by Thomas Pynchon
4.01.2014
3.26.2014
Perfect Ben
If anyone asks me what kind of writer Ben Marcus is, I will use this single quote from "Against Attachment", part of chapter 5 in "Leaving the Sea" to explain.
"Graves were called homes, and apologies known as writing were carved in their surface. Rotten bags were called people."
Maybe one more, from "First Love."
"The shovels we use to cleave the air in two - and possibly reveal a person we might fail against - were once abbreviated as hands. [...] When we faced off with a person, the sound of our four shovels colliding produced a shield of silent, wind-free air known as home. This was when there were only two choices how to behave, on or off. We would apparently put some objects into our mistake tunnel, which was still the main opening in the face, and the tunnel was able to convulse around them and propel them deep into the body's grave, which was then called, I think, a belly."
"Graves were called homes, and apologies known as writing were carved in their surface. Rotten bags were called people."
Maybe one more, from "First Love."
"The shovels we use to cleave the air in two - and possibly reveal a person we might fail against - were once abbreviated as hands. [...] When we faced off with a person, the sound of our four shovels colliding produced a shield of silent, wind-free air known as home. This was when there were only two choices how to behave, on or off. We would apparently put some objects into our mistake tunnel, which was still the main opening in the face, and the tunnel was able to convulse around them and propel them deep into the body's grave, which was then called, I think, a belly."
2.18.2014
The Meaning of Leaving the Sea
I am sitting down to read "Leaving the Sea" -- the short piece of writing for which this book is titled. It is basically a six-page sentence. Today is Tuesday, Feb. 18th. It's 11am. It's starting to snow and I could use another cup of coffee. The commute tonight promises to be several hours.
11:06am - Halfway done.
11:14am - OK, that was great.
"...before our house started leaning, started hissing when the wind came up after sunset, a house no different from a gut-shot animal listing into the woods, a woods no different from a spray of wire bursting through the earth, an earth no different from a leaking sack of water, soft in the middle and made of mush..."
Leaving the Sea (the title of the book, and this story specifically) is (I think) about a loss of innocence and a step into constant struggle.
"...so that they could jump on me and ride on me and kick into the place where I would have gills if I were something better that had never tried to leave the sea..."
The sea is our ultimate home. When we left the sea to walk the earth we chose endless struggle over endless gliding and beauty. Oh well.
11:06am - Halfway done.
11:14am - OK, that was great.
"...before our house started leaning, started hissing when the wind came up after sunset, a house no different from a gut-shot animal listing into the woods, a woods no different from a spray of wire bursting through the earth, an earth no different from a leaking sack of water, soft in the middle and made of mush..."
Leaving the Sea (the title of the book, and this story specifically) is (I think) about a loss of innocence and a step into constant struggle.
"...so that they could jump on me and ride on me and kick into the place where I would have gills if I were something better that had never tried to leave the sea..."
The sea is our ultimate home. When we left the sea to walk the earth we chose endless struggle over endless gliding and beauty. Oh well.
2.11.2014
Poor Sad Fathers
Ben Marcus has said that his parents were normal and loving, but his treatment of father/son characters is profoundly sad.
"He had a large, sad face and he was bald. These men were everywhere. The cattle in our lives we hardly even see."
His stories usually focus on family units or small groups. The father figure is always oppressed. The first 4 stories in Leaving The Sea follow roughly the same pattern.
What Have You Done: A troubled son, newly a father, returns home but cannot love his family. His family doesn't trust him or believe anything he says based on an unsubscribed incident in his past.
I Can Say Many Nice Things: A hapless professor is teaching a course on a cruise ship. His wife doesn't love him, his class doesn't respect him, and he is harried by an unbalanced, young, female student.
The Dark Arts: A young man is mysteriously sick. His girlfriend doesn't love him and his father is a weak and feeble man unable to help.
Rollingwood: A father is asked, unexpectedly, to care for his young son. The son's mother doesn't love him, disappears for days, and the father is forced to juggle work and son without appreciation or love.
Marcus beats on the fathers in his other books too. Notable American Women features a helpless father trapped in a hole, The Flame Alphabet features a father crushed under the weight of mysterious illness, a dying wife, a poison daughter, kidnapping, forced labor, etc. etc. Needless to say, there are a lot of fathers crawling around, hiding in holes, accepting emasculation, failing.
"He had a large, sad face and he was bald. These men were everywhere. The cattle in our lives we hardly even see."
His stories usually focus on family units or small groups. The father figure is always oppressed. The first 4 stories in Leaving The Sea follow roughly the same pattern.
What Have You Done: A troubled son, newly a father, returns home but cannot love his family. His family doesn't trust him or believe anything he says based on an unsubscribed incident in his past.
I Can Say Many Nice Things: A hapless professor is teaching a course on a cruise ship. His wife doesn't love him, his class doesn't respect him, and he is harried by an unbalanced, young, female student.
The Dark Arts: A young man is mysteriously sick. His girlfriend doesn't love him and his father is a weak and feeble man unable to help.
Rollingwood: A father is asked, unexpectedly, to care for his young son. The son's mother doesn't love him, disappears for days, and the father is forced to juggle work and son without appreciation or love.
Marcus beats on the fathers in his other books too. Notable American Women features a helpless father trapped in a hole, The Flame Alphabet features a father crushed under the weight of mysterious illness, a dying wife, a poison daughter, kidnapping, forced labor, etc. etc. Needless to say, there are a lot of fathers crawling around, hiding in holes, accepting emasculation, failing.
1.30.2014
Selection for Feb/March 2014
Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus
We tried "Sea of Hooks" and it didn't work out. So now we'll try "Leaving the Sea" by Ben Marcus. Marcus is my hero and this is his new book of stories. "Sea of Hooks" was bad, so now we're "Leaving the Sea"...get it??
1.06.2014
Brittle
BRITTLE
What makes a person brittle? Pain can make you brittle, being like glass or clay, being dropped too many times, being fired at too high a heat, being thrust into the cold, being forced -- all these but also this: an insistence on beauty can make a person brittle.
BRITTLE
And all that pushing away of the unbeautiful will make you brittle.
Sea of Hooks
pg. 59
What makes a person brittle? Pain can make you brittle, being like glass or clay, being dropped too many times, being fired at too high a heat, being thrust into the cold, being forced -- all these but also this: an insistence on beauty can make a person brittle.
BRITTLE
And all that pushing away of the unbeautiful will make you brittle.
Sea of Hooks
pg. 59
12.28.2013
Updates and Apologies
We're not dead, but it's hard to find time to read during the holidays. We'll be back on schedule soon. SORRY.
Some thoughts on the book so far:
- Slow starter for me. The fragmented narrative took a long time, say 50 pages, to get rolling. It's hard to care about the plot when it's all chopped up.
- I feel like I can't breathe when I'm reading this book. As a reader, I want chapters. I hate to admit this because I like to read weird stuff, but the structure of this book is maddening. It's about 5000 little paragraphs, each with its own title. They aren't split into chapters. They just keep coming, one after the other, and they're just short enough that you could always just read one more, so stopping feels impossible, even when you don't want to be reading.
- Around 100 pages in, this thing gets real dark and even has elements of a horror novel.
- I like this book, and so far it's been weird and poetic and pretty good. I think the problem is that I want it to either be weirder, or more poetic, or just be a regular book. The fact that it's somewhere in between is driving me nuts. It feels like the author is a poet who is trying really hard not to write poetry and maybe he should just write some poetry already.
More later.
Some thoughts on the book so far:
- Slow starter for me. The fragmented narrative took a long time, say 50 pages, to get rolling. It's hard to care about the plot when it's all chopped up.
- I feel like I can't breathe when I'm reading this book. As a reader, I want chapters. I hate to admit this because I like to read weird stuff, but the structure of this book is maddening. It's about 5000 little paragraphs, each with its own title. They aren't split into chapters. They just keep coming, one after the other, and they're just short enough that you could always just read one more, so stopping feels impossible, even when you don't want to be reading.
- Around 100 pages in, this thing gets real dark and even has elements of a horror novel.
- I like this book, and so far it's been weird and poetic and pretty good. I think the problem is that I want it to either be weirder, or more poetic, or just be a regular book. The fact that it's somewhere in between is driving me nuts. It feels like the author is a poet who is trying really hard not to write poetry and maybe he should just write some poetry already.
More later.
11.29.2013
11.26.2013
The Meaning of a Line
On the surface, Mason & Dixon is partially a buddy comedy and partially a dual character study. But at heart, it's the story of a line.
The basics (from wikipedia (where else?)): From 1763-1767, Mason (an astronomer) and Dixon (a surveyor) used celestial measurements to form an accurate, east-to-west, 233-mile-long line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and a north-to-south, 83 mile-long line between Maryland and Delaware. The boundary was to settle a border dispute between the colonies and crown. It would also become a key demarcation line in struggle over slavery in the states.
The basics (from wikipedia (where else?)): From 1763-1767, Mason (an astronomer) and Dixon (a surveyor) used celestial measurements to form an accurate, east-to-west, 233-mile-long line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and a north-to-south, 83 mile-long line between Maryland and Delaware. The boundary was to settle a border dispute between the colonies and crown. It would also become a key demarcation line in struggle over slavery in the states.
Along this line, M&D created "the Visto." An arrow-straight, astronomically precise line of cleared trees and milestones. Basically a perfect, clear line, due west, through the wilderness.
Of course, there was some complicated math to be done at the corner, leaving a technical no-man's-land called "The Wedge." All of this is real. (The wedge is now officially part of Delaware.)
Now, the true focus of the book is the physical and psychological effect of the line. Drawing a line creates a boundary were there was none. It creates two distinct groups where there was only one. It labels those above the line "Northerners" and those below "Southerners." It creates a road, easily passable, where there was no safe passage before.
It also has spookier aspects. It serves as a channel for flow: of good and evil energies, of commerce, of ideas. Upon coming to the line, all things are drawn along its length.
Also consider, it is a 233 mile long line, marked with piles of stones each mile, inscribed on the face of a spinning planet. Thus it is a giant, rotating antenna, sending or receiving - what exactly?
The precision, the flow, the labeling and defining, the connecting, the separating, the sha.
The lesson being: To draw a line is to change the world. (?)
BONUS FACT:
The US-Canadian border is not just a line on a map. There is literally a 20-foot wide swath of cleared trees running for the full 5000 plus miles.
11.16.2013
Long Haul
The book is a doorstop but I'm almost done...193 43 pages to go. I wanted to finish by the end of November. Possible, but unlikely.
List-style plot updates:
* Feng Shui on a Continental Scale
* Wolf Jesus
* Captain Zhang
* Mason and the Time Loop
* Tenebrae and Ethelmer: Kissing Cousins?
* Strange Sounds in the Forest
* Church in the Cave
* George Washington
* Ben Franklin
* The Electric Eel
* etc.
List-style plot updates:
* Feng Shui on a Continental Scale
* Wolf Jesus
* Captain Zhang
* Mason and the Time Loop
* Tenebrae and Ethelmer: Kissing Cousins?
* Strange Sounds in the Forest
* Church in the Cave
* George Washington
* Ben Franklin
* The Electric Eel
* etc.
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