It has indeed. You knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with some sort of discipline, right? Wrong! I just haven't posted and keeping track is a drag, dude.
I've added a few things to the routine - instead of reading each of the Writers at Work books as a whole, I'm going to read one interview a week until I get through the series. I've also added one essay/short story/whatever from a magazine called McSweeney's, which is edited by the same dude who does the Best American Non-Required Reading series, so it is AWESOME. The current issue came in a box that is a giant head, complete with drawings of brain matter and sinew. Lovely and pretty hysterical.
That means I've also changed the goal of two books a week to one fiction book and one non-fiction book a week. Still 104 books a year, but changed up so I get a little knowledge thrown in with my entertainment.
Right now the non-fiction book is one I've been meaning to read for a long time. It's An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton, the man who hosts Inside the Actor's Studio. It turns out he's a genius. It's a book, by the way, that would totally bore anyone who isn't a word-nerd. It's just lists of phrases like "a pride of lions" or "a nest of machine guns" (my personal favorite). Sometimes there is a back story to where the phrase originated. Sometimes, just lists.
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Magic Mountain
I'm done!
Okay, whew, that was a duesey. I'm not even going to pretend - it was a bit of a rough go. I'm not disputing Thomas Mann deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature or anything, but as with most books written by Nobel-winning authors, The Magic Mountain is so long and so dense with philosophy I can't remember a good deal of it. It's hands-down beautiful, and the details in it are insanely precise, and Mann must have been a genius with knowledge to beat the band, but I just can't do it. I can't follow along with an academic debate disguised as a story. Me little brain.
However - HOWEVER - I began reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel today and after the first page - the first page mind you - I almost orgasmed. Holy shit. It bears repeating: holy shit. Page one and I could tell Wolfe is everything I've ever wanted to be as a writer. And he's philosophical. But let me explain how his philosophy differs from Mann's.
Wolfe is poetic. He isn't trying to cram grandiose ideas down my throat. He's trying to create an image that will make me - yes ME - think. And immediately, I do. I get the image and what it means, and - AND - associate it with ideas I've read/heard/had before. ORGASMIC. I had to stop reading at work because I thought I was going to bawl with happiness.
Needless to say....
So I won't. Hate that phrase.
What grade to give The Magic Mountain? Back to some incessant Tony Doerr speak: Tony was always impressed with my "meticulous attention to details." I've held onto that like you wouldn't believe. I believe it's one of my greatest strengths. Mann made (ha!) me ashamed of myself with his attention to said details. Good lord - there isn't as much knowledge in my entire head as he poured into this book. But was it lost in all of the vast proselytizing ($3 word)? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. I wish I fully understood what Mann was trying to tell me - yes ME - but I don't. I'm okay with that, I don't need to fully understand everything in the universe. I just need to enjoy the universe while I'm in it. Did I? Eh. 79.5%. I'll round up, you know, since the kid won the Nobel Prize. Very low B-.
Okay, whew, that was a duesey. I'm not even going to pretend - it was a bit of a rough go. I'm not disputing Thomas Mann deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature or anything, but as with most books written by Nobel-winning authors, The Magic Mountain is so long and so dense with philosophy I can't remember a good deal of it. It's hands-down beautiful, and the details in it are insanely precise, and Mann must have been a genius with knowledge to beat the band, but I just can't do it. I can't follow along with an academic debate disguised as a story. Me little brain.
However - HOWEVER - I began reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel today and after the first page - the first page mind you - I almost orgasmed. Holy shit. It bears repeating: holy shit. Page one and I could tell Wolfe is everything I've ever wanted to be as a writer. And he's philosophical. But let me explain how his philosophy differs from Mann's.
Wolfe is poetic. He isn't trying to cram grandiose ideas down my throat. He's trying to create an image that will make me - yes ME - think. And immediately, I do. I get the image and what it means, and - AND - associate it with ideas I've read/heard/had before. ORGASMIC. I had to stop reading at work because I thought I was going to bawl with happiness.
Needless to say....
So I won't. Hate that phrase.
What grade to give The Magic Mountain? Back to some incessant Tony Doerr speak: Tony was always impressed with my "meticulous attention to details." I've held onto that like you wouldn't believe. I believe it's one of my greatest strengths. Mann made (ha!) me ashamed of myself with his attention to said details. Good lord - there isn't as much knowledge in my entire head as he poured into this book. But was it lost in all of the vast proselytizing ($3 word)? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. I wish I fully understood what Mann was trying to tell me - yes ME - but I don't. I'm okay with that, I don't need to fully understand everything in the universe. I just need to enjoy the universe while I'm in it. Did I? Eh. 79.5%. I'll round up, you know, since the kid won the Nobel Prize. Very low B-.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Almost There
I'm almost to the end of The Magic Mountain. Somewhere I must have missed a day of reading because I'm fifty pages behind my little schedule I made to get the book read by the end of the 2010. I can get that done tonight and be back on track, though.
I love the new year. There is always something refreshing about starting over. Even though it's a man-made construction (time) and, furthermore, thoroughly Western, and even though I've never quite understood why we chose the middle of winter to be the beginning of the new year, I'm always gung-ho for resolutions.
You know about my resolutions this year - two books a week and two pages written each day. I'm very optimistic. The first two books of the new year are extremely long, so I'm kind of hoping, if I can get them read on time, they will be like a trial by fire that will make the rest of the year a breeze as far as pacing myself. I can't wait to get to the Writers at Work series from The Paris Review. A friend of mine gave me the third in the series a few years ago and the interviews in it are just brilliant. There are nine in the series, so I'll be reading the other eight. One of them has interviews with Vladimir Nabokov AND Jorge Luis Borges. Holy shit.
I love the new year. There is always something refreshing about starting over. Even though it's a man-made construction (time) and, furthermore, thoroughly Western, and even though I've never quite understood why we chose the middle of winter to be the beginning of the new year, I'm always gung-ho for resolutions.
You know about my resolutions this year - two books a week and two pages written each day. I'm very optimistic. The first two books of the new year are extremely long, so I'm kind of hoping, if I can get them read on time, they will be like a trial by fire that will make the rest of the year a breeze as far as pacing myself. I can't wait to get to the Writers at Work series from The Paris Review. A friend of mine gave me the third in the series a few years ago and the interviews in it are just brilliant. There are nine in the series, so I'll be reading the other eight. One of them has interviews with Vladimir Nabokov AND Jorge Luis Borges. Holy shit.
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