goodreads review: The Book of Lost Things
The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly.
Acquired: Half-Price Books! whut-whut.
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In typical Connolly form, The Book of Lost Things is a journey through frayed, twisted, and warped fairy tales. Dealing with loss through a series of alternately light and sinister constructs, Connolly tells a typical coming-of-age story in atypical fashion. It was a bit weak at points, but when it was on, it was poignant and memorable. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a quick read that gives them something to talk about. Best part: the communist dwarves. Clearly. Every book needs more of those.
Filed under words | Comment (0)goodreads review: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks
Acquired: Gift from Cameron
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This was a gift last Christmas, and I read it just in time for Halloween. I was really impressed with this so-called oral history of the zombie war: it’s immersing and touching, embracing the “human factor” along an oft-traversed horror terrain. Like all good zombie films, it embraces the flexibility of the living dead to encompass multiple metaphors. The most predominate metaphor in World War Z is the pervasive xenophobia and bureaucracy of the day that keeps us from any sort of true progress. Ulysses it is not, but it is certainly a cut above typical horror fare.Â
Filed under words | Comment (0)words i hate.
As one might imagine, I heart me some words. I collect them as a whore does her trinkets (Black Books? Anyone? No? Come over right now and we’ll watch it). I’m not picky: long words, short words, borrowed words, technical words, silly words are each welcomed with the same nerdy eagerness. My former creative writing classmates would point out that I have an undeniable soft spot for words with n’s and k’s — especially when they appear together. I learned the hard way that inky pinkis a tough phrase to get away with in a poem that isn’t purposefully absurdist. Don’t even get me started on l’s.  I also have a strong preference for words dealing with light (glow, lit, luminous, phosflouresence) and single-syllabic verbs of self-containment (clutch, nod, and obviously blink). I obsess over the varied beauties and guiles of words. Obsess.
My bizzare — though not uncommon, I imagine — attachment to words has a dark side: a physical, inexplicable repulsion to other words. I began to reflect on words I hate after one of many conversations I’ve had about the word moist. No one I’ve spoken with can stand that word. There’s nothing in my mind that makes it phonetically repulsive, so I assume the vitriol it commands comes from doing its job effectively. Cake being the exception, moist is not the ideal state for most things.
My “Words I Hate” list seems to be composed of two types: words that I associate with something gross and words that I associate with something stupid. Moist is an entry on the gross list. My least favorite word ever is panties. I associate that with something stupid: namely, the adults’ reluctance to say words like underwear to a child. As a (girl)child, panties was the word of choice. Unfortunately, panties is also the word co-opted by the Universal Dirty Mind. It violates sensibilities in every direction. Panties is a silly word for something that is, in my opinion, best when not silly. I take my underwear very seriously. Obviously.
What’s interesting is that while I love words for the way they sound, I’m hard-pressed to find a word I dislilke for the way it sounds. I’m like the guy from Perfume, but with words and without killing pretty girls. So far.
Next up: why I love The Swears.
Filed under why's and how's and what's, words | Comment (0)poetry + me = poeme.
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”- Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”
Those of you who have spoken with me in, oh, the past year for longer than three minutes might have picked up on my professor worship of Dr. Davis. For those of you who haven’t suffered the weekly “Oh! In class? Dr. Davis said…” updates need only know this: he is the poet in residence at Baylor, my creative writing teacher, and makes a hobby out of saying things for me to repeat. One of the things he said in class has been rankling with me for awhile. I fear it’s true and it bothers me, for reasons I expect some of you with sympathize with. What I’m curious about is why it happens, if it indeed does. Dr. Davis posits that, usually, an author’s first novel is told in first person; likewise, earlier in a poet’s career, his or her poems will also be told in first person. Now, as any good writer/reader knows, an “I” or speaker isn’t the author — but with younger or newer poets, the gap between the “I” and the author is significantly smaller. Or so says The Davis.
Being the difficult soul I am, it isn’t surprising that from the day he said this until the end of the class, the most common critique of my work was, “Who is speaking? Why isn’t the person in the poem? The third person speaker is all wrong. Blah, blah, blah.” Of course. Because I didn’t want the rules to apply to me. Now, I gave up being the speaker in my poems a long time ago, but I still run to the “I” as a starting place — or at least I do when I’m not deliberately avoiding such things. And I think this is natural for most people. Is it something that we evolve past with age or maturity? Possibly. Empathy is certainly a watermark of maturity. But using “I” when speaking about someone else is strongly empathetic. Do we, with age and experience, move into more reflective, observational roles? Again, maybe. But that doesn’t seem the best or most complete explanation. So what of the “I” trend in younger writers? Equally interesting, why is there an implicit value in moving beyond the “I,” when a first-person speaker is a clear way of connecting with a reader. I’m curious for your input — especially since so many of my beloveds are writers also, but any of you are welcome to muse with me. As a starting point, I’ve included two short poems by Philip Larkin, my favorite. One includes a self-indicating speaker and the other does not. These aren’t from specifically later or earlier parts of his career, but they illustrate the change in tone that comes with an absent speaker. (NB: These are also just poems I could find on the web without too much digging. So.)
Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.
As Bad as a Mile
Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more
Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.
The Mechanic’s Wife
She’ll have to marry him now!
Petra is betrothed — to rich, eligible Sheikh Rashid. But she plans to ruin her reputation so Rashid won’t want her. Blaize, a fellow guest at her hotel, agrees to be Petra’s pretend lover — though soon he’s taken her virginity!Then Petra makes a shocking discovery. Blaize is actually none other than the man she’s supposed to be marrying — Sheikh Rashid!
So reads the back cover of a Harlequin romance novel called The Sheikh’s Wife or The Sheikh’s Lover or Mr. Sheikh Goes to Washington or something like that. I can’t remember the title, but I wrote down the back copy as soon as I read it because, well, isn’t it obvious?
A few Wednesdays ago was one of the roughest days I’ve had in awhile. But it was also a reminder that I have some extraordinarily awesome friends, one of whom is Miss Lindsay Gafford. Lindsay, as a matter of practice, rummages through Goodwill’s bin of 99 cent romance novels to find the most ridiculous, repulsive, and sad of a patently ridiculous, repulsive, and sad genre. Then she sits around and reads them to friends. Really, I can’t think of another form of entertainment where you get so much bang for your buck. “Bang for your buck…” I shall add that to my list of probable by-lines.
The Sheike’s On-Again, Off-Again Girlfriend doesn’t even have an author listed. It’s that sort of book. Since I’m in the market for a life’s calling, I decide I could write one of these romance novel things and pretty much did, all whilst walking around Target with LDG. I call it The Mechanic’s Mistress, and it goes a little something like this:
Will he get a peek under her hood? Or will their romance stall out?
Celeste is the daughter of wealthy and savage luxury car dealer. Ryder is the a third generation honest and hard-working mechanic. These star-crossed greasers passion for fast cars, clean burning fuel, and each other!
Pretty much it goes on to involve overuse of the words and phrases “chassis,” “driving stick,” “body work,” “humming [motor],” “revved up,” “pistons”…Surely you get the idea.
I was enjoying my averagely clever, filty self when suddenly I recalled something from my dark days of tending the fiction section of Barnes & Noble. Something I had worked long and hard (heehee) to forget:
That’s right. Combining not one but two of the lowest forms of American entertainment, Harlequin Nascar follows the Full Throttle adventures of Nascar drivers and the women who love them. The line includes such titles as Old Flame, New Sparks, Peak Performance, Out of Line, Hitting the Brakes…Again. I feel the picture is in HD.
The funny thing is I was actually disappointed that the romance novel had beaten me to the punch. For a moment I thought, “Perhaps, as an industry, the romance noveliers are aware of how ridiculous they are, how they’ve lowered the bar, how they manipulate the lonely, isolated, and disenfranchised.” Then I read the product description for Overheated:
Things Crystal Hayes could do without: her looks, men obsessed with her looks, and guys who think they’re God’s gift to the ladies. She’d rather be behind the wheel of a truck than navigating cheesy pickup lines. But when Crystal makes a delivery to a NASCAR event, she meets the one guy who could blow all her preconceptions away.…
All his life Larry Grosso has lived in the shadow of his well-known racing family—but it’s now time for him to take what he wants. And on the top of that list is Crystal—breathtaking, sweet…and twenty-two years younger. Their age difference is creating animosity within their families, and suddenly their romance is the talk of the entire NASCAR circuit!
I think I can find something else to do.
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Filed under life i guess, words | Comments (2)