Michael’s Comments (group member since Mar 07, 2009)

Michael’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I'll need to get my dogeared copy back from Sarah fille, though, as it has got all my notes in the margins!

I'm in. :)

Jonathan wrote: " . . . i'm 90 pages in, and . . . and . . . and . . . i'm liking it better than anything i've ever read by faulkner!!!! . . . hooray! this is the skipper eating a little crow! . . . the narrative h..."

I do declare Mr. Evison, how you do go on and on about little ol' Bill Faulkner. Of course he is just about the best writer this country has ever seen, and I am just perplexed as a bug on a barn door that you have not seen this up until now.

(Welcome Jonathan, and all y'all, to 2010 and another year of reading large. mm)

Martyn wrote: "Kris wrote: "Few people know that Poe wrote a novel. I highly encourage everyone to seek out the brilliantly disturbing The Narrative of the Life of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket which is the opti..."

I actually like this rambling work. There is a sense the author himself doesn't know where he is going with it, but the stow-away/buried alive parts, and the ghost ship, and the cannibalism, all add up to a series of great episodes, even if the story eventually falls off the face of the map. The litany of latitudinal markings is hypnotic...

I've said it before here: Lovecraft must have thought very highly of this work in that he tried to rewrite it as his At the Mountains of Madness. Martyn; I would DEFINITELY recommend you read this HPL novel and then reapproach Pym.

Great ending too!

"March 22d.-The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but upon touching him we found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow."

But, finest hour? No. Many finer hours to be sure.
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This from the Southern Lit Thread, FFv2
Posted: Aug 23, 2007 11:24 AM

Martstar wrote: First I'd like to second the definite Gothic distinction in southern lit and the prominence of grotesque characters and situations.

Michael wrote: I've been meaning to mention Poe.

I know he is a tough guy to categorize. And he is not known for mingling well with others. His is such a unique voice.

And his regional identity is mixed. But on the whole, I would call him a southern writer and gentleman.

I think we are going to have to resign ourselves to inviting Edgar Allen to our little party. And even if Sam Clemens is dominating the room with his stories, and Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are a little much in their cups and also talking in lyric cadences to the assembled, we should not fail to note the quiet dark haired man in the corner with the asymmetrical smile who is visiting from Baltimore by way of Richmond, and who has a certain notorious reputation for writing short stories of the bizarre and unusual variety.

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Jonathan Evison wrote:

. . . let us not forget poe's athletic side! . . . apparently, e.a.p. was a pole-vaulter of some local reknown . . . when i was working in hollywood in the 90s, sly stalone was pitching a poe biopic, in which-- i'm not making this up-- stalone wanted to play poe himself and "his athletic side" . . . gotta love hollyweird! . . .

. . . this stalone story inspired me in my radio days to produce a skit along similar lines . . . if you're interested in listening to it (it's a movie preview, and quite funny, if i do say so) go to:

http://www.shakennotstirred.com

. . . in the right column of titles, about halfway down, click on "mosses"-- it's supposed to say "moses, " but the webmaster wasn't a big speller . . . fantasy island is pretty funny, as well . . .

Michael wrote: As always, our humble moderator can take a reputable discussion off on a wild tangent! The Sly Stone skit had me peeing my pants buddy.

Jcamilo wrote: "I did not knew about Dostoievisky..."

I want to go back to the old MySpace threads and find the group discussions on Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. There was some good discussion there regarding the use of the Double in the novel and Fyodor’s debt to Edgar Allan in that regard.

Meanwhile here is some background on their literary relationship.

http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/02/043....

During the early 1860s, Dostoevsky showed his interest in the esoteric by his publication of stories by Edgar Allen Poe in the journal "Vremja" (Time) and in articles about the American writer's literary style. Dostoevsky was intrigued by Poe's technique of presenting the outward possibility of an unnatural event while proceeding to relate a realistic tale. In the issue of "Vremja" that contained the stories "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The Devil in the Belfry," there is an unsigned piece entitled "St. Petersburg Dreams in Verse and Prose."


There is also a good (longish) essay on the topic, here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi...

Jcamilo wrote: "I think it is the other way around, Poe is such undisputed master that we can look with wide eyes and laugh. Joyce, we are weary of our comrades telling us that he is just a snob prankster or if we..."

Martyn - I am sure you are aware of the Poe/Baudelaire connection, but are you aware of the role Dostoevsky played in getting Poe translated into Russian?

Poe, initially lost to his American audience, was saved from obscurity by these Europeans I think. I am going to go back into the MySpace archives and dig up a couple threads on EAP. I also know we hashed him out pretty good in the Southern Lit thread.

Cheers,
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Martyn wrote: "The Raven is my all-time favourite poem. Ever.

There are some huge fans of his here on the FF Redux tour. Take a look at the thread in our short story folder on his excellent Berenice. One of my personal favorites.

Martyn - or "Marty" here in the states, oh God I can't imagine calling you Marty - I was just up in Taos, New Mexico at the beginning of the summer for a week's vacation "bachelor time". DHL was part of that artist's colony back in the 1920's and lived in a ranch there, which I visited. No pictures, sorry.

Thought of you. If you ever get a chance you should visit the American Southwest. Get a hat, the sun is something else on baldies like you and me. But you should definitely come out to New Mexico someday. The people actually talk with you on the bus.
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Coming to understand that this symbol of something on the stairway had an interior life of its own in which he was insignificant. Symbols of things. Look how later at the climax to the story our author's eye wanders to her clothing, and how much light he throws on those things there.

Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded?

Our author explains himself very well in Ulysses at one point saying, "Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot."

I.e., the signature of his wife's petticoat string dangling to the floor. And to what extent Gabriel feels insignificant to the quiet, eternal, beauty of such things. Rather on the outside looking in.
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RE: Young Jim

This is a soapbox you will have found me atop back in the MySpace FF (v1, v2) era, but it is worth repeating; it is simply beyond reason to me that our author was a bloody BOY when he wrote these stories. The short stories which comprise the Dubliners were written between 1904 and 1907. This puts Joyce at age 21 – 24 by my calculation when he penned these words. What! did he have an Angel or physically real Muse standing over his shoulder sipping at the whiskey while he wrote?

I just can’t fathom a) the young mind that could distill such mature themes, and b) even then, to have composed such perfect prose. I’ll defend my soapbox and say it again; line for line Joyce (particularly this early realistic work) is the most elegant text I have ever read. The economy of words; the word choice; the exactness of image; not a jot out of place. I can count on one hand the writers I find with such an aura of inevitability – should I say musicality? – to their writing.

And at the grand old age of 24.

Genius, I say, genius!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Martyn wrote: "Austerlitz is one of the best books ever written. Period - as you Americans say."

I think that would be "quote period unquote", and we would wiggle our fingers in mimical quotation marks. Just to be clear on Yankee usage. ;)

Lastly,.
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It's been years since I've read this story, which maybe will add something to my comments. Dust most likely.

But I've left Mr. Gately on the beach and closed the book on Infinite Jest just yesterday so I am ready, willing, and able to read something else for the first time since early June. So perhaps it is time to get my well thumbed Joyce off the shelf and approach this story anew.

I do know that the particulars of the dinner escape me, but the return to the bedroom of the married couple still haunts me in quite some detail. 90% of my potential comments will be addressed to this later part of the story I would predict.

I agree with Smartha that there are like two stories going on here; and the second is world stoppingly good. That Young Jim Joyce could PLAIN OUT WRITE (which is why the world was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt when they saw Ulysses the first time?) I think the second part of the story is about seeing yourself through another's eyes and being anihilated by that persepctive. So yes'm. I think the theme be Mortality in all its feminine shades.

Dames! What say Jim o'boy, shall we toast 'em anotheround?

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Shel wrote: "Wow. Life witnessing death. All framed by degradation.

So you've been reading Joyce then...

You gotta love the old motto at the Enfield Tennis Academy: "THEY CAN KILL YOU, BUT THE LEGALITIES OF EATING YOU ARE QUITE A BIT DICIER". This was changed with the new administration.

But my favorite serious quote is from footnote 24 (the complete filmography of the main character's father) where you will find this synopsis of his film Cage III – Free Show:

"The figure of Death presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs."

DFW rules!

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Infinite Jest A Novel by David Foster Wallace. Shel - are you on the Infinite Summer site this summer? A lot of good commentary from the people reading this book this summer.

Keith wrote: "patty, what he's talking about is the fact that there are novels upon novels out there that feature wheelchair-riding ambidextrous bean farmers from south tonga who have twelve identical daughters ..."

The book I’m reading now has as part of its cast a band of paraplegic Canadian assassins in wheelchairs aiming to capture a DVD which renders viewers comatose and incontinent, a guru who floats 6" over the top of the towel rack in a boy’s locker room and survives off licking the sweat of others, gigantic feral human infants attacking New England, and a President of these United States who is a cross between Elvis and Howard Hughes. Is this what you are talking about?

Damn good book, by the way.

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Studies in Classic American Literature was where I discovered DHL. I’ve read everything he’s written since, and think he a great writer who’s work, despite Martyn’s concerns, will remain classics. I am curious, in response to a post from Hugh a while back, if DHL is a “twentysomething” author, the way Hermann Hesse (or Joyce in some ways) is notorious for being poignant and relevant for the post-high-school, stranded-by-the-tide post-adolescent crowd. I know that The Rainbow and Sons and Lovers were at the top of my list for years, but though I still admire his ability to really, really pen a great sentence, the underlying metaphorical waters don’t carry me as swiftly as they once did.

I find that much of what I was drawn to was his understanding of Woman in the personal, societal, and allegorical senses (lead heroines dance pregnant and naked under the moon, etc.)

Studies in Classic in American Literature is DHL’s theme of Womanhood in a nutshell and I particularly like his essay on Poe’s doppelgangers (though there are two more essays on Melville and one on Whitman before he is finished. Just good clean fun for our type of reader). And yes, DHL is the one who got me to pick up Moby Dick after merely skimming through it in HS.

Any maybe this Woman at the root of all his writing was why his stories were so important to this twentysomething, and maybe a bit more jaded at my ripe age. Any similar experience out there? Hugh: what is your take on why you were such a DHL fan back in the day?

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Martha wrote: "I'm finally feeling settled enough to write after a full week back in the swing of "normal" life. I must say that I was not at all surprised by the quality of folks that I met at the Dork...wonderf..."

What a great letter SmartyKate! Many things going down at the Dorka this year beyond our control.
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I'll have you know that my copy of Knock came in the mail today! What's that, four months since I ordered it??

I've already read Keith's story and the interview with DLiss. Man, what an honor to know all you folks.

Happy summer everyone.
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