Richard Seltzer's Blog: Richard Seltzer, page 4

Isaac Newton by James Gleick

Isaac Newton by James Gleick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For its elucidation of Newton's science, I would rate this book three stars. The narrative doesn't go deep enough to give me any real information -- just a general impression. For me, this was the Chinese food of science writing -- tempting, tasty, but I was left hungry.

But for its treatment of Newton's efforts in alchemy and his religious beliefs, I'd rate this book five stars. p. 106 "Through his alchemical study shines a vision of nature as life, not machine."





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Fall by Neal Stephenson

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This starts as present-day scifi, meaning that you don't know which technology is real right now and which is still in labs and which is clever invention by the author.

The Stephenson moves the present "meatspace" world forward, step by step about forty years while building a parallel "bitworld" totally from scratch.

When characters die, their brains are scanned and the data is saved. The scans become more detailed and accurate as technology advances, and the characters come "alive" in the bitworld. The first such digital entity becomes a godlike figure there, creating the universe, with echoes of Genesis and Paradise Lost, as well as echoes of Dungeons and Dragons and of massively multiplayer videogames.

There are two instances of each of the main characters in the parallel planes of existence, with different names and backstories. And the bitworld versions can die again and be rebooted.

And miraculously, all this narrative complexity works. The bitworld is vividly described and battles among fantastic creatures with outlandish powers engage the reader's imagination, while the meatworld technological advances on which that world depends seem plausible if not inevitable.



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Blog interview about Nevermind at ReadersMagnet

https://www.readersmagnet.club/neverm...

The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch by Enoch

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


According to Genesis, Adam and Eve had a third son Seth, and Enoch was his descendant six generations hence. And Enoch was the father of Methusaleh and the great-grandfather of Noah. That is the Enoch who purportedly was the author of the Book of Enoch,

That book didn't make it into the Bible, didn't even make it into the Apocrypha. In today's world, it is barely readable. There's lots about primitive understandings of the seasons and the movements of sun and moon. There's lots of prophetic sounding verbiage about the end of the world, which "foretells" the Deluge of Noah. There are interesting lists of the names of angels and fallen angels. But I didn't see anything of substance. You can read about the age of the text and scholarly opinions about it in Wikipedia. Unfortunately, you can't get any of that context and explanation in this book. There is no introduction. There are no footnotes. This is simply the text of a translation made in 1893 by R. H. Charles, with no explanation of who he was and what his credentials were, or what significance this text might have in the history of religions or as an influence in literature.

I was disappointed to say the least.



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Nevermind by Richard Seltzer

Nevermind by Richard Seltzer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm the author, so of course I think it is great.

An account of a WWII romance veers off into an alternate reality and then another and another.

All three of my recently published novels (Parallel Lives, Beyond the Fourth Door, and Nevermind) overlap and echo in interesting ways, with stories inside stories and touches of magical realism. This is not by intent, but rather that all of them grew from my life experiences and from exploring themes that matter to me. Two more novels of mine that All Thngs That Matter will be publishing soon (Breeze and to Gether Tales) are of the same ilk.



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Mrs. Craddock by Somerset Maugham

Mrs Craddock by W. Somerset Maugham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This novel begins with terse and memorable ironic wit like Oscar Wilde, like George Bernard Shaw. The British caste system and its related prejudices and pompous tomfoolery are easy targets. The author might very well have hammered home obvious messages of social justice, with the characters as pawns in a game of moral social-consciousness. But, miracle of miracles, the main character, Bertha AKA Mrs. Craddock comes alive and does what she will, and falls in and out of love, matures and falls in and out of love again, as she advances to the ripe old age of thirty. And the reader gets wrapped up in her life and the trite moral and social lessons are all forgotten. Her husband, from a slightly lower caste, who rises to the ranks of a gentleman through hard work and ingenuity and who might in the hands of a Tolstoy have become an exemplary figure like Levin in Anna Karenina is remembered by his widow and by the reader as an emotionless though well-meaning man, incapable of passionate love.

This is not a great work of literature, but I thoroughly enjoyed it because Bertha was so very much alive. And for me, that's what makes a novel worth reading -- plot be damned. I crave that illusion of getting into someone else's skin, imagining what it would be like to live a life very different from my own. And Maugham is a master at that kind of magic, even in his minor works.

Another explanation of the pleasure of reading such a dated and long-forgotten novel appears on pp. 144-145
"She found unexpected satisfaction in the half-forgotten masterpieces of the past, in poets not quite divine whom fashion had left on one side, in the playwright, novelists, and essayists whose remembrance lives only with the bookworm. It is a relief sometimes to look away from the bright sun of perfect achievement; and the writers who appealed to their age and not to posterity have by contrast a subtle charm. Undazzled by their splendor, one may discern more easily their individualities and the spirit of their time; they have pleasant qualities not always found among their betters, and there is even a certain pathos in their incomplete success."




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On Reading Homescapes (by Lee Woodman)

Homescapes by Lee Woodman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


On Reading Homescapes (by Lee Woodman)

Poetry without metaphor.
What is
is
a vision shared,
caught me by surprise
while rocking on a porch
in New Hampshire.

Your New Hampshire was not mine.
Everyone lives in a different one.

Let's swap eyes, for a while,
so I can see yours,
and you mine.

And we'll be sharecroppers
lending each other a life
at harvest time.




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Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This one surprised me. The beginning was rocky. The rewriting of Greek myths from the first-person perspective of a minor deity felt arbitrary and rambling. It was hard to empathize with the trials and tribulations of an immortal, who didn't age and quickly healed from any injury, for whom a few hundred years meant nothing. The prose was pedestrian. The story was slow and confusing -- the centuries-long coming of age tale of a goddess.

Then halfway through, with the arrival of Odysseus this book started to become brilliant. The characters came alive, the lot made sense on a human timescale, and the prose was often striking and memorable.

The narrator and main character is Circe, the witch/sorceress from the Odyssey, who in this retelling plays a role in one myth after another: Prometheus, the Minotaur, Jason and Golden Fleece, Daedalus, Theseus and Ariadne, Medea. She's the ostracized daughter of Helios, the Sun, and by mythological genealogy is related to everyone who is anyone on Mount Olympus.

The human half of the book involves not just Odysseus, but also his son Telemachus and wife Penelope, and Telegonus, son of Circe and Odysseus, and takes the reader to interesting territory outside the limits of mythology, with Circe becoming first the lover of Odysseus and later the wife of his son Telemachus and mother of his two daughters. And Circe eventually succeeds in turning herself into an aging mortal human being.

I suspect that I would appreciate the beginning much more on a second reading.




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Updated aphorisms about reading, writing, and rewriting by Richard Seltzer

(excerpt from my unpublished collection of essays, Lenses.

Aphorisms about Reading, Writing, and Rewriting
− The first draft is the cocoon in which the real story matures.
− The need to write fiction is an incurable disease you are born with.
− I write to find out what I think and believe.
− Create characters, not ideas.
− Thinking about your book is the real work. Putting it on paper is easy.
− In rewrite mode − anomalies are opportunities, adding layers to the narrative.
− Sometimes a book happens to you − like you are pregnant with it.
− One measure of the power of an author is how little needs to happen to show the characters undergoing enormous life-shifting changes. the best can tell a story with both subtlety and passion, where a look or a word has the narrative power of an earthquake. By that measure, Penelope Fitzgerald is one of the finest novelists of all time.
− The creative phase of writing is very different from the polishing and editing phase.
− To write something new or to significantly rewrite, I need to find a generative phrase − a line that implies a whole character, a whole life; a line that leads to another line and another and that generates a rhythm that carries the story forward. That's a very different process from analysis and criticism.
− Sometimes a good line is a hazard. You can like a line so much that you keep it, even though it wrecks the flow of the lines around it and of the story as a whole.
− The story is the vessel into which I pour my blood and guts − making exterior what's interior, so I can look at it and try to make sense of it.
− In writing, what is most private and personal is what connects us most with others, for that is what we most have in common.
− The aim is to get to a state of flow in which what matters to you finds external expression, and that external expression triggers in others something resembling your own internal experience.
Poetry happens when a word you would have never expected, turns out to be perfect, and changes how you think forever after.
− Definition of poetry − When words explode in your mind, and that feels good.
− Our self-knowledge and our knowledge of others is limited. Every memoir we write is fictitious in ways we do not fathom. It is more honest to call what we write fiction and to shape the story the way its internal logic demands.
− The characters appear in your dreams and you write down what they say and do; then edit and rewrite. It's their book, not yours. Treat them with respect and follow their advice.
− Once your characters come alive, you are always writing − no matter where you are and no matter what else you might be doing at the same time.
− Publication does not equal success. You have to enjoy writing for its own sake. Half a million people run in marathons in the US each year. Only a couple dozen win. They simply enjoy doing it.
− For me, when the characters come alive and take charge, and I'm just along for the ride − that's an author's high: a wonderful ride.
− When you begin your novel, the characters are your means for telling the story. If and when your characters come alive, the characters become the story.
− Typically, I begin with a critical situation and scene. The I hear the main characters talking in that scene and from that begin to flesh out who they are and some of the scenes and incidents that might have led to that point. Then I decide on an opening scene. Then fill in.
− Aim high. The sky is no limit. Infinity is next to nothing. Just divide anything by zero.
− Typos can be fun in unexpected ways. They often lead to puns and sometimes to stories and novels. They are like random mutations, some of which win in the struggle for survival. My writing would be lifeless without the inspiration of my typos.
− The Tao of Aphasia. To fight aphasia and memory glitches, empty your mind and let thoughts and words enter on their own. The harder you try, the harder remembering becomes. The paths, not the memories themselves wear out. Let your mind open new paths. Control by not controlling.
− As I get older,, I'm noting an ever widening gap between what I intend to do and what I do. I think about what I want to do next; then I watch to find out what I actually do. I've never seen this phenomenon described in a book.
− Editing your own novel is like cutting your own hair. Everything's backward in the mirror of your mind. It can be done, but it takes practice and patience.
-- A novel without time travel is either short-sighted or unrealistic. Aging is time travel, and reading is as well.
-- As I get older, I'm noticing a widening gap between what I intend to do and what I do. I think about what do next, then I watch to find out what I actually do. It seems I'm not entirely in control of the part of me that wills and acts. Watch the gap.
-- Did you ever dream and forget nearly all of it when you work up, but you felt the dream had the clue to what needed to happen in your novel? Don't despair. What matters is the resulting paths of association and where they can lead you. Follow, follow, follow.
-- Clothes do not make a man, nor does a plot make a novel. All depends on the characters, how they see and hear and think and feel, not what they do, but how they do it, who they are.
-- The role of the artist is perceiving the ideal in the real -- like Phidias seeing the finished sculpture in the rough rock. It isn't that the world is broken and imperfect, a mistake. Rather imperfection is a gift, an opportunity for the artist is to continue the act of creation.
-- The most difficult writing challenge is listening carefully to what the characters tell you, and restraining yourself from forcing them to do and say what you want instead of what they want.
-- Rereading Shakespeare is like playing a piece of music.
The pleasure grows as you learn it,
until you can watch it in your mind without looking at the words,
like you can play the music without looking at the score
and then can hear the music without playing it.
-- There are many different ways to write a novel. You need to find one that works for you.
I begin with the idea of a few characters and a few plot points. There are a multitude of ways to connect those few points. If and when the characters come alive to me and I see and feel what may become the opening scene, I start to see more points between the ones I had imagined before. and as the story advances, more and more points appear, and I write notes and dialogue for them and scenes take shape. Then I see more and more points as the story advances; and the closer the points are to one another, the clearer and more inevitable the connections become between the points. The scenes get fleshed out into chapters; and, if I am very lucky, the characters love the story they find themselves in and do what feels natural to them, and the book finishes itself.
-- Don't get caught in the memoir trap. Truth isn't just what happened. And you can never know what really happened. Everything that could happen matters.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Imagine Shakespeare loved his wife Anne (Agnes) Hathaway, and she loved him, and all her children were his children, and he went home to Stratford when he cold to be with them. Imagine the death of their son Hamnet (Hamlet) at age 11 is a shock that pushes the parents apart. Imagine that the first time she sees a play of his performed is his play Hamlet a few years later and he doesn't know that she is in the audience.

It's a quick read. There are few passages that make you stop and ponder, that you will remember.

One exception is a question that Judith, Hamnet's twin sister, asks her mother, soon after the death, when she is 11.
"What is the word ... for someone who was a twin but is no longer a twin?" (p. 292)



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