Maureen’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Maureen’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

hell yeah: we can all meet in the hot tub. :)

in all seriousness, yes i am coming by a miracle of divine intervention. of course, i'll probably still be flat broke so i'm hoping you guys will help pitch in for the groceries for the lasagnas and bacon brownies, and what all. i have heard about the magic of smarty kate's cooking, and phillip's too, so i imagine i won't be doing it all (please say i won't be doing it all). as i recall alan makes a mean egg as well.

i am also glad the cool lady who runs the joint doesn't mind us moving furniture, as i'm thinking we'll need to move two tables together so we can all eat together. yay! :)

i call the hot tub as my bedroom. i am a pisces, after all. :P

i guess you guys can use it when i'm climbing into trees, or making lasagna. :)

that's actually one of my favourite poets, and poems. i insist on saying out his name in full (edwin arlington robinson) because robinson is so plain, though there's not really a famous other robinson, is there? or am i missing the obvious? but i'd be remiss in not mentioning "another dark lady", which ranks up there as one of my favourite bitter poems, with a nod to shakespeare yet. :)

anyway, i'm here to talk salinger. as many of you know: i am in awe of nine stories even today, every time i read it, because i understood him so well, as everyone who loved him did. he was able to tap into that dark place we all carry, and hint that there were reasons why, that people are complex, in so few words.

franny and zooey, and my subsequent readings of the books that franny read that drove her crazy, the way of the pilgrim, and the pilgrim continues his way, gave me a nervous breakdown. this is salinger: he communicates heavy stuff even as he simplifies it to a razor sharp point. that's the type of writing that i admire most of all. ben has that too.

anyway, i don't know if you should seek out the way of the pilgrim if you are susceptible to nervous breakdowns. i bumped into a collected book in a university bookstore and was stunned. i didn't actually believe that this book was real. i had thought it was a device he'd made up for the story. and so i bought it, and found that the jesus prayer is not to be toyed with. it is not a tarot card reading. and as salinger notes, it taps into a place that many other religious cultures replicate in their own ways. the pilgrim wishes to know how to pray without ceasing, until your heart beats to prayer, and this is the way. but it's a scary scary way. as i've said before, i'm not terribly good at being enlightened. i have eaten too much apple. :)

as for the catcher in the rye it's my least favourite salinger. what matters to me is talking about allie and being with phoebe and the rest just sort of falls into a pleasant background noise. everything else that salinger wrote was shorter and more focused. the closest parallel to catcher i think is raise high the roofbeam carpenters and seymour an introduction, both from the point of view of buddy, the one who most seemed like salinger to many of his readers. he's a writer, and a recluse, and he tells a mean story.

i love the glass family. i love them all individually, even the ones that only get mentioned by the others, like waker, the roman catholic priest, whose twin, walt is the boy who is mourned in uncle wiggily in connecticut, again whom we only meet in remembrance. but he is very clear in my mind's eye, even now. booboo makes an appearance in a few stories, my memory's failing me now but she's in the one where her poor son can't understand his relationship to kites. down at the dinghy maybe? seymour needs no introduction for many of us here so i won't dwell on him even though he is the centre of the family, moreso than les, and bessie, their parents. and then there are the younger two franny and zooey, the beautiful ones. :)

i made the mistake of reading salnger's daughter's biography, and it alienated me for a long time. i would never deny the power of the work but he confused me, and i felt badly somehow for loving him so. again, with his death, i can take back his words, and give up wondering why it was he was the way he was. :)

oh shel. you got me all excited, and then i saw it was the onion. :P

gotta say: i'm very intrigued by the bio, but that's because i want to know more about her interest in, and collection of, slugs. it just seems like such a bizarre interest.

as for her taking shots at religious belief -- really? that doesn't seem to be her focus at all as a writer, at least not in the novels i've read. i'm curious to know what she said, and where, if you can give me the reference.

Adrian wrote: "...I must say that I wish I could have lived in Manhattan with Susan Sontag and gone to the opera & movies with her."

my first thought was surprise at the idea that you didn't live with susan sontag in manhattan, but then i thought about the writers who i've wanted to have some kind of relationship with because i liked their writing so much. in high school i longed to be transported back to paris in the 20s so i could sit around and drink and talk with joyce and hemingway and fitzgerald, and then later on i yearned to sit at shirley jackson's kitchen table before her kids got home from school, or to freak out borges by sitting on the bench with him, and telling him i was actually the other borges, not that doppelganger that kept sidling up. :)

sometimes i worry i am just a mash up of neil, adrian, and ben, and girl parts. it keeps me up nights. :)

neil: i love that darn holmes, and i am envious of your annotated edition. are the stories presented chronologically too? what about a study in scarlet and all of that killer mormon business? what did you make of all that? the structure of that story always intrigues me because my first instinct would be to cut it into two distinct works, giving holmes a different outcome, and writing the other piece without a holmes at the end of it, and yet.. and yet? a study in scarlet hangs together very strangely: those two big distinct chunks that aren't really halves. and yet, as much as i remember itching for a red pen to slash my own laceration of scarlet, it sort of works. it's certainly memorable anyway. i should go back and re-read, and think about it some more.

p.s. neil please get drunk and tell us the story. i love byron and his words and his poor club foot.

p.p.s. ben can you please post your survey so that all the references to it in mine make sense? :)

ye gods. i don't understand anything about this world. why that bloody typewriter? are they going to rub up on it for luck? and if the typewriter was so invaluable to his success why give it up? also, why did people buy some things and not others? how did the joyce just not sell? i think about first editions sometimes in a covetous way but i am poor so never think about them seriously. i guess when you have a lot of money you think about buying lots of stuff, like that crazy nicholas cage. :)

Adrian wrote: "Run, Jimmy!!!

This is Maureen's boyfriend:"

adrian, keeper of the cup secret, is right. that is my boyfriend, jimmy. you should be afraid of his powerful thighs. :)

your comment about patty not liking wittgenstein's nephew and you loving it really doesn't help in any case, because while i love some of the stuff patty loves, i don't love everything. for example, i still look back at the time spent reading brief interviews with hideous men with distaste, if not revulsion, and a LOT of other people in this group, including patty, are crazy for david foster wallace. i suspect we shall get to know your tastes better, and vice versa.

i think though for the time being, i'm going to leave barnhard be. he used petty-bourgeois too many times in one paragraph, for me. :)

Jimmy wrote: "Oh, Bernhard? He's one of my favorite writers. All his books are kind of in that rambling, repetitive, crotchety voice... but better."

huh. and what are his characters like, out of curiousity? he disdains fiddle players.. so does he have poor politicos who shoot laser beams from their nostrils?

what is making me smile is that you're cracking up at something that's almost unintelligible to me. :P i have no idea who this thomas bernhard is, or wilhelm raabe for that matter. and if he's a writer, i'm guessing he's a little vexed that mann was hogging up all the spotlight to himself thirty years after his death while buddy bernhard was getting nothing. but what do i know? i must be a petty-bourgeois, even though i don't really know what that is, either. :)

... oho! i just looked it up and it's a synonym for petit-bourgeois. who would have known? i expected the petty's english meaning to actually have some bearing, instead of it being a corruption of the french. and i was right! and wrong. and right. no wonder i like mann. poor little shop girl. :)

Adrian wrote: "Maureen wrote: "and i'm reading memoirs of hadrian recommended by adrian that is lovely but dense, each word has weight so it's not something i'm plowing through..."

Toss the book aside if it beco..."

you're funny. :)

i'm actually enjoying the book very much, but it's like austerlitz was for me, a slow unfurling. i can't read it and have the t.v. droning on in the background. i had it in my satchel for subway reading at first but it's not really that kind of book, that's all.

and incidentally, i really like thomas mann. i was just thinking of him yesterday when you were lambasting the germans. reading the magic mountain actually took quite a bit of time but i was quite happy with it.

i have this other book, by evan s. connell though, the alchemist's handbook that's kind of a chore. i don't want to toss it aside forever but i'm not sure i'll finish it in the near future. it's too much work even if it does teach me cool words like catholicon. plus, just pages of insults towards the poseur alchemists can get exhausting after a while. :)

p.s. now you've made me want to read the magic mountain again. there's a bus transfer still in my copy from december 1998. :)

Hi Mark! Welcome!

glad you decided to join us. i'm hoping you will proselytize for your favourites -- i added a lucy ellman and a sorrentino to my to-read list, but i'm not sure if i picked good starter volumes. what would you read first?

i did this one on facebook a while back, and i'm too lazy to think of new answers, so apologies to those who have read mine before but i just got a chance to read all these, and they were great and it was fun, so i want play too, and to be notified when more are added.

... oh. i just went to copy it and it is this, version x.1 or something -- with added questions just like ry suggested. so i'm still posting it. :)

1) What author do you own the most books by? not sure: it may be a tie between philip k. dick, tolkien, anonymous, and pseudonymous. actually pseudonymous probably wins. :)

2) What book do you own the most copies of? probably collected works of shakespeare. have at least four of those and then assorted separate versions of julius caesar, the sonnets, the tempest etc. i also have a bunch of different versions of the lord of the rings.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? not really. this is a meme. i'm impressed everything is spelled correctly. :P

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? if it were a secret, i'd hardly tell you. i think travis mcgee, john d. macdonald's soldier-of-fortune with the paul newman eyes, and the houseboat is pretty dreamy. i am also a sucker for darcy's love confession to elizabeth in pride & prejudice

5) What book have you read the most times in your life? oh god. i re-read like a crazy woman. picking something that probably won't appear later on: the garden of eden by ernest hemingway.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? i got the chronicles of narnia for my tenth birthday, and i was crazy about it, especially the last battle.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? created in darkness by troubled americans: the best of mcsweeney's humor category. i found one story funny. blech.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? three that made me cry (which is a good litmus test): the elegance of the hedgehog by muriel barbery, portrait of a man unknown by nathalie sarraute, and the country of pointed firs by sarah orne jewett. [present future mo: i hadn't yet read hawkline monster so i'm adding it in here]

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be? mystery of the one-eyed monster. :P

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? somebody who needs the money?

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? hmm. i have no idea. i would really like to see a remake of the movie laura though. i'm still casting it in my head: i think angelina jolie might have to be laura, even though i don't particularly like her because it has to be somebody ridiculously beautiful if they hope to match gene tierney in the role. but for sure! for sure! peter sarsgaard in the dana andrews part. perhaps kevin spacey for the part of waldo, previously played by clifton webb. i'm torn about who should play vincent price's role. i actually think brad pitt might be a good choice -- he would be playing against his usual type i think but i don't want to go to a jolie/pitt joint. in fact now i'm regretting typing this out because i'm sure those two are pretending to be my friends from grade school and follow my facebook memes avidly. :P what's that you say? i was supposed to be talking about books?

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? something that is really perfectly executed as a book that they'd decide wouldn't suit the medium of film as written so they would change it so it barely had any relationship to the original.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character: the closest i can think of is when i dreamed that neil young and i used to be lovers, and he kept all my letters, and we talked about the writing in them, and then discussed his song lyrics.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult? i don't like this term "lowbrow" because i like a lot of stuff that would probably be considered lowbrow. ben seems to have taken it to refer to the most craptastic book he read last year (correct me if i am wrong on this) but if i go with the traditional sense of the term then i guess that would be letters from penthouse III/IV combined edition. oh! as an adult? i thought you meant in the last year. ;P

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? sir gawain and the green knight in middle english.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? i have never seen the life and death of king john performed. however i have seen naked hamlet, and nazi othello. :)

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? i haven't spent enough time on the russians to say for certain, but i am keen on french writers (as evidenced by two of the three weepies up there).

18) Roth or Updike? haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? i haven't read sedaris but i don't like eggers.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? i think they all serve different needs of mine. i would like to keep them all. i am willing to trade dave eggers for one. and jonathan franzen for another, if necessary. :)

21) Austen or Eliot? Austen. i love her.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? hmm. well, as i mentioned above i haven't read enough of the russkies. i know nothing about asian literature beyond sun tzu's the art of war which i loved. oh! i got down two questions and realized it pains me that i haven't read anything by tennessee williams, and only one play by eugene o'neill, and not enough george bernard shaw by any stretch of the imagination.

23) What is your favorite novel? i don't have a single favourite novel. i really like shoot the piano player aka down there by david goodis, and VALIS by philip k. dick. i also love persuasion by jane austen, and the sundial by shirley jackson. then there is my beloved locos by felipe alfau. there's five. :)

24) Play? again, this is killer. i really like plays. ben's (and jen's) answer is excellent but i am also a big fan of moliere (if i have to pick, let's say the misanthrope, oh and tartuffe), aristophanes (the frogs, the clouds, etc.), george etherege representing for restoration comedy with the man of mode, aeschylus (the oresteia), and then there's still albee, and ibsen, and menander, and terence, and marlowe, and strindberg...

25) Poem? you're killing me. most everything by stephen crane. ozymandias for shelley, and she walks in beauty by byron. edwin arlington robinson's another dark lady, pretty much everything by poe except the bells. i hate the bells. and of course the rime of the ancient mariner by coleridge, and two tramps in mudtime by frost. also browning, marvell, donne, and vaughn, and herbert. [future/present mo is kind of surprised she left out fernando pessoa, neruda, and sappho:]

26) Essay? i haven't read it in a while but i loved the soul of man under socialism by oscar wilde. i seem to recall him suggesting that we build robots to do all the grunt work which would leave the rest of us to be creative, and love life.

27) Short story? this is some kind of torture game you're playing with me here. there is no one short story. there's nine stories by salinger, and the golden man, and roog, beyond lies the wub, second variety, the war with the fnools and a million others by pkd, and borges, and shirley jackson, and du maupassant, and chekhov. and wodehouse, and poe. oh my god. i can't believe i forgot m.r. james.

28) Work of nonfiction? the twelve caesars by suetonius (especially the robert graves translation) the histories by herodotus, and tacitus, the meditations by marcus aurelius, and plutarch's lives. yes, i stuck to the ancients, but i also love the biographies and memoirs, especially david niven's bring on the empty horses.

29) Who is your favorite writer? philip k. dick. and borges. and shirley jackson. and daphne dumaurier. and ross macdonald. and wilde, and poe, and wodehouse..

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? i am not an expert on alive writers. i have spent a lot of time reading dead ones. but of the ones that are still alive i am just not keen on the group of: jonathan frantzen, or david eggers, or michael chabon (though i haven't read wonder boys yet, and i did like the movie). they're all buddies, no?

31) What is your desert island book? i wouldn't be able to survive with one book. maybe if i got some kind of ereader and dumped all the books by all the people i mentioned i liked. :)

32) And... what are you reading right now? i am about to read the dreamquest of unknown kadath by lovecraft (another great favourite) and then perhaps some walter mosley, or the house of the spirits by isabel allende.
[present/future mo well, i'll end up saying this again at some point but it's been a long time since i read those: i just finished penrod by booth tarkington, and i'm reading memoirs of hadrian recommended by adrian that is lovely but dense, each word has weight so it's not something i'm plowing through. magnificent ambersons will by my next read.

well, i am lucky to be living in a very comics-rich community.

sin titulo is definitely an interesting read: though sometimes gross and freaky. i'm not sure where cameron is going with this story, and last i spoke to him about it, i don't think he really knew himself. it's interesting to me that he writes page by page, and doesn't really have a long arch sketched out anywhere. even decisions as to whether he's going to tell the story mostly visually, or whether he needs textual cues to drive the narrative home happen in the moment of creation.

right now he's working on some thing called batman & robin, as well as a graphic novel tie-in to the prince of persia movie so he's not back at sin titulo yet but i hope he keeps his promise and starts again this month some time. happily it's easy to keep up because i've subscribed to the rss feed, so when a new one is there, i'm alerted. there are several other web comics worth checking out at http://www.transmission-x.com/. i don't know all of those guys but they are trying to find a way to get comics out to new audiences and they've been funding that out of their own pockets so i admire them for that. andy b. who does raising hell at tx, also does a comic for zuda, the DC online web comic universe which i read quite regularly. it's not at all like sin titulo, but it's fun. actually it's a bottle of awesome. :)

http://www.zudacomics.com/bottle_of_a...

maybe we could use shel's thread here to share web comics we come across that we'd like to share, she says as she does just that. again. :)

Adrian wrote: "
Maureen the Moderator is receiving the cover scan below, because this seems like the kind of smut she'd be fantasizing about during the holidays."

adrian: you are sweet to think of me. i'm sort of vexed that that kilt scarf (feel free to tell me what that's really called) is getting in the way of the cleavage but i was kind of fantasizing about swords yesterday, so it all pans out in the end. i really like the idea of a sword cane. i imagine myself walking about very dapper, until some blackguard approaches and a stout stick just isn't enough. that would be the moment when i would draw my sword cane and show that ruffian what's what. unless he was wearing a silly kilt outfit in the middle of a snowstorm. then i'd know you sent him for me.

i won't get anything i want for christmas, so i can't really chime in on holiday wish lists. i guess i would like a full-time job, and not in saskatoon. :)

humbug. :)

robert: thanks for stepping into the light. always nice to hear new voices. i am curious about the savage detectives, so would love to hear your thoughts on it when you do get around to it. i know nothing about vollman, who i presume is william t. any intel you could share would be awesome. :)

as for reading goals for this year, well, they're the same as ever, i think. i read a whole bunch of books this year, and next year i will read more. i think more and more i read to find the books that i want to read over and over again -- the books that i understand, and that understand me. this year, i found at least two that i've re-read already, and hopefully i'll find more like this in 2010, which i'm really hoping will be a much better year than 2009 was, in many ways.

hi jimmy! welcome aboard the ss dorkapalooza. it is really nice to see some new people reinvigorating the old stomping grounds -- you have even roused me from my hibernation. :)

anyway, unique reads: i just wrote a review of one of my favourite books, the sundial by shirley jackson. it's out of print and hard to find but i think well worth a read simply because it is kind of a frankenstein monster: part drawing room, part creepy haunted house, all bizarre dream.

i also really love locos by felipe alfau. there are other books like it now but it languished for years without anybody paying attention to it. it can be read forwards or backwards and is an interesting early take on metafiction.

i have two books by steve erickson to read, our ecstatic days, and rubicon beach that were recommended by patrick (slow rabbit). i am a bit intimidated by the structure but hopefully it will all be okay.

also, patty is entirely right about the david markson book. i couldn't finish it because the staccato style was crazy-making for me. :)

thank you for your recommendations. i am very interested in reading the story of mary mclane, and in watermelon sugar is one of the last brautigan books i have left on my list to read. my favourite of all of them was introduced to me by ben, and it's the hawkline monster. have you read that? i just think it's marvellous. i think i've read it six times in the last year, if not more. :)

hey shel:

thanks for posting this! i'm actually friends with the guy who did the borges portrait. he's a big david lynch fan too -- i wonder if people who like borges always like lynch. anyway, he does a web comic called sin titulo that you all might like. it's on hiatus right now but you might want to check it out: http://www.sintitulo.txcomics.com/