Jonas David's Blog, page 14

Somniloquy

I’m on a podcast for Lucent Dreaming! Here is our first episode, about how to give/receive feedback!

https://anchor.fm/somniloquy/episodes/Episode-1—No-more-Dylans-e34n15/a-aa4978
https://anchor.fm/somniloquy/episodes/Episode-1—No-more-Dylans-e34n15/a-aa4978

Stay tuned for new episodes each month!

Jonas David Fiction Fridays #2, The Observer

I’m sure you’ve heard me mentioning this novella several times over the past year. Well, here it is, published and free for you to read and share!

I used Smashwords just for the reason that I can make it free there (Amazon won’t let things be free all the time) so please download and read and let me know what you think. If you really like it, share with your friends!

I’m tired out of trying to get paid for things, I just want people to read them. I know what I write isn’t appealing to a wide audience, so in order to find an audience it does appeal to, I’ve got to make it widely available on my own. This is the best way I can think of to do that. Please read and share!

Get The Observer now on Smashwords, in any format you can dream of!

Jonas David’s Fiction Fridays, Episode #1: Slice of Life

–1:22 PM and
thirty-eight seconds on January third, 2018:

Strategies for escape:

Lift a pencil, sharpened, and place the point against the right
tear duct. With the heel of your palm against the eraser, angle the utensil so
it is parallel with the bridge of your nose. Thrust into the brain. Find the heaviest object within the radius (a metal filing cabinet
beneath my desk.) Lift and heave, aiming with the sharp corner, at the office
window. Cut throat/wrists/inner
thigh(femoral) with the resulting shards. Leap out the produced
hole. (Two stories is not far enough.)Locate the nearest electrical outlet. Force a thin, metal object
into the opening. This is quicker, but less likely to work than the following:
punch/kick through the wall surrounding the outlet until you find the wires.
Yank the wires out, and bite/chew through the casings. It might take some
practice to get it done before time runs out.

None of the above have worked for me.

–1:23 PM and thirty
seconds on January third, 2018:

I memorize lots of things, including these entries (which I dearly
hope to someday write on a surface that will survive the minute.)

Mainly I memorize for my own enjoyment, and the satisfaction of
having a goal. The illusion of flow and continuance I get from reciting (in my
mind) a chapter of a novel, or the names of the seventy-three people (and two
dogs [inside] and fourteen birds [outside {I named them}]) that are within my
radius, soothes my anxiety.

The human mind can retain much more than people realize,
especially when you can’t write anything down.

–1:22 PM and eleven
seconds on January third, 2018:

Take any sensation, repeat it forever, and it will drag the most
stable person into madness.

Imagine a permanent itch (behind my left ear, just above the lobe.)
Visualize the tingling, nagging sensation. Scratch the itch, and it returns the
next cycle. Scratch again, again, again, again, it always returns. The exact
same itch tingling in the exact same way in the exact same spot.

I spent a long while lost in the red mists of insanity
(fingernails gauging skin) due to that itch.  

The trick I learned (thank God), is to not fight the itch, but to
welcome it as a part of yourself. No one is annoyed by their own heartbeat, or
the sound of their breath. The itch became me, and bothered me no more.

This approach also worked with Diane’s shrill laughter, but that
took much longer.

–1:22 PM and fifty
seconds on January third, 2018:

(One of) my greatest wish(es) is that I had been looking out the
window when it happened.

There is not much out there (a parking lot, lamp posts, cars) but I can see trees, some low mountains, and sky. There is a man (Steven Hector) who walks across the parking lot. He gets into his car (green Subaru) and starts the engine and walks across the parking lot and gets into his car and starts the engine and walks across the

It would be nice to watch without having to turn in my seat every
cycle.

–1:23 PM and twenty-one
seconds on January third, 2018:

How to read a novel in eighty-two seconds:

Be so graced by Fate’s smile that you are near a computer with
internet access (or have a physical, paper book sitting near you [fat chance of
that]) when whatever the hell it is that’s happened, happens.Win the lottery a second time by already having one or more (good,
for a hat trick) novels added to your e-reader of choice. Become incredibly skilled at clicking and scrolling and
remembering your place.

–1:22 PM and eighteen
seconds on January third, 2018:

How many times have you been sitting at your desk on a dull day
and wondered, what would happen if I got up right now and just yelled at max
volume for a full breath? How would people react? What chain of events
would follow? Maybe you’ve imagined doing other, darker things you dare not say
(or think) aloud. Just thoughts, no harm in them. Just exploratory thoughts. Intrusive
thoughts, they are sometimes called. No one acts on them.

Except, when you have nothing else to do and can make no mark on
the world, you do act on them. You do drop your pants and piss all over Diane’s
desk. You do slap the stupid smirk of Greg’s face. You do yank Rachel’s top
over her head and take a squeeze on that huge rack. At first you think, oh
God, what if this is the time I keep on going? Then after a while you think
oh God, please let this be the time I keep on going!

Does it count as having done the thing if all record of it
vanishes half a minute later? If the shocked shouting and the feel of hands
pulling on your shoulders just cuts off and you’re back at your desk staring at
a spreadsheet? The memory of what you did (disgusting, freak) still exists in
your mind, but is that any different from just imagining it vividly?

–1:22 PM and forty-two
seconds on January third, 2018:

I know my world.

I know every item on every desk in every office within the radius of how far I can run in eighty-two seconds. I know the name of every person, the flicker of every light, the color of every stain on the carpet. I know the make, model and year of every car in the parking lot (all sixty-six of them, and two motorcycles [in winter!]) I know the names of the owners of twenty-six of those cars (learned after dragging every person within reach over to the window and shouting who owns that Honda, the green one, there!’ hundreds of times, in hundreds of ways.) I know the shape of every cloud and the sway of every tree, I know the timing of every gust of wind, and I know that there are fourteen birds. Two preen on a lamppost, one struts on the hood of a red Camaro, and eleven fly up and to the (my [is there any other?]) left, from behind a pine tree at 1:22 pm and thirty-nine seconds.

These are unchangeable (I have tried to change them) facts. This
is my existence.

But just now I saw at
least fifteen birds fly from behind the pine tree, at 1:22 and thirty-six seconds, and in a different direction.

Did I hallucinate it? Did I invent it in some pathetic desire for
excitement? There is no way to know or test. No way to look back. The event has
come and gone and now the birds repeat their appropriate flight.

Since then, I spend a lot more time looking out the window and
counting crows.

–1:23 PM and one second
on January third, 2018:

So far, I’ve been unable to ejaculate within the 82 seconds
available.

–1:22 PM and
twenty-eight seconds on January third, 2018:

I spend a lot of effort googling for anyone who’s escaped this
kind of situation.

I’ve read about Groundhog’s Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death
Day, Replay, the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Reincarnation
Blues–but these describe people who are repeating a whole day, or a whole
lifetime, even.

If I had a whole day (an hour!) oh, the things I’d do…

–1:23 PM and nine
seconds on January third, 2018:

It could be worse.

What if it’d happened while I was on the toilet? Or driving? Or in
terrible pain?

What if I’d been banging… Or asleep…

I wish I’d been asleep.

–1:22 PM and eight
seconds on January third, 2018:

I swivel my chair to look out the window. Steven ambles toward his car. The black bird struts on the Camaro, hops away. The trees rustle in the exact way they always rustle. The cloud of crows caws into the sky. I swivel my chair, Steve walks across the lot, the birds take flight. Swivel, Steve, birds. Swivel, Steve, Birds. Swivel-

Wait…

I squeeze my eyes shut and look again. Yep. A woman walks from across the street to my left, into my parking lot. A woman with frizzy blonde hair like a halo around her head and a dark green coat pulled close. Fuzzy collar. Grey jeans. Boots. I’ve never seen her in this minute or in my life.

Imagine seeing a new color never before witnessed by human eyes,
or hearing a freshly invented instrument. All I can do is stare, mouth open–

Spreadsheet, swivel.

She’s still walking across the lot at an angle slightly toward me.
The cycle didn’t take her back.

Steve catches sight of her, his pace changes so he is two steps
before the car door instead of touching the handle like he’s supposed to be
when the birds take flight.

Swivel, look.

She’s still coming. Steve jumps, stops moving altogether cause
from his point of view she’s just popped out of nowhere. My heart is in my
throat. I’ve got to get her attention. She can move goddammit!

I lift my trusty filing cabinet and chuck it through the window.
Crashing, jingling glass and screams from the desks behind me.

I howl out the window till there’s blood in my throat. “Hey! Help!
Hey!” She looks at me, hesitates. Come here, damn you!

I leap out the window. Icy wind shrieks in my ears then snap
crackle pop go my legs. I drag myself across the wet, cold pavement toward her,
shouting–

Spreadsheet, swivel. She’s staring at my window, mouth open. Out
goes the file cabinet and I lean through the hole.

“Come up here! Please! Help me! Second floor!”

She unfreezes and jogs past a stunned Steve into the building.

–1:22 PM and eight
seconds on January third, 2018:

I run to the elevator twice before it opens and she steps out like a goddess from a cloud. Mid-thirties maybe. Pink cheeks from the cold. Wide, brown eyes, thin lips. Golden hair like a fright wig.

“How do I–”

Spreadsheet. I get up from my desk and run to the elevator. She’s
still there, so unaffected I oughta fall down and worship her. Instead I
blubber, “how to I stop it? How did you do it?”

I see pity in the angle of her brow, and she says, “you don’t
see?”

I don’t, I don’t. I can only shake my head.

“Take my hand.” Her voice is whispered honey.

I clutch her chilled fingers, they begin to warm in my palm. The
cycle’s end approaches, I feel it like a musician feels the end of a measure.

And then, I do see. The light hits her at different angles. We
touch, but she’s a universe away. I made the cycle a part of me, but she’s
stepped outside. I’ve been ramming my head into the fence while she climbed
over. Can it be so easy? Just a shift
of mind? I take strength from her touch, close my eyes and— 

The end comes and goes and holy hell I’m still holding her hand. I
shake, cry, yell, laugh, fall on my knees, stand up and do it again. She looks
at me with a grin like my display just barely breached her surface.

“Help me,” she says, and pulls me to my feet. “Let’s find how to
unstick the world.”

–1:22 PM and fifty-nine
seconds on January third, 2018:

The sun hops up in the sky, shadows jump. Leaves skitter across
the road, vanish, and take the trip again.

She and I walk, two ants across the surface of a skipping record.

Where to? I don’t know. She’s got ideas, plans, strategies. She
doesn’t share them much with me. I’m happy to be moving, looking in a new
direction, touching new things (I can take them with me!) She tells me she’s
been wandering for years (have I been stuck that long?) and finding clues. None
of what she says makes much sense to me.

I’ll follow her though, do what she says. I owe her that much
(everything.)

And wherever we go, it’s sure to be better than being trapped at
that desk.

Originally written January 2018

Fiction Fridays

I’ve written a lot of short stories, and done nothing with most of them. The few I’ve tried to do something with have been eternally rejected. Those that I’ve posted on other sites have had minimal views because I’m terrible at marketing.

Well… one thing I haven’t done much of, is posting fiction here. Why? I don’t know why. I suppose I figured places designed to host fiction would have better results, but my posts here have more views… so what am I waiting for?

Prepare for a regular influx of fiction! Starting this Friday, and hopefully every Friday until the end of time (I have a big backlog) there will be a new (to most of you) story to read.

I’ll probably start with stories from the past year, and then move back in time If I run out of current stories.

Stay tuned!

Why I quit go and started chess

Most people in the western world have never heard of go, or
if they have, they only found it later in life after first playing chess. I’ve
played go steadily for about 5 years and got into it before I ever played chess
online even once. Recently though, I have shifted almost exclusively to chess.

The two games are similar in that they are both abstract strategy board games with no hidden information and no random elements. However, the games differ greatly in philosophy and play. In the past I always marveled at how amazing go is, and lamented chess’s dominance in the western world. I thought, if people would just try go, they would immediately see its superiority and leave chess behind.

And there are many ways in which go is better than chess—the
rules of go are so beautifully simple they seem almost axiomatic while the
rules of chess seem overly complicated and arbitrary, go is about building
while chess is about destroying, go’s strategy is so unbelievably deep that it
makes chess seem like a barroom brawl—but these reasons, while appealing to me
personally, are mostly abstract or aesthetical reasons.

In the areas of practicality and usability, I’ve come to
find chess to be a much better game. Especially in our modern, fast paced world
where people have little time for focus, and are constantly distracted, it
seems that chess’s dominance over go has no end in sight.

Here are some reasons why I personally left go behind and
switched to chess.

I don’t live in Asia



[image error]

Though go has existed basically unchanged for at least two millennia, it is still almost exclusively played in Korea, Japan and China. Finding someone to play in-person is exceedingly difficult for most westerners.

While this reason does not say anything about the games themselves, it means
a lot of western people won’t care to learn go. If no one you know plays it, or
even knows what it is, why put in the massive amounts of effort required to
become good at it? This absence of real-world opponents is one reason I’ve been
playing go a lot less, and chess a lot more. Playing against someone over a
real board in-person is way more fun that with shadowy characters online. Even
playing an online friend who you know and chat with is difficult for me in the go
world.

On top of that, most videos about go are in languages I don’t understand,
and most teachers of go are in other time zones. News coverage of the major
tournaments is slim, or in other languages. It’s very hard to get involved in
the community.

There is something a bit isolating about the people around you having no
idea what your hobby even is. No one can be impressed with your progress or
your wins. People just narrow their eyes quizzically, or shake their head at
the board and ask ‘is this Othello?’

While this may seem petty, it is so much more psychologically validating when
the people around you actually know what the heck that game is that you’re so
interested in.

The learning curve, and the disparity of skill among players



[image error]The first 60 moves of a go game

Though the rules of go can be learned in a couple minutes, the strategy and
even the objective of the game are very difficult to grasp. Beginners are left
with a blank board staring them in the face and no idea where to even start.
This makes it difficult to get new people interested in the game.

Chess, by contrast, has somewhat difficult rules to learn. All the pieces move
differently, there are odd quirks such as castling and en passant. But despite confusing rules, everyone can instantly understand
the goal of the game: kill the king. When learning go, it might be weeks before
a new player understands the beginnings of any kind of strategy. But chess puts
the objective in your mind instantly, and new players feel eager to try out
some plans of attack.

Go’s steep learning curve makes it nearly impossible to find new players.
Say I meet someone who wants to learn go. I teach them the rules and the
objective, and we spend a couple hours together and they get a handle on the game
and are still interested (a miracle!) At this point, any game we play together
is hardly going to be a game at all for me, an experienced player. It might
take months of play and practice for a new player to reach a level where I
could play a fun game with them, even using the maximum handicap. And all this
is assuming the new player doesn’t give up on the game after a week or a month
or a year.

This is not to say I’m a highly skilled player. I am not even that good at
go, relatively. However, the strategy of go is so deep that someone who’s been learning
for a couple months will completely dominate someone who’s been learning a
couple weeks, and someone else who’s been learning for a year will completely
dominate him. With such a wide range of skill just at the beginner level, any player
I meet is likely going to be either way better than me, or much less skilled
than me, and thus not much fun to play.

With chess, on the other hand, so many people in the west already know the
rules that I could play a game with nearly anyone. If I’m way better than them,
I can take away my rook or queen, or put severely less time on my clock and at
least have a laugh or two at my horrible blunders under time pressure.

Game length



[image error]

You may wonder, as you read the previous section, why I couldn’t put less
time on my clock in a go game, too. I could do this, but go games take so many moves
to complete that giving myself less time per move will hardly affect anything.
Even if I played every move instantly (and I would, when playing with a
beginner) my opponent, being a new player, is going to take their own time to
consider each move. Even if they spend only 30 seconds on each move, this can make
a game last for over an hour.

This is the major reason I don’t play much go. Even against someone of my
own rank, games take forever. Consider: the average amateur chess game takes
somewhere around 25 moves (in chess terms, a ‘move’ is when each player has
moved, so this is 50 total moves) the average go game takes over 250. This
means that even if both players took only ten seconds to play each move, the
game would last for 40 minutes. That’s 40 minutes of intense focus with no interruptions.

By contrast, one can easily complete a game of chess in under ten minutes. I
can play a blitz game on my phone during a 15-minute break at work, easy—sometimes
two games. If I’m playing in-person with a beginner and using longer time
settings, the game will still probably take less than half an hour, and that’s with
plenty of time to think about moves when needed (and time to get up and chat
with other friends, get a snack, etc.)

For those of us who like to play correspondence games, chess is also much
faster in this area. Correspondence games have a very long time-limit to play a
move, usually at least one day. With 24 hours to make your move, you can just
check in throughout the day (or wait for notifications on your phone) and not worry
about a timer counting down. If you’re like me and don’t have an easy way to
carve out an hour or more of guaranteed uninterrupted time, correspondence is the
only way to play go online.

However, with so many moves a single game of correspondence go can easily
take over a month to complete. Some games can last several months, or even a
year depending on the time controls. Playing 20 correspondence go games at once
(which I did regularly for years) gives you only 20 games or less per month. By
contrast, correspondence chess games usually take under a week to complete. I’ve
finished many games in one or two days when my opponent happens to be around at
the same times as me.

All this adds up to the fact that after over five years of playing go I’ve
only played around 1000 games total. This is counting in-person games, and
games across all servers to my best estimation.

By contrast, when I started playing correspondence chess it took less than
two months to earn my 100 games achievement. I could easily play 1000 blitz games
in one year by spending only 30 minutes a day on it.

The importance of being able to complete more games may not stand out at
first, but the satisfaction of the win is a big part of playing any game. And
being able to complete so few games makes each loss more devastating. When I
lose a chess game, I can just shrug it off and look for my mistake and learn
from it, knowing that I can play another game instantly and do better. Losing a
go game after you spent over a month (or 40 minutes of intense focus) planning each
move and strategy, only to throw it all away with one stupid blunder, is a
horrible feeling. It can lead to people getting very upset over losses, and
even cause new players to hesitate to play at all.

Trolls and poor losers



[image error]

Due to the way a go game is scored, it is quite easy for someone
with bad intentions to ruin the game for their opponent. This generally only
happens online (as with most assholery) but as I mentioned above, online games
are pretty much the only way to play go for westerners. While more experienced
players rarely resort to this kind of behavior, it takes a long time to become
an experienced go player, and that’s a lot of time putting up with trolls.

In chess, if I make ridiculous moves or take forever to make
a move, you’re going to checkmate me or I’ll run out of time and lose. In go,
the winner is decided not by a concrete action, like killing one specific piece
as in chess, but by who has the highest score. The end of a go game is not
reached at any set point on the board, but is agreed upon by both players
together, when both have decided they don’t want to play any more moves. This
may seem counter intuitive, but in go, each game eventually reaches a point
where any move I play will lower my score. Part of the skill of go is
recognizing this time, and then passing your turn. When both players have
passed, the game is over, and the score is counted.

However, there is no rule preventing someone from continuing
to play pointless moves. Someone who knows they are way behind and is bitter
about it can continue playing and thus force the winning player to stick around
to avoid losing by default. There are so many available moves on the go board
that any jerk can drag out a game for a surprisingly long time. This is
exacerbated by the way time settings work in a go game.

In chess, most games are played with a fixed amount of time on the clock, meaning that eventually time will run out. Most go games have a fixed main time also, but when this time runs out the game does not end. Instead it switches to a flat 30 seconds per move. This means that as long as you make sure to always move within 30 seconds, you will never run out of time. A diligent troll can drag on a game almost indefinitely by continuing to play pointless moves, waiting nearly to the end of the 30 seconds for each move. The only way to get out of such a scenario is to just leave the game and let the troll get away with an undeserved win by default, or call a moderator to adjourn the game, which also takes time in most cases.

While trolls like this are relatively rare, it illustrates a
fundamental problem with the game of go: a game cannot be ended without both
players’ cooperation. This issue also crops up when playing with newer players.
A new player is not always able to tell when a game is hopelessly lost, and
will continue playing on and on, which is terribly boring for the stronger
player who is just waiting for the game to be over so they can start a new one.
By contrast, in chess the worse you’re losing the quicker the game is over.

The end

[image error]

In the end, games are about the people you play them with. Go
presents very little opportunity to play other people and demands a lot of work
to convince anyone to try it. I love so many things about go, but trying to
explain those things to someone who’s never played it is nearly impossible.

It’s still hard to get anyone to play me at chess, but at least I don’t have the insurmountable task of explaining the rules and objective and then slogging through an hour-long game for their first experience. Culture has already fought half the battle for me by introducing most people to the game in childhood.

So, all that to say… I play chess now. If you also play, add me as a friend and let’s chat/play!

Goals for 2019

It’s that time of year again, where we all decide to really do the things we want to do. Usually it lasts for a couple months then we fall back into our ruts. That’s why it’s better for goals to be concrete, realistic, and achievable! Here are some of mine for the next year.

Make 50 submissions

I made 25 submissions this year, and that was with all my submitting effort occurring in the final 3 months of the year. So I think it’s very achievable to get 50 next year.

The past few years I haven’t been trying as hard with short stories, and it’s time for that to change! I’ve written quite a few, I just haven’t sent many of them anywhere. A lot of it is that I’ve been discouraged. I had a string of good luck right when I started writing, and now I haven’t had a story published in over five years. It’s put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm. This is the year to get over that!

Write 20 stories

To get those 50 submissions, I’ll have to write some new stories. I wrote 25 last year (a coincidence that it matches my number of submissions, I didn’t send them all out) mostly in the last half of the year. I think I should be able to do 20, more focused, quality ones this year.

I feel more confident every year in my ability to design, start, and finish short stories. If only I could find people who liked them! I continue my quest in 2019…

Finish editing my novel and send it somewhere

I was supposed to do this last year, but got less than halfway through. This year I’m going to finish the first pass through, and a polish, and send it to at least one agent by the end of the year.

This has been taking so long because it’s really discouraging to look at it, and I find myself disliking it so much. Other people who’ve read it have told me it’s good, but I can only see what a mess every line is… it’s hard to keep going when I feel I could write it so much better now! Nonetheless, I must persevere and send it somewhere, just to see what happens.

Read 40 novels

I failed this year, but this is definitely achievable if I avoid 700 page, dry monsters that take me two months to read. 40 seems like such a small number as it is. Only 400 books in ten years? Such a tiny amount of books we can read in a lifetime…

Shift this blog to quality over quantity

I tried the blog every day for a year thing, and it lead to consistent writing but of a poor, slap-shod quality. Sadly that ‘style’ has become a habit for me, and one that I will try to change next year. You may have noticed my previous half dozen posts or so have been a bit more involved than my usual stuff. That’s the plan going forward! I want to take this blog more seriously, and put effort and planning into each post. That will mean they come less often, but I think it will be worth it to take myself more seriously.

Journal (with a pen and paper!) every day

Every time I’ve tried to start this, I fade out after a few months. Every year though, I wish I had a journal to look back on. I have an ephemeral memory, and it’s so easy for times and events to fade into fog. I know older me would really appreciate having even just a simple description of the events of each day. If I could just get present me to do it…

Reach intermediate level in Spanish

I’ve been teaching myself Spanish for the past few months, and am making a fair amount of progress. I think I will soon be able to say I’m at the ‘beginner’ level. It’s very enjoyable and I can feel it strengthening the language sections of my brain, so I’m going to keep at it! It is also a very practical choice for the area I live in, and would look great on any resume.

My aim is to pass a few of the intermediate language tests online by the end of the year. I’ll do this by continuing with Duolingo, as well as the several YouTube channels I’ve been watching, and the Spanish language stories I’m (very slowly) reading. Also, I need to find someone to chat with in Spanish very soon!

[image error]

So that’s my plan for the year! This year I failed my reading and novel goals, but I did write the number of short stories I wanted to, and I did finish editing my novella and send it a few places. Goals can’t always be successes. But here’s to trying!

What are your goals for next year?

The books I read in 2018: the good, the best, and the rest

This year I continued my exploration of the literary. I read 34 books, the same as last year (missing my goal of 40 by a fair amount) and only two of those could be called genre. Of those 34, most were brilliant, some extremely so, and very few were bland or uninteresting. I don’t think I could call any of them bad.

I’m going to break them into a few categories: dishonorable mentions, which stood out as less than enjoyable, honorable mentions, which stood out as great, my top three of the year, one of which I will call the best, and then a list of the rest and some thoughts about them.

I know it is oddly arbitrary to be ranking books against each other based only on when I happened to read them… but let’s do it anyway! Here are the books I read this year and what I thought of them.

Dishonorable Mentions:

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald This one had me yawning. I didn’t understand the appeal. Possibly some of my distaste was caused by the terrible, narcolepsy-inducing narrator, but I found it incredibly hard to care about. Perhaps I’m in the wrong time and place for it to resonate. I might try again later in life, but for now, it was a big miss.

The Third Policeman, by Flann Obrien – I didn’t get the humor or the point of this one. I think part of what was going on went over my head until the end, so I didn’t appreciate a lot of it. To me it came across as a lot of random things that were supposed to be funny just by virtue of their randomness. Was not for me.

The Castle, by Franz Kafka – The first Kafka story that I haven’t enjoyed. This one went on and on and most times nothing was happening, and no one was learning or doing anything. I think I understand the point, like in The Trial, of endless, meaningless bureaucracy, but it was not engaging. It was also unfinished, and not in the way that The Trial was unfinished. This one just cuts off in the middle of a conversation. Boring, tiring, and unsatisfying.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman Some decent prose at times and some memorable imagery, but overall it made no sense and was annoyingly trite, and the character did not change or learn anything. I found it to be a waste of time.

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway My second attempt at enjoying Hemingway. I liked For Whom the Bell Tolls better. This one had some good points toward the end, but mostly I was bored and distracted. I think these books are just not for me.

Honorable Mentions:

The Stranger, by Albert Camus The character in this book is just so perfectly empty that I couldn’t look away. A selfish, self-absorbed, feelingless being, yet somehow, I identified with him quite a lot. The end of this one really affected me. I felt sick and cold and anxious, but at the same time so fascinated and absorbed. A very memorable character and story, and one that I might want to read again someday. I thought about this book for a long time after finishing it.

Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai A nonstop deluge of rain pulls you along through the mud and alcohol and death on these pages. I’ve not read something like this before, and it had quite an effect on my own writing. Interesting, dark, funny, sad, and beautiful all at once. A top discovery for the year and one I’m sure I’ll read again someday.  

Forty Stories by Anton Chekhov Gem after gem. This collection had me saying ‘wow’ non-stop and marveling at how well he could capture a feeling, an idea, a character in so few words. The most enjoyable aspect of all, though, was that he knew exactly when to stop, and there were no twists. I wish I could read 40 more.

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I can’t remember the last time I read a new (not just to me) author that I loved so much. Consistently lovely prose. Dark, disturbing but also inspiring. Odd, unusual, and unexpected. I found myself highlighting quite a bit in this one. It rides the edge of literary and genre in a deliciously interesting way. Recommended to anyone bored of the same old tropes but still unwilling to give up the fantastical. Or to any fan of short stories in general.

Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges When one talks about short stories, or speculative fiction, Borges’ name must be at the top of either list. Many of his stories could end up on this list on their own, but when put together in such a collection the effect is even more overwhelming. Brilliant, creative, unique, surreal. He explores the quirks of our world and existence by imagining them in fantastical ways, yet never loses focus on the human element.

The Emigrants, by W.G. Sebald This book triggered a bit of a crisis of confidence in me when I realized I’ll never create anything even close to Sebald’s books. It’s simply not possible for someone like me to create this kind of art. Like Vertigo and Rings of Saturn, this book is about memory, but seems to be more about willfully forgetting terrible events. Or choosing to forget wistful times you can no longer enjoy. It is the first of his I’ve read that was clearly about the holocaust (the others were only so beneath the surface.) Painful, nostalgic, bittersweet, sad, unbelievably good.

The Best:

And now, my top three books of the year based solely on how much I enjoyed them. Here they are, in reverse order:

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The Last Samurai, by Helen Dewitt The most relentlessly engaging and unputdownable book I read this year. It grabs you by the brain and heart simultaneously and won’t let go. I’m shocked I only heard of this book this year, and will be forcing it on certain kinds of people for the rest of my days. If you enjoy languages, music, math, or knowledge for the sake of knowledge, you might just be crazy for this one.

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Vertigo, by W.G. Sebald  Mind-alteringly good. The subtlest manipulator of words I’ve yet encountered, Sebald has done with this book what I never even considered could be possible with words. Startling, shocking, surprising, frightening, upsetting, sad, and so much more. I will never forget this one and the effect it had on me. I’ll never think of mind, memory, and my own personal memories in the same way again. I recommend it to everyone, just to see if it works the same way on them.

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If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino My favorite read of the year. Not only did this book completely blow me away with its innovative structure and way of telling the story, but it was packed full of mind-expanding ideas, and humorous human moments. Even with its intentional lack of plot, I couldn’t put it down. While Last Samurai was more engaging, and Vertigo was more emotional, this one combined the two in a way that pushed it high above the rest. If on a Winter’s Night had it all. The minute I finished I wanted to start reading it again. A must read (or at least attempt to read! Check out the sample on Amazon and see if it interests you!) for everyone who cares about books.

The Rest:

The rest of the books I read this year. Most of them were great, but just didn’t make it into any of the above categories.

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck This one took my socialist leanings and put a magnifying glass over them. It helped me understand the ‘hick’ southerner stereotype and its origins. It made me want to smash capitalism.

Queen, King, Knave, by Vladimir Nabokov Hilarious, and one that I feel I’ll have to read again to get the full effect. I’ve not yet read a Nabokov that I didn’t love, but this one did not stick with me as much as some of his others. A joy to read.

Intensely interesting subject matter, and memorable characters and structure. However, writing this now nearly a year later I can’t remember who killed who, or why… goes to show you how little plot matters to me!

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco I loved about 1/3 of this book. The rest was so jam packed with historical trivia that it took me two months to read and is probably single handedly the reason I’m not meeting my Goodreads goal this year. I ended up skimming about 30% of it.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner   Quite an enjoyable read. I loved how much was said in what was not said. Every character had a unique voice and way of looking at things, but they were all clearly a family with certain things in common… the end was the most perfect sum up of the entire book in just one scene. Very good, and thinking about it reminds me that I need to try more Faulkner next year.

Out by Christine Brooke-Rose – I loved a lot of the prose in this one, very interesting and beautiful descriptions, and I enjoyed the oddness and the effort I had to put into figuring out what was going on. However, it was an effort. This was a difficult one to parse and it took me a while to finish. I’m still not entirely sure what was going on, yet somehow it never bothered me during the read. It was somewhat tiring in the end, though.

The Plague, by Albert Camus – I loved the Stranger so much that I picked up this one immediately after. I did not enjoy it as much. The style seemed drastically different. It was less focused on character and more about the overall events. I liked the thoughts on death and how life goes on despite the horror around us. But it was so drawn back that it was hard to identify with the characters until near the end.

The Luzhin Defense, by Vladimir Nabokov Another wonderful story by Nabokov. I really enjoyed the character in this one, and his disconnect from other people and reality. It was very identifiable for me. This story captured another side of obsession. An involuntary, inescapable side that draws you in whether you want to get away from it or not. A dark, and memorable ending.

The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad – The depths of human depravity put out on display. This was depressing at times, terrible at others. It showed the endless potential for human greed, and that greed and lust for power can have no end and no maximum. It was not exactly enjoyable to read, but it was very well done.

Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent – The story of a woman sentenced to death, and her last days living with a family of strangers before her execution. The story leaves out much of the woman’s feelings about her impending death and instead focuses on what I found least interesting of all: the story of what happened, and how she came to be sentenced to death. There are some interesting thoughts on perceptions, and how people end up being defined by one event in their lives, but I felt much potential was left out of this one.

Perfume: The story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind – Another story about an empty character, but unlike The Stranger, this character does have a passion and a goal, and despite myself I did identify with him in some ways. This book also is unusual in that it focuses so much on scent, a very underutilized sense in writing. Laugh out loud humorous at times. An interesting, easy read that I’d recommend to most people.

Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy – I enjoyed many parts of this book, though it wasn’t very memorable. I think mostly I enjoyed the message, even though that’s probably just because I agreed with it. Others may find it preachy.

How Fiction Works, by James Wood: Wonderfully engaging, I couldn’t put it down. My only nonfiction book of the year but it was easier to read than some of the fictional ones. Extremely intriguing and gave me so many ideas of what books to read next. Recommended to anyone who is interested in the workings of fiction.

The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver  Amazingly distinct character voices, and a gripping story that went more places than I thought it would. Gave me a dose of history that I never got in school and has inspired me to look more into world events outside my doorstep. Highly enjoyable, emotional, and educational at once.

I, Claudius, by Robert Graves – An interesting look at Roman history from a point of view you don’t get in history books. This is fictional, but gave me more of an idea of what the political world was like back then than I ever got from school. It reminded me, in a lot of ways, of our current political situation. An enjoyable book, but not terribly engaging.

Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov – Nabokov’s most cheerful book, and most lovable character. I did not find this one to be as intriguing or surprising as many of his other books are, but it was, as always, a joy to read and made me smile throughout. Bittersweet at times, but overall heartwarming. And of course, endless lovely prose to highlight to your heart’s content.

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol My first Gogol experience, and I was enthralled with his characters. They were humorous, vivid, and identifiable. Not quite a favorite of the Russian classics. I was not bothered by the unfinishedness of it.

The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood I did not much enjoy the prose in this, or the character, but the story and world were interesting, and it held up well. I guess not much has changed in 30 years. Sad.  

The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler My first journey into the detective genre since Murder on the Orient Express, and it exceeded my very low expectations by not being completely racist and misogynist. It was written quite well, with vividly drawn characters and decent prose. Engaging, but rather empty in the end.  

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler  Grabbed this one cause I needed another book and didn’t have time to shop around. It was pretty much the same. Slightly more racist. It satisfied on a basic level, some good bits of prose and some entertaining action, but I’m probably done now.

That’s all for now folks! What were your favorite books of the year?

The Last Samurai, by Helen Dewitt

No, it has nothing to do with the 2003 Tom Cruise movie (which came out 3 years after this novel was released)–and that I need to make that distinction at all is an illustration of the sad state of American culture, because this book was flipping amazing and I can’t believe I’ve never heard of it until this year. 

Sibylla is an American at Oxford who, after an unfortunate one-night-stand, is left trying to raise a son on her own. She repeatedly watches the Kurosawa movie ‘Seventh Samurai’ with him, in lieu of a father figure (hence the name of the book.) She tries to follow the advise of J.S. Mill and Yo Yo Ma, who began learning very young (Mill learned Greek at 3, and Yo Yo Ma was playing Bach at 2) and starts teaching her son various languages at a very young age. To her annoyance, he learns them all too quickly and constantly wants more. By the time he’s six he has a half dozen of them. 

For anyone who is interested in linguistics, math, science, sociology, anthropology, or the idea of prodigies and geniuses, this book will be an addiction. From the start I could not put it down, it was so interesting. Not only are there tasty nuggets of learning scattered consistently throughout, but the characters are so heartbreakingly identifiable. 

Sibylla, a genius herself, who feels boredom is a fate worse than death, is stuck typing mind numbingly bland texts for a publishing house so they can be archived digitally (story takes place in the 80s I think). She does this in order to take care of her son, and also so she can keep her work permit and avoid going back to the states. But it is difficult for her, and thus she is always short of money. The first section of the book is from her perspective, and her recounting of her life up till that point, which she writes with scattered interruptions of her trying to raise her son. 

The second part of the book is told from her son, Ludo’s point of view, as he becomes obsessed with his quest to find out who his father is. 

The story is relentlessly engaging and interesting. However, you will have to endure a bit of unusual formatting and style. Apparently this is difficult for some people to do, but

A good samurai will parry the blow… 

Too often people cringe away from anything that doesn’t fit the perfectly organized box they are used to.  It’s not as odd as Lincoln in the Bardo was, but it does jump around and there are times when you have to think a bit about what you’re reading (imagine that!) That is enough to generate several one star reviews from annoyed/confused people, though. I hope you will look past them (or look for them, if you’re like me and expect every genius book to be hated by some portion of the populace) and give it a chance!

This is one of my favorite books in a long time, and definitely wins the award for ‘most engaging read’ this year. 

Eva Cassidy, high above the chimney tops

I don’t usually write about music, but this song and Eva’s story have never let go of me. 

I remember the first time I heard this song, I was looking for a version of the Judy Garland classic that was better produced than all the originals I’d been able to find. But any new covers I came across all seemed to miss the point of the song. They were all too cheerful or light-hearted (or featured a ukulele, which I can’t stand). When I heard this version, I was so struck because it captures the emotions of the song perfectly, but in its own amazingly unique way. 

After listening to it a half dozen times in a row, I looked up the artist, Eva Cassidy, and the song took on a whole other level of sadness. 

Over the Rainbow was recorded as part of a live performance at a club called Jazz Blues Alley in D.C. in early 1996. Cassidy was unhappy with the performance, but compiled the songs and released them anyway, to much local acclaim. Less than a year after this recording, however, she was dead of cancer. She was 33. 

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Watching that video knowing she was only ten months from death adds another layer of bittersweet. Knowing that such an amazing talent could vanish, like a fledgling flame whipped out by a too-strong gust of wind, is sobering, depressing, angering. She could have swept the earth with her talent. She could be a world-renowned name today, still producing classics. 

But, part of me wonders if she would have. All the albums released posthumously over the past 21 years (there are a lot, even one this year!) were put together from live recordings, or studio demos. We know Cassidy was unhappy with the Blues Alley performance, and if she was unhappy with those lovely songs, what else would she have been unsatisfied with? Would she have allowed any of these songs to come out at all? Everyone around her knew how amazing she was. But did she? 

She would have figured out that she was eventually, surely. But she wasn’t given the chance. 

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It makes me think and feel so many different things whenever I hear this song. I feel nostalgic, I feel bitter about how life works, I feel sad for lost time. But I also feel grateful that this recording was preserved, and I wonder how she would feel knowing millions of people all around the world (Spotify shows tens of thousands of listeners in London, Amsterdam, Dublin, and more) still enjoy her work decades later… 

And I wonder how many artistic sparks are snuffed out every day, every year, by cancer or car crashes or poverty or self doubt. I wonder what they may have produced for the world if their fire had continued to grow. I wonder what pieces of art, what heart-wrenching songs or world-changing books will never exist because they are gone. And I wonder what I might produce, and how much time I have left to do it. 

It’s possible I’m reading too much into the stories of her dislike of the recordings. Maybe she had valid reasons. Maybe she really was a lot better than we see in the video. But I get the feeling it was her internal critic talking. The voice that all artists have that tells them they aren’t good enough, that they don’t belong, that their work doesn’t have value. If we listen to that voice a little, we have the drive to constantly improve. If we listen to it too much, though, we do nothing. It’s a fine line to dance on. 

You might doubt your abilities, and wonder if you’re voice is worthy of the world’s attention. But the only way to know for sure is to put your work out there and see what happens. Don’t put it off. Don’t wait to be perfect, because you never will be. And every day you don’t create that song or book or piece of art is another day the universe might take it away from all of us, forever. 

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Do I just love genius characters or is this book really that good?

I’ve been reading The Last Samurai (no, nothing to do with Tom Cruise) by Helen Dewitt, and boy is it great. I have been holding back on reading longer books (anything over 400 pages) because I wanted to meet my goodreads goal for the year (i’m not going to anyway) but after reading the sample on this one there was no way I could not buy it. 

In short, it’s about a genius single mother raising her genius son, who starts devouring languages at the age of 4 and speaks half a dozen by the time he is six. It’s scattered with facts about all sorts of things, but mostly linguistics and bits of history/anthropology/sociology. But it’s all kept related to the story in ways that are very clever. 

I can’t stop reading it, and find myself even more motivated to learn more languages. High recommendation and I’m only a bit over halfway through it.