(The Real) Reading: Chris Offutt Day 1

Well, I can say that I have really enjoyed the start of this book. I have always loved nature and the appeal of solidarity in the wilderness so I may be a bit biased, but we all suffer undeniable biases.

I couldn't help but notice a grammatical error on the first page, "I don't belong, none of us does." That could just be his southern-ness coming through but it nonetheless nagged me. He word choice throughout has so far been beyond exceptional, more than likely due to one thing most successful artists have in their arsenal...practice. He did so without the intention. He didn't practice writing because he wanted to be a successful writer, he wrote because writing in his journal "began to supersede every aspect of his life." (pg 49)

He also suffered the typically symptoms of an artist, uncertainty and inability to accept his own quality:

"Come on, Jahi. I don't even write good letters."
"You don't know it but you will. You'll reach a point where you will have no choice."
"Yeah, and I can be president too." (pg 34)

I also enjoyed the little quips he threw in throughout the book. "Another guide, less technical, informed me that male orgasm fired an armada of three hundred million soldiers upriver to invade the cervix."(pg 15) I would love to read this guide, though based on the rest of his writings, I doubt such a book exists. I'm lead to believe it is actually of his own mind. I couldn't help but laugh when he said: "I began making outlandish statements passersby simply to provoke a response worthy of logging." (pg 49) I imagine Texts From Last Night to have appealed to the same mindset on many an occasion.

Finally, my favorite examples of exceptional word choice:

• This flood is nothing compared to the coming deluge. (pg 43)


• The Minnesota winter lingered deep into spring, encasing the sky in a sunless gray. (pg 48)

I also found this quite compelling: "I have to accept that a baby's in there. As with God or black holes, one goes by the surrounding evidence." It consequently implies that he believes in God, but previous evidence suggest he is not of the common monotheisms found today but rather seems more in tune with the Deism of Thomas Paine.

-Mark

GO YIELD STOP Analysis

GO (I like this):
I really like the idea of blogging about the books we read. I think writing about them forces us to actually read the literature rather than stare at words until it is time to flip the page. It is like hearing someone talk without listening to what they say for there is no reason to pay attention.

I really liked both plays we read: Glengarry Glen Ross and The Glass Menagerie. The complexness in simplicity was enjoyable. Forcing me to think deep about something with a meaningless surface was atypical and intriguing.

I wanted to start Chris Offutt's Memoir before I passed off judgement because I have not once read a memoir without putting it down after the first page, but his first page forced me to read his second, which convinced me to read his third.


YIELD (things we should do more often):

I really feel a lack of necessity to be present in the classroom. I find my mind wondering and roaming more often then it should as it does in most lecture-based classes. As I have the mind of a typical human, I have an inability to focus on the constant speech for an extended period of time. At the beginning we did such like write our own poems and answer questions and such, requiring active participation and acuity to the material at hand.

The humor you bring to the classroom brings a nice breeze that cools a rather lukewarm interest to a topic. The humor garners attention that little else could. However, as subjects switch to topics either more serious or thought-provoking, the humor ceases and interest dwindles.

STOP (please, no more!):

I really didn't enjoy Lolita and it takes up the largest percentage of the class's reading time, I feel like I have missed a good bit of credit.

Recent poetry has never been a favorite of mine, favoring order over chaos. Poetry such as Allen Ginsberg's is wasted on me. Its effect lost in the experimentalism.

I really would have liked Music of Chance to have been kept on the list. It looked like an interesting book and, being written in recent times, would far more appeal to my thoughts.

Reading: David Mamet

Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet

This is play is written dissimilar to every other play I've read. The scenes aren't set up descriptively, leaving much up to the imagination of the reader (or director).

A booth at the [Chinese] restaurant. Moss and Aaronow seated. After the meal. (p28)

Even individual actors positioning, expressions, and directions are mostly left up to the imagination. Throughout the play, characters will just stop in the middle of their rant and say "You hear me? I'm talking to you." (p 97) Each character has their own agenda and they all want to be heard. They have to keep stopping themselves when they see another look away or even just open his mouth.

The end of this play was rather confusing. In the beginning with see a conversation between Moss and Aaronow implying that Aaronow will steal the contracts and leads needed by the sales company to make money. Leads are a list of names, addresses and phone numbers of people who would possibly buy what is being sold. Without this list, it is extremely difficult to find people to haggle with. However, in the end Levene admits to the theft, quoting the same price Moss was offering Aaronow.

LeveneI sold them to Jerry Graff
Williamson: Who kept the other half?
Levene: Do I have to tell you? Moss. (p100-1)

I can't seem to figure out how this exchange occurred, how Moss deciding on Levene after Aaronow was forced into agreeing to do the crime. Unfortunately, this must be left up to the imagination.

This play seems to really be about the struggle to maintain a job throughout low times. I see it as this: As times change, people who resist change fail. Throughout the story, the characters refer to their past successes and others' past successes. They mention Jerry Graff, who decided to go against the norm, start out his own, and go after who he goes after differently. He is successful even in the changing times.

Mark Todd

PS. I'm not sure how to handle ellipses when quoting Plays. How do I show a skip in the conversation?

Reading: Dorothy Alison and Raymond Carver

I'm sorry, I accidentally hit post by mistake.

Raymond Carver's Cathedral
This short story is about a blind man coming to visit a good friend of many years and her husband. Initially, the narrator (husband) is completely ignorant of the ways of the blind, knowing only what the movies put forth. The blind man needed a worker one summer to read him the papers for his job. During that summer, the wife became very good friends with the man. They kept in contact for a great many years and when the mans wife died, he came to visit.

During the story, the narrator chooses not to mention his or his wife's name. The narrator puts all the focus on Robert. Except the real story isn't about the blind man at all, its about the narrator himself and his coming to terms and education. When they sat down to talk, he was nervous, uncertain.

"I started to say something about the old sofa. I'd liked that old sofa. But I didn't say anything. Then I wanted to say something else, small-talk, about the scenic ride along the Hudson. How going to New York, you should sit on the right-hand side of the train, and coming from New York, the left-hand side." (p 113)

The wife is very scared (for lack of a better term) throughout the story for what her husband will say to Robert. This is due to his uncertainty and fear at the beginning. "I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me."(p 108) However, as the story progresses, the wife relaxes and goes to sleep leaving Robert and the narrator to talk and watch TV.
The narrator asks if Robert can imagine a cathedral, what exactly it is.
"Maybe you could describe one to me? I wish you'd do it. I'd like that." (p 120) After a failed attempt to verbally describe, the narrator is asked to get paper and pencil and draw it. Robert holds onto his hands while he draws so as feel the paper moving across. After they finished, "My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything."


Dorothy Allison's River of Names

The title is a great metaphor for the story. Effectively captivating the mind. Not people, just names, stories, flowing through, passing just long enough to be noticed, recognized. Touching be never holding. However, when she uses the title at the end of the story, it weakens its power, almost as if she is out of other words, pushing a metaphor that doesn't need pushing. It works too well to necessitate repetition.

I can't figure out if the narrator is male or female. Jesse, the narrator's lover, could very well be lesbian, since the narrator mentions "my aunt, the one I'm named for" (pg 10), implying at least femininity in name.

The story is really a progression of stories going through the narrators mind as she spends time with Jesse, playing them off like nothing is wrong. "I wake up in the night screaming, 'No, no, I won't!'" and after feeling Jesse's warmth "'Did I fool you?'" (p 10).

She pretends even at her most vulnerable that everything is okay. After all the stories told to us, about the death of cousings, aunts, sisters, the rapes of the children, thievery, suicides, the story ends with two interesting quotes.
1."I can't have children. I never wanted children." (pg 12)
2. Jesse says, "You tell the funniest story" ... "Yeah," I tell her. "But I lie."

Jesse wants to know what the narrators children would be like, implying that she knows little of the real familry. I believe that narrator hides the truth out of fear. Fear of losing her lover. So much tragedy is terrifying and terror has too many unpredictable circumstances.

Reading: Dorothy Alison and Raymond Carver