Kip Manley's Blog, page 50

No. 23: the thin ice (Act I)

with his own Hands – a Hatful – Obligations of the Court – putting it Back –

No. 23: the thin ice (Opening)

she said Yes – tomorrow, tonight –

no. 25: “ – two sweetest passions – ”

Gloria Monday makes a deal, and Ysabel encounters complications. “Precision, and excitement.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

Slouching through the Door – a Scum of whited sugar – Monte Carlo – the Ell-word, the Jay-word – Crisp little tents – “My sister” – Third Annual – Light; Hope; Truth – the Chords of Tom and Gary – Level A, Furniture – the warmth of March – what’s In the Envelope – the Nearest book – “You’re it; That’s all” – what’s On the Radio – an Audience – some God-damned fools – there was a Gate – White towers

Epideixis

Readings! —Thursday, June 18th, 7 PM at the Spritely Bean; Wednesday, June 24th, 7 PM at Reading Frenzy.

Things to keep in mind (There are more secrets to the epic than we were meant to know)

INTERVIEWER

Epic literature has always interested you very much, hasn’t it?

BORGES

Always, yes. For example, there are many people who go to the cinema and cry. That has always happened: It has happened to me also. But I have never cried over sob stuff, or the pathetic episodes. But, for example, when I saw the first gangster films of Joseph von Sternberg, I remember that when there was anything epic about them—I mean Chicago gangsters dying bravely—well, I felt that my eyes were full of tears. I have felt epic poetry far more than lyric or elegy. I always felt that. Now that may be, perhaps, because I come from military stock. My grandfather, Colonel Francisco Borges Lafinur, fought in the border warfare with the Indians, and he died in a revolution; my great-grandfather, Colonel Suárez, led a Peruvian cavalry charge in one of the last great battles against the Spaniards; another great-great-uncle of mine led the vanguard of San Martin’s army—that kind of thing. And I had, well, one of my great-great-grandmothers was a sister of Rosas—I’m not especially proud of that relationship because I think of Rosas as being a kind of Perón in his day; but still all those things link me with Argentine history and also with the idea of a man’s having to be brave, no?

INTERVIEWER

But the characters you pick as your epic heroes—the gangster, for example—are not usually thought of as epic, are they? Yet you seem to find the epic there?

BORGES

I think there is a kind of, perhaps, of low epic in him—no?

—an interview with Jorge Luis Borges

Three on a match

Well that took longer than was hoped.

The first draft of no. 25, “ – two sweetest passions – ”, clocks in at 18,300 words, and took 83 days to write, if we don’t count the abortive first stab back in (checks calendar) December, yikes. If we don’t count that (and we aren’t), that’s averaging 220 words a day, and again the ouch. I’ll need to bring in no. 26 at about twice that rate of speed if I want to also have no. 27 drafted by the time we kick things off in June.

Still, it’s doable. And there’d be five in the pocket by the time we launch. I could be releasing a chapter a month into October!

—Sorry. I like laying it all out like that. Logistics, you know.

The problem, or part of the problem, was with this one scene, one of those where five or six different emotional vectors crash into an epiphany, but instead of cohering they were clanging, taking entirely too much time and too many words to lay themselves out in sentences that kept having to be unravelled and reknotted, so. What’s there in the draft is at least the shape of something to come, I suppose, but it’s weak and it’s tender and it makes me wince when I poke it. So I don’t; so I let it lie fallow a bit, while I press on to figuring out the broad strokes of what happens next, and then on after that.

(And it’s really all my fault: of course it is, but: the unrelenting drive to tell it slant. —I mean, if you come right out and just say what’s going on, and why, you might as well just write a cover blurb. —But there’s slant, and there’s staggering from lamppost to lamppost, and I’ve ellipticated about all this before.)

At least I know the opening line of no. 26: “There’s two ways this can go.”

—Which is a lie, but hey.

Things to keep in mind (The secret of new things)

Writing a novel, then, isn’t the expression we should use to sum up the intention preceding a spokesperson’s or post-exotic author’s work. Because it’s more, for him, composing a book that brings together several writing processes—quasi-novelistic, para-novelistic, poetic, sometimes theatrical, specifically post-exotic—with the goal of publicly producing a work that can be read like a novel, which is to say continuously, with a unifying thread, images, characters, and voices that structure and approach a story. Without theorizing here, the goal of every post-exotic author is certainly to give the public a way into, and certainly a stay within the novelistic domains barely or not yet explored by official literature. One concern of these authors is to diminish as much as possible the discomfort their readers might encounter as they enter unknown lands. The spokespeople, our spokespeople, who bring together the often disparate components of our writing community’s multiple voices, try to emphasize in this way the novelistic dynamic. With these fragments, these images in narracts, these Shaggås, these haikus, these rantings, these dream-tales, they create works that resemble novels, they make novels. For them, the idea of the novel is associated with the impressions they have made of those who will receive their stories: prisoners, at first, attentive and infrequent listeners, within these walls; then, second, a large public of bookstore readers, outside these walls. Sympathizing or not, these readers demand something particular of the book they’ve gotten hold of: specifically, I think they’re preparing for a dive. They hope to immerse themselves, beyond their world, within another world, and for that immersion to be enjoyable—or even just possible—and they need friends and travel companions to guide them in their crossings, characters. They’re waiting for a dialogue, both conscious and not, between their memories and those which propel the book, between their memories and our own. They hope that a distinct narrative thread will ensure the narrative’s continuity. Whether this continuity obeys a linear or oscillating or circular sequence doesn’t matter: in just about every post-exotic work, this continuity begins on the first page and goes straight to the last. Above all, post-exotic authors never go into creating things that can’t be experienced. Gratuitous literary experiences have always bored them as readers. Which is why they care that their books’ contents amount to the ingredients of novelistic cohesion, and why they pay attention to images, stories, dramatic arcs, and this forward march to the end. Ultimately, all post-exotic authors are attached to the form commonly known as the novel. Since time immemorial they have harbored affections for this form and, even if they knowingly introduce variants, if they modify its architecture, they genuinely believe that they are enriching it rather than pushing it around, disfiguring it, or betraying it.

—Antoine Volodine

No. 24: “ – vilissima et infima – ”

Jo is worried about Christian, and Becker’s worried about himself. “The lowest, and the low.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

the Sunglasses on the dresser – Moving up – a shining Silver egg – settling Accounts – a Simple adjuration – Berlin – “Hippy-dippy foodie crap” – at Least, the money – the Bad Old Days – a Four-digit code – Time a Do – Hearing, Listening – the Tunnel – a Powder-blue Town car – “One does not eat monsters” – something Romantic – how He did get in – a Running shoe, blue & brown

No. 23: “ – the thin ice – ”

Jo Maguire, the Huntsman, has been made the Duchess of Southeast, a peer in the Court of Roses. Ysabel Perry, the Unwed Bride, is now the Queen. It’s Tuesday, 21st March. Spring is in the air; “you’re in the audience.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

she said Yes – tomorrow, tonight – with his own Hands – a Hatful – Obligations of the Court – putting it Back – “Yes,” she says – how Much is Enough – Welund, Rhythidd, Barlowe & Lackland – a real Mad-on – the Rattle of Keys – confusing, the Two of them – her Reason – “Enough to get you into trouble” – “The least little thing” – an Apportionment – her Case – Ebb-Tide, Cinnamon Twist, All-American Girl – Fénius – Unlocking the door – whatever she Wants

Things to keep in mind (The secret of pride)

The myth is that some transient guy painted these things, but you see him in this picture, and he’s a very proud-looking man. He’s holding a stop sign. It’s like his ghost came back to save the columns.

—James Harrison