(Book #10) Flannery O'Conner - Everything That Rises Must Converge

The book 'Everything that Rises Must Converge' is a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor. The stories were published in this volume after she died in the mid-60's. The stories all took place in the South, and were written in the late 50's-early 60's era, and portrayed a wide range of colorful characters, while depicting brief but very realistic emotions and encounters between them. Having never read any of her writing before, I wasn't sure what to expect with these stories. What I got was reminiscent of Raymond Carver, dark yet compellingly human perspectives of morally chilling moments.

Before the actual content of the book began there was a lengthy introduction written by O'Conner's friend and boarder, giving a deeply personal perspective of her life, work and some context of her stories. Oft times I may skim through the introduction or skip it altogether to get to the real meat of the book, particularly when it isn't directly related to the narratives. In this cases, having a little background gave a depth of understanding to some of the subjects, language and references.

The first story is the book's namesake, and was probably one of my favorites of the batch. In the end I wondered if it was my first exposure to O'Connor that struck me, or if the structure and many dualities within the story were just that compelling. In this as in her other stories the characters and their individual emotions and grudges are pitted against each other. The stories are told from the perspective of one of the characters, but none of them are really protagonists. Rather, they perceive themselves as protagonists in their own stories with every other character an antagonist to them, inhibiting them from their own views or agenda. There is an ugliness that is embodied in her stories, tapping into aspects of the human condition that we dare not admit, but recognize and relate to as soon as we see them. Repressed hostility, bitterness, spite, jealousy, condescension, and hypocrisy are all prevalent in her characters. Though they are seldom aware of their own flaws, they are quick to point them out in others.

In several books I have been reading this year, there has been a common theme--the climax of life. In two very different books, there was a moment in a character's life when the act of living reaches a symbolic crescendo that embodies all that the character is, has, and ever will be. This moment can be pin-pointed time and time again in all of O'Conner's stories. It is a literary surety that after this culmination the most drastic of circumstances befalls the character. This peak is followed by the steepest of declines resulting in a pivotal change in the character and those around them.

As many of the stories dealt with death itself, we are left to wonder if the subject weighed heavy on O'Connor through her final years, while dealing with her lasting battle with Lupus. In grappling with the mortality of her characters, she may have in fact been reflecting on the end her own life.

(Book #9) Architecture and Film

As I am already a couple days late in putting together a write-up for this past book, I feel that I should try to keep it on the shorter side. Alas, I'm afraid that it might not be possible, given the amount of content that was in the book 'Architecture and Film'. At the risk of sounding obvious, I will say that the book was a compilation of essays on the various aspects of Architecture and how it relates to or is depicted in films and movies. Having been trained in design and currently working in the architectural profession, I felt like this subject and a book exploring it has the potential to be a great blend between one of the great passions and one of the great joys in my life. I had read a few of these pieces before, but it was interesting to revisit them, having new experiences and perceptions about these subjects.

I had initially picked up this book a few years ago to provide some insight and get some varied takes on the depiction of architecture and architects in movies. This has been a subject that has long interested, amused and baffled me. As it turned out the first essay was on this very subject, touching on some obvious architect films like The Fountainhead and the Brian Dennehy "classic" The Belly of an Architect. It also reflected on movies where the role of the architect played a more secondary role to other actions in the movie, such as The Towering Inferno (Paul Newman as hot-shot 70's architect), Indecent Proposal (Woody Harrelson as desperate for cash architect), and Three Men and a Baby (Tom Selleck as architect with a moustache). The essay gave a brief description of each architect movie, then discussed the various themes and how each was depicted and related to each other. It also gave me a little context and further movies to watch in my own Architects in Film project.

Another essay talked about architecture and film in the World War 2 era (before, during and after) and how the two subjects engaged what was happening in the world historically and culturally through the lens of the Cary Grant film Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Home. Like these, some of the essays were more successful at exploring the unification of these two notions, while others fell flat. For instance, one piece about "The Beatles and Architecture" couldn't have been less about architecture. Just because the Fab Four filmed their iconic final performance together on the roof of a building, doesn't make it about architecture! Another writer felt compelled to crap on George Lucas for ten pages while making inaccurate Star Wars references. If you are going to write a compelling essay about some of the most widely popular movies ever made, you best know your source material.

I actually don't have too many complaints about the book, there were an abundance of fascinating pieces on classic modernist heavy films, such as Jacques Tati's Playtime, which made up for the lackluster pieces (or ones heavily based on films I hadn't seen!). There were also a few on the architectural design behind and influencing the making of some great movies. I particularly liked one on art director/set designer Ken Adams, who worked on an abundance of highly visual, modern and architectural films, such as many of the earlier James Bond movies and Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

A book like this acts as a good resource for me, pointing in the direction of other architecturally related films either directly about architects or even secondarily about the spaces a film's character may inhabit. As I have long contemplated writing on some of these subjects myself, it provides some reference on ways of presenting ideas that are similar in vain, but also how not to write about them! It also offers a variety of perspectives on how to watch these genres and on some of the underlying themes of similar films. The best way of grasping a lot of these themes, however, is not by merely reading about them, but by experiencing the films as they were meant to be experienced… by watching them.

(Book #8) Jack London - Call of the Wild

Another week, another book, another write-up. Before I get to the actual content of this week's reading, there are a few semi-related points to address. The first being that Jack London's 'Call of the Wild', was not the book I started reading this week. The original book was a philosophy/design book that I actually had to put down after the first day. This was not due to lack of interest in the topic, but because of the inability to fully comprehend, process and retain what I was reading while my head continuously pounded from headaches. Riding the train is my peak reading time and I didn't want to waste it just staring blankly. I turned to my iPhone for material. Yes, there's an app for that too: a nifty little purchase called 'Classics' which has digital versions of a number of classic literary novels, complete with finger-flicking, page-turning action! Personally, I like the fact that I can carry around volumes of classic literature in my pocket and can read it anywhere or anytime I have a few minutes, without having to lug around a cumbersome wad of paper. But while the convenience of the content is great, it still feels somewhat sterile in the medium. This is why I don't think the Kindle or digital content in general will ever overtake tactile books, at least not anytime soon. The sensory elements that go with reading a book, the dusty old paper, the weight in your hands, the anticipation of the end slowly creeping up are all part of the experience, and people generally don't want to lose that.

That being said, I chose 'Call of the Wild' because I wanted a relatively easy read this week and realized that while I had read this book way back in 7th grade, I recalled the class being split into two groups, those that read the unabridged version and those that read an abridged version. I was in the latter group and felt like it was high time I read the full version (A side note: abridged versions of literature are abominations! I state this not out of some sort of latent inferiority complex precipitated by middle school English, but from a respect for the art of writing. An abridged novel, while hitting the plot points, might lack the flare or colorful descriptions and flow of the original that make the it noteworthy to begin with. They are bastardized versions that censor content and encourage ignorance in our youth. If your child is asked to read an abridged novel, I encourage you to raise hell).

Since it had been so long since reading this story the first time, I didn't exactly remember all that much about it. I knew it was about a sled dog during the Gold Rush in the Alaska Territory in the 1800's, and that the dog eventually went wild. I had completely forgotten that the story was entirely from the perspective of the dog, Buck, and that there were many metaphors and allegorical implications of the narrative. With the anthropomorphism of the dog, London applies human attributes and emotional qualities to facilitate the transformation from the civilized to the feral. From the perspective of the dog, all that matters is the actions surrounding the dog itself, the humans of the story come in and out of the dog's life and we seldom get a glimpse of their actions or the dramas surrounding them. In this sense it is strictly about the animals. When the story opens and Buck is stolen from his initial life of comfort and relative simplicity, the reader is implicitly aware of how the story is going to end. From the title itself, the Wild is posed as an inevitability, we know that it is coming and the Call, even when not identified as such, is an omnipresent theme looming in the natural environment.

The transformation is systematic and complete, beginning with the personality and emotions of Buck. He is thrust into the harshness of a new world and is forced to come to grips with his new surroundings or succumb to their severities. It is through the often violent encounters with humans, other dogs and the frigid North itself that we witness the change from a domesticated dog to a wild animal. Again, the phases of transition between these two states is allegorical of changes in man as well. Through London's projections we can compare these stages of being to any story where an alteration of the character is a central theme. Once more, London has tapped into the primal aspect of animals to adapt, although with any change there are always consequences to heeding the Call.

(Book #7) Salman Rushdie - Grimus

Before the season premiere of Lost a couple of weeks ago, I barely could recall the name Salman Rushdie. It was upon our second viewing of the episode that Jess spotted one of his books in the hands of a character. A sidebar: If you don't watch Lost, you should. But if you don't know anything about Lost, just know that books are one of the fascinating layers of the show adding another dimension to the story and characters. The books that appear often hint at the mysteries of the island and events that unfold before the viewer each week. Tackling all the books shown, mentioned or referenced in the show would be a yearlong undertaking in and of itself, so I become selective. I went to the library in search of the book, 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories', which I had seen the evening prior. They didn't have that particular book, but I found myself looking at some of Rushdie's other works anyway. In skimming the generic back-cover descriptions, I found one that sounded very much like the premise of a certain show that takes place on a certain mysterious island. This is how I came to read Rushdie's novel 'Grimus'.

'Grimus' introduces us to the main character of Flapping Eagle, an Indian (for lack of a better, word because I cannot use the term Native American as "America" doesn't exist in the reality we are shown) who chooses to become an immortal and the events that that choice led to. This is not to say that the story is about immortality, because at a certain point the character finds himself in a place, an island, of which the inhabitants are ALL immortal. Immortality acts as the medium in which the events on the island occur. I concede that this statement must be a bit confusing, but the story itself was intentionally confusing. We follow along with Flapping Eagle's uncertainty at what is happening around him and are forced into questioning a whole myriad of things that seem commonplace within the story. Everything seems a little bit off, and we are led to believe that the answers to all of this lie with Grimus, a mysterious entity that remains unseen for the majority of the book. The drive for the story then becomes the pursuit of answers and the pursuit of Grimus.

Much like Lost, the reader has to do a lot of wandering and questioning before finally getting to the payoff, two chapters which effectively unravel the mysteries and resolve the question of "Why are we here on this island?" The similarities in themes of obsession, attraction, choices and yes, multiple dimensions are not merely plot points. They are devices used to emphasize the evolution or devolution of characters and the essence of their being in a cyclical world. These are universal themes and something addressed in nearly all stories.

Even if it turns out that this book doesn't hold the secrets of Lost (though admittedly there were many similarities) Rushdie still crafted a compelling story soaked in philosophy, science and dark humanity. As this was only his first novel, written in 1975, I can expect that his further writings are even more compelling. Perhaps I may even get to another one of them sometime this year.

Until next week…

(Book #6) Cormac McCarthy - The Road

'The Road', by Cormac McCarthy, has been on my reading list for a while now, probably since winning the Pulitzer Prize a few years back. It intrigued me that a tale of a post-apocalyptic world would be hailed as an award-winning piece of literature, as it seems like a genre that is often formulaic and overused. Now, I have never read anything by McCarthy before, so I don't exactly have his other works to compare this one to, and perhaps that’s OK. I was a little surprised by the writing style itself, which I am told is usual McCarthy (but please correct me if I am wrong!), which was very simple and almost overly careful in the writing, leant to the story itself, a tale of a man and his young son struggling for survival in a desolate world.

The book really focused on the story of the journey of these two nameless characters through their world, and left much of the context left up to the imagination. What happened to this world was never outright explained, but simply implied. We are left to imagine possible explanations for much of what is happening, but again we can infer quite a lot from what little there is there as well as projecting onto the characters from what we as a reader know of human nature.

The title 'The Road' are two words that follow you through the entire book, and they present every page or two and carry with them the weight of the story. The Road is the journey that we are following but the destination, if there is one, is not clear. It is the hope of the characters, that somewhere down the line will be rest without paranoia, but it is also the source of the fear itself. When I finished the book, I couldn't help comparing it to Frodo and Sam stumbling through Mordor in 'The Lord of the Rings', only those characters had a very defined destination and goal, whereas these characters are living only for their own survival through the expanse of desolation.

This story is as bleak as the world in which it takes place, but through the subtleties of metaphor and because of our deep seeded hope, we are compelled to keep turning the pages. For me, it wasn't until the last few pages when the ideas, themes and tropes all fell into place and tied the story up beautifully, if beauty can indeed be found in such a story.

I would like to note that this was quite the remove from the post-apocalytic world of The Stand that I read earlier. In that book, everything is explained in excruciating detail, what the characters are thinking and the history and story of everything that is encountered, whereas this book was very focused on the characters and their deep personal plight and struggle just living day to day. How does a family survive when there is literally almost nothing left and how do you keep your humanity in that struggle?

In December the movie adaptation of this book came out, and after reading this, I can't honestly say that I have much interest in seeing it. This is not to say that the story was not worth reading, it very much was, but the subtlety in the story is less about the events that occur and more about the moments of human nature that are shared between the father and his son. A lot of that might be extremely difficult to capture potently in a film without adding a lot of unnecessary filler. But perhaps someday I'll have a watch just to compare in detail.

Until next week…

52 In 52 : The Blog

After a few weeks of posting my write-ups to my primary blog, it became quite clear to me that the content of that site, my artwork, was being drowned out and lost between the words of my writing. While they are not entirely unrelated, I don't want to overrun what is essentially an art blog with large amounts of text. This is not to say that writing should not happen there, but the format of this project itself almost demands that it be a seperate entity.

Thus, a new site is born: Project 52 In 52

Welcome! For those unfamiliar with the task at hand, it should be fairly obvious that my goal is to read 52 books in a year. I chose to do this, perhaps foolishly, as my new year's Resolution for 2010. This had been an idea that was kicking around in my head for some time, and once January 1st rolled around, I simply verbalized it, and it was so. Much like my own interests, I wanted my readings to be a cross section of a multitude of topics, genres and length.

Despite people's initial reaction and sophisticated suggestions (Dr Seuss, Dick and Jane, etc), I have been keeping on track with an average of a book a week, give or take a few days, and have been writing about them to boot.

My write ups have been mostly a response to the ideas and themes within the book, but not outwardly giving away the plot for those who may want to read it. Also I have been touching on the process of reading and how it relates to the project as a whole. At this point I will stop writing about the writing and let the words speak for themselves...

(Book #5) Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Last Thursday a friend emailed to tell me that he had just seen this great older movie and he suggested that I see it as soon as possible. Perhaps it was merely coincidence or maybe there was just something in the ether connecting our thoughts, but when I got that email the very novel that movie was based on was packed in with my camping gear to start reading over the weekend. A strange twist that certainly solidified that 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' was exactly what I was supposed to be reading this week. Now, before I actually start in on the actual content of the book, I just want to touch on how I have noticed certain themes acting as a string between the books that I am choosing (or are choosing me as the case may be). A particular topic or theme from one book is sometimes mentioned in the next book, which has some other idea that is touched on in a third book and so on. In school, I often found that in reading several different texts in tandem or in parallel would often draw similar notions and complement each other even though they were of completely different classes. I am finding the same thing happening now, and I am left to wonder if these sweeping thoughts are being applied to all of these different writings coincidentally? Am I touching some deep seeded string of content that is universally being addressed in any writing? Or maybe I am merely that string applying my own personal spin on of these readings. I'm thinking that it could be all of them to a degree, but beyond all that it was certainly strange to have someone suggest the very story I was about to read.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey in the 1960's, is a fictional peek inside a ward at a mental institution. It's a story about what happens when a chaotic force, a wild new patient named McMurphy, challenges the order, discipline and unbalance of power that the domineering Head Nurse Ratched holds over the institution. Most people know that this story was a movie starring Jack Nicholson and had a colorful cast of supporting characters as the other patients on the ward, and as a whole the stories were pretty similar. What I was not aware of was that the book was written entirely from the perspective of "The Chief", the enormous Native American character silently in the background of most of the story. This was actually a great way to remove myself from what I remembered of the movie and get a completely different perspective on the actions.

It was also great to get a more in depth reading of the power struggles that happened between the characters, as they were fleshed out a bit more. The interpretation of those struggles by the Chief reflected the view of the reader. Someone that is outside, but empathetic towards the actions that are happening. As the reader, we envision the actions that are happening and can't help but wonder how our own personal reactions to these very extreme and dichotomous individuals would be.

The book overall was really well written and was surprisingly easy to follow even when the pages digressed into hallucinatory visions or casually slipped into back story. While it was good that the story was coherent in that it followed through on the inner workings of one character, I almost wonder how different it would have been if it jumped around between the different patients and the different mental perspectives. I suppose trying to get into the mindset of one particular kind of psychosis would be difficult enough let alone several different ones. It also grounded the story in a way and gave the reader a relatively fixed perspective whose interaction with the other characters progressed as the story went on. The change in one character reflected a change in all of the characters, and I am forced to wonder if perhaps the reader is meant to change as well.