Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Road Trip!
I've always hankered for a good road trip and in my time I've done a few. Particularly out West, there is no feeling like the feeling of being behind the wheel and just going, the earth ahead, around, and behind and the unending, magnificent expanse of sky. Those have been times for feeling really connected to something more important, whatever that is or might be. There was a time, maybe almost fifteen years ago, when I drove two or three times across country; once from L.A. to Rochester, New York, another time from Denver to Maine. Those are some memories, there...Maybe I'll think back on this year as a great travel year. Certainly I've done more than this year than in other recent years. Starting with Washington, D.C. for New Years', two trips to Boston, the trips to Miami and Pittsburgh and a week in Colorado -- and I have a full-time job and we're only in June.
More travel plans are in the works. Although there was a lot of talk after the elections of folks emigrating to other countries, in my little world it's a reality: In the last few years, two sets of friends have permanently left for Canada. I'm planning a trip to see them.
It was sticker-shock logging on to bargain airfare sites to pull back fares approaching $1,000. (Guess I got a little too used to under-$200 fares.) Then I thought, Amtrack and Canada-rail how romantic, but railroad tickets were almost as much or more, weaker Canadian dollar notwithstanding.So I've decided to drive. Honda gets great gas mileage and I will get to see a part of both countries I've never seen before. Plus: Grace can come along. She loves a ride in the country as much as I do.
Tentatively, I am planning on driving North through Minneapolis/St. Paul and then head due West out of Fargo. I will drive through Montana and across the thin sliver of northern Idaho, before heading North again past Spokane to Penticton, B.C., where one set of friends have moved.On my way back, I will travel across the Canadian plain and visit my other set of friends in Calgary. Then on to Winnipeg. Not sure then if I'll return to Fargo in one great loop there, or continue East until turning South above Great Falls and Duluth...
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Books
So, what have you been reading lately?
Oh, I just finished reading Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again. I enjoyed it... I think.
I mean, there was some great writing, some great scenes. It captured a time and the changing times, the very end of the 1920s, the depth of the 1930s. Reading these took me right there, I could almost touch the people and breathe in the events as they were happening.
But then, a lot of it seemed like a drawn out character sketch. At times I'd be almost disgusted for being dragged along like that -- so many people -- and then that's it, they're gone. No further ruminations or thinking back about them after you'd been introduced to them.
And the heavy parts, 'Man-Alive' and 'Man-Creating', oh my. I got the point after the first billion paragraphs. After getting the point, those sections I sorta skimmed. Wolfe even makes fun of himself about this, in a chapter where he meets a famous author who introduces him as a 'leeterary genius' who uses '21 adjectives when 4 would do'. chuckle chuckle
The thing about his character sketches, if I call them that, is that each one serves as a point of reference for the main character to think about something and grow and move on. It's like the entire chapter or section will be one long character sketch, followed by a realization that, in terms of words chewed up on a page, is comparatively small. But it's those realizations, those puny realizations, that get you in the gut. There were a few of those in the book & it was great!
There's some other things I liked about the book. He writes a letter (that takes at least three chapters) at the end of the book about every ideal being shattered and yet still hopeful about the future. He's had it with philosophical concepts and yet hopes for a better tomorrow. That touched a chord: That's the way I'd like to write or to be!
I also read, thinking, oh the parallels with today. The glittering set of 1920s New York isn't much different from frothy uber-capitalism of today, and the conversations and blase outlooks could be like some of the parties I attend. And like with prison scandals of today, there were some pretty sickening scenes in Nazi-era Germany that, to me, demonstrated that the worst in human nature isn't remote.
Right before Wolfe's book, I had read something by Dale Peck, Hatchet Jobs. Ever hear of him? Well, I hadn't. It's a compendium of his book reviews and after reading the book I have to say that I believe the reputation of the book or of the author seems to be built up on the book jacket. I didn't know most of the authors he reviewed, or if I did in name only and not by their books. It's set up as if all the books or authors reviewed within them are being soundly criticized and I suppose to a certain extent it's true, but I didn't see it as a negative book. Not at all. I almost saw it as more of another angle, a literary world angle, of critiquing our current society (by what gets published and what becomes 'popular'). I read it from that angle and wasn't turned off by it at all.
So the next book I've chosen to read is one of Dale Peck's own novels. I'm reading it partly to see what does someone who doesn't like a lot of contemporary writing write like? He's written several books, apparently one at least is supposed to be gay-themed, but they only had What We Lost at the library. What We Lost is supposed to be 'based on a true story' and is billed as a memoir. I don't know. What is fiction and what is truth anymore?
Oh, I just finished reading Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again. I enjoyed it... I think.
I mean, there was some great writing, some great scenes. It captured a time and the changing times, the very end of the 1920s, the depth of the 1930s. Reading these took me right there, I could almost touch the people and breathe in the events as they were happening.
But then, a lot of it seemed like a drawn out character sketch. At times I'd be almost disgusted for being dragged along like that -- so many people -- and then that's it, they're gone. No further ruminations or thinking back about them after you'd been introduced to them.
And the heavy parts, 'Man-Alive' and 'Man-Creating', oh my. I got the point after the first billion paragraphs. After getting the point, those sections I sorta skimmed. Wolfe even makes fun of himself about this, in a chapter where he meets a famous author who introduces him as a 'leeterary genius' who uses '21 adjectives when 4 would do'. chuckle chuckle
The thing about his character sketches, if I call them that, is that each one serves as a point of reference for the main character to think about something and grow and move on. It's like the entire chapter or section will be one long character sketch, followed by a realization that, in terms of words chewed up on a page, is comparatively small. But it's those realizations, those puny realizations, that get you in the gut. There were a few of those in the book & it was great!
There's some other things I liked about the book. He writes a letter (that takes at least three chapters) at the end of the book about every ideal being shattered and yet still hopeful about the future. He's had it with philosophical concepts and yet hopes for a better tomorrow. That touched a chord: That's the way I'd like to write or to be!
I also read, thinking, oh the parallels with today. The glittering set of 1920s New York isn't much different from frothy uber-capitalism of today, and the conversations and blase outlooks could be like some of the parties I attend. And like with prison scandals of today, there were some pretty sickening scenes in Nazi-era Germany that, to me, demonstrated that the worst in human nature isn't remote.
Right before Wolfe's book, I had read something by Dale Peck, Hatchet Jobs. Ever hear of him? Well, I hadn't. It's a compendium of his book reviews and after reading the book I have to say that I believe the reputation of the book or of the author seems to be built up on the book jacket. I didn't know most of the authors he reviewed, or if I did in name only and not by their books. It's set up as if all the books or authors reviewed within them are being soundly criticized and I suppose to a certain extent it's true, but I didn't see it as a negative book. Not at all. I almost saw it as more of another angle, a literary world angle, of critiquing our current society (by what gets published and what becomes 'popular'). I read it from that angle and wasn't turned off by it at all.
So the next book I've chosen to read is one of Dale Peck's own novels. I'm reading it partly to see what does someone who doesn't like a lot of contemporary writing write like? He's written several books, apparently one at least is supposed to be gay-themed, but they only had What We Lost at the library. What We Lost is supposed to be 'based on a true story' and is billed as a memoir. I don't know. What is fiction and what is truth anymore?