A Moveable Feast

Stop right there. No point in continuing with your diatribe on Hemingway the misogynist because I’m already yawning. Carrying A Moveable Feast over the past seven days to coffee shops and to a wedding in Mexico has opened the door to more “Why I hate Hemingway stories” than I can handle. I’m not angry, just bored. I’m not here to excuse his actions, nor celebrate them; I’m not going to dwell on Hemingway’s personal life at all.

However, I am still open to talking about his writing if you’re interested (a crazy idea, if I’ve ever heard one).

Photo borrowed without permission from the LIFE magazine photo gallery “Rare photos of Hemingway in Cuba“

1Q84

Two things I regret about this book that make me sound like a snobby brat:

Not being able to read Japanese. Haruki Murakami’s mother tongue is Japanese, so naturally he writes his books in Japanese, which means I have to read a translation in English. Any work that is translated isn’t as good as the original, but with Japanese it’s especially important. Translators aren’t just breaking language barriers, they’re using completely different alphabets to turn kanji into latin characters. It’s like eating vegetarian chicken nuggets, sure it has a similar consistency and a comparable flavor, but it’s no chicken nugget. Also disappointing: the book is broken into three parts,  one gentleman translated the first two sections and another gentleman translated the third. Maybe this is me being neurotic but I noticed a difference. There were a few pieces of dialogue that felt very translated, almost lazy. Why they didn’t have the same guy do the whole book I don’t know. Wouldn’t be a problem if I spoke Japanese.

Not living in Japan. As previously mentioned, the book it broken up into three parts. Books 1 and 2 were published in Japan in May 2009 and Book 3 published in Japan in April 2010. Without giving anything away I’ll just say that the story reaches a major climax at the end of Book 2 and going 11 months without knowing what happened would have been torture. A kind of torture that I welcome, and is often lost in today’s pop culture. Waiting a week between episodes was one of my favorite things about watching LOST, all the speculation and internet research that went into those seven days  and the anticipation building up to Wednesday night was almost unbearable. The same thing is happening with season five of Mad Men, once the show is over I’m left scratching like a junkie wanting more. But there isn’t, I have to wait. I’m happy that Murakami recreated this sensation with literature, but I’m sad that all three books were published in one volume in the U.S. so that when I reached that major climax at the end of Book 2 I just turned the page and kept reading.

letters of note

I recently became enamored with the website Letters of Note, which once daily publishes a private letter sent long ago by some notable person. Artifacts include a letter of encouragement written by Hemingway to Scott Fitzgerald after Tender is the Night was published. In one missive David Foster Wallace opines to Don DeLillo that his fiction is improving but he’s not having as much fun writing it. And just the other day was a response from Axl Rose to a newspaper man’s disparaging review in which Rose warns obliquely “stay away from microwaves.”

It got me thinking about letters and emails and text messages I’ve sent over this years. And led to me rooting around in my old hotmail account where I found two cover letters I sent the editor at Community Impact, the first in March 2007:

Dear Ms. Kincaid, I am interested in discussing your opportunity for Staff Writer in the Community Impact Newspaper. As a young journalist I feel that I bring a passion and a hunger to the profession that is difficult to find. This May I will graduate from Colorado State University and want to immediately take my excitement for writing and reporting to a newspaper like Community Impact. I noticed on your website that the Community Impact Newspaper is a startup paper looking to find a niche, which is a feeling I share at the start of my career. I would love to have the opportunity to grow as a writer with the newspaper as it matures. I also share a passion with your fellow writers for the Austin area; I have family in Cedar Park and plan on living nearby when I move to Austin. As a member of the Colorado State University basketball team I developed a strong set of skills I feel would benefit the Community Impact Newspaper. I work very well with a team and do a good job of communicating with my teammates. My coach was very strict, so I am very punctual and dependable. I also enjoy competition and have a very strong desire to win I am very excited about the possibility of working for the Community Impact Newspaper and look forward to your response. I will contact you via email in the next week to touch base and discuss possibilities. Respectfully, Mark Collins

I never got a response to this query, but I wouldn’t respond to such a poorly written cover letter either. However, the “newspaper” posted another job opening several months later and on August 3, 2007 I sent this letter to the editor and heard back 40 minutes later scheduling an interview. The rest is history.

> Dear Ms. Kincaid:
> 
> I am writing to inquire as to the availability of the staff writer position
> that I saw listed in the Austin American-Statesman. I had seen this position
> listed previously, but applied too late, and am pleased to promptly deliver
> my resume to the Community Impact Newspaper.
> 
> I am a recent graduate of Colorado State‚s accredited journalism program,
> which is well known for its technical aspects. As a graduate I have a strong
> base in reporting, layout and copy editing from which to build on. The
> news-editorial concentration at CSU puts emphasis on developing contacts and
> focusing on a specific beat for entire semesters. In addition, extra
> attention was paid to the importance of computers in the digital age of
> newspapers, including using the internet as a research tool and layout with
> Adobe InDesign. I graduated from this program with a 3.6 GPA.
> 
> While much of my reporting experience has come covering sports, I feel that
> I have learned several key skills that should be applied to all reporting
> positions. Being a sports reporter, I was thrust into one of the most
> passionate areas of the community. From that, I learned the importance of
> community members, and the newspaper‚s role informing and strengthening the
> community. Through wins and losses I saw the highs and lows of human
> emotion, yet I needed to tell the story either way. Through this, I learned
> the importance of developing relationships with community members while
> continuing to ask difficult questions to get to the bottom of the story.
> These are skills that I feel would fit in well with the in-depth hometown
> stories that Community Impact Newspaper focuses on.
> 
> I have many close relatives in Texas, including family in Cedar Park, Austin
> and San Marcos. I assure you that I am very passionate about issues facing
> this area and will do my best to serve your readership. I am eager to
> relocate to Texas and embrace a new community and grow as a reporter as
> Impact Newspaper grows.
> 
> Thank you for considering me as an applicant at the Community Impact
> newspaper, I have included a resume that elaborates on my experience, as
> well as a letter of recommendation from my former editor. I will be in
> contact with you via telephone on Wednesday of next week to discuss the
> possibility of an interview. Thank you once again for your time.
> 
> Mark Collins

C- Ranch

Friday at 11 a.m.

Trip to the C- begins on the left foot. I left the house expecting a car2go down the street but it’s not there. When I described the concept behind car2go to my Dad he said they should name it ‘fuck your buddy!’ because you could basically steal your friend’s form of transportation. Well somebody certainly fucked me. So I just kept walking. Now I’m at Govalle Park at a picnic bench waiting for a ride  watching children crawl on the playground like an ant hill.

Friday at 6 p.m.

With each passing mile Judson’s ego grows larger. He wants to know where the sheep are grazing, how much land was sold to the mormons, what time Rick’s cattle will arrive. Things that don’t matter when he’s waiting tables at Dirty Martin’s, bringing cheeseburgers to frat guys and light beers to sorority chicks. Now he transforms. As we get closer he pulls on his boots, his cowboy hat. A denim button-up goes overtop the wife beater. There’s pride involved now. This is his land we’re driving past. This is C-.

Out on the ranch. As much as everything is different it’s all still the same. The coolers go in the same spot on the porch. Cabrito on the menu. Everybody has a beer can in their hand at all times.

There is work to be done. Monte and I are given the chore of removing flat tires from the Chevy. The others head out to repair fence. We wrastle with it for a while, we didn’t want to admit we couldn’t get the tire off, but as Monte said: failure is always an option. We kept up the ruse long as we could but inevitably had to call for Lane to smash at the hubcab with a sledge until it knocked loose. Took us a while to get the other tire off – including a break on the front porch for another beer – but we got it finished.

Friday at 8:30 p.m.

Out on the ranch. We cruise around looking for firewood. And by that I mean drinking beer and taking pulls off a 1/2 gallon whiskey bottle. Drunk driving isn’t a concern when you own the surrounding 1,900 acres.

As I sit on the porch a boy who says he is 8 but looks like he is 6 practices his roping. He’s nailing it every time. That was Monte’s joke, that we should get really good at roping the stationary cattle, show up and blow these cowboys’ minds. This kid is doing it without trying, with no intent, at the age of 8. We’re idiots.

Saturday at 6 a.m.

“It’s a great day to be an American.”

These are the words of Chip, the hefe, as he rings the steel triangle hanging on the porch. I’m still hard asleep in my bag, it takes a beat to realize where I am because I’ve slept so well. Breakfast on the ranch is not enticing. There are a couple bags of donuts on the counter and leftover beans on the stove. The coffee is hot but thats the only good thing to say about it. We’re awake but the sun is not, still slumbering beneath the horizon. Too early to be hungover. The men take turns in the toilet, holding their bowels until they can be released. Jess and I jump the line but only so we can brush our teeth. To be timid in this setting would be to show weakness. Chip rewards me with the position of sous chef. I’m chopping potatoes and dicing onions while Chip gives orders to everyone within shouting distance. Chip takes me out back to where wild garlic is growing and plucks a few cloves from the ground. he tells me the man who owned this house before him had a full garden in the back and the garlic is all that remains. Back inside he shows me a picture of a man and wife. “That’s the man that made this house a home,” he says.

After the beans are finished we go to the front porch to see the Cowboys off. They’re horseback and headed out to bring in the goats. In a moment a horse is rearing back on its hind legs – this seems natural to everyone – but when the horse does it a second time is when I react. “Holy shit.” Wiseheart falls off the horse, he does it gracefully, like it was intentional, and then the horse falls, landing partially on Wiseheart. “Holy Shit.” I say it again, it bears repeating. But Wiseheart is fine and is back on the same horse within minutes.

Saturday at 12 p.m.

It’s time to work goats. We ferry them from pen to pen. Chip gives orders and everybody hops to. This is what it’s like to be captain of a ship. In all the herding about one of the kids gets separated and Chili snags her. Rather than return her to the flock Chili holds on, and I introduce myself. She’s all black, with matted hair. She’s only a couple of days old and about the size of a household cat. Her ears are soft and she is calm because she doesn’t know any better. Chili puts his index finger in her mouth and she sucks on it, hoping for milk. chili hands the kid to Chip who hands the goat to me. Chip explains to me how you want to hold a goat, left legs together and right legs together. I’ve got her like a baby in my arms, she’s sweet and I’m convinced she likes me. Chip tells me to come over with the kid and  he pulls out a knife and snips the tip of her left ear. She bleats. It sounds like children drowning in a swimming pool. There is blood on my hands and maybe my shirt, I can’t tell because a spot of blood has landed on the lens of my glasses. There’s no time for shock or disgust or any emotion, just grab the next kid and repeat. The rest of the goats are shepherded in for their medicine. Boys get their nuts lopped off, Chip puts them in an empty butter container to be cleaned and fried to eat later. There is nothing to be done for the wounds, God or whomever made these animals to survive worse. When we’re all finished I look around in the stall. Mixed amongst the dust and the weeds are the ends of the goat ears that had been nipped off. Anybody want a souvenir?

Sunday at 6:30 a.m.

“Hot diggity dog! What a great day to be an American.”

The wake up call gets a little extra pizazz this morning. As Monte pointed out, this is a weird “vacation.” Wake up every morning with the sun. Do manual labor all day. Minimal access to personal conveniences like shower and shitter. Eat almost the exact same thing for lunch and dinner. But when you go to use the urinal and your view is vast Texas plains dappled in somnolent daylight it makes sense.

Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

How to work cattle:

It starts before the cows are even in the pasture. Fire has to be hot enough to heat the irons, and the coals better last the whole day, because you don’t want half-ass brands. Cowboys bring the cows in on horseback, the charlais know where they’re going. I imagine the heffers telling the calves not to be afraid, that they went through it once too and this is the way of the ranch. A rite of passage, emblemized with a singed C- in the rump. We stand around debating a bit, hefe assigns chores. The youngest are given the bacon grease paint can and the runner jobs. Monte is assigned the fire pit. The rest of the cowboys aren’t given duties, their job is to be cowboys, fill in when necessary and always be ready. Lane starts out in the saddle, he’s efficient with the lasso and rewarded with praise of “nice loop” or “atta baby” from the onlookers. Ideally he’d rope both back legs but when he snags only the back left leg it’s business as usual. There are two flankers, Judson is injured so he gives assignments. We ask “who’s up?” because once a calf is on the line you gotta go. You come up the rope to the back of the calf. One man on the string the other on the tail. Count to three, on three pull straight down on the tail or pull the rope towards your chest. That’ll put the calf on its side, if you’ve done it right you’ll hear a thud resonate out of the earth. The man on the rope takes care of the back legs, tail man slides to the head, knee on the neck, steady grip on the calf’s front leg. That’s when the work gets done, one man gives a shot of medicine in the armpit, another places a hot brand on the kiester. Charlais are more valuable without horns and if there is a nubbin then a third man grabs the head and holds it while Judson clips out the nascent horns. The fresh wound squirts with blood like Kill Bill, people who watch that and think it’s not realistic haven’t worked cattle. To stem the bleeding more irons are delivered and administered to the calf’s skull, holding it on the wound until it’s cauterized. This calf is all finished now, the man kneeling on the head lets go first and then the rope man. The calf rejoins the heard, Lane is already swinging the rope over his head to lasso another. Repeat until all calves bear the mark of C-.

 

Flatscreen

I read this book in a day — 330 pages in approximately seven hours of reading time — which says more about the book than it does about my reading speed. That’s not a knock, Adam Wilson deservers commendation for creating something compelling enough to make me want to keep reading and in a style that allows it to be imbibed in one sitting. Let’s just say as enjoyable and entertaining as the book was, I wouldn’t describe it as “deep” or “complex.”

Wilson’s Flatscreen follows protagonist Eli Schwartz, a typical loser who didn’t go to college, doesn’t have a job, lives in his parent’s basement, does drugs and proudly lists apathy as his strongest personality trait. Eli is not an interesting character, he is pathetic, but he has a sense of humor and offers insight into the post-college, 20-something, lifestyle supported by their parents character that has recently become popular in mainstream media (see also the new HBO series ‘Girls’).

What drove me to keep reading was curiosity, not for what would happen to Eli but how Wilson would end the book. (I won’t ruin it, so don’t worry about spoiler alerts.) One of the book’s main themes is how Eli tries to live his life like a movie — hence the title. Have you ever seen the cartoon where the little girl is wondering where her knight in shining armor is, while the little boy is wondering where is dirty little whore is? Eli is the epitome of this crutch that young America leans on. He wants conversations with his Dad to be cinematic moments and when Eli gets dumped he expects sad music to play as the camera pans in on a single tear streaming down his face. So how do you end a story like that? Wilson does what Wayne’s World did, and near the finish of the book offers around 20 different endings ranging from the “American-Made Film About French People” ending to the “Gritty Art House” ending. It’s quite clever and worth reading the first two thirds of the book to get to.

The Art of Fielding

The Art of Fielding is that book that you keep hearing about from friends and neighbors and hear about online and in magazines and it seems like the universe is conspiring to get you to read it until finally you crack. “Fine. I’ll read the fucking book!” Only by now it’s been built up to the point that there is no possible way it could live up to your expectations. Same thing happened with the movie Drive. Exit Through the Gift Shop is another good example. Underrated becomes overrated. It’s the world we live in. But when I finally did sit down and read The Art of Fielding the book was exactly what I expected. It didn’t exceed expectations, nor did it disappoint. Can’t complain about that.

The Art of Fielding tells the story of a division-III baseball player and the people he interacts with during a single season at fictional Westish College in Michigan. The similarities between Chad Harbach’s debut novel and my “in-progress novel” are striking, which I was looking forward to. When I read something of the same ilk as what I’m writing it helps define my writing. I don’t find similarities…I find differences. Maybe it’s delusion, but I see the places where my book is stronger than the one I’m reading. I also see where Harbach’s book is  superior, only I have the advantage of learning from his success. There’s also frustration, when I see something I thought was original already in print.

The other day I read an author interview on Paris Review, it’s an inspirational thing I do when I’m feeling down on my writing. The interviewer asked the author if he read while he was writing, insinuating that it would be weird if he did. Which was surprising, because I can’t imagine NOT reading while I was writing. It would be like trying to build a brick wall without mortar. Even though The Art of Fielding may not find a place on my bookshelf, I’m still grateful for the role it played in my writing/editing process.

Photo courtesy of Corban Goble, who participated in an insightful Q&A with Harbach for the Awl.

Underworld

The first thing people want to talk about when you mention Underworld is the size of it. The book is long – 827 pages of dense paragraphs, complex sentences and no readily discernible plot to keep readers turning the page. You should get a prize when you finish. That’s my biggest complaint about long books, it dissuades so many readers before they even read the inside cover.

Yet when I finished I immediately said, “I want to read this book again.”

Ranjana said, “WHAT?!?”

There are so many details in Underworld that it is easy to get caught up in the imagery. A hot air balloon ride over a desert art installation of repainted cold war-era bombers, the scramble in the bleachers to recover a trophy baseball at the end a game winning home run, graffiti artists perilously hanging from a rooftop to spray paint a memorial for a street urchin who was raped and murdered, even the simple description of a family organizing their recycling for weekly pick up. The book is rife with beautiful sentences that describe the arcane and the mundane with equal fervor.

My son used to believe that he could look at a plane in flight and make it explode in midair by simply thinking it. He believed, at thirteen, that the border between himself and the world was thin and porous enough to allow him to affect the course of events. An aircraft in flight was a provocation too strong to ignore. He’d watch a plane gaining altitude after taking off from Sky Harbor and he’d sense an element of catastrophe tacit in the very fact of a flying object filled with people. he was sensitive to the most incidental stimulus and he thought he could feel the object itself yearning to burst. All he had to do was wish the fiery image into his mind and the plane would ignite and shatter. His sister used to tell him, Go head, blow it up, let me see you take that plane out of the sky with all two hundred people aboard, and it scared him to hear someone talk this way and it scared her too because she wasn’t completely convinced he could not do it. It’s the special skill of an adolescent to imagine the end of the world as an adjunct to his own discontent. But Jeff got older and lost interest and conviction. he lost the paradoxical gift for being separate and alone and yet intimately connected, mind-wired to distant things.

What I didn’t care for was the lack of urgency in the plot. A book filled with so much detail puts the onus on the reader to discern what is imperative and what is not. Having a well-defined plot and easily recognizable main characters helps out the reader, and DeLillo did none of that. First I thought the story revolved around a baseball, then I thought trash collection was a central theme, and then I thought it was about the Texas Highway Killer. When there is no real beginning or end, the characters simply exist and it is up to the reader to find meaning in their lives.

The similarities between Underworld and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest are undeniable. Interesting not only because the books came out in 1997 and 1996, respectively, but also because Wallace considered DeLillo to be a mentor of his. The attention to detail, the ability to find characterization in a person’s habits, the similar organizational structure – the mutual inspiration is obvious and fun to witness as a reader of both works. If only they weren’t such long books.

what next?

Hollywood

You write what you read. Just like eating different food makes your poop different, reading different books makes your writing different. The effects might be subtle and and can be long or short lived, but make no mistake it is there. Even books you don’t like are affecting the way you write so look out. And really good books might affect more than just your writing.

Bukowski falls in the latter category. I love his writing. The man is a drinker, through and through. Thus, his books and stories contain a lot of drinking. He romances it, like drinking is a lost art. He makes you remember all the good times you had drinking and none of the bad. I often catch myself thinking “well if this drunk can pull it off so can I.” And that’s why I got drunk on red wine and read the last 15 pages of Hollywood last night.

I wasn’t looking forward to reading this book. I adore Bukowski, but the last novel of his I read, Pulp, was a giant turd sandwich. I was worried this book would be more of the same. When my next book hadn’t showed up at the library yet I looked at the books on my desk. As a general rule I don’t display books I haven’t read and the only blight against myself was Hollywood. I hadn’t read any Bukowski in a while so I figured I’d give it a shot. And what do you know? It ended up being my second most favorite Bukowski book (behind Post Office).

My biggest complaint about Bukowski’s writing is many of his novels lack a central plot that moves the story forward. His writing is basically a retelling of a certain time in his life and when he decides it is no longer interesting the book ends. Hollywood was slightly different, it being centered around a screenplay he was coerced into writing and was then made into a movie. I enjoyed it right from the start but it wasn’t until a quarter of the way through that I checked the Wikipedia page and discovered it was a true story! Sure, all the names had been changed and I’m sure there were more than a few omissions, but still…this was the story of Bukowski making the movie ‘Barfly’ from start to finish. Bukowski was introspective about his life, always frank about the movie industry and for the first time wasn’t sleeping with random women the entire story. It was spectacular. I love knowing what goes on behind the scenes and this book was just that.

Once I finished the book I went to put Barfly in my queue but Netflix doesn’t have the DVD. Isn’t that fitting?

The Rubric

Something about spring weather makes me want to put words on the page. This time last year I was stationed on Cape Cod writing what turned out to be an elaborate outline of a novel. The book takes place during a single high school basketball season and each player has his own chapter in an attempt to show how what happens off the court affects what happens on the court.

I’m inspired by intertwined stories that reveal themselves slowly through different points of view and I love the moment when two seemingly unrelated elements click together. Catch-22 is the perfect example, Tales of the South Pacific is a classic, A Visit From the Goon Squad is a recent favorite. Thereby, the plot structure of my book is very similar: approximately one chapter for each player on the team as well as chapters dedicated to the coaches, teachers, girlfriends, etc. that have an indirect impact on what happens in the games. So for example, early on you might read about a waitress at a restaurant and her daily life, which seems totally random until you find out later the players are superstitious about how lucky it is to eat at her table.

Writing my first draft I was reckless. I focused on getting each character’s story straight and planned on organizing and ingratiating them with each other during the editing process. It was a good idea at the time but I never realized how daunting and time consuming the task would be. I’ve spent the past year poking and prodding at the manuscript, not knowing where to begin or how to proceed.

Two weeks ago an idea popped into my head after I read an article about creating a timeline for your novel so you can see what you characters are doing when. They used Macbeth as an example and it made sense. I would tape together four pieces of paper and put the team’s schedule along the left side (essentially a timeline) and put the title of each chapter across the top then write plot points below each chapter along the timeline. I ended up with this:

Not only has it helped with continuity but being able to visualize the plot points has helped establish a natural cause and effect cadence for the entire book. I wrote all the notes in pencil so I’m able to erase and re-write as many times as necessary. It’s helped me relate a player’s poor play to when he is or is not smoking, establish ebbs and flows of social circles, track when certain girls are dating certain guys. It’s not just words, it’s visual. I was lost and this is a map. It’s the best thing that could have happened.

I started writing this blog post on a Friday, mentioning Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 as inspiration and wanting to sing the praises of the rubric I’d created. Just two days later, on Sunday morning I saw a tweet — @Evalyn7: Amazing for all writer’s working on novel structure – Joseph Heller’s Diagram for Catch 22, with zoom: http://library.rwu.edu/Catch_22/chart_out.html and sure enough I clicked on it and found this:

Astonished amazement. I’ve never seen this before in my life and yet it’s almost exactly what I created. Along the left is the number of missions Yossarian has flown and along the top are character names with plot points underneath them. My first assumption is that this must have happened subconsciously, and maybe it did, I just don’t see how. I’m not suggesting Heller’s ghost is whispering things in my ears while I sleep, but it is reassuring to find yourself thinking alike with an author you admire. I’m more inspired than ever. Expect a rough draft ready for limited public consumption by the end of the month.