The Invisible Library

Fair and Balanced

For some reason, Fox is suing Al Franken for using the words “fair and Balanced” in the title of his new book. They apparently think they own the words “Fair and Balanced”. That and they have no sense of humor what so ever. So a number of bloggers are also being Fair and Balanced. I fgured I’d jump on the band wagon because Al Franken is one of the funniest, most inteligent Liberal comedian/commentators out there today. And because Fox is a sad and pathetic excuse for a news source, having long since abandoned any resemblence to actual journalism in favor of “Infotainment”. Gods and Monsters, what a horrible jingoistic buzword that is. Edward R. Murrow’s ghost should haunt Rupert Murdoch’s dreams until the man either comes to his senses or succumbs to some horrible rich man’s disease. Limmo Rot or Moneybagitis. Something expensive, anyway.

Where to Put my Dolls

I�ve finally finished The Black Doll, my short story about a young girl�s touching relationship with a demonically possessed Doll of ancient origin. It�s a coming of age story. The problem is it�s a little too long, coming in currently at just over 10,500 words, roughly 47 pages. I need to do a little checking around but I�m pretty sure I�d have to cut about 2500 words in order to get it down to a publishable length. But I don�t see loosing more than 500 words, tops. So perhaps I�ll post it here for the enjoyment of the three or four people who read this blog with any regularity.

I�m actually thinking of going in the direction of self publishing, in which case I might do The Black Doll as a small 48 page book, maybe with an illustration or two and sell it here on the site, and shop it around to publishers.

You�ve got to be creative these days to get noticed. I mean, I�ve been following the rules, sending out the submissions and the query letters to agents and publishers but the unanimous response I�ve gotten thus far is, �You aren�t a best selling author therefore we�re not even going to reads your MS because it won�t make us oodles of cash money, yo. So fuck off.�

OK, they didn�t say, yo. But generally that�s the response I�ve gotten.

And the thing is, I don�t want to be a best selling author. Honestly, I don�t. Too much of a hassle. I�d be happy if there were just a dozen or so people out there besides my family and friends who read my stories and got some enjoyment out of them. So maybe I�ll start a little self-publishing revolution and teach those Capitalist Pigs who are ruining the Publishing Industry a lesson.

Yeah, I�m sure that�s just what will happen.

***

I can�t get the comments scripts to work so for now, just send comments, suggestions, flames whatever to my e-mail (in the little green box above). If you�re polite and friendly and have constructive criticism (not just a terse little, �Borges also wrote poetry.� Sort of note) I might even post your letter here and respond to it point by point. Won�t that be fun?

More Fury Than Sound (Thinking)

Over at Bookslut they have an interview up with Author Steve Almond who has this to say about literary criticism in America:

�It’s like they’re saying we can’t just write about literature and the emotions expressed in literature, we need some sort of hook or angle that will appeal to our readers. Fuck off on that. Find beautiful books to advocate for. Why do you want to read a bad review, so you don’t buy a bad book? Save yourself a little money? It makes sense if it’s Stephen King or Tom Clancy, but why not just find the books that deserve to be praised and direct people to them? Maybe that’s too Pollyanna-ish.

I don�t think it�s Pollyanna-ish at all. That�s what I�m all about, toiling away here in the Invisible Library, ranting and raving about the books I love. Go back and read the little blurbs and reviews I�ve written so far. Not one is of a book I hated. I don�t write about hate. I write about the books that inspire me. That make we want to kick out the stained glass windows and light the moon on fire. That make me want to write, in other words.

The literary culture of America, and very likely the world is in trouble. It�s become deluded, self referential and isolated form life. Most books written these days are about writing, not about living. And that is the problem, authors who don�t go out and mix it up and knock themselves down trying to live the hell out of life. We writers have the reputation of being a bunch of anemic, closet cases, fearful of sunlight and strong wine. And to a degree it�s well earned. To write you must isolate yourself and let your insides come out.

But then you have to stuff �em back in, tie up your boots and go to a Goth club and drown yourself in vinyl skirts and slender thighs clad in fishnet stockings. Or something, anything. That way you have something to write about other than what your therapist said last Tuesday and how that made you feel. Fuck your therapist. Get drunk and spit fire onto paper and then, find a publisher.

The Forgotten Ones

So, to recap, here�s my list of the 10 books left off the lists of the 100 best of the 20th century:

1. The Hearing Trumpet, Leonora Carrington
2. In watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan
3. Radio Free Albemuth, Philip K. Dick
4. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
5. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
6. Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins
7. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
8. The Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll Pataphysician, Alfred Jarry
9. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
10. Illuminatus!, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea

My friend and regular correspondent, Jason offered an alternative list, though with the caveat that these sorts of lists are highly flexible and are apt to change from day to day.

1. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
2. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
3. Radio Free Albemuth, Philip K. Dick
4. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
5. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
6. 60 Stories, Donald Barthelme
7. Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
8. Steppenwol, Herman Hesse
9. Transparent Things, Vladimir Nabokov
10. Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Heck, I made a substitution or two along the way and while writing the reviews, thought of a dozen more that I could have mentioned in their place. Best Of lists are, by their nature, subjective. I don�t think anyone but the most egregious egomaniac would dispute this fact.

You may have noticed we both included Radio Free Albemuth, which I suppose makes us Dick heads. His list has Mason & Dixon, while mine almost had The Crying of Lot 49. I just thought it didn�t fit into the top ten. It�s certainly in the top twenty though, along with Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed and another Vonnegut classic, the Sirens of Titan.

The great thing is that there is such a wealth of wonderful literature from the 20th century that this list could go on forever. So far the 21st century isn�t shaping up too hot but hey, it�s just started and I haven�t published my novel yet, so there�s still hope.

Drum Roll…

And here we are, number 10 on my list of the ten books left off of everyone�s 100 best of the 2oth century lists:

Illuminatus! by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea

This book has everything. Fencing, fighting, chases, escapes, true love… wait. OK yeah it has all those things plus: mind bending conspiracy theories, sex, drugs, rock and roll, political commentary, Quantum Physics, zombi Nazi soldiers, Ancient Sea Monsters, Anarchistic philosophy, Jungian Synchronicity, Atlantis, ceremonial magik, detectives, talking gorillas, Dolphins in scuba gear, a yellow submarine and, AND, yes, even… Fnords.

You really have to read the book to find out what a Fnord is because I couldn�t begin to explain it and frankly I don�t want to ruin it for you.

Technically, the book is a trilogy, but it was artificially cut into one by the publisher as well as having something like 500 pages excised. And the book is 1200 pages as is.

�But I thought you didn�t like books longer than 200 pages,� you say. Well yeah but… Illuminatus! is the exception to every rule.

Personally, I think those extra 500 pages were rewritten by Robert Anton Wilson into Schrodinger�s Cat as many of the same characters show up there as well.

So read both books and get your head blown apart by a literary hand grenade. You�ll thank me later.

Maybe On Mars

Number 9 on my list of the ten books left off the 100 best of the 20th century:

The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

Overlooking The Martian Chronicles is a mistake. It might not have the epic detail of Dune or be chock full of robots like the Foundation Trilogy, but what Mr. Bradbery�s book has that these and few other sci-fi books have is a poetic heart. A sense of introspection. A willingness to blur the line between our humanity and all life form�s inherent alienness.

Let me explain what I mean by this.

Humans decide to colonize Mars. But over the years, when they aren�t looking, they become colonized by the planet as well. The ones who escape Earth and the nuclear war that destroys civilization on our home world become, ironically more human only after they become Martians and learn what it means to be not just human, but alive.

If ever their was a reason to maintain our manned space program, it�s illustrated superbly in The Martian Chronicles, if only so that one day, we might be able to achieve that distance, that perspective that will help us gain the wisdom necessary to become better humans.

Those wacky folks at Rum and Monkey have too much time on their hands…

My Iraqi Leadership Name is al-Tikriti Tahir al-Faisal Samir.
What’s yours?
Powered by Rum and Monkey.

“May rats shit on the yes of your enemies.”

Indeed.

Faustroll, Bigger than Faustroll

Number 8 of my ten books left off the 100 best of the 20th century lists:

The Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician by Alfred Jarry

OK, technically, this book belongs on the list of 10 books left off the 100 best of the 19th century list, as it was written in 1898. But it wasn�t published until three years after Alfred Jarry�s death in 1907. A minor technicality. Faustroll is the essence of the modern novel. It�s so modern it�s post-modern and so far ahead of that, even that it circles back on itself and becomes pre-modern. Yeah, it�s that weird.

Building a boat, which is also a sieve, Dr. Faustroll shanghais a bailiff named Panmuphle, come to levy a fine and together with a hydrocephalic, sail through a series of imaginary islands that are complex prose poems, many of them referencing the Parisian artistic scene of the late 19th century. Along the way, Dr. Faustroll illustrates the basic tenets of �Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions. Jarry spent most of his life developing this strange branch of epistemological monkey business and Faustroll is its culmination. Any further explanation of Pataphysics I will leave to Jarry,

�Pataphysics� is the science of that which is superinduced upon metaphysics, whether within or beyond the latter�s limitations, extending a sfar beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics� Pataphysics will be, above all, the science of the particular, despite the common opinion that the only science is that of the general. Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one� Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions� pataphysics is the science��

Think of it as the Odyssey, if Homer were an Absinth fiend and Odysseus, a combination of Captain Ahab and Dr. Frankenstein, who succeeds in smiting the sun and sailing away on the carcass of the White Whale to engage in a telepathic discourse with Lord Kelvin on the dimensions of God.

I can understand why most people would pass over Faustroll. A lot of people dismiss experimental literature as weird for the sake of weird, utter balderdash passed off as Literature with a capitol L. But Faustroll is the greatest sort of balderdash, being both profound and nonsensical. To dismiss Jarry is a literary crime and to not read Faustroll is to live an incomplete life.

My Mormon name is Veithe Friends Forsaken !
What’s yours?

Rhyme and Meter

I was informed by e-mail that Borges also wrote poetry. Which is true. Some very good poetry, in fact. I did not mention this in my review of Labyrinths for the simple reason that the book contains one poem by Borges and was rather beside the point.

But since I�m on the topic…

I consider the world of contemporary poetry to be in a deplorable state of affairs. I mean really, just awful. I�ve known this for the last seven or eight years, ever since one of my poems was accepted by the National Library of Poetry for their annual anthology, which in 1996 was entitled �Tomorrow�s Dream.� This should have tipped me off right then. What a horrible title for a poetry anthology.

But I was young, recently graduated from High School and about to start college. I was proud to have had one of my poems accepted for publication. And by the National Library of Poetry, no less. Big stuff, I thought.

Then the anthology arrived and I was horrified to discover that it was as big as a frickin� phone book, over seven hundred pages long with roughly seven poems squeezed onto about six hundred of those pages, the other hundred or so devoted to miniature biographies of the poets. That tallies up to roughly 5000 poems in that anthology. Quite a feet.

Thumbing through this tome I discovered that my carefully crafted, symbolist poem was planted among odes to Jesus, sonnets about kitty cats and enough ruminations on the subject of love to put the Hallmark Company out of business come Valentine�s Day. I�m not saying my poem was the greatest. Rereading it now, it�s rather embarrassing. So embarrassing that I�m not going to even reproduce it here because frankly it sucks compared to the state of my writing these days. I�m sure that in seven years, I�ll feel the same about what I�m writing now but that�s another topic altogether.

My point is poetry has become something anyone can do, badly. But the fact that anyone can do it doesn�t mean everyone should do it as the result is a collection of horrors not to be inflicted on those who genuinely respect the written word and regard the crafting of it to be an art form. Due largely to the efforts of the National Library of Poetry and its competitors, the over saturation of horrible, horrible poetry has rendered the traditions of the art form meaningless. This problem has only been exacerbated by Rap Music (�I know, I�ll emphasize every beat, because that�s how you read poetry, like a nursery rhyme!�) and the Poetry Slam movement, with it�s promotion of inelegant, staccato ramblings on the harshness of the street hustler�s life, the tragedy of teen pregnancy and the crassness of the rich as actual examples of modern poetry.

Listen
To my words,
pimps and hos:
Maybe if we just
keep throwing
more crap out there,
it�ll actually
catch on,
Bitch!

It doesn�t help that at this years Tony awards, a show that promotes this very Eminem flavored crap won an actual award. This must stop, before another generation of would-be-poets has a chance to stand on the street corner and chatter about their love affair with God or the length of their penis and expect to be elevated to the level of Dante and appreciated as a ghetto Milton.

There is some great modern poetry out there, of course. Also some fabulous classical poetry and I agree with Ray Bradbury, that every writer who wants to know how to write well should devour poetry by the bucketful. Just make sure you�re reading Shakespeare, Neruda, e.e. cummings, Homer, and oh yeah, Borges instead of some sorry excuse for a greeting card.