Psychic Synopses

I finished up Consider The Lobster earlier today. I can't think of anything to write about it; the essays were wonderful and hilarious and you should read the book. I'd say "Up, Simba"^[1] and "Consider The Lobster"^[2] were my favorites. In lieu of spoilers (not that I can spoil topical essays without plots), I'll just give it a hearty recommendation^[3] because I really liked it. Okay moving on now wheeeeeeeeeee

I picked up two more books a few days ago that aren't on the Kindle Store (fucking bullshit, I know -- I didn't pay all this money for an Ego Tablet to not be able to read everything I want immediately all the time): The Heart Of The Matter^[4] by Graham Greene and A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius^[5] by Dave Eggers. I'm gonna do Heart first and then dive right into Genius.

But before that, I'm going to predict the plots of these books based entirely on their front and back covers.

Oh No The Back Covers Don't Have Any Plot Information

The Heart Of The Matter

Our protagonist, Toni,^[6] is a native of a Caribbean island invaded by British troops during some sort of war that may or may not be fictional. The war, brutal on its unfortunate pawns yet empowering for its hawkish orchestrators, illuminates the struggle inherent within man whilst stifling -- okay I can't do this anymore MAYBE THERE WILL BE ELVES

I REALLY WANT THERE TO BE ELVES IN THIS BOOK

NOT NECESSARILY LIKE LEGOLAS BUT DEFINITELY IN THAT VEIN

Also talking clouds? Talking clouds are in like zero things. What the hell, collective creative consciousness? Are you telling me I just had an idea that literally zero^[7] people have had before? I didn't even have to think about it. Shit, name one of them Nimbus. You're welcome.

A Heartbreaking Work .  . .

In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that I sort of know the general idea behind Genius. Dave's parents get cancer and die and he's got to take care of his brother. Something like that -- maybe his brother isn't of an age where he needs to be taken care of. Maybe all of us always need to be taken care of. Maybe . . .

FAAARRTTSSSSSSS

No but really I'm pumped to read both of these books in spite of these totally dickish "summaries." I've heard nothing but good things about Eggers^[8] and MVP is just Da Best and I trust her implicitly.

Plus they'll have plots -- definitely at least Heart -- so if nothing else you'll all get to read me making an ass of myself some more.







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[1] Written for Rolling Stone, "Up, Simba" is about the week (I think) DFW spent on the John McCain 2000 campaign. His analysis of Young Voters and how a population's apathy towards the democratic process can be used by a campaign to its advantage is really interesting. It's also written in a style I can only describe as "rapid," with some sentences running longer than a page.^* You can pick up just this essay, weirdly enough -- it is over 60 pages^* long -- on Amazon or read it on a shadily-illegitimate pdf-scanning website. Google it, click on the second one, and TELL NO ONE I SENT YOU.
[2] Written for Gourmet Magazine, this one's about the Maine Lobster Festival but it also delves into the morality of boiling a living animal. It's not too heavy-handed, either: his case is more objective and ends on a skeptical note. Again, it is also very funny. It's even available on Gourmet's website! Free! Read it!
[3] Completely unrelated but also something I heavily recommend: Frank Ocean's new album, Channel Orange, was released today. That link there will play the whole thing through -- give it some of your time. "Sweet Life" is an early favorite.
[4] Via the lovely MVP.
[5] Mind-reading recommendation from SB.
[6] My friend MS and I once tried to write a novel modeled after -- stolen from -- Toni Morrison and the jury's still out on whether it was (A) racist or (B) oddly transcendent. We finished roughly two-thirds of the first page.
[7] Zero people have worked talking clouds into books, at least. It's worth noting that I've read every book in the history of ever and speak from high authority.
[8] From CP, SB, JL; Klosterman said he re-defined the memoir genre.



[*] Is a Kindle page the same as a normal page? I don't think so. They feel shorter, but that obviously isn't an objective measurement. (Also yes I did just put a footnote in a footnote do you want to say it to my face.)

English Class

I started reading David Foster Wallace's Consider The Lobster last night. I'm trying to see if I like his style without jumping right into Infinite Jest, a book I will never read on a Kindle: over 1,000 pages long with nearly 400 endnotes, the formatting just won't work electronically. Plus, if I pick up the paperback, I'll be able to carry a huge tome around -- and as we all know, size correlates strongly with quality. Hiyoooo!

I really like "Lobster" so far. I just finished the first essay, which is about the 1998 Annual AVN Awards and porn in general. It's not even the first essay about porn I've read: Chuck Klosterman wrote an essay called (go figure) "Porn" in his Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I'm not going to write about (icky!!) porn here because I am a gentleman, but the whole thing does kind of remind me of my high school English class. We shot porn in my English class.

Based on a true story

That's not true at all, actually. Sorry. We did have to follow very strict rules about writing, though. I got pretty mediocre grades in English classes; my essays never really connected with the "correct" answer. I didn't follow The Rules because I'm a dark, mysterious figure with a body that just won't quit. So when I see someone like DFW write an essay about porn (!!) and use run-on sentences and footnotes, it reminds me of how little I use everything I learned in those tedious AP English lectures.

What I Learned In English Classes

1. Kneel before your formulaic gods. Only Five-Paragraph Essays. Er, okay, fine. It's a general form. I can see it, kind of. Oh, the first and last paragraphs are shorter than the others? Each one is three sentences? Weird, but -- the other paragraphs are 5-7 sentences? Listen, I don't know why we're setting limits -- and the first and last sentences of each paragraph are spoken for? The former summarizes what follows, and the latter summarizes what preceded? Do I get to bring a formula sheet to the exam? What do you mean, I should stop using rhetorical questions?
2. 19th-Century England is boring as hell. Why is everyone visiting each other for like a month at a time? Linton Heathcliff is sick for his entire life. He's got a serious disease and no one helps him. "Just a sickly constitution," they said. YOUR CHILD HAS HAD TUBERCULOSIS FOR FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. GET HIM A DOCTOR.
3. Dystopias are bad. You'd think that the name would give it away. As an extension of this, everyone will now have an opinion on how the US is but one misstep away from becoming a totalitarian police state. Ron Paul 2008.
4. Semicolons are weird and pretentious. No joke, I stopped using semicolons in my essays because a teacher actually told me to use periods instead. "A cleaner stop," she said. A related note: I don't know what the "--" thing is, but I fucking love using those now. They were discouraged back in the day! (Ostensibly this is because I did not know what they were for. Still don't. Get at me, haters.)
5. Any object is given more than a cursory description? Discuss for an hour. Hey, guess what? I write things -- jokes, mostly, but it's the same idea: Sometimes adjectives aren't revelations. Can't we just have nice descriptions of things without rehashing the same Man v. Self argument over and over?

6. To break Rule #1 or #4, or to have an interesting style at all, you must be universally acclaimed. Joyce is allowed to write arguably the weirdest introductory paragraph in all of literature and Dickens can write the shit out of a run-on sentence, but, see, they're extremely famous now even though we never really talk about how they were received upon release back in the day so we're mostly worshipping everything in hindsight while completely ignoring the present and why haven't you punctuated this part of your essay you lose three points.

Louis CK has a bit about how technical high schools exist to narrow dreams:

We raise kids and tell them they can be whatever they want. We send them to technical high schools and say, "You can be one of these eight things."

C'mon, English classes everywhere. Step your game up. I'm going to write about dragons. Singing dragons.