I think that, more often than not recently, I have been engaging in promiscuous reading (which may be a term coined by Austin Kleon) - starting more than one book at once. Sometimes I finish them all, but sometimes more than one falls away. Sometimes they all fall away. I am very fickle. Also, I no longer feel any kind of compulsion to finish something that I don't like. I don't know where we get this idea that we have to finish reading something we don't like - is it an idea left over from school, where we had to read whatever it was that was assigned to us? Is it fear of missing out, are we afraid that the book we're reading will somehow magically stop being terrible and something cool and fun will happen? I'm not sure. Someone I'm close to recommended Striver's Row, by Kevin Baker, and I have started it but it has not grabbed me yet. What has grabbed me, though, is Eve Babitz. Here she is playing chess with Marcel Duchamp: I'm reading I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz right now, because it's the only thing that my library had available as an ebook other than her novel Sex and Rage (which I also checked out, but have not started.) I am really enjoying it - I read it on my commute and on my work breaks - it's nice and long, with some shorter essays that were published in magazines. It begins with the making of The Godfather II, which was very charming for me as I have a soft spot for Francis Ford Coppola. My favorite story so far is "Skin Deep": "What would you do with [a leopard skin] anyway?" my nine-year-old sister wondered later that night, when we lay in the same motel bed with the horrible highway outside with horrible trucks and I longed for my bedroom in Hollywood – Hollywood where everyone knew you could have everything. "Do with it," I cried. "Lie on it naked when men were in love with me. What do you think?" Eve Babitz is just a very good, glamorous time, and I need a little glamour injected into my very unglamorous-at-the-moment life. I can't have nails at work (not because of Rules or anything like that, just because my nails have found creative and painful ways to break while I'm at work), and I have to wear jeans, which are not my favorite things in the world. I keep trying to make going to work look good, but it's been difficult, especially because I can't shop as much clothes-wise. I am not complaining, though. I'm just happy to have an income at this point.
The last book that I finished was Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and that was a good time. I also have started Each Moment Is the Universe, by Dainin Katagiri Roshi. I still have Beauty's Kingdom on the back burner and am about halfway through Story of O, and I'll have to finish Story of O in the next two days if I want to finish it as I am unable to renew ebooks. I'm not sure if I want to finish it, though. I guess I'll find out.
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It has only been in the last few months that I have discovered The Plotless Novel. I didn't realize that such a thing existed until I started reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. I got halfway through it and gave up. (I Wikipedia'd the plot twist, and there was one, but I didn't care about it at all. I wish the book had been about Hobie.) This was also the case with Gringos and seems to be the case with Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, although the latter actually has a main character that I like. I got to exactly halfway just now and I am not sure if I will continue. (My library loan is about to expire.) What I enjoy about a plotless novel is that it is incredibly realistic. Life has its stories, but life doesn't have a plot. It seems to me that an author really must create a dynamic protagonist in order to have a plotless novel. I suppose that's why Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead has been the plotless novel I have enjoyed the most. I really disliked the main characters for the other two books. I suppose people really like plots, and that makes sense, because people like to believe that there are Reasons for everything and that Everything Will Work Out, even though that doesn't always happen. A plot makes us feel grounded, makes us feel like our lives are going somewhere, even though we may not be. A plot is comforting. Guess I'll go back to Beauty's Kingdom. Lately I've been listening to After Hours by The Weeknd. It's like an album of Sad Night Crimes. I took a nap today and woke up to the news that John Prine had passed away. So sad. I was hoping I'd get to see him live some day, as I missed him when he came to town on the Tree of Forgiveness tour. He will definitely be missed by many. Was checking out Austin Kleon's blog and found this great little interview with Billy Barr, who generally lives a self-isolating life. This small interview really resonated with me, as someone who went to the store today and thereafter vowed to never go to the store again. This was my favorite part:
About 20 years ago, Barr added a movie room onto his cabin. It has a projector, carpeted walls, and three chairs. "I have a nice chair for me and I have two other chairs with the idea that I'd invite people up," he said. "And I never do." Honestly, I'm having such a good time in quarantine that I have nothing to talk to my therapist about tomorrow. This can go on forever as far as I'm concerned. The only thing that I miss is the library, and I can still get ebooks, so...there's that. |
AuthorArtist, essayist, divinity school dropout. Here for a good time, not for a long time. Archives
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