Book of Life

I can't believe it's been, like, 5 months since I've posted on this blog. That seems crazy to me. I won't say that I've been too busy. I've just been focused on other things - and there are times when I just don't seem to have that much to say.

I have been taking a lot of things in over the past year; trying to listen and learn and assess things. A big part of that has been a kind of reading frenzy. I don't even know why, but I have read more books over the past several months than I have in a long time. I've read them very fast, like I used to back in the day, including a lot of novels, which I thought I was done with. Prior to this, I went over a year without reading a single novel. It was all biography and history and technical reading and such.

Why?

I don't know.

I've also been rereading a few things that I read over twenty years ago. Things I read and really liked. I liked them so much I kept them on shelves. I'm not sure if I ever intended to read them again, or if I was saving them for someone. When you read a great book, it becomes a part of you and it's hard to let it go. But I've been rereading some of those and putting them in the box to give to the library. I won't be reading them again. I'm saying goodbye. Moving on.

To what?

I don't know.

I wonder some times about the afterlife. I wonder if we'll write and read novels and do other artistic things for all of eternity. I like to think so. I like to imagine that all of the art we produce in this life will be like the crayon drawings of two years olds compared to what we'll produce with the wisdom of eternity. Even Mozart and Bach will be like kids stuff, which is hard to imagine. What they did seems so sublime and perfect. And yet, I can't help thinking that, as a race, we've only scratched the surface, and scratching is all we get to do until the blinders are taken off.

I like to think I have a book in me. I'm not sure. A novel, maybe. Or some kind of historical thing. I have lots and lots of ideas. The ideas I'm brave enough to even start writing are the ones that are the least interesting. I know, call me "chicken." I guess the idea is that swimming in the kiddie pool is safer than jumping into the deep end. At least to start. The other problem is that the patience required may not be in my bag of tricks.

We'll see.

For now I'll just have to continue to feast on the hearts and minds of others.

Yeah, I know that sounds kind of zombie. But it really is a feast.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2013

Summer Sets: Ray Bradbury

 I just found out that author Ray Bradbury died yesterday. 91 years old! It makes me very sad. Like many people, I was brought more deeply into the world of reading by the work of Ray Bradbury. He was accessible, and yet artistic and deep in his way. He was creative and distinctive, and his writing made you feel a little more alive. Powerful stuff.

Ray seemed so young. Always. That was his beauty, I think. And it was the beauty he put into his writing, most of the time. Even the scary stuff.

It’s interesting how much attention his so called “sci-fi” writing brought him, when I don’t think he would have considered himself a sci-fi writer at all. He used science fantasy imagery to tell moral and psychological tales, but that’s pretty much the extent of the “science” in his fiction. He wrote for the sci-fi pulps and was attracted to the imagery, but he was always very different than the other writers of that genre. Not that there’s anything wrong with science fiction.. I think it’s great stuff. I guess my point is only that it isn’t very accurate to call Ray Bradbury a “sci-fi” writer. He was not in any way limited to a single genre.

I’ve read a lot of Bradbury’s work. I have a whole shelf of novels and short story collections downstairs. Maybe a little more than a shelf. I don’t know. I’ve given some of it away. He started producing more novels in the latter part of his life, and they were pretty good. But they weren’t as read as his early works, even though they are just as good and maybe even better in some ways. There are even a few children’s books based on some of his stories. One of them glows in the dark. You can actually read it in the dark. Cool stuff.

Call me “trite,” but my favorite Ray Bradbury novel was Dandelion Wine, which I believe is a masterpiece. It’s not the Great American Novel, I think that title goes to The Grapes of Wrath, but it’s one of the great American novels, methinks. It’s a celebration of summer, a gathering of vignettes in the life of a young boy that are all held together by nostalgia and the notion that the (somewhat) innocent wonder of childhood can keep our eyes open to the profound nature of everyday life.

My favorite Bradbury short story is actually one that had none of the “rocket” or “sci-fi” trappings in it. It’s about the tragedy of racism. In fact, he wrote several stories, in the 1940s and 1950s, that dealt with racism in very interesting ways. But this one I like is called “The Great Black and White game.” He wrote it very early in his career, and it was later put in his short story anthology called “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” which is where I came across it. I read this in my late teens/early twenties, and it had a big impact on my idea of what makes a great story – all of the things it said without saying it. Powerful stuff.

I found an online publication of the story in an old magazine that has been scanned. It’s here if you want to read it:

THE GREAT BLACK AND WHITE GAME

It has the character “Douglas,” who is the main character in Dandelion Wine. In case you didn’t know, Ray’s middle name was Douglas. This seems to have been his way of putting himself, at least in part, into his writings. No one knows for sure how autobiographical a lot of things are, but when you're writing about feelings instead of facts, then it doesn't matter a lot anyway.

I wonder how many things he’s written that they will publish now that he’s gone. “Posthumous works,” they call them. Sounds creepy. And it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not. There are reasons that some things aren’t published. They simply weren’t good enough. They belong in a file somewhere. Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes is a prime example of one that should have been kept quiet. But money talks.

Anyhow. Ray is gone and it makes me sad.

Summer will never be the same.


Peace to you.
© LW Publishing 2011

The Great American Novel

I have too many books. Literally. I have no place to put them. The shelves are full. They overflow with stories, stacked in every direction, crammed into every corner. I’ve given away lots of books, but not enough, so I tell myself to give away some more. But I’m kind of attached to them. It’s hard to let them go.

I have this very simple journal I’ve used since I was young. I use it to keep track of what I’ve read, I list out the book and author, then I rate the book on a scale of 1 to 6. Why 1 to 6? I don’t remember, but I can’t change it now. I’ve been doing this practically forever. I don’t even know exactly when I started it. I don’t want to mess with the system.

When I go into the journal to add a book, I see some of the old books I’ve read. I look at the ratings, and there are times when I’m tempted to change a rating. What seemed like a great book 20 years ago does not always seem so great today. I feel foolish for having thought so highly of this one or that one and I’m tempted to correct my foolishness. But I don’t. I let it stand.

And, besides, I’m impressed with the fact that someone – anyone – could finish a book in the first place. I admire the effort. I have tried and it’s not easy. At least not for me. Even a bad novel is a powerful act of discipline and will. And while good writing is a big mountain to climb, great writing is like getting to the moon and back. Still, it can be done.

In university we talked a lot about the “Great American Novel.” Has it been written yet? Was there one novel by an American that stood out as the definitive work from a writer in the U.S. of A.? No one could say for sure. I’d probably vote for Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but what do I know?

Perhaps you are meant to write that Great American Novel? Why not? Why not try? I’ll find a way to make room on my shelves. I might even beat you to it. At least we can die trying.

Toni Morrison, author of the amazing novel called “Beloved” said, “If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

Yathink?


Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010