Now, if someone takes a sharpie and draws a straight line on a canvas and then vomits on it, so they can sell it for 10,000$ as “high art”, I will find that person and shoot them, because any shit head can do that.

But if you can make someone look twice at a piece of garbage on the ground, and to be able to appreciate that even the smallest things have beauty, than that is true art.

I will have much more admiration for the hero of Rebecca Harding Davis’s short story, Life in the Iron Mills; who builds a beautiful statue symbolizing human grief and hope, than some frat boy who’s daddy paid for him to sculpt penises out of clay (and secretly snickers every time someone spends 10,000$ on one).

But it brings up an interesting idea which is carried throughout the novel: are we born out of greatness, or do we make greatness within ourselves? Who are we without our heroics, our degrees, our super powers, our leather masks and capes? I mean, obviously this is not a new question, superheroes have been asking this question through hundreds of issues of comic books, and some of our greatest literary heroes have struggled with this notion, but rarely do you see a hero so fallen, so pathetic, who struggles with this idea. Victor; a self-described loser, sexual addict, and selfish insufferable failure, is one of the worst, and best, heroes that literature has ever seen. Obviously we can look at him as a person with no greatness inborn or instilled whatsoever, and in fact Victor (the main character) spends a lot of time decrying people who praise him as a hero or otherwise decent person in the novel. His greatness is not that he is the hero to others, but he is the person that people save; his super-power is the ability to transform other people into heroes by being the saved one.

“Martyrdom” may not be the right phrase, but it’s the first phrase that comes to mind.

But why does this make him any less great than the heroes that we all know and love? Why do we look at him with disgust and dismay? Because he embraces his faults, his follies, his problems? Because he reviled in his own filth? Because he admits he’s a sex addict? One can argue that it’s only human for people to have addictions, as Palahnuik says in the novel, “When you’re an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option.”

In fact, we can almost look at his care-free (relatively) life as desirable, even though he’s a scrappy, gross vagabond who can’t keep his dick in his pants. And almost a kind of savior, for saving those who can’t save themselves, by being pathetic. I mean, even Emerson wrote about Christ, saying “to be great is to be misunderstood.” And it would be an understatement to say that we don’t understand Victor.

Saved from the world by a delusional mother only to fall in love with a delusional woman, he is so afraid of being great that the only greatness he achieves is by making others feel like the hero: “You gain power by pretending to be weak. By contrast, you make people feel so strong. You save people by letting them save you. All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog… You’re the proof of their courage. The proof they were a hero. Evidence of their success… You might be the one good deed, the deathbed memory that justifies their entire existence.”

But just as we asked ourselves in 1986 who watches the Watchmen, we have to ask Victor; who saves the savior? You are saving people, but who’s there to save you? Victor even tells us that his biggest desire, for once, is to be the hero to somebody, for someone to really need him as much as he needs them. Who is there left to save the lonely hero? His mother, who admits to stealing him out of a baby carriage in Ohio (or some other equally forgettable state), still manages to deflate his far-fetched hope that he was conceived out of the foreskin of Jesus Christ. The “Doctor” he falls in love with, finally, turns out to be a lunatic. And yet we still feel a sort of kinship, and feeling of love for him. Much in the same way that he makes heroes out of random people at restaurants, in a way he has made us feel like heroes because we pity him. And that takes a type of greatness that is innate.

But as he says, we shouldn’t read this book if we’re looking for answers, for salvation, for any type of hope:

If you think anything is going to save you…Please consider this your final warning.

In the way that art made by a man working in the coal mines, with cracked and bleeding hands, somehow means more than a masterpiece painted by a man who’s been trained by the masters, Victor’s pathetic plight and absolute refusal to believe he is good make us see him as a forgotten, but very much-needed hero. Despite his disgusting habits, horrific past, and superficial actions, we find ourselves very much in love with him.

I apologize for the slight lean towards stream-of-consciousness, as I remarked earlier (and then deleted), Choke is a simple novel with complex ideas, and it was hard for me to pick and choose so I decided instead to throw the whole thing at your brain.

To be fair though, if I had graduated without reading The Poisonwood Bible, I probably would have felt the same. (see: hatred of higher education).

Anyways, I’ve put off writing about it for more than a year because one; I was busy moving across the country, two; I was tuckered out of literary criticism, and three; it was a really long book and there’s almost too much to talk about.

I mean, I could analyze the significance of using books of the Bible as titles for the chapters, or gender construction and deconstruction. I could go on about cultural diffusion, or post-colonial cultural destruction.

But I think that today I want to talk about that glorious, self-glorified big brother, the good ole’ U S of A. And perhaps part of this is a little staggered, since I am an American Citizen myself, but I see this book as not necessarily just about a missionary family out to save the godless heathen natives of the jungle, but about the over-arching attitude that America has for our neighbors. In our efforts to improve the well-being of other nations, many times we effectively destroy cultural, economical, and psychological systems that had been doing just fine without our help. In our effort to “save” people, we have destroyed them. And the worst part is that we refuse to admit it.

In The Poisonwood Bible, an interesting theme to think about is the use of sight/ability to see: Nathan suffers from an old war wound that leaves him almost completely blind in his left eye. On the other hand, his otherwise disabled daughter Adah has remarkable vision, and is able to read words backwards and forwards, which givers her an interesting perspective on the world, and on the meaning of words, language, and symbols. We also have various modifications of this theme such as the forest itself being burning bright and blasted by sunlight during the day, but at night is so dark that you can’t see your hand in front of your face. We have the modification of “seeing” as a shift of cultural values; such as how the natives are nearly naked and can be fully seen in their nakedness, versus the westerners who arrive in thick, heavy, burdensome clothes that immediately become unbearable. There is also “sight” as in “inner revelation or salvation” while Nathan and his family go to the jungle to try to save the Natives from being doomed to the depths of hell, they fail to see their own shortcomings in trying to love their neighbors, the Kilanga, instead of only trying to convert them. We can even see it through the perspective of the plants that the Price’s try to plant: the western plants do not survive for more than a couple of days because they are either scorched, drowned, or crowded out by the native flora. The family refuse to “see” that their cultural ideas of agriculture die in the confines of the jungle. And of course we see it in the family: five tortured, suffering women forced to attempt an existence in a place where they clearly do not belong, because the head of the family is blind to their needs.

Obviously, the culmination of the novel is when the young and thoroughly innocent Ruth May dies; a telling symbol of American oppression indeed, as she was one of the only members of the Price family to try and openly befriend the tribe. It brings the inner turmoil to deadening finale: the actions of the greater part of the family to ignore their own ignorance, misunderstanding, and pride have lead to an irrevocable tragedy, and much in the way of American colonialism, the story concludes rather quietly with each woman’s different ending; some back to America, Rachel to set up a tourist business in the Congo, and Leah to try and “save” the natives; though in a very different way: reversing the damage that American colonialism has done.

And maybe in our typical self-absorbed way, we didn’t “see” that this novel wasn’t about savages in the heart of the jungle, but about us, the savages in crackerjack houses behind white picket fences.

Yes, I will try to refrain myself from mentioning any of that.

But anyways, for those of you who’ve read any stream of consciousness writing, it’s hard to see Saturday as a work of “mental jibberish” as I fondly call anything by Joyce. And yet we do have that sense of the rambling talk, the enjoyment and astonishment of consciousness, the random thoughts that don’t need to be in a novel but are exactly what makes Ian McEwan’s writing so damn enjoyable. Apart from that sauntering, romantic style that he imparted to the world with Atonement, Saturday gives a brief glimpse of into a single day of a regular guy, who is impacted by a strange and random event that will change the way he thinks about life and about his family, for forever.

It has a brilliant truth to it; don’t we all spend our conscious time devoured with thoughts of self; about what we have to do today, who we have to talk to, what we wish we were doing, and the like. Rarely does anything but exercise get our pulse racing above 100, and even then, only for a moment. And to see how an actual, rather normal character deals with circumstances outside of his control or experience is fantastic: the inner struggle of the consciousness to forgo thinking of self to think of other possibilities of happenstance.

This novel, although it takes place in Britain, still manages to retain the kind of shell-shocked emotions that we all felt after the planes hit the Twin Towers. A sense of immediate need/hurt, and yet a sense of separation and denial as well. The perfect blend of internal resolution and external conflict in the writing style of a poem. A sense of stillness in the midst of chaos. A line that I really love from this book is, “Novels and movies, being restlessly modern, propel you forwards or backwards through time, through days, years, or even generations. But to do it’s noticing and judging, poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment.” Only through poetry are we led through the main character’s day, detail by painstaking detail, without the horrifying need to kill ourselves through boredom. Because although it’s an entire novel settled on a single day, we don’t feel the necessary passage of time that makes most novels and movies feel real. And while none of us can remember all the details of the day in which something life-changing happens, whether it’s the birth of a baby, the death of a loved one, or a national tragedy like the twin tower attack, we can all remember the single moment.

Even though this novel is about a whole day, really, it’s about that moment in life when we realize that everything from now on, is going to be different.

But that was the only guilt-free part of this book.

Written in a Lolita line of a story, with a mix of Joyce-like stream of consciousness, this is a very soft book with a very hard message. Gary, a successful man in his fifties impulsively befriends an eleven year old girl named Tommie, and they go up into the mountains to his cabin for a week of camping and learning. It’s a hard book to read because like Lolita, there is a ton of sexual tension and possible molestation between the two of them, not to mention that while Tommie came willingly, one could argue that because of her age she was really more coerced into the trip.

We learn through the course of the novel that Gary was the obvious favorite in his family growing up, and that he had a brother that he had often ignored, until one day his brother disappeared entirely. Because of Gary’s penchant for lying all the time, we never really know whether or not this story is true, but because of the way he swings wildly from being an older, mature caregiver to being an immature and needy child that Tommie must take care of, we can assume that it must be at least partially true, which explains his need for Tommie to rely on him, and for him to be able to successfully take care of Tommie even in the mountains. Although there isn’t any explicit sexual scenes, Gary does kiss Tommie on the mouth on occasion, sleeps in her bed, and baths her.

But I think to stop our understanding of the book there would be a terrible dishonor to ourselves and the novel. Lamb is about the nature of human desire and the human condition. As I read in Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, the old love the young because there is an untouched element to it, a feeling of innocence that, once lost, can never be reclaimed. And as Gary revealed, he was the beloved child, the chosen one, and Tommie was precisely the opposite. Their first interaction hinges on her being bullied by her so-called friends, and Gary loves that she has nearly no personality or enthusiasm whatsoever. Gary is trying so desperately to feel something, anything, and to find a girl who has no spine both infuriates and fascinates him, because the ability to do anything he wants has bored him. He wants to recollect that kind of wonder and excitement that a child experiences, like when he shows Tommie the cabin for the first time. That kind of feeling, like your first kiss or your first dive into an ice-cold lake, can never be experienced again with the same fervor and innocence of the first time.

That’s why there are such common fetishes with nuns, teenagers, school girls in knee high socks, and so on and so forth. That’s why successful men in their sixties date 20 year olds, and why women smear anti-aging serum onto their faces at a hundred bucks a pop. We are all looking for that one experience, that one moment, “that keeps the wound alive”, and that reminds us that we are real.

So while we can take this book to be about the dirty relationship between an old man and a young girl and condone them for it, I think this book is rather a tragedy in the way Lolita is; which is people who are unable to cope with the human condition, unable to cope with their own mortality, inhibition, or inexperience. It’s the tragedy that sparks mid-life crises, and causes people to sigh and talk about the good old days, and while we may not kidnap eleven year old girls, I think there’s a part in all of us who can sympathize with Gary, and long for the days when eleven seemed like such a long time to be alive.

Why are all the stores
already stocking swimsuits
before the snow melts?

I’ve read only two so far.

But despite my lack of time for reading, which I mourn quite often, I did get through Ann Patchett’s novel, State of Wonder. As far as fiction goes, it’s a delicious piece of writing. While it’s not a particularly spicy novel, it has the methodical satisfaction of chocolate as it waxes. Following the story of Marina Singh, who is sent into the heart of the jungle in Brazil in search for answers after a fellow scientist dies of a fever. Going down there means confronting a lot of her inner fears: her past with her father, a professor in India, her professor in Medical school, and her own questions concerning her purpose in life. A suspenseful and magical tale of snake laden forests, magical pale blue mushrooms, and women who continue to conceive well beyond the average age of menopause.

In this way, the novel reminded me of the quest for the fountain of youth: the chance to be able to put off decisions that were formerly dictated by time. For the first time, there is the possibility to choose at will when you want children, regardless of the ever ticking biological clock in all of us. And at the same time, it’s also the classic story of messiah-salvation; the destruction of the innocent in order to save the guilty (or ignorant). But more than that, it’s a story of communication.

The novel starts with the reception of a letter that is already several weeks old, stating that Anders Eckman has died in the middle of a jungle of a fever. Already we have this idea of disjointed communication; in this world of social networking, universal internet connectivity, and satellite connections, what is more frustrating than losing your cellphone? And what is more frightening than the thought of being completely disconnected from the world? Whether or not the news is about Kim Kardashian’s new hair color or the State of the Union Address (sadly it’s usually the former rather than the latter) as a culture, we are addicted to instantaneous access to information. I remember being shocked that Steve Jobs had died only weeks after resigning as CEO of Apple, but what I found even more shocking was how quickly the world knew. Within minutes of his last breath Twitter was flooded with condolences, Wikipedia had updated his page to show his time of death, and Apple.com had replaced their homepage with a banner of remembrance.

And all of this had happened within minutes.

And so what is more frightening than the thought of disjointed connectivity is the idea of venturing into the middle of Brazil, in which even the most basic method of communication: mail, consists of hoping that someone will float down the river in a boat to take your letter, and then you can only pray that it doesn’t get lost. What a very chilling, and isolating idea.

What’s more, Marina is going down there in pursuit of a professor whom she hasn’t seen in years; in fact, hasn’t seen since she quite medical school to study molecular biology. A lack of communication is what caused her to drop out of med. school in the first place; she had lost her nerve and disobeyed a direct order, causing a mistake that haunts her for the rest of her life. And now, not only does she have to confront her past, she has to actively hunt down Dr. Swenson. When was the last time you found someone without googling their Facebook profile? Or getting to their house without MapQuest or a GPS system? I used a map this summer for my cross-country road trip, and I have to sadly admit, it was the first time I had ever used one in my entire life.

I could go on and on about communication in this book: Easter, the little adopted boy that serves as Dr. Swenson’s child servant, is deaf but he manages to find other ways to communicate. The tribe they are studying, the Lakashi, have no real way to communicate with the scientists. Marina has no real way to communicate with the outside world once she reaches Dr. Swenson. In what becomes the culminating scene of the book, Dr. Swenson and her team hide vital information from Vogel’s president, Mr. Fox, that while the miracle fertility drug that could make his company immortal may or may not be bust, the team has discovered a possible vaccination for Malaria that could save millions of lives, but would make no money for the company.

*SPOILER AHEAD*

And of course, in the end, Marina ignores the pleas of Dr. Swenson to continue to help her research, and goes back to Minnesota quietly with Anders. She communicates nothing of the fertility drug’s possible dead-end to her boss Mr. Fox, none of her inward grief to Dr. Swenson, and none of her sense of failure to anyone, even herself. The second to last significant scene in the book in one in which Marina and Anders make love without a word, because what they lived through was beyond any ability of speaking or understanding.

While many I’ve talked to have loathed this rather lackluster, inexplicable end, I personally enjoyed it. And yes, while it’s frustrating to not be given every little detail and wrapped up plot-point, I enjoyed the subtle mystery and wonder of it all. After all, isn’t a state of wonder one in which one is almost always beyond words?

And in a day and age in which everyone feels compelled to tell their friends and family what they are eating for lunch over Facebook or a Tweet, it actually feels really nice to not know what someone is feeling. At least for a little while.

She loved him with a love that
Knew no height;
The farthest stars
Were far too close, and
There was no distance she
Wouldn’t go to prove
Her love
For him.

She loved him with a love that
Knew no weakness;
A thousand warriors could not
Match the heat in her veins,
Byron, Shakespeare, and Keats
Wept in despair at describing their love
As she described hers,
For him.

Yes, she loved him with a love that
Knew no bounds,

And then she fucking stopped.

As I commented to a couple friends, I think my priorities are pretty clear when I chose not to throw a holiday party and instead, chose to throw a Groundhogs day party. There are many reasons why I did this, including but not limited to my overly obsessive love of all small furry rodents and Bill Murray movies. When I found out I was moving to the East coast this past year, I kid you not, one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was that I would be closer to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Man, that town has a horrible name to try and spell.

But anyways, I will give you my three rational and very logical reasons as to why I celebrate this holiday:

1. Tradition. I have always tried to watch the classic comedy Groundhogs Day, starring Bill Murray, on Groundhogs Day. Not only is it a good laugh amidst these weary winter months, but it is also a great essay on existentialism, omnipresence, and appreciating life. And unlike the Christmas season, it’s really the ONLY tradition I follow on Groundhogs Day, so I don’t get bogged down by having to watch thirty clay-mation movies about Rudolph, gallons of Eggnog, or hours standing in line at the mall in wet shoes.

2. This is the time that everyone needs a pick me up. After the unnecessary spending sprees of the holidays, many people generally lay low and play catch-up during January. That’s why Hollywood generally never releases anything good in theaters during the first month of the year; no one has the money to go. But what’s better than a great reward after a month of tightening the belt/budgets than another arbitrary holiday? Besides, since basically no one else I’ve heard of actually throws a party for Groundhogs day, no one can make a silly excuse to not come to yours. Which brings me to my third point:

3. Because no one else I know throws a Groundhogs Day party. I mean, really. How hard is it to give this looked over holiday a little loving? Just because people throw terrible sweaters at you doesn’t mean Christmas should be the biggest holiday of the year. So forget about the overweight man in the red suit and give the little guy, the cute little brown guy, just a little bit of love tomorrow.

So, if you feel compelled by this humble explanation to throw a spontaneous, random holiday party this year, this is what I suggest: get a few of your favorite people together (ugly rodent sweaters are optional, but highly encouraged), pop in Groundhogs Day super-special double-extended master-remake version DVD, eat a couple cups of dirt (recipe here), “droppings” cookies (choc. chip cookies to the layman), some cider, and enjoy my favorite holiday.

Oh and by the way,

Is it too early for flapjacks?

Happy Groundhogs day to you!

Scenario: you’ve just written your masterpiece, your opus, your humanity, into a brilliant, soul-searching, beautiful piece of writing. You’ve written something amazing, something that the world will fawn over, that will make millions of readers worldwide gasp, cry, and pray.

It’s perfect.

If you’re anything like me, you read it through, instantly feel your ego inflate, and then embark on a quest to find that particular editor who will love your brilliant understanding of the human condition. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably written about twice as much as you should have. Endless scenes, descriptions, and even characters are cluttering up your beautiful little baby, but you just can’t stand to clean it up a little bit, because it’s perfect the way it is.

But we are not talking about a baby here. We’re talking about words on a page. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe your story IS perfect in every single possibly way imaginable. But unless you’re JK Rowling or Stephen King, you’re going to have to prove it to me before I believe that you’re a muse.

So what are you to do? You realize that your beautiful little newborn is faulty, perhaps carrying a little too much dialogue, setting, or heaven forbid, character development. Can you trim it down? Yes, you can. And yes, you should.

Have you ever heard that brevity is the soul of wit? A good writer can write a beautiful story in a single paragraph. While it could take a terrible write an entire book to evoke the same images. Here are two amazing examples:

Yes, that was a shameless jab at Twilight. But at least I’m brave enough to have read the series before I criticized it. But let’s see these two stories: E. Hemmingway, an icon in American Literature, wrote a story in six words. Six words! I’m lucky to do it in less than 100, let alone 10. And Disney did it without words.

Do you want to know why this works? Why they are so iconic? Besides being so short (and tragic) they are stories full of blank space. And readers love blank space, because it’s a chance for them to insert their own emotions and experiences. And one of the most beautiful pleasures of reading is identifying with what you are reading. And who are you, as an author, to take that away from them? Let your readers imagine the story, don’t shove it down their throats (coincidentally, I think that’s why many readers don’t like the movie-representations of their loved books; it takes away the imagination. For example, I can’t read the first five of the Harry Potter books without thinking about how amazingly hot I find Rupert Grint to be).

So, shave that baby down. Cut away. And if that sounds too painful for you, than here are my tips on how to make it easier.

1. Ask someone else: It’s always easier to do what you’re told, and not what you know you’re supposed to do. Besides, it’s easier for someone else to realize how painful a 20 page long dream sequence is if you’re biased to think it’s essential to your book.

2. Make an outline for your book: As mentioned above, it’s hard to remember all the details of a 20 page long dream sequence without an outline.

a.Put your book in outline form, or

b.even short chapter descriptions,

c.to give you an idea of what you’re focusing on

d.in the story, and what doesn’t necessarily add to it.

3. Edit, edit, edit: read through your writing until you begin to despise it. I really hate writing sometimes. It’s only when you hate your work that you are truly unbiased and can find all the nitpicky flaws. Don’t let your love of writing make you keep EVERYTHING you’ve written.

4. Store it away for later: If you just can’t bear to get rid of something, highlight it in red and leave it. Highlighting it reminds you that at some point, you had a problem with that passage. Later on, if you decided you really liked the writing, you can still keep it in. But what usually ends up happening is that it will get put where it belongs: in the recycling. (or if it’s a really good passage, copy and paste it into a document meant exclusively for scenes that you haven’t found stories for yet. It’s a great little place to go whenever you’re in need of creative inspiration later on!)