52 Weeks Long

Shorty Review: Gerald Stern: Lucky Life

Gerald Stern is great stuff. This was recommended to me by a summer workshop instructor, and the thing about it was the way that Stern captures details, but also a sense of dread about the world. Hmm, not dread, more like…things are beautiful, but also, tough. I was surprised to see that he’s still around and publishing new books—I think I may have to write him a letter. 

p.s. Remember this place?  Me too. A project that just doesn’t lend itself to reading the amount of poetry I am reading, becuase poetry doesn’t always lend itself to finishing books. . But hopefully I can start doing shorty reviews on Goodreads as well as here. Enh?

Review: Vacation, by Deb Olin Unferth

Deb Olin Unferth’s Vacation was a tough one because…well, it just was not an easy read.  I came to it right after her short stories book, and was not surprised to see each section of the book was fairly short as well—each chapter was broken into many sections that were fairly analogous in length to the stories she writes. 

The thing that made this book difficult (and I’m reaching into memory here, because this review is way overdue) was simply the way that the book drops you in the deep end and asks you to swim. There’s some absolute brilliance here, too, especially in the part of the plot that explores fidelity and the weirdness of couples (individually and as a unit).  I’d say more but don’t like spoiling things; if you want those spoilers, check out the listing on Amazon.

The post-modern-confusion part of this book takes away from it, but the novel as a whole is memorable for the good (descriptions, human dynamics, a level of weirdness that makes it fun) as well as the bad (the recurring “who the hell are these people?” question). 

Started: sometime in February, I think? 
Finished, sometime in February, I think? 
Review: 6/52

Review: Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, by Justin Taylor

Okay okay, my goal of a book a week might not be happening (honestly, I lost count of the weeks and stuff like that, though I am committed to ), and the writing about the books I have read has also fallen gloriously behind, but this book was enough to make me need to bust out a completely out-of-timeline review.

Justin Taylor gave a reading at Powell’s in Portland on April 4th, and totally nailed it by reading one of the longest (and best) stories in his debut collection, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever. His question and answer session completely informed my reading of the book, especially upon hearing that he had lived in Florida for a good bit of time (“[People will tell you that] Florida isn’t really in The South, but there’s a lot of The South in Florida,” he said at one point).

Some of the stories in Everything feature the same characters, and more than once I started thinking that perhaps he needs to get together with Craig Finn for another Hold Steady album full of had drugs and shady characters.  It needs to be mentioned that Taylor sometimes writes journalistic pieces about music,  and this book definitely has many references to hardcore punks in and among the heart-wrenching relationships and graphic descriptions of the Abu Ghraib photographs. I could clearly see these punk characters—including Snapcase, Estrella, and other anarchist archetypes (“Hey why do you call yourself Snapcase? someone said. Dude, someone else said, it’s a band.”) and the world that they occupied, because the iconography felt so spot-on for someone who grew up in a large punk rock scene.

There were at least two or three stories that explored some pretty deep cultural taboos, and two or three (not necessarily the same ones) that made me have to close the book afterwards because of the sheer emotional weight that they carried.

I can’t recommend enough that you go out and see Taylor read, and then pick up a copy of the book.  Totally worth the money and your time.

Started Reading: April 4, 2010

Finished Reading: April 7, 2010

Review: 5/52 (though this was not the fifth book read)

Any Comments?

Review: Minor Robberies, by Deb Olin Unferth

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t reflect a lack of reading, merely a lack of writing.  I decided pretty early on that making sure I was reading on time was the most important thing.

Minor Robberies, by Deb Olin Unferth

So the first thing to know about this book is that it’s part of a McSweeney set called One Hundred  and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box. Some of you may think that this means that reading one of the three books inside that small box (the other books are by Dave Eggers and Sarah Manguso, if you are wondering), and calling it my next book, is cheating. Those people are jerks.

Anyway, I’m going to guess that Minor Robberies comprises most of the 145 stories in the set, as she tends to write incredibly short stories. In doing so, I love how she plays with the form of what constitutes a story.   We get stage directions for a scene, an entire list of people who do not believe that Deb Olin Unferth is a fuckup, and just a whole lot of weird characters in odd situations.

Because these stories are just a few pages long (in a book with small pages), it means that Unferth really has to cut to the point right away. The book feels like an exercise in “now what can I do with this?” and that doesn’t take away from the complexity, wittiness, and outright good writing here.

Reading this book inspired me to read her novel, and I might even try to have her as a teacher in a workshop this summer. Reading this book as I made the switch from a poetry writing class to a short story writing one also really fucked up my writer brain—which tells me that the writing style really works. Great stuff!

Started reading: Fall 2009

Finished reading: January 25, 2010

Review: 4/52

Review: Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

Revolutionary Road — Richard Yates

I’ve spent too much of my life worring about pretension. I’m from the Midwest US. I think one of the parts of the Midwestern attitude that I carry with me is that sort of anti-intellectual sentiment; growing up, I probably apologized for my academic success more than I celebrated it. This pans out in a lot of ways, one of them being that I will nearly never describe a band to someone out loud; I just feel like pretentious when I do it, and that’s something I’d never want.

Reading Revolutionary Road made me consider this because I feel like some of the readers in my life are the kind of people that scoff at reading “lower” literature. I’ll admit to discovering—and loving—George R.R. Martin and David Eddings as a late-twentysomething, and I generally hold people in disdain when they seem to hold one sort of book in a high regard as “literature” and think of other things as beneath them.  I do this sometimes myself, which makes me a hypocrite, but really, I have always maintained that only a snob could limit themselves to books seen as particularly “well-written.”

And then I read Revolutionary Road, and the landscape shifted.

This book is written so well. There’s so much poetry in it, so much depth to things, so much cleverness, and none of it detracts from the plot. I find myself reading symbolism, thinking about how Yates write it, in a way I usually only do when taking a class. I see events coming from far away, but Yates still handles them brilliantly.

In short, I don’t really know how to pick a book to read next. How does one follow this up? More than that, I understand now: why read books that are written poorly, when books like this exist?

Started Reading:  06 January 2010

Finished Reading: 19 January 2010

Review: 3/52

Review: Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman

Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman

I really enjoyed this book.

Anyone who has paid any attention to my reading habits in the past few years (yes, both of you) knows that I heart me some Klosterman. I love his ability to not just talk about pop culture, but to add in a human element.  He relates to the cultural artifacts that he explores on a personal level, and writes quite well in the process.

This book keeps that theme going. I especially enjoyed the essays on Ralph Sampson (and NBA all-star I’d never heard of), Cobain and Koresh, spying on strangers (a topic he’s covered before, in great length), and Weezer.

Really though, solid read. I hope he’ll be at the Pop Conference this year.

Started: around Christmas, 2009

Finished: 14 January 2010

Review: 2/52

Review: You Don’t Love Me Yet, Jonathan Lethem

You Don’t Love Me Yet — Jonathan Lethem

This book sometimes reads as an outsider’s view of what bands are like, and sometimes like what it really means to play in a band. Lethem is at his best when the story concerns the band; first show; at his worst with some scenes that feel ovewritten.

It’s a love story, of course, well, kind of. Maybe not predictable, but also just the kind of book that feels interesting rather than engrossing or moving. There’s some hot action in there, and again, the scene of the band’s first show certainly nails the utterly all-encompassing way that live music can sometimes feel.

But the ending was merely meh—like the story’s idea had run its course and simply needed to end—and there were also many moments in this book that seemed only to exist in order to be weird.

Started Reading: in 2009

Finished Reading: 05 January 2010

Review: 1/52

An Introduction

I’m obsessed with creative projects that tie themselves to time.

Whether these projects take place over an entire year, or consist of a task to complete within a month, or even a weekly something something, I find that these kinds of projects draw power from their constraints.  Rather than giving an artist free rein to go all over the damn place with their work, the time involved adds a well-needed parameter. The moe I began thinking about this concept, the more that I realized just how many related projects I’d be able to find to rite about—and I also realized that seeking out/hearing about other projects would be fun as well.

I’m committing myself to at least two of these projects for 2010.  Once I decided that, I decided to start a tumblr that could both document my projects, and also document the projects of others. I want to encourage any of you who are doing this to start a project that will take you 52 weeks—and let me know.  I’d love to promote you.

My two projects are going to be:

1.  Making a mix playlist for my girlfriend weekly. I like to think that it’s sort of the aural equivalent of a bunch of flowers every week. If she doesn’t mind, I’ll post them here.

2.  Committing to finishing a book every week and writing about it. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that largeheartedboy’s amazing series was an inspiration for this (not to mention a fantastic example of what a goal can do for you).

I want to encourage participation here,  so please use the submission button [once I set it up] to tell me about your project, suggest a book, etc.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!