverbreakthechain.jpg

Never Break the Chain: Fleetwood Mac and the Making of Rumours by Cath Carroll (yes, that Cath Carroll) provides an excellent overview of the long, strange career of Mick Fleetwood and company. Like many of you (I’m guessing), I was introduced to Fleetwood Mac via my parents, who played Rumours ad infinitum. It was one of the first albums I “owned”–from the vinyl, I recorded a cassette copy that I played on my Sony Walkman repeatedly. I believe Born on the USA was on the other side. As the years passed, Fleetwood Mac somehow became very uncool to my ears (i.e., they did not rap, there was a paucity of shredding metallic guitar overtures, etc), then slightly cooler, then totally uncool (i.e. the Clintons, the reunion tour), then very very cool (thank you college, thank you Tusk).

Never Break the Chain is organized chronologically, making it easy for readers such as myself to skip around to sections of greater interest. The majority of Carroll’s research comes from previously published articles from magazines like Creem and Rolling Stone, as well as a few interviews. Carroll navigates the Mac’s bizarre history, detailing the numerous personnel changes. Mick Fleetwood is the book’s undisputed hero, the rock(er) who kept the band together through the tumultuous tempest of three decades. It’s fascinating to see how the band transforms from a British blues rock group from the John Mayall school of rock, to the melodic songwriting team that recorded the utterly-Western masterpiece Rumours.

As the title suggests, the making of Rumours becomes the focal point of the book. Carroll explores the bizarre love quadrangles that erupted within the band during that time, although for my taste there wasn’t quite enough VH1’s Behind the Music trashiness to her analysis. Ditto for the legendary cocaine use that supposedly fueled the FM’s late seventies output, which is largely glossed over.  However, gearheads who can’t get enough descriptions of studio equipment, instrumentation, and production techniques will love this book. Carroll goes into very detailed accounts of how FM approached songwriting–some of the most interesting passages recount how the band arrived at the album sequences. Plenty of in-fighting, plenty of fights with the studio, and a whole chapter devoted to Tusk. On the whole not bad. However, no substitution for actually listening to the albums.

Mythologies–Roland Barthes

Edwin Turner2 Comments

“Myth is a language”–Roland Barthes

Everyone should own a copy of Roland Barthes‘ Mythologies. Published over 50 years ago, the book seems more relevant than ever. Barthes wields his sense of ironic humor like a scalpel, dissecting the ideological abuse of the post-war spectacle society. In this collection of short essays, Barthes examines the ways in which societies create, use and mediate myths–particularly the way that the “elite,” monied crust of society create new myths–whole systems of myths, really–to control cultural perceptions of “reality.” Barthes uses the language and tools of linguistics in his meditations to examine the malleable space between the signifier and the signified.  Barthes analyzes a range of disparate topics: amateur wrestling, plastic, advertisements for milk and wine, the face of Greta Garbo, children’s toys, and modern film’s conception of the ancient Roman haircut are all considered in relation to how these “everyday” things support the dominant cultural/economic ideology. The methods put forth in  Mythologies are certainly a precursor to what we now call popular culture studies; Barthes is certainly one of the first writers I can think of to dissect mass-mediated, popular culture. And even though it was published half a century ago, Barthes’ keenly ironic style and short-essay format comes across as thoroughly contemporary.

In the final essay of the collection, “Myth Today,” Barthes warns us that the myths we uphold to protect our culture can ultimately destroy the culture. What are the contemporary myth-systems of the United States? What ideology do these myths uphold? Do these myths hold the potential to harm the culture of our great country?

In the Shadow of No Towers–Art Spiegelman

Biblioklept5 Comments

Art Spiegelman’s Maus, released as a graphic novel over twenty years ago, did more to legitimize the comic as an art form than any other work I can think of. It won a Pullitzer Prize Special Award in 1992 (the Pullitzer committee found it hard to classify…perhaps they didn’t want to admit that they were giving a prestigious award to a comic book!), and today Maus is a standard on many college English syllabi.

After Maus, Spiegelman worked for The New Yorker for over ten years, quitting in early 2002 after the September 11th attacks to work on a series of broadsheets entitled In the Shadow of No Towers. These broadsheets were collected in 2004 in an unwieldy 15″ x 10″ book.

spiegelman_02_550×637.jpg

Spiegelman lived in downtown Manhattan, right by the towers; his daughter attended school a few blocks away. He saw the towers collapse in person, fleeing for his life with his family. Spiegelman attempts to capture this raw, unmediated, and very personal experience in In the Shadow of No Towers (Sonic Youth’s 2002 album Murray Street works to the same end–only much more abstractly): the narrative is discontiguous, fluctuating from bitter satire to earnest inquiry. Spiegelman’s choice of the broadsheet as his medium (the broadsheets were published monthly by different newspapers as Spiegelman produced them) is tremendously affective: just like the 9/11 attacks, the broadsheets are larger than life, hard to grasp, hyperbolically resisting easy, singular readings. Spiegelman balances bitter attacks against the conformist mentality spurred by the Bush administration with pathos and humor; In the Shadow of No Towers recalls the good-natured satire of broadsheet comics from a hundred years ago, bittersweetening the content. The 2004 collection wisely contextualizes Spiegelman’s work by reprinting broadsheets of “The Yellow Kid” and “The Katzenjammer Kids.”

Like Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers is a fascinating exploration of how disaster confronts and transforms identity. And reflecting its heinous subject, In the Shadow of No Towers ends without concluding: as the foolish Iraq war begins, Spiegelman can no longer shape any meaning or sense from his work. This isn’t a graphic novel–don’t look for a cohesive narrative structure here; instead, In the Shadow of No Towers explores the loose ends, the detritus, the psychic remnants of disaster.

Dave Eggers on Infinite Jest

Biblioklept5 Comments

ij.jpg

Last week Little Brown published a new edition of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest featuring a new introduction by Dave Eggers. You can read the whole introduction here (thanks to Bob Tomorrowland for sending me the link).

Eggers’ intro weighs in on the current “readability” debate in contemporary fiction. In his 2002 essay “Mr. Difficult,” Jonathan Franzen (author of The Corrections) attacked “difficult fiction,” focusing on writers like William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, whom Franzen views as “Status” writers who don’t really care about their audience. Franzen posits that “Contract” writers (like himself) take a more humanist, social approach. In his intro, Eggers avers that DFW’s work denies these classifications; the content of DFW’s work may be complex and weighty and downright philosophical, but DFW’s tone and his humor and his pathos ultimately allow for an accessible, fun read.

This blog has previously come out against Franzen’s argument: biblioklept is a fan of both the difficult and the more accessible–and the work of authors like Eggers and DFW prove that Franzen’s types are empty models. It’s too bad for Franzen that Gravity’s Rainbow and Ulysses require more work on the part of the reader than say, Stephen King or Tom Clancy. The Bible and Shakespeare and Moby-Dick and Gabriel García Márquez also require work from the reader, and no one could make a legitimate argument for removing them from the literary canon. One day, Infinite Jest will take its place in that same canon, alongside the work of Pynchon, John Barth and Don DeLillo–all authors whose work requires some effort on the part of the reader.

Eggers disscusses the effort required to read Infinite Jest, noting that it’s not a book you can simply put down and come back to a few weeks later. From my own IJ reading experience, I know this to be true: I made three attempts before finally getting into it; once I was “into” it, I was addicted, reading well past my bedtime, lugging the large object around on the Tokyo subway, reading snatches during my lunch break. IJ made me laugh loudly, it made me cry a few times; I even found myself so excited that I had to stand up during the climactic fight between Don Gately and the mysterious guys in Hawaiian shirts. When I finished the book, I immediately started re-reading it, sifting through its dense language for added meaning. And one day (month), when I have the time, I plan on reading it in its entirety again.

If you have any interest in this book, read Eggers’ foreward–he does a much better job selling this book than I could. I will say that this book is a favorite of mine, and that if you put the time and effort into it, you won’t be disappointed.

Writers on The Simpsons

Biblioklept3 Comments

In tonights episode of The Simpsons, Lisa and Moe go to a writer’s seminar called “Wordloaf” in Vermont. Is this a real thing? I googled, but I found nothing.

Moe has been invitedto Wordloaf by Tom Wolfe, who loves Moe’s book of poetry, Howling at a Concrete Moon. What Wolfe and the other writers at Wordloaf don’t realize is that Lisa has engineered Moe’s book, editing it together from Moe’s fragmented notes of despair, and giving it its title. Disappointment, betrayal, and humiliation ensues. Also, I think Homer might’ve eaten a donut or something.

Authors Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections) and Michael Chabon (Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) also guest star. By the way, biblioklept is coming down here, officially, in complete disagreement with Jonathan Franzen’s opinions on “difficult writing.”

pynchon_simpsons.jpg

Thomas Pynchon’s non-image makes a brief cameo. By my count this is his third appearance on the show.

Overall, despite jokes about grading papers and grad school and several obscure literary references–all things so dear to my heart–this episode was not so funny.

Girl With Curious Hair–David Foster Wallace

Edwin Turner3 Comments

dfw.gif

Scott Martin was kind enough to loan me this book. Did he know that it would forever change the way I read? It was the first semester of my freshman year in college, and I was slowly reaching beyond stuff like Henry Miller, Wm Burroughs and Franz Kafka. David Foster Wallace’s short story collection Girl With Curious Hair introduced me to a whole new world of writing. Reading DFW is like having a very witty friend tell you a moving and funny story over a  few beers. He’s hilarious, thought-provoking, and not nearly as hard to read as people seem to think (by the way, simply googling “David Foster Wallace” will yield several vitriolic essays by people who think that DFW is somehow duping his readers. He’s not. These people don’t know a good story when they read one.)

Girl features “real people” like Alex Trebek, David Letterman, and Lyndon Johnson as characters, but constantly destabilizes any realism these figures might lend to the story. The novella included in this collection, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, alludes directly to John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse (another book I’ve loaned out and never gotten back). Westward takes a critical but humorous look at how culture is commodified: the plot centers around a reunion for everyone who has ever acted in a McDonald’s commercial. At the reunion, plans are revealed for a series of real-life “Funhouses,” based on the work of “Dr. Ambrose” (Barth’s stand-in in Westward).

Girl with Curious Hair is probably the best starting point for anyone interested in DFW but daunted by 1000 pages of Infinite Jest (IJ is yet another one I loaned out and never got back). Girl‘s stories have a little more ‘pop’ to them than DFW’s latest collection, Oblivion, and Girl tends to be easier to find used than DFW’s other collections, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (actually a better collection, in my opinion) and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (a collection of hilarious essays and nonfiction).

To sum up: if you still haven’t read DFW go consume this book; when you’re done you’ll be left wondering: “What other good stuff have I been missing out on?”

Scary Stories–Halloween Edition

Biblioklept10 Comments

In the final edition of the 2006 Scary Books series, I take a critical look at some of my 11th graders’ scary stories.

First up is Niki H*nry’s “The Book of the Dead.” This tale is indicative of most of the students’ stories: unwitting protagonists stumble into inexplicable situations that are not of their making. After some confusion, the writer runs out of ideas and the protagonist is killed, usually with a knife. Readers of “The Book of the Dead” will be left wondering just what the book of the dead is–although it does have the power to turn a reader into a zombie.

Freud M*ltinord captures the terror and confusion of change in “Home Alone,” wherein a ten year old boy is left home alone in a strange new house. The real horror though is Freud’s inscrutable handwriting.

I truly enjoyed Chris Tutwil*r’s “Donna’s Reward,” featuring an infanticidal psychopath named “Doom” who carves up his victims–disrespectful teens–with a knife. Again with the knives.

Brittany H*rndon’s “On a Midnight Train to Georgia” illustrates the fear and confusion of a teen on the run from…? Who knows? Brittany didn’t quite finish the assignment. Still, this story expresses the same teenage fears that Roy Orbison immortalized in his classic “Running Scared.”

Anakar*n Diaz’s aptly-titled “Scary Story” (aside: I wonder if Anakar*n is making a postmodern gesture with the title here, perhaps alluding to some of John Barth’s work) features an evil scarecrow who transforms bad boys into scarecrows. Diaz turns a striking phrase: “the scarecrow spirit felt the pain of his life of being an outsider.”

In “The Gods,” Pam*l*rin Ajani recasts the origin stories of her native tribe, the Yoruba. This was very interesting for me, because her story intersected with my own current reading, Lydia Cabrera’s Afro-Cuban Tales.

Seymone Rams*y’s untitled piece is a highly sexualized vampire story (again, I suspect the refusal to title her work, to give a name to horror, is some type of fancy postmodern thing on Seymone’s part). Best line: “Baby, you know you’re my dark chocolate don’t you? So you don’t mind if I take a bite?”

Hannah F^jardo’s “Be Careful Before Wishing” is a reframing of the classic cautionary tale that people should be careful before wishing. Because wishes can come out, y’know, bad and stuff.

Rayna Sm!th’s “The Deaths” I thoroughly enjoyed. Rayna casts herself as the reluctant Sherlock Holmes (she even has a pipe with bubbles) in a murder mystery plot set in the family home. It’s just like I always tell these kids: familial spaces are always haunted spaces!

Similarly, Carolann* Dona explores murder in familial spaces in the excellent tale “The Cloaked Murderer,” in which a princess works out her rage by killing her parents. Her plot to rule the kingdom is foiled by a younger sister who reluctantly saves the day.

Lizbeth Martin*z tackles the revenge story in an animist motif in “The Bear’s Revenge,” in which a jilted teddy bear murders a young girl. I especially like Lizbeth’s use of present tense–it creates a mood of immediacy and suspense.

I regret that I have not the time to expound further upon the works of these young scholars; suffice to say that this random sampling should serve to illustrate the general plots, motifs, and tropes at work in the seething, horrific crucible-minds of teens.