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

Jonathan’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

...dude, you gotta com, oro!...there is never a beer shortage!

. . . you guys are gonna' hate me:

. . .okay, the writing is really starting to get on my nerves . . . faulkner has a gift for writing a great sentence now and then, but otherwise, his sentences are full of passive forms, and downright clunky and repetitive much of the time, and i swear to god if i read another sentence that has THREE of his little invented word contractions in it, i'm going to throw the fucking book across the room! . . . hemingroids may have been right when he said: "poor faulkner, he thinks big words mean big emotions." . . . i really like the story, the characters are fascinating, but fualkner needs to get the hell out of his own way as far as i'm concerned . . . again, i'm baffled that people can utter faulkner's name in the same sentence as joyce, nabakov, or even conrad, when they talk about a musicality of language . . . but for an occasional gem of a sentence, i feel like his prose are vastly overestimated . . . no, i'm not drunk, either (and i'm not scott, either) . . . for me, faulkner just gets in his own way with his wordplay most of the time . . . god almighty, the contracted words are just WAY WAY to prevalent! every time he manages to suspend my disbelief and let me sink into the story, here comes a string of words like duskfiltered . . .look, i'm sorry, but any writer can start inventing these words . . .mccarthy does it better (and way less) . . .now and then, a word like "bootworn" will come along that i can live with, but then he's gotta puch his luck with three more in the next paragraph . . . i've been reading some great writers lately: ron carlson, stewart o'nan, dan chaon, alan gurganus . . . and i feel like every one of them are superior to faulkner on a sentence level . . .sorry, but that's how i'm reading it . . . i will finish for sure, because the story is compelling when he allows me to enjoy it . . .

yo, bill: quit writing and tell me a story!!!

. . .okay, i've edited the event to say roslyn . . . if you haven't RSVP'd, please do so . . . looks like we'll have no shortage of beds, but it'll be good to know how much beer to get!

http://www.goodreads.com/event/show/7...

. . .salmon la sac is awesome--12 miles from roslyn . . . great place to go cliff jumping into the cle ellum river . . . and it will be hotter than hell, too . . . great hikes up there, too . . .

. . .okay, now everybody has to go rent the first three seasons of northern exposure and soak in the roslyn vibe . . .LOVE the place . . . a bunch of my friends worked on northern exposure, from actors to grips, and i've spent a lot of time out there . . .looking so forward!!!!

ahoy, jo!

...ye, dan-o, of course you can crash--happy to have you!

. . .and martyn, how did this happen and we had no inkling?

. . . since we're steeped in faulkner's south, i was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading "world's oldest confederate widow tells all" by allan gurganus. . .i've been meaning to read it for a long time . . . i love the way gurganus writes . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Oldest-Living-C...

. . . event created, check your invites, or in case for some reason we're not "friends" on facebook, go here:


http://www.goodreads.com/event/show/7...

Lauren wrote: "Hi! Remember me? I'd like to go, if it works out! I have a wedding the second week of August (I think) in Central Washington so it seems convenient for me to just fly into Bellingham, get where I n..."

hooray!

. . . brian is going to book, i believe, and will let us know . . . shooting for first week of august . . .

okay, awesome news:

thanks to brian, it looks like we're gonna get the place on whidbey for a whole week!!!!! . . . i'm going to insist that one of these nights be reserved as brians 50th birthday party!!!! . . . i'll check back with dates, etc . . . brian is probably sleeping right now . . .

. . .and kerry, AWESOME-- please tell P he MUST come--he's gotta' meet this group! he'll hit it off with each and everyone of these people like he hit it off with me . .

. . . i see this misogyny as a theme in a lot of male writer's work and life (bellow, hamsun, fante, celine, bukowski, etc, etc, etc) . . .like all men, they're terrified of women . . . i don't think they understand the feminine aspect very well, so they tend to idealize it-- the result is either iconic female characters, or cardboard cut-outs . . .

. . . this is a huge issue in modern fiction-- creating relate-able female characters . . .because that's pretty much the audience for literary fiction at this point . . . alienate women, and you're toast . . .

. . . yeah, i'm getting the misogyny, too . . . we know he likes him some bible--i'd say maybe he's got a little bit of the old whore/madonna syndrome, perhaps . . . but then again: it's her fault! she shouldn't have started praying over him!

...back for an encore!...if it's any consolation, i'm almost drunk enough to have understood this one...

...i'm gonna start with the whatcom lake place...

. . .anothe good one . . .roslyn is also a great town-- the town where northern exposure was filmed . . .

http://www.cyberrentals.com/rental/p7...

. . .here's another place--more expensive, but roomier--and bellingham is a kickass town with a used bookstore that rivals william james in PT . . .

. . .oh, and he did say he'd probably be willing to wave the one week minimum in june . . .but i fear that's too early for everybody . . .

. . .back to the drawing board . . . one week minimum, though he was trying his hardest to try to get me in september because it's cheaper and there's no minimum . . . i'll keep looking for places . . . worse case scenario, we'll have it hear at my house and i'll find sleeping accomodations for everybody on the island . . .but i'm gonna' keep looking . . .