Shel’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Shel’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Hey guys, I'm about to become much less cash-flow secure, so I'm not sure I'll be able to afford a rental car as previously thought. I was supposed to give Kerry and Lauren a lift to Jonathan's house and then hit Costco with a larger rented van (well, not really *hit* Costco, I'm sure they have cement pillars just for people like that)... I may need some help getting to JE's house on the morning of the 28th with Kerry and Lauren, and then on to Flagler. And I might need some help getting to whatever transportation is available to get to the airport on the 31st.

Depends on which part of Maryland you're in, but I agree with you. The less inhabited areas of the shore have a ... melancholy to them. Maybe it's that the land and water are at the same level and everything is so calm there. It's such a quiet place.

Also, the lack of beachfront, or the fact that most of it is privately owned on those islands, keeps out the rowdy/partying beach people, unlike, say, Martha's Vineyard. That can be found in Ocean City, a place I have never been in all the years I lived in DC.

The mountains in Maryland, now that's a different story. Virginia, too. Just the other day I was sipping wine at a vineyard, looking at Sugarloaf Mountain, a cool breeze taking all of the punch out of a 90 degree day, with old friends talking about life 20 years ago... and the very next day I visited with my favorite high school teacher. Story for another thread.

While I lived in Annapolis, I stayed several times at the Robert Morris Inn where James Michener supposedly wrote Chesapeake A Novel. The inn itself was built prior to 1710.

The crab cakes are rumored to be the best on the shore due to the near total lack of breading in the recipe. They are pretty good, I must say, but for whole crabs there is no place better than Cantler's. As long as you don't mind getting your hands dirty.

Below is a view from one of the rooms.

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Wow. I get a limerick and someone who thinks I'm only turning 25?

My mom said my chubby cheeks would pay off one day... I'm cute enough to write a limerick about and look 11 years younger than my actual age. ;-D

Yes, it's true. I do hate a belated limerick.

And my dad is getting me a Kindle! Yay me!

Thanks, everyone.

Were you able to go in, Brian?

Wow, I would have just stood in there for a long time, same way I did in Rembrandt's studio - I had to be dragged out... at least it wasn't by a security guard, just my kids...

That said, there are also many examples of prose that, as Matt says, is so obvious that it pulls you out of the story without inviting you back in. Language that is too self-conscious or self-important, too show-offy ("look, Ma, no hands!"), or that is inconsistently applied within a novel, can all be bad.

You know who I think is guilty of this one? Michael Ondaatje.

Sorry to anyone who loves his stuff.

This thread brings to mind Faulkner, for me. I had my doubts about him, because the first book of his I ever attempted was As I Lay Dying.

Fortunately, I was convinced by a friend to pick up Light in August and away I went.

There is a long list of things he does so artfully with language that, in addition to being blown away by the story itself, I would put the book down at the end of each chapter, stared straight ahead, and thought, whoa. Particularly in the Joe Christmas chapters.

First, there is how he paints scenery and picture - how he develops our sense of place - time, light, smell. The smell of the old man's house. The feeling of running for your life. The way it feels to be in the south, in the summer.

Then there is who people are, what they do, the perceptions of others.

Then, there is how he uses perspective to develop story, bringing new characters into the novel in the very last chapter but somehow perfectly interweaving them - they are necessary, their perspective is necessary to round out the novel.

It was all those layers that kept me completely immersed in the book, and led me to fold down almost every page, underline every other paragraph - I guess I read it at different levels at the same time? and none of the language got in the way at all.

Well. We did this for a while on the original FF and I thought I might attempt a little revival.

I like pulp fiction covers. Love them, in fact.

The text below, if it's too blurry for you, reads "This unusual book may shock you, will make you laugh, may break your heart - but you will never forget it." By the way, the book I have is in its 23rd printing - only 10 years after the original print year.



This next one, if you can't read the tag, says: "Highly unladylike... a brutal irony, a slam-bang humor and a style of writing as balefully direct as a death sentence" for the Flannery O'Connor. I never thought I'd hear slam-bang and Flannery O'Connor in the same sentence...



This one is fun too, but it's pretty easy to read and obvious:

Jonathan wrote: " . . . the issue with the online stuff isn't platform, rather it has something to do with the university having to run all sales or some such . . ."

I'll get on the phone with them and straighten it all out. ;-) I kid, I kid. These days I am doing all kinds of pro bono web consulting, it fits with my killer business model of giving away my hard-won knowledge for free.

I still say Paypal. It works almost exactly like online credit card processing for merchants and the transactions go straight to their bank account; if I'm not mistaken they can ask for whatever info they want from their customers at the front end of the transaction and that, too, will be info made available to them. But don't quote me on that.

Oh, wow. Elizabeth Bishop. What a great connection.

I love that Lowell/Bishop book. And her. One of my favorites of all time. The letters are amazing. Their relationship was interesting.

Great post - a lot to think about.

Happy Acceptance of Everything... starts with accepting your name, I think...

Wing F. Fing... wow.

That can't be a real name, can it?

Take it easy on the little university press... it's hard being in publishing these days... doing more with less and all that.

As for the online ordering - JE, maybe you can give them a little nudge - they can set up a Yahoo! store, if I'm not mistaken those still exist, or ask them to use Paypal... That way they don't have to go through the pain and anguish of building out any functionality in their site. The platforms are out there. They just need to set up their account... and they can use Paypal for all of their stuff.

Right - what is crazy when there's no one to call you crazy?

I had Roald Dahl's story Bitch at the bottom of the list. I will look for some Gautreaux, Swanny.

Astroturf was invented in 1965.

I don't know about electricity. That's a really good question. I wonder if it works like the Internet... a data transfer has to be initiated on one end to be received by the other.

I just started Infinite Jest, but maybe I'll set it aside and finish this one. It did get into my head, too, in the loss of a loved one kind of way - those stories always do, I can't help but project.

Also in the "how would *you* survive" kind of way... how long would it take to go mad... do people really need people or not... are we a political animal that cannot survive without others of our species around us, or the constructs of civilization?

There is a poem about survival that I copied into my personal anthology years ago. I will have to find it and post it in this discussion. This book immediately brought that poem to mind.

Wow. I am exercising some amazing restraint in the area of totally inappropriate genitalia humor right now.

As long as it's English, I'll add whatever your favorites might be...

Patrick, that's a good JCO one... I'll add it...

Since we are taking a little summer vacation, now would also be a good time for people to submit suggestions.

Did I pick a story by an author that isn't their best work, in your opinion? Let me know.

Do you have more to add to the list? Please let me know.

Do you have URLs or copies of the stories we have on the list that I'm missing (plus access to a scanner)? Would you be willing to post a scanned copy to Brian's public folder area? Let me know.

Oh, and at the Lit Fair yesterday (in Chicago) I saw this amazing book called The Great Books Foundation's Short Story Omnibus, which I am going to go back to and buy (but oddly, there is no image for this quite cool book cover):

Happy Birthday, Lara... celebrate with some Leonard and Jack...! :-)

Can't wait to see you in July...

Just that the loss she experiences traumatizes her in a particular way, that she walks in a fog of unreality, of an unpeopled world.

I have heard (though I'm no doctor, Jim) that some people who experience PTSD just flat out turn the outside world off completely, that they have serious problems with short/long term memory... like I said, I don't know for sure. It just seems like the world ends when she experiences her loss. Which, considering the loss itself... maybe I'm using the wrong label.

Actually, I probably am. I'm not good with labels.

Michael's term "therapeutic language" or "private language" really made me think that what she is telling us can't be real, but it is her way of looking out at things...

But I'm not done with the book yet. So I don't know for sure.