I used to read a lot of novels. I still recall with fondness a weekend that started with me about 100 pages into "The Fountainhead" as I returned from work on Friday evening and by Sunday evening I had finished that and "The Cider House Rules". Not one of the great debauches, I agree, but satisfying nonetheless.
In recent years, I've gotten away from longer fiction, although I still read short stories regularly. There were a lot of reasons for this. Time, of course. With two young active children, there really isn't much of an opportunity to read at home, and what time I had went to shorter pieces. I also had subscriptions for several years to two magazines - Harpers and The Atlantic - that did a fair amount of mental heavy lifting between their covers, and these were joined by The Walrus on its founding. Given that I enjoyed these magazines and had already paid for them, I felt an obligation to read them, but this could at times equal as many as 400 pages each month. Finally, it seemed that most novels I did read were major disappointments. For example, like many good sheep, I read Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections", and thought that (1) it wasn't as good as "The Twenty-Seventh City", (2) the characters were, for the most part, self-absorbed boors and bores, and (3) the author seemed to think he was smarter than the rest of us and was getting too bloody much enjoyment out of telling us so. Some time later, Franzen went out of his way to confirm no. 3, and while Oprah got hit in the backwash from these efforts, redeeming them somewhat, it also confirmed my feeling that we had been conned into reading this book and that Franzen should just take his superior attitude and live in a cave for a few years.
I have recently returned to longer fiction, and I can thank Michael Chabon for that. First off, Chabon is my favorite short story writer, and highly recommend both of his collections ("A Model World" and "Werewolves in their Youth"). As for his novels, I long ago read and enjoyed "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys", and "Summerland" is a first-rate novel for younger folks. But, although I owned a copy of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", even Chabon wasn't enough to drag me over the field of recent disappointments. I had become convinced that modern fiction had little to offer me personally, and resolved to start digging into the ample list of classics that had evaded my reading list.
Then I watched the movie version of "Wonder Boys", and was reminded that Chabon is not Franzen. So I pulled "Kavalier & Clay" down from my shelf and started in. It didn't take long for me to remember why I have read so many novels in my life, encountering characters and situations that took me out of myself and into the novel's world, all rendered in Chabon's glittering sentences. Since finishing it, and slipping in a few others like "The Know-It-All", I have been reading novels again, and have yet to be disappointed. My picks have been shaped by either familiarity with the author (Richard Russo's "Empire Falls") or a recommendation from a trusted source (Kevin Canty's "Into the Great Wide Open"). The result has been a flowering of my imagination, a greater joy in language than I have felt for many years, and a desire to write again when in recent times I wrote because I must, not because of a genuine want. I don't know if this can be attributed to reading fiction, but it certainly hasn't hurt.
Of course, my magazine reading is falling way behind, and I have cancelled my subscriptions to both Harpers and The Atlantic. I know less about the world these days, and more about my own heart and mind. It seems like a fair trade.
* * * * *
"The Passion of the Christ" was intense and violent, shocking in its rendering of Jesus' last hours on earth. Raised Catholic, I am well familiar with the crucifixion story, seeing it in stained glass every Sunday of my life for many years. I have no idea how accurate this depiction is, but the blood-covered Jesus and his torn flesh somehow seems more real than the cleaned-up version on the cross that hangs around people's necks. I am not one for gore and violence, and when the spikes were driven into his hands, blood splashing everywhere, I shuddered. My wife, with a much more tender sensibility despite her frequent viewing of slasher flicks as a teen, only barely managed to keep her gaze fixed on the screen. It is truly a powerful film, one that brings home the reality of how great was Jesus' suffering, and if you accept that this was done for us so that we could have hope, then you can't help but think that you have failed him. Something we should give serious consideration to as we dive into the commercial morass purporting to celebrate his birth that is Christmas.
In recent years, I've gotten away from longer fiction, although I still read short stories regularly. There were a lot of reasons for this. Time, of course. With two young active children, there really isn't much of an opportunity to read at home, and what time I had went to shorter pieces. I also had subscriptions for several years to two magazines - Harpers and The Atlantic - that did a fair amount of mental heavy lifting between their covers, and these were joined by The Walrus on its founding. Given that I enjoyed these magazines and had already paid for them, I felt an obligation to read them, but this could at times equal as many as 400 pages each month. Finally, it seemed that most novels I did read were major disappointments. For example, like many good sheep, I read Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections", and thought that (1) it wasn't as good as "The Twenty-Seventh City", (2) the characters were, for the most part, self-absorbed boors and bores, and (3) the author seemed to think he was smarter than the rest of us and was getting too bloody much enjoyment out of telling us so. Some time later, Franzen went out of his way to confirm no. 3, and while Oprah got hit in the backwash from these efforts, redeeming them somewhat, it also confirmed my feeling that we had been conned into reading this book and that Franzen should just take his superior attitude and live in a cave for a few years.
I have recently returned to longer fiction, and I can thank Michael Chabon for that. First off, Chabon is my favorite short story writer, and highly recommend both of his collections ("A Model World" and "Werewolves in their Youth"). As for his novels, I long ago read and enjoyed "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys", and "Summerland" is a first-rate novel for younger folks. But, although I owned a copy of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", even Chabon wasn't enough to drag me over the field of recent disappointments. I had become convinced that modern fiction had little to offer me personally, and resolved to start digging into the ample list of classics that had evaded my reading list.
Then I watched the movie version of "Wonder Boys", and was reminded that Chabon is not Franzen. So I pulled "Kavalier & Clay" down from my shelf and started in. It didn't take long for me to remember why I have read so many novels in my life, encountering characters and situations that took me out of myself and into the novel's world, all rendered in Chabon's glittering sentences. Since finishing it, and slipping in a few others like "The Know-It-All", I have been reading novels again, and have yet to be disappointed. My picks have been shaped by either familiarity with the author (Richard Russo's "Empire Falls") or a recommendation from a trusted source (Kevin Canty's "Into the Great Wide Open"). The result has been a flowering of my imagination, a greater joy in language than I have felt for many years, and a desire to write again when in recent times I wrote because I must, not because of a genuine want. I don't know if this can be attributed to reading fiction, but it certainly hasn't hurt.
Of course, my magazine reading is falling way behind, and I have cancelled my subscriptions to both Harpers and The Atlantic. I know less about the world these days, and more about my own heart and mind. It seems like a fair trade.
* * * * *
"The Passion of the Christ" was intense and violent, shocking in its rendering of Jesus' last hours on earth. Raised Catholic, I am well familiar with the crucifixion story, seeing it in stained glass every Sunday of my life for many years. I have no idea how accurate this depiction is, but the blood-covered Jesus and his torn flesh somehow seems more real than the cleaned-up version on the cross that hangs around people's necks. I am not one for gore and violence, and when the spikes were driven into his hands, blood splashing everywhere, I shuddered. My wife, with a much more tender sensibility despite her frequent viewing of slasher flicks as a teen, only barely managed to keep her gaze fixed on the screen. It is truly a powerful film, one that brings home the reality of how great was Jesus' suffering, and if you accept that this was done for us so that we could have hope, then you can't help but think that you have failed him. Something we should give serious consideration to as we dive into the commercial morass purporting to celebrate his birth that is Christmas.
posted by George @ 5:37 a.m.
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