Gatsby and the great American dread
Travesty. Tra-ves-ty. Noun. Plural: –ties. A false, absurd, or distorted representation of something.
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Travesty. Tra-ves-ty. Noun. Plural: –ties. A false, absurd, or distorted representation of something.
If it isn’t already a given, the things that happen in novels don’t happen in our lives—at least, not in the same way they do in novels.
“A River Runs Through It.” “On the Road.” “All Quiet on the Western Front.” “The Bell Jar.” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” What do these books have in common, you might ask? Well, for one, they’re all rooted in autobiography, and their official title is roman a clefs (“novels with keys” in French).
Anybody with even a remote interest in the history of American music would do well to check out Michael Azerrad’s “Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991.” It is a loving paean to a few of the most important bands on the American scene—bands like Minor Threat, Minutemen, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr—who could be said to constitute the pantheon of amerindie.
Apropos of nothing I picked up “The Dream Songs” by John Berryman, two years after I last read it. I can remember when I last read that book: driving to Madison with my dad in March, a weekend trip. I had known since December I was accepted to the university, but this March trip was the first time I had visited as an actual student, not an applicant. Perhaps that association is why “The Dream Songs” possesses so much poignancy in my memory.
It’s like this: Proust was walking one way up the street and I was walking one way down the street. We’ve got plans, each of us, busy schedules. But our eyes meet. We recognize each other. I say “Hi.” He doffs his hat—he doffs something, at least—but I stop him. I’ve got a terrible habit of this, sometimes.
How do you end up in a band like Deerhoof? From what fantastic and magical place did the members of Deerhoof crawl to form a band? What stratum did these unconventional headbangers spring from? The Daily Cardinal recently spoke with guitarist John Dieterich in anticipation of the group’s upcoming visit to Madison.
One of my regrets from the summer was not finishing “Annals of the Former World” by John McPhee. Besides the fact he is one of the most terrific writers of the past 60 years, “Annals of the Former World” concerns itself with geology and geologic history, a subject of renewed interest for me. My interest is semi-facetious—although as an environmental studies major, rocks are generally always relevant—insofar as I don’t care so much for the names of eras and what they entail (I also have less of a memory for such things). But what really gets me about it is the geochronology aspect. The time part.
I don’t buy books in any format, anymore unless I intend to read them more than once. And even on those rare instances, I’m more inclined towards Kindle books than paper ones, unless there’s some latent reason otherwise.
Can you be an author of serious work and still have a personal life to boot? What kind of a question is that?
What a strange and wonderful beast comedy is. Unfortunately, it’s not always well adapted to the yoke of literature. The presence of mind required by reading is different than that of film or television or theatre, and the wordy rigid structure of a book can do serious damage to the sort of spontaneity and vivaciousness comedy demands. I’m being very vague here.
Happy Valentine’s Day Eve, Madison.
How much is there really to say about dialogue in literature?
There’s a good moment (one of many) in Haruki Murakami’s “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End Of The World” where the narrator indulges in a discourse on sofas. Here’s a tantalizing quote from that speech in Chapter Five:
Where was the last place you bought a book? If you’re blanking on the “when,” you might be better off skipping the question entirely.
Who the hell was William Shakespeare? It’s a pertinent question, one that has its own body of scholarship and devotees.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I imagine all of you fellow students out there are thankful for the break, even if Thanksgiving itself doesn’t jazz you. For instance, I’ve never been a huge fan of turkey, though this is the one time of year it’s actually good. Still, I’ll probably have the best Thanksgiving ever with just a plate of mashed potatoes and a tankard of cranberry sauce.
Most writing has a geographic locus—unless you’re reading Samuel Beckett, in which case, have fun crawling through the mud or shutting yourself up in a funeral urn or some other abstraction of the human condition. And even if the author steadfastly refuses to name locations, a story that takes place in some huge metropolis or sleepy village will always have some bearing on a real- life location.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but would a book by any other name read as well? Could you imagine “The Great Gatsby” retaining its charms if it were named “Trimalchio” or “Under the Red, White and Blue?” Fitzgerald could’ve. He wanted to call it one of those two, or maybe even “Gold-Hatted Gatsby” or “The High-Bouncing Lover.”
Symbolism. God, that’s a big topic to cover. I mean, how do you even go about it? What’s the peppy, prepared angle on this topic? Without it dissolving into some kind of tract or tirade I mean. I do my best, week in and week out, to avoid either of those modes.