Of reading again and existence
Bloody Cassander. If you haven’t read him yet do so now. Right now. It’s like having Eggers or Wallace immediately accessible.
Reading him and those guys is like swimming in syrupy long island iced tea and every somatic cell takes greedy, hiccuping gulps.
I told you I was reading My mistresses’s sparrow is dead. This is one of those books you will be proud to own and will reread on rainy days with a mug of liberally fortified tea. Every story sticks to you like post-it notes with glue made of boiled first love. Go to Tall Stories in Irene Village Mall and get it. If you aren’t in the area, buy it online. I know I sound very bossy but these stories and authors will make of you a better/smarter/twistier human being.
Reading the good stuff is like watching ideas motion capture in your head. First your mind is raked, the the seed planted, then the shoot, the little bud thickening becoming a tree and then watching the blooms and the finally the fruit. All condensed in a few minutes or hours. Or days…*pointedly looks at the stack of dusty books vs sparkling HDD and dvd series I know you have within reach*
Maybe this is why I love short stories and essays as much as I do. I love the tangibility of a world created in a novel and knowing characters as well as you would heart-friends but a short story is like a Godiva* truffle. And a good anthology, an entire tiny box of Auditor** killing joy.
Short stories are decadent, almost wasteful. An author’s best idea condensed into world altering sentences. You get to have 25 summer romances or 20 paradigm shifts. No 3 years down the line mundanity and threat of teeth grinding, rage swallowing relationship counselling because the romance wasn’t so much lost/imagined as consumed by previously ignored picketfence-mindedness.
An excellent short story reminds you how bitter and beautiful this world is. And how utterly, yawpingly alive we are.
Whenever I don’t write I feel as if I am nothing but swirling, inconsequential mist. But when I write, for that little while, I am real. I exist. So if you ever wonder why I am clumsy and a /bounce fool around you it is because my words are not captured and that somehow makes it not count. It’s as if I have to be more, that being bold requires more effort/energy just to have it create an impression on the world around me. That excessive actions will hopefully linger even for a little while in the time and space it was made.
I am the best of me when I am online. When I am defined and surprised by what I write and shaped but what I read. There are no pillars or unseen doorframes into which to walk. There is no wall vibrating, ear grating brash laughter. There is no too much flesh and unwieldy body. There is just this. Me. Even if that isn’t comparable to the minds like Nacho or Cassander or CC. But it is my kingdom and I am home.
*Pratchett – Weinrich and Boettcher
** Terry Pratchett – Thief of Time
Tagged with: Auditors • Cassander • fantasy • Godiva • Great Society • Irene Farm Village • My mistresses’s sparrow is dead • Nacho • reading • scifi • short stories • Tall Stories • Terry Pratchett • Weinrich and BoettcherRecent Entries
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