Patrick’s Comments (group member since Mar 09, 2009)

Patrick’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I finished the Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith. I checked out her younger photo; a very severe looking woman who looks like a regular balls-breaker.

It is like the question that T.S. Eliot asked. 'Dare I Disturb the Universe?' But in this case, the universe is seriously 'ef' up beforehand.

I am looking forward to reading Emily's Diary and already read the section on about the book. It's like this woman who write in her diary while her life is falling apart but she kept denying it so she writes it as if everything in her life is going perfectly.

Damn, it looks like we have a Flannery O Conner recarnination thing happening here, folks. I bet it would be like 'August Heat' or 'Address Unknown' but in a novel length. How cool is that!

Yeah, well said, Dan.

Mr. Cavano,if you have any chance, you can check out some of the email version of lynchings, public humilations, and even one ironic love in for PFL in myspace. Also, I was yelled at for whining about lack of respect for self published writers by Jon Evision in myspace version of the fiction files, and my first novel was laughed out of fiction files by Nick and everyone else and it took me more than a year to win friends from the fiction files. And that was ONLY because I complained about his rule, even though I was snotty about it. I got burned but I learned. Beside, it was really funny now that I look back on it.

It took me two years to have at least one fiction filer become a fan of mine and for her to post Reading Our Own which I am really grateful for and it gives me more credibility here on Good Read.

It would have been more gracious to join in the discussion and not do a drive by posting your thoughts to bolster your book sales and never come back again. That was kind of cold. But will check out only your posting on John Clinch if you are still interested in discussing him in another thread.

I did check your book out, but it would be a while before I get a chance to read it because I got a lotta books to go through for now.

I think that's an interesting point. I thought that the concept of minor characters becoming major characters is a interesting concept, and it would be a challenge to make that character sympathic. Most stories are not really orginal and many of these stories can be traced back to ancient times of Homer, Virgo. Dickenson based some of his literacy themes on fairy tales he read and loved.

I heard about Clinch through an interpreter I met during the sleep lab and seemed like he is becoming more and more known as a writer.

Well, it does looks like this fiction files in GoodRead is more flexible and you do seem very earnest. Will check it out.

Many thanks. It would be an honor for me to be compared to ryu murakami, even though I have not read his work. Will check out his work at the library.

Yeah...but it is a cool name for a true villian who is totally the opposite of every fifties side of the mouth snarling tough dialogues, suit and tie and hat wearing, black, white, gray walking around, cliche gangsters. But more ruthless and dangerous. It is a good thing the Misfit was a fictional character.

Even if the gangster was eliminated, I still think Bailey might have driven the entire family off a cliff to end their suffering of the grandmother's prying prattles and controlling behavior. But ironically, The Misfit was there to take care of that.

It is kind of hard to judge someone like Bailey as a coward. I mean, the gangsters had guns, he did not and probably thought if he cooperated with the gangsters, they might live. It's hard to tell how someone would have reacted. Also, remember he was just in an accident, a stressful situation by itself and probably just gave up on the grandmother, control over his family, and was worn down by her emasculating comments and ways. I bet a petty part of him peevishly thought to himself, 'See? That's what you get for being such a control freak. Way to go, granny. Getting the family killed just to have it your way.'

Personally, as to Bailey being a coward, I would like to think I would have used Kung Fu ninja magic tai chi bullshit moves on the Misfit. But if I was really honest, I probably would have crapped in my pants while meekly walking to the dark wood with the other gangsters. At least Bailey died with clean underwear.

It's funny how a different perceptive sympathizes with the grandmother...I found the grandmother very manipulative and scheming, and a emasculating liar. It was she who insisted on leading the family to her own bitter end, and it was she who attempted to wrest control of everything, from bringing her cat along, to witholding information that the house she talked about was in Tennessee, not Georgia.

Not sure what to think...

I read this before on my own, and thought it was sad and scary. The characters are drawn true to life and I really loved the innocence of the mother wearing her green hankercheif about her head like the ears of a rabbit. I guess the concept is the characters are doomed from the very beginning because of their naive and mistaken assumptions. The grandmother is finely drawn with dozen of flaws that led the family to their doom. It was fine irony when the grandmother tried to use the avoidance of Misfit as an excuse to get her own way, and when she failed, it was ulimately series of her mistakes that led the entire family to be wiped out: the lie about the cat that sprang onto Bailey's shoulders at the end of their trip, her insistance at tagging along to keep controlling the family on their outings, the mistake of telling the children about the house with the secret panel, and waving down the very dark gangsters for help after the accident. The scenes themselves are comical and the characters own various flaws are realistic.

It seemed like an ironic story of a very severely flawed grandmother who thought herself as better than anyone in her family and attempted to manipulate her family in having her own way at all time and controlling them at the same time, only to lead her family to a very certain doom in their encounter with the Misfit gang

I believed the father, Bailey called his mother, quite adeptly, a "cunt" even though the author did not write what he actually muttered about his mother.


Flannery O' Conner was very brilliant in exposing the flaws of everyday person, and creating very, very, very, dark people despite their charms, excellent manners, politeness, and other facades. It really make me resent the various idiotic control freaks that I had to put up with in the course of my attempt to live my life in peace. It is one of those ironic story about a person's endless struggle to control fate.

Might have to leave your house door unlocked and hopefully someone left sobered at the dork. My flight does not come in until 11:25 p.m. If you can't, let me know as soon as you can...

I would probably would like to compare Poor Aunt Story and Garden of Forking Paths because of the absent word and both are surreal even though the themes in both are extraordinarily different. To parapahse Mr. Lumbergh from Office Space, "Yeah um...Why don't we can just go ahead and compare these two stories that would be great."

I reserved my plane tickets for 7/27/09 to 7/30/09. I probably would need a room to stay if there any in your place, Jon? If not, let me know, so I can see about hotel or what nots. Probably will be trying to bum a pick up if any voluteers...

Thanks. Look forward to your input, whether praises, criticisms, or thread posting-headslaps. :)

I remember reading an article in Harper about that concept of horses being beaten. It was entitled "Does It Have Dead Mules In It?" It made fun of the southern novels for the use of dead mules to qualify them as serious southern novels.

Speaking of ovisphile, it is either "not baa!" or "ewe!" Okay, now I'll stop. :)

I just finished Patricia Highsmith's, "People Who Knock On Doors." The funny thing was while the book was revelant in the Silent Moral Majority period of the eighties, I kept thinking of those people as Fifties sitcom like Leave it to the Beaver except Wally, in the form of Arthur, constantly gets laid.

Yeah upsetting for me it is...I feel he cut a lot of corners by collerbating with other writers, writing one page chapters, and it's like reading cliff notes of more respected authors like James Lee Burke. Why not just sell note cards with the plots while he's at it? But he is successful at it and that's probably why most people like me are often snide about his writing ability.

Hmm...I am relunctant in making any changes right now because Authorhouse tend to charge obscene price for me to revise it, so to be honest, right now I am too cheap to do that...I guess I would take a second look at it, (Probably when Legion starts putting on their earmuffs, mittens, and scarves around their necks:)),

Right now I am focused on the second book. Orignally, it was in a group: a ward, The Watcher Leader, and a beautiful girl who lives outside the Gate. But the novel reached 700 pages and was very very bloated with ridiculous notions. (Think The Jetson with George and his saucer riding family dealing with the tense and secret issue of genocide.)I might look into that if I ever contracted with a major publishing company, the kind of the company that would care about my book, not how much money I can pay them.

(In the light of Alex's comment, all right, all right, all right, man. I'll definetely welcome small presses' interests also.)

I did think about other characters' perceptives but I was worried about losing focus, and also I have plan for these characters in my first book to go onto the second book, which would expand to include the outside of the dystopia world, and maybe the third to include the entire dystopia country.

For now, my first book is like being in the belly of the monster, and my next book, perhap I will have the monster show his grotesque face in the form of the high school society, then in the third, you might get to see the monster climb the Empire State building and take a klutzy tumble off of it.

So to answer your question after rambling a bit, I might keep the book the way it is for now.

Thank you again for your review, I do not think I would have sold Michael and Brian (and hopefully Jon) on it without your enthusicatic support.

I disagree...it is a well written story with subtly and details. On the surface, it might look like a simple story but if you read it again, each action, from the rescue of the fly to the killing of the fly is significant in revealing the thoughts of the boss. Perhaps, it may not be her best work, but the story is well done and really resonate with me, even three quarters century later after her death.

Her most famous story is "The General's Daughters", a very sad and a very strong fable about killing your children with kindness.

Yeah, I have no admiration for the chicken hawks who would said it's a good thing to die for the country.
I read that poem a long time ago and it was responsible for turning me into a giant pacifist.

I thought it was overly invasive of Old Woodfield, (Sp probably) to talk about how wonderful the grave of the boss's son look. I mean, I am sure his son would appreciate gently rotting away six feet down, while the park's staff spuce up his headstone, and the flowers and all that.

I do find it grotesque all the carrying on, the war rallies, and senators voting for the war despite the fact that the war had already been decided...I have no respect for the senators like John Kerry who said he voted for the war and will vote for it again and I feel that was why he ended up sleeping in a different bedroom from his wife during that election of 2004.
He truely made us decide between a "shit sandwich" and a "douche bag" as the South Park creators called the choices.

People really don't think, they just do not think.