OK. It's Raymond Carver, though. I saw him read some years ago at the UW. I need to revisit his stories--I enjoyed the reading, but didn't get too far with his fiction.
Sorry you can't come to Washington, Tartarin! It would be fun to chat about books in person...
Hmmm, I don't know who Raymond Carter is either, I'm wondering if it could be Raymond Carver? Tess Gallagher used to live with a man by that name and wrote a series of poems about that.
I've been reading a book loaned to me by Ossobuco, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. A slow read, somehow, for me, but very enjoyable since I love soccer. I think it would qualify as summer reading even though it is non-fiction. It transports me to a strange little village in Italy and the even stranger antics of a corrupt soccer organization.
Yes, Piffka -- I think they got married when he found he had cancer -- short memory....
D'art -- I'm always looking for interesting new NW writers. There used to be a good literary journal. Don't know if it still exists...
That Miracle of Castel di Sangro is written by Joe McGuinness of some long ago fame for some sort of possible literary scullduggery, which he might not have been guilty of, can't remember. Fatal Vision ring a bell? I'd look it up but am as usual behind in getting out the door for work.
I think Tobias Wolff is terrific, Tartarin. You may already know of him. He doesn't live here anymore, but many of his stories are based in the Northwest, and "This Boy's Life", a memoir of his early years, is set in Concrete, Wash. The movie was quite good, too...
Yup -- I love his stuff too. Whole family!
Was my post seemed a little cryptic and dismissive? Here's
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679727523/qid=1054320218/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-2779032-6990514 in case you don't already know the family history... which you probably do!
I've got one of Geoffrey Woolf's books at home. Thanks for reminding me to read it!
Ah, D'art, a little goody I just found re: Naipaul. My (fun) chore this week, prior to starting some new work, is to sort through almost twenty notebooks related to work (painting, some writing) in which I keep track of ongoing work, self-crit, and delicious tidbits of others' work. Here is the opening of a Lehmann-Haupt review of Naipaul's "Finding the Center" in the 9/11/84 NYTimes:
"Much is familiar about V.S. Naipaul's new work of nonfiction, 'Finding the Center..' His ambivalence towards the third world that begat him, or what he has referred to variously as the "bush" and "half-made societies"; his early and somewhat absurd ambition to be a writer despite having shown no ability, nor even any understanding of what that ambition involved; his need to travel, because, as he puts it in the Foreword to this book, 'it became the substitute for the mature social experience -- the deepening knowledge of a society -- which my background and the nature of my life denied me.'"
I watched "Mystic Masseur" the other evening -- mildly enjoyable, somewhat irritating. Putting everything together about V.S. (including what mutual friends have said), I don't think I'd cosy up to him. Now his brother, Shiva, was terrific.
I actually enjoyed the film ("Mystic Masseur") but I get the feeling, after reading Theroux's book, that the novel has a somewhat darker ending. Must read that to find out.
Interesting what you dug up, Tartarin! Naipaul's view of "the bush" is one of Theroux's bones of contention in his book. Theroux repeatedly mentions how Naipaul views himself as an exile, though it's never clear why this has to be. Re Shiva: I liked him, too. I saw a documentary he narrated, years ago, when I was in the UK. They aired it just after he died. I still recall a scene of Mrs. Naipaul, a tiny Indian woman, wearing a hardhat as she strode into a mine the family owned...
D'art -- This review of old notebooks is really fun. I've coming across a bunch of stuff about Pynchon, most notably quotes from a book I was reading: "Mindful Pleasure: Essays on Thomas Pynchon."
"Pynchon is a great novelist of betrayal."
"Paranoia is the psychological correlative to these modes of social organization. If one accepts Herbert Marcuse's argument that we live in a society which is organized along increasingly rational lines to serve increasingly irrational ends, then one can see how the individual may suspect himself to be the victim of a vast and sinister plot." (Bingo!)
"The citizen of advanced industrial society encounters a world that is intricately and obscurely organized, that operates from remote centers of power... Pynchon is our most accomplished chronicler of the structure of thought and feeling that correspond to the experience of living in the administered society."
Also, David Mamet says: "I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact."
!
Those are great quotes, Tartarin! I keep a quote book, too, and I have cool statement by DeLillo himself re the paranoia in his fiction. I do have in here now, but I'll dig it up and share...
I like the notion of Pynchon as "a great novelist of betrayal."
I finished
Castel di Sangro last night. Loved it and would recommend it to anyone going to Italy this summer since it is possible to learn some good Italian phrases, including plenty of cursing. Who wouldn't need that? The book has some interesting descriptions of Italian towns and ends by describing "the system" of paybacks and graft which runs throughout Italy, in soccer, probably in other things, too. Something to think about while traveling the boot.
Thanks, Osso, for the loan. I'll be sending it back to you this week. There are some interesting articles about Joe McGinniss on the web, here's one:
http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/05/21/mcginniss/
Okay, I've finished two summer reads --
The Sparrow and
Castel -- and it's not even mid-June. What now?
I've decided to start my official summer reading when I take off for Tulsa on Thursday. As previously announced (as if anyone really cares), it will be "Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux. It will be my carry-on. I figure they won't ransack a book too much when they check me out at the airport!
I've started a new thread for folks who want to post quotes by and about their fave writers. Please chime in!
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8158&highlight=
Oh, that'll be fun, D'Art. Thanks for the Salon piece on McGinniss, Piffka. Glad you liked the book...
I am housecleaning a bit today. I am a terrible housekeeperupper. I do it in swaths, rearranging my world, and then let detritis accumulate until I can't stand it one more minute, then rearrange my world, and so on. Books are moving on out...there we go, I'll never read that one! or that one!
Oh, but I should read that one...and that one....
Aha, I knew there was something about McGinniss...
http://www.themacdonaldcase.org/macdonald_vs_mcguiness.html
There are probably more pros and cons re his writing of Fatal Vision; I just looked at this one link.
I was housecleaning this afternoon, too, vacuuming and periodically checking outside on one helluva black sky, wall cloud, and tornado which fortunately passed us by as I hummed "Que sera sera..." And I didn't dust the books. Anyone who reaches for a book in my bookcase has to be wearing a mask and have eye drops handy by.
Hah, I have asthma right now, haven't had it in months. Let sleeping dust lie, I say.
I just finished reading The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman.
justabrat
