Thoughts for Thursday - Bury the plot at Wounded Knee

Apparently, there is some controversy over the upcoming HBO film production of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." (How fortunate for HBO's publicity department.)

According to a rather high-handed NY Times article, the film's producers took license by adding a new character: a man who was part Sioux, was educated at an Ivy League college and married a white woman.

The truly not-fortunate reasoning being, according to the writer who adapted the book for HBO Films, "everyone felt very strongly that we needed a white character or a part-white, part-Indian character to carry a contemporary white audience through this project."

Ouch. And, I might add, WTF?

I might as well mention now that when I'm not being the Literate Kitten, I am busy channeling my Pop-Tart Culture alternate personality. To that end, I fork over inordinately large percentages of my salary to Comcast Cable so I can devour such uplifting media fare as Project Runway, Ghost Hunters and Wife, Mom, Bounty Hunter. (In my defense, I do watch PBS and The Learning Channel more often than I do the Food Porn network.)

Seeing as how I have made a huge investment in HBO and the fact that the Bury My Heart production features Aidan Quinn, I owe it to my Evil Remote-Hopping Twin to tune in.

In homage to my Literate Kittenish self, however, I intend to read the book first. (I think because this book was released when I was a freshman, it didn't make my High School Required Reading list. So, no, I have not yet read it.)

I cannot imagine how the film can remain true to the plot, when an extra character has been thrown willy-nilly into the mix. Oh, and when that extra character is described as a much-needed protagonist. (Why didn't they call it Dances with Prairie Dogs and be done with it?)

The movie premiers May 27. I will duly report on Book versus Film, Kitten versus Pop-Tart.

From Flannery

Wise words from Flannery O'Connor. (via Maud Newton).

May reading: New in the stacks

Life is so crazy right now, I completely overlooked the ringing in of a new month of reading. Technically, May is for books that are "new in the stacks." I am taking a loose interpretation, so that "new in the stacks" can mean one of two things: 1) new to me 2) newly published.

To that end, the "new to me" contribution will be Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark, which I finished. Whew, one down. The newly published (anywhere from 2005-present) selection is yet to be decided...contenders include the Maryse Conde novel and the Hermione Lee book on Edith Wharton.

May is also going to be an extension of classics month, as I am still reading Proust and just starting Cervantes.

The TBR pile is leaning crazily like the Tower of Pisa. Four recent additions! Last Friday, I found Kerouac's The Subterraneans in a free pile. And a few weekends ago, I scored three at a going-out-of-business sale:

A Victorian Romance: Letters of Beatrix Potter and Sydney Webb. (I can't even find this one on Amazon.com. Will post excerpts for sure.)
The Web and the Rock, Thomas Wolfe (first edition).
First Fiction: An Anthology of First Published Stories by Famous Writers.

Reading list - oh my!

Well, I am still having some sort of internal upheaval. Blood tests on the way.

In the meantime, since I had so many requests about my book bingeing, here is a small taste of what's on the dockets (ones I haven't yet mentioned in the blog. These are in addition to Proust and Cervantes):

Fiction:
Voyage in the Dark, Jean Rhys. Couldn't help starting this one (it's relatively short). If you can stand the patented Jean Rhys downer, this is GREAT.
Margherita Dolce Vita, Stefano Benni. Just started this one, too. (See what I mean?) I MUST quote passages from this next week in blog. I actually burst out in giggles while reading. Brilliant voice. Stay tuned to hear more!
The Stories of Stephen Dixon. I've read two of these so far. He's very original; I haven't decided on how much (or little) I really like his stuff, though.

The Story of the Cannibal Woman, Marsye Conde
Why Did I Ever, Mary Robison
Everyman, Philip Roth
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Kafka on the Shore, Huruki Murakami
All Aunt Hagar’s Children (Stories), Edward P. Jones
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

Nonfiction:
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir
Muhammad, Karen Armstrong
The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, Juliet Nicolson
Edith Wharton, Hermione Lee
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
Tales from the Heart: True Stories from My Childhood, Marsye Conde

Criticism/Theory:
The Lonely Voice: Study of the Short Story, Frank O’Connor
Expanse of Vision: Essays on the Craft of Henry James, Laurence Holland
Lectures on Don Quixote, Vladimir Nabokov


Just to leave you hanging, I'm going to save the three "finds" I pounced on at a local bookseller that, alas, is being forced out of business. (To make room for some Gigantor Sports Equipment Store. As if we need another one of those!--)anyway, one of them in particular I think is a real score. I couldn't even find it on Amazon.

Houston, we have a problem!

Impulse control: zero, and falling...

1. I just said, "What do they expect me to do, pull it out of my butt?" to my boss about some statistics Sales asked me for.

2. Two nights ago I injected fried calamari and two shrimp tacos into my piehole and washed it down with 3 glasses of Sangiovese. All within two hours. (I didn't have to drive. I just nattered some poor innocent BART rider's head off for 25 minutes.)

3. I just toggled this screen up in front of my boss, who eagerly read the title and will certainly run a web report on it.

4. I can't seem to stop buying books. I suppose that will end once I lose my income.

GOOD GOD. I am OUT OF CONTROL. Thank god, I do not seem to have enough street smarts to connect with pushers on the street, and nurse a distinct aversion to needles and smoking. Else, I would be writing a chick-lit version of Trainspotting morphed with Naked Lunch. "The Devil Snorts Smack."

Penny for somebody's thoughts, not mine

Work: bad.
Me: irritable beyond human endurance and outside the scope of being attributable to PMS.

Speak, Eudora, speak!

From The Eye of the Story, Selected Essays & Reviews, Eudora Welty:

A narrative line is in its deeper sense, of course, the tracing out of a meaning, and the real continuity of a story lies in this probing forward. The real dramatic force of a story depends on the strength of the emotion that has set it going. The emotional value is the measure of the reach of the story.

Thoughts for Thursday - General mayhem

First of all: I'm so very excited about the great and varied response to the Short Story Short Challenge and my post on 10 favorite short stories! Will definitely be exploring this topic periodically. I hope everyone is inspired to read at least one or two new authors or, if you're not a short story aficionado, to try one. (I dare you to read one on my list and not be blown away.)

Second: Can't let David Halberstam's death go by without comment. In my undergrad years, as a journalism student, I read his "The Best and the Brightest" (the Kennedy Administration and VietNam War) and "The Powers that Be" (on the American media). He was of the old school: exhaustive research, in-depth analysis, and above all, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.

He died by being broad-sided.

Third: About 100 pages in to Proust vol. 2. God, I just love Proust! You really have to give yourself up to him. I don't try to "understand everything;" a reader simply can't. There is too much. You just read and enjoy the process of reading and then, suddenly, when you are not quite aware, the prose clicks. I imagine it's how a child learns how to speak. I feel I am such a better reader for having read Proust, and I'm sure I will feel that way about my writing.

Four: Joined up with the Tilting at Windmills group! Going to start Don Quixote in the midst of reading Proust. What a masochist. But, this is a group and an objective too stellar to miss out on. I imagine I will cower on the sidelines, shocked and awed by everyone else's insights and progress. Sort of like the bunny-slope skier straggling behind a group of Olympians. But, that's how one learns. Thanks, Dorothy W., for organizing. Good call!

Short Story Short Challenge - Reading List

Great response on the Short Story Short Challenge! As promised, I compiled a list of all the recommended short stories. Lots of new names and titles to explore.

Thanks to the participants: NOVAREN, CLIFF BURNS, SNACKY WOMBAT, TAI, SUSAN (at A LITERARY RESPITE), WISHY THE WRITER, THE TRAVELLER, JADE PARK, COURTNEY, DARK ORPHEUS, BHADD, EDDIE, LITLOVE , ISABELLA, SFP, D CHEDWICK, KATE S., HENK, BLOGLILY, AMANDA A., VERBIFORE, and ANDI.

Please e-mail me your reactions to the short story you committed to reading: writerlylife at yahoo dot com. And stay tuned for an upcoming Horror Story Short Challenge in October.

Short Story Short Challenge List
The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
Call My Name, Aimee Bender
Civilwarland in Bad Decline, George Saunders
Dirty Wedding, Denis Johnson
Disentangling, Peter Rock
Floating Bridge, Alice Munro
The Hotel Capital, Olga Tokarczuk
Planetisimal, Keri Hulme
The Toughest Indian in the World, Sherman Alexie
White Angel, Michael Cunningham
Hunger, Lan Samantha Chang
Rock Springs, Richard Ford

Miss Gentibelle, Charles Beaumont
It's a GOOD Life, Jerome Bixby
Roses, Rhododendron, Alice Adams
A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote
Sonny's Blues, James Baldwin
Love, William Maxwell
Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, Delmore Schwartz
Love Day, William Styron
The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick
Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville
On Seeing England for the First Time, Jamaica Kincaid
Death of a Pig, E.B. White
The Long Loneliness, Loren Eisley
Chatwin Revisited, Paul Theroux
Good Country People, Flannery O’Connor
White Angel, Michael Cunningham
Fiesta 1980, Junot Diaz
In the Gloaming, Alice Elliott Dark
Hunger, Lan Samantha Chang
The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Alice Munro
Floating Bridge, Alice Munro
Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff
He’s At the Office, Allan Gurganus
Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
Penance, Matthew Crain
A Temporary Matter, Jhumpa Lahiri

Dance in America, Lorrie Moore

Pie Dance, Molly Giles

Home Sweet Home, Hannah Tinti
Mirrors, Carol Shield

My Grandmother’s Tale of How Crab-o Lost His Head, Robert Antoni

Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle, Ellen Gilchrist

Leaf Season, John Updike

The Birds for Christmas, Mark Richard

The Man to Send Rain Clouds, Leslie Marmon Silko
The Horse Dealer's Daughter, D.H. Lawrence
Blue Tigers, Jorge Luis Borges
The Way We Live Now, Susan Sontag
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, Joyce Carol Oates
Babylon Revisited, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Winter Dreams, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Love is Not a Pie, Amy Bloom
Silver Water, Amy Bloom

Meiosis, Italo Calvino

The Johnson Girls, Toni Cade Bambara
The Marquise von O., Heinrich von Kleist
For Esme with Love and Squalor, JD Salinger
Making Love While the Kettle Boils, Kate Sutherland
La plage (The beach), Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cousin Lewis, Jean Stubbs
The Book Club, Ali Smith

The Schartz-Metterklume Method, Saki
The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol

Also, please support your fellow blogger and writer, Kate Sutherland, by preordering her new collection of short stories, All in Together Girls. Personally, I can't wait to read them!

As for me, I commit to reading the Italo Calvino story (sure it will be way over my head, but I've never read this author's works) and the Jean Stubbs piece (had to get the collection, don't you know). And that's just for starters...

Short Story Short Challenge!

I just had a scathingly brilliant idea.

The Short Story Short Challenge!

Here's how it works: See my post below on Ten Favorite Short Stories.

1. Pick one story from the list you haven't read, that you vow to read.

2. List in the comment to this post which story you selected, PLUS a favorite story of yours that you want others to read.

I will compile a new list from all of the comments, and I will make my own selection of new short stories to read.

Ten favorite short stories

I've been wanting to make this list for a while. It is tough to put together. How do you not include Chekhov, Munro or Fitzgerald? Which story do you include from the works of Hemingway or O'Connor?

I have so many more short stories to read from the hundreds of truly excellent stories out there. And lots of great stories and authors didn't make this cut!

Why did these chosen few make the list? First of all, these were ones that I recalled even without a reference guide -- I remembered them because they literally stuck with me. Each one hit me in the gut, not only on the first reading but on multiple readings. They made me think, feel, ponder, wonder.


1. A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor

2. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

3. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy

4. The Dead, James Joyce

5. Cathedral, Raymond Carver

6. Barn Burning, William Faulkner

7. Greenleaf, Flannery O'Connor

8. The Babysitter, Robert Coover

9. Sea Oak, George Saunders

10. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Ernest Hemingway

Want to learn about more short story titles? The Danforth Review asked various authors and teachers for a list of stories the would teach in an introductory course. Please list your favorite short stories in the comments, or I "tag" you to post your own top 10 on your personal blog.

Friday Buzz - Who's afraid of Virginia Tech?

The recent shooting at Virginia Tech has sparked some debate about creative writing professors and the position they are in to judge a student's mental state.

Writers tackle disturbing subject matter all the time. NPR asks how to you tell troubled subject matter and a troubled individual?

Richard Blair in the Louisville Courier Journal furthers that line of thinking, asking "if Edgar Allan Poe would have been sent for counseling by a university for some of the works he published, had he submitted them in a college creative writing class. What is the difference that makes a man like Poe a literary genius and Cho Seung-Hui a mass murderer?"

In Cho's case, it seems obvious that his creative writing professors, poet Nikki Giovanni and novelist Lucinda Roy, were able to separate fact (in this case, troubled behavior) from fiction.

(Petty aside: Speaking as one of the many who suffered through an MFA program and all of its competitive fallout, how the hell did this clearly crappy writer get the opportunity to study with such stellars as Giovanni and Roy???)

From the few snippets I've seen of Cho's writing, I would say the prose differs immensely from Poe's in that the latter is lucid and empathic. And, from my admittedly safe and comfortably far vantage point, I venture to say that it seems those professors recognized Cho's instability and rang as many alarms as they dared, short of robbing Cho of his basic civil liberties.

(Not-so-petty aside #2: Where are the parents and families in these cases? I am thinking also of the Columbine shooting. Clearly, all three of the young men involved in these shootings displayed bizarre and anti-social behavior. Yet, the parents just let their sons loose in the world, with apparently little oversight and guidance.)

Could Virginia Tech's isolated case of literal psycho-babble lead to a kind of witch hunt with creative writing students? Gordon, in his impassioned After the MFA blog post on the subject, says: "...imagine what damage can happen to socially marginalized students — who pose no danger to themselves or others — when they feel like they will no longer be able to express themselves in the so-called safe environment of the writing workshop."

Sadly (and cynically, I suppose), I think this all will blow over with the next Anna Nicole Smith paternity hearing or some other headline-grabbing story, with little lasting effect on creative writing programs. But, two issues interest me that I haven't seen addressed as of yet:

1. Cho clearly could barely articulate verbally and had a severe identity problem. Yet, he was studying creative writing. Was he attempting, through writing, to work out his identity issues, or was he merely using writing as a stage for (or mirror of) his own grandiose ideals? Was he always interested in writing as child? Did he write in other genres other than screenwriting? (Screenwriting suggests to me that he may have been projecting himself into Hollywood fame, more indication of histrionic/grandiose thinking, or maybe he wasn't effective in prose because he was so inarticulate.)
2. What is the role of creative writing and self-expression in a larger sense? If channeled effectively, can it prevent an individual from expressing hostility through violence? If so, maybe the question about Edgar Allan Poe isn't so far-fetched. But, what happens if one isn't talented in writing -- do you have to be "talented" or "recognized" for writing to be therapeutic?

No clear answers, but many intriguing questions. Any thoughts, readers?

On a lighter note, Dickens as theme park? Sounds like fun, I must say. Just think of the literary possibilities for future amusements: Bronteland, where you can run across the misty moors looking for Heathcliff or Rochester, or Dorothy PARKer, for the utmost fun in insults?

Thoughts for Thursday

Okay, this doesn't have to do with anything literary, but I just had to get this off my chest:

Americans and the American media are rightly in mourning over 33 deaths in Virginia, yet 127+ deaths and woundings in Iraq (the day after the VT incident) are barely noticed. The President said of the Virginia Tech shooting: "It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation." Couldn't the same be said of innocent Iraqi citizens? Where is the compassion for them?

I don't understand how we can express outrage over the killings of Americans, yet keep an administration in office that wrongly attacked another country and insists on perpetuating a pointless war. I don't understand how we can express shock over a shooting rampage when our culture -- from the president to the NRA to the defense and entertainment industries -- glorifies violence. I don't understand how we can put a premium on our own lives and so little on the lives of others.

It makes me ashamed.


Sort of related News
Great tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut in the New York Observer: "The idea of Vonnegut Day is simple: Wearing Kurt Vonnegut mustaches and wigs, we will try, for one day, to live by the principles he espoused in his beautiful books: honesty, outrage, righteous grumpiness, kindness, and the incantation, in plain speech, of certain truths normally considered too naïve to even speak aloud, much less to live by."

About writing

1. You must have something to say.

2. You must be desperate to say it.

The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James

Of course, finishing this book now, as opposed to my undergrad days when I should have read this, is rather embarrassing, but all I can say is: Wow! This novel ranks as one of my all-time favorites!

About one-third of the way into the novel, I was sucked into it and literally could not put it down. I imagine I will reread and the subsequent readings will only deepen and broaden my understanding of the novel.

I have much to say and research about Portrait, but one completely uninformed observation I wanted to comment on is the character development of Isabel Archer.

In the beginning third of the novel or so, the reader learns about Isabel through comments by the omnisicent narrator or through the other characters (usually dialogue. James, I noticed, likes to reveal characters by having other characters talk about them. A neat trick.). I was a little put off by this, because I was being told about Isabel rather than seeing her in action.

As I read on, I realized that James was allowing me to develop my own ideas about Isabel through these revelations. When it came time for Isabel to act on her own, the impact was powerful: All of the insights I took on as a reader came to fore and added depth and poignancy to the action.

At least, that was my impression.

I'd like to hear about this from others who have read this novel or James.

Thoughts for Thursday

I had an insight about why I am buying and hoarding books like a squirrel with its acorns before a lean winter: I think I am searching for inspiration on my own novel.

On a very subliminal level, I know what I want to do. And, every once in a while, the fog clears, the clouds part, and I can see into that subliminal level (sort of looks like the bargain basement at Filene's), and my rational mind can pick out the gem of insight from amongst the clutter. And everything comes together, purposes seem clear, the tunnel-end opens into illumination.

But, in general, my unconscious works in its own mysterious, murky and fascinating way. Which means my greedy, ever-grasping, impetuous mind has to wait and let the intuitive part work in its own fashion, in its own good time. Which makes for a schizoid-feeling LK.

This waiting and percolating part really bugs the Conscious Me. There is always that niggling fear of "I'll never write again." But, as the years have taught me, there is nothing to do but be patient.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

This is very sad news: Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

Certainly, he was one of the great lights of contemporary American literature.

Some quotes from Vonnegut:

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

New Edith Wharton biography

Everyone get in line to order the latest bio on one of America's major female authoresses. Check out what John Updike has to say in The New Yorker:

Lee is at her best with Wharton’s books. Her close and ingenious explications reveal formal patterns of design and persuasive, sometimes subtle connections with Wharton’s experiences; as with most authors, her life was her ultimate subject, whether she was projecting her imprisoning marriage and thwarted romance into the rural misery of “Ethan Frome” or using her own broad experience of authorship in the wide-ranging satire of “Hudson River Bracketed.” Lee gives the later, critically shunned novels respectful readings, and is keen enough on the short stories to rouse guilt in a susceptible breast over their less than canonical status.

Other reviews: UK Guardian, London Times

Hermione Lee on Edith Wharton short stories

Edith Wharton In the News

What I'm reading

As I am in the midst of reading several interesting books (and far away from finishing them), thought I'd share what is in the NBR (now-being-read) pile.

Portrait of a Lady. I'm about a third of the way through. The story and characterizations are fully engrossing. Based on this and Turn of the Screw, I note that one device James employs is the repetition of words or phrases. I don't know if that is conscious or not, but I suspect on some level it is. For example, in this book, I am underlining the words "lady" or "young lady," and they appear every other chapter at least. In Turn of the Screw, the catch-phrase was "innocent." I believe James is examining (or, at least, presenting) the various meanings such words or phrases can hold, and then letting the layers build. Another observation: James is not the most mellifluous of prose writers, is he? His sentences often are murky, convoluted and awkward. Despite this, his characters deepen and his plots thicken.

Ghost Hunters. Oh, yes, something light! And still in the Victorian age -- and related to the James family! This is about the movement, led by Henry James's brother William, to study psychic phenomena at a time when religion and science were polarized into two camps. These folk were trying to bridge the gap and at least open the dialogue between what is known and what is taken on faith.

Making of Victorian Values. Not too deep yet into this book, but it all relates quite nicely with Portrait and Ghost Hunters. Something happened during the Victorian Age that I believe is parallel to a sea-change that is happening now: A questioning in how we look at morality and ethics, and how religion and science fit into that.

Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant. A slim book, and a bit difficult to find. I'm about two-thirds of the way through. It is an odd little book, because Oliphant took her whole life to write it. She wrote a bit, then put the book away for many years, then picked it up again, put it away for years, etc. But it's very touching. In the first part of the book, she deals with absolutely devastating personal events (namely, the death of her only daughter and namesake and of her son. All except one of her six children, I believe, predeceased her.) honestly and nakedly; reading the account is as painful as looking at a raw wound. In the last third of the book, she writes in an objectified, distant way -- "then this happened," "then that happened." Both styles are legitimate and effective; it's just sort of unusual to have them jammed together in the same book. (The explanation is that the book was published posthumously; the author obviously didn't shape the narrative.)

I did manage to finish one novel: And Then We Came to an End. This is a smart and funny examination of the corporate culture in America. I really enjoyed how the author used the corporate "we" as a narrator for most of the book. Highly recommended!

Friday Buzz - Becoming Jane

I hate the thought of Anne Hathaway starring as Jane Austen in a movie about Jane Austen. Hathaway was too insipid even for the intrinsic insipidness of The Devil Wears Prada. I can't even imagine that she'll do justice to the Empire-waist fashion, much less the great authoress herself.

And now I suppose we'll see Hathaway's doe eyes and pouty lips on all future editions of Jane Austen novels. Publishers apparently are already touching up images of Austen, tarting poor old Jane up like the media whore they want her to be.

Verlyn Klinkenborg (with a name like that, she had to be a writer! Go, Veryln!) poses the sensible question in a New York Times op-ed piece: Why should we care what Jane Austen looked like? As Verlyn says, "No amount of biography — no grasp of the details of the life as it was lived — ever accounts for the transfiguration that takes place in the work itself. You can search all you want in the life, but you will never find the ghostly separateness, the act of imagination, in which the work emerges." Maybe it's a good thing few letters and no diaries of Austen's survive; her work truly must stand on its own, independent of a possible dumpy physique or bad temper or unfortunate habit like nail-biting.

I liked what Verlyn had to say about reading, too:

One of the great pleasures of a reading life is picking up an old, familiar novel thinking that rereading it will mean a kind of reminding, when, in fact, the novel makes itself new all over again. It is as if the novel holds itself apart, waiting for real life to erase enough in us to make us suitable readers once more.

I think that's exactly why I have a hard time letting go of my books.

Thoughts for Thursday - Kerouac haunts

Here are some places in North Beach, San Francisco, where Jack and the Beats hung out (and where I hung out on my anti-birthday)...

City Lights Bookstore on Columbus (and Jack Kerouac Alley)

Inside Vesuvio's, where the Beats got drunk.

The new Beat Museum, across the street from Vesuvio's and City Lights. (Cool stuff: A check to a liquor store signed by Jack Kerouac and the original shirt worn by Neal Cassady when he drove Ken Kesey's bus Furthur.)