lorrie moore and robotics; author and story; language and numbers

lorrie moore has a line,

her brain was drying and subdividing like a cauliflower

i think how much pleasure my brain decides to give me when i read a line depends on how possible my brain decides it might be for a robot to write it (the line)

lorrie moore is the anti-cyborg of writing

of the writers i've read, i feel like it'd be hardest to program a computer to write something that lorrie moore has written

she is more human and less robot than all other writers, i feel, that i have read

jean rhys is sometimes (in good morning, midnight) as human as lorrie moore (in this sentence-level way that i am right now talking about)

computers do not think in language, but in zeroes and ones

they plug things in and make whirring noises and do not have faces

computers do not have epiphanies or moments of heightened imagination; they just keep going at the same speed; they cannot try harder; are either on or off; do not have desires; and do not get sad; they are enlightened

idioms and stock phrases and cliches are closer to zeroes and ones, maybe, than to language

idioms are two-or-more-word expressions whose meanings have nothing to do with the meanings of the words that make them up

lorrie moore has a paragraph,

Perhaps you could open your arms and have so many honeys that you achieved a higher spirital plane, like a shelf in a health food store, or a pine tree, mystically inert, life barking at the bottom like a dog.

that she thought of that makes me happy

to think of that—life barking at the bottom like a dog—is not a trick, is not a gimmick, not something copied or deravitive (not something that is an improvement of something else), but something sudden and new, something of luck, hard work, patience, alertness, open-mindedness, and objectivity

these are the things of imagination, i think: luck, hard work, patience, alertness, open-mindedness, and objectivity

schopenhauer (i think) said genius is the gift of objectivity

to see things without preconception, as they are

lorrie moore's language is beautiful to me; i wouldn't use the word 'beautiful' for anyone else's language; sometimes other writers have beautiful language; but lorrie moore almost always has beautiful language; she is so often sudden and new

i don't care much for story

i don't want plot

i don't want to be lead along

that is like materialism

accumulating things in life

these things lead you along, neccesitate the next (what comes next; you must know!), and you sort of forget that you're going to die

a complicated kindness, by miriam toews, did not have plot

it taught me to stay and detach and be calm; 'calm down,' it said; 'sit down; stay'

some writers say you should cut a line even if it's good if it interferes or distracts from the story

don't fall in love with the lines, they say, the language; don't be so in love with your own brain

i say leave the line and make more lines like it and just have it all be beautiful without leading anyone along (without tricking anyone; plot: so like a scheme, like a one-sided game, to keep the reader's attention like that, how inconsiderate almost) and fall in love with the language and show off a little because they taught you in second grade that you are unique and this is true and don't deny it and i want to see just how unique you are

here is a paragraph from haruki murakami's latest story in the new yorker, translated,

Junpei was sixteen years old when his father made a surprising pronouncement. True, they were father and son; the same blood flowed through their veins. But they were not so close that they often opened their hearts to each other, and it was extremely rare for Junpei’s father to offer him views of life that might (perhaps) be called philosophical. So that day’s exchange would remain vivid in his memory long after he had forgotten what prompted it.

a robot could've written that paragraph, i think

(i know nothing about robots, do not have a degree in engineering or robotics or computers and fell asleep everyday in pre-calculus)

stock phrases, cliches, idioms

reading that paragragh, i feel unconnected to the world of humans; i feel alone

when i read a story that cares only about story, i feel unconnected to the author

i feel vaguely cheated and vaguely unalive and vaguely despairing

i feel like the author has made a clone of him or her self, a clone that denies the self but is a kind of machine that cares only about the story

and that is who i feel connected to, when reading story-stories, the clone of the author

and it's a trick against me

the author is at home, sleeping, eating, living his or her real life, and i am trying stupidly to make a human connection with the clone, the once-removed and de-consciousnessed thing, the unhuman, scarecrowed thing

but i want to feel connected to the author

feeling connected to the clone makes my brain hurt in an inner-brain, nervous-systemless sort of way

it's a kind of numbness

i mean this

really

literally, that when i read a story that has revised out any evidence of there being an author—an identity—who is idiosyncratic and passionate about certain things and despairing at times and sad and lonely and angry and all these feelings and biases and motives, then i feel a little numb, physically—literally—though vaguely and dizzyingly, even, somewhere in my head

maybe this is the feeling of having denied a bit of my own self, my own identity

of forgetting it a little

getting lost in the 'story'

(the 'story' of it all)

becoming a little enlightened

as, to revise the author out of the story (there is just one story, really, maybe; the story of everything), isn't that what buddhists talk about when they talk about detachment?

give oneself up to the story, stop trying to be your own self, because all there is, objectively, is the story?

are identities lies that force upon us desires, which cause us suffering?

are identities truths that force upon us desires, which cause us suffering?

does lorrie moore cause us suffering?

i don't think she causes me suffering

she makes me happy

i am not detached when i read her

but attached, to her, and unlonely

but maybe that gives me desires

maybe i should practice detachment

that is, maybe i should practice attachment to the authorless story

(that has revised the author out of it; the story that has no identity, but is just there and impersonal and like a universe of atoms and zeroes and ones and that 'anyone could've written it')

and not the author

(who has revised the story out of the language; that is, who has asserted the identity; who has gone against robotics, by using language, but who has also, maybe, made him or herself a little robotic, as robots do not know stories, do not make connections between events in that way

humans do; they see the connections, the plot

robots see the zeroes, the ones

robots practice objectivity and are geniuses, and einstein (i think) said genius is imagination; but humans are not robots

because robots do not have consciousness—right?

robots cannot see the life barking at the bottom like a dog)

kurt vonnegut

i read almost all of kurt—right now, already, i feel like i should be saving all this for an essay, something i might spend more time on and eventually add footnotes to and send to the believer or pindeldyboz or someplace; but this kind of thinking is bad, will make me unaware, will distract me from my own anxieties and little embarrassments and social awarenesses, move me to some forward-looking, oblivious-to-anyone-behind-or-below-me-in-terms-of-affect-or-influence-or-power place of success and desire and fulfillment and always-needing-more, and i hate it, and kurt vonnegut doesn't like it either, doesn't like progress or power, and so i disown this em-dash parenthetical, forever, i hope—vonnegut in, i think, my last year of high school

i think what happened was i read fight club after seeing the movie

then read the other palahniuk novels that were out then, up to choke, i think

then went to palahniuk's web site and saw recommendations for vonnegut

i like kurt vonnegut jr.

i feel like i can make-fun of him and he'll feel hurt a little, and he'll show me that he felt hurt a little, and he'll become quieter, but he'll also agree with me and make-fun of himself a little, too, and then become louder, and a little identityless, so that we can then hang-out with each other and be honest and not just be trying to control and protect our identities the entire time; whereas—i feel like—if i make-fun of martin amis or paul auster or bret easton ellis or james frey or salman rushdie or sartre or fitzgerald (writers who i haven't read anything by or have just read a little by; so probably i shouldn't be saying this), they will not show me that they are hurt even if they are hurt but will argue against me and make-fun of me and make sure that everyone knows that i am wrong and they are right and make their faces appear shadowy, existential, and profound and go do drugs and drink alcohol and fuck girls and act like assholes to everyone in order to show how fucked-up and reckless they are because drugs and alcohol and fucking girls and being fucked-up assholes all the time doing reckless shit is really profound and existential and literary

i like vonnegut because he isn't macho in that way

lorrie moore said in a review once that she liked nicholson baker because he isn't 'macho' like most male writers (actually quote here)

i think i know what she was talking about

the k-mart realists aren't macho in that way

kafka isn't macho in that way and neither is proust

philip roth is

saul bellow is

cynthia ozick is

susan sontag is

sam lipsyte is

zz packer is and isn't

chuck palahniuk is and isn't

john updike is and isn't

arthur bradford isn't at all; i like arthur bradford

chekhov isn't

stephen dixon isn't

lorrie moore isn't

dave eggers isn't

vonnegut isn't

i don't think

and it has to do with progress, i think, maybe

and anxiety and embarrassment

the anxious and embarrassed, i think, mostly are not macho

and anxiety has to do with thinking, and awareness

the oblivious and unaware are not anxious or embarrassed

and also it has to do with whimsy and silliness

a sort of self-involvement, in that one who is not macho partly does things to affect and amuse oneself, rather than to affect others, rather than to control other people's views of one's identity, like one who is macho maybe does

there's something closed-in—but in a way that first opens up and encompasses everything and returns it, back, in a sort of blanket that wraps the self—and content and peaceful and innately successful about whimsy and silliness, i think

there's something deluded and false and unwilling and uncontemplative and identity-strengthening and dissociative (see eugene v. debs quote later in this post) about being macho

and here are each of kurt vonnegut's novels, and how i remember they made me feel, when i read them, about five or six years ago, during my last year of high school

player piano, 1952

i remember that i did not finish this

i don't remember much from it at all

i just have a vague feeling of it having long sentences

the sirens of titan, 1959.

i've read this twice or three times, i think

it made me feel very meek and unmacho and a little sleepy and a little dreamy

thinking about it, now—about the guy who ends up living with those pancake-y things that love music, about the robot in the end who tries to be human—makes me feel so sad and sorry for very quiet people, for people who are sad and different in the world, for people who are almost like inanimate things, like stuffed animals and pillows and utensils, and makes me want to give three wishes to anyone in the world who is sad and small and quiet and shy and unable ever to feel like they belong

my favorite vonnegut novel, i think

there are no bad people in it

just a lot of pity

and vonnegut knows that life is just a meaningless thing, anyway; which is why, i think, i like vonnegut more than george saunders

because vonnegut thinks comprehensively (existentially and politically and the relationship between those two)

and so his novels know about existence (novels can know things; they are like people in this way, in that they have knowledge), know that politics exist, maybe, inside of existence, or that maybe existence supercedes politics, makes it meaningless, since existence itself, maybe, is meaningless, and are worried about this (his novels are worried), about why and how in regards to this, to existence, and politics (that is, the universe and its viewpointless oneness, and the individuals within this oneness, the identities and the relationships between them); his novels know all these things, i feel, and so i trust them, that they are not leaving things out (leaving things out is being macho, i think; being unaware, being deluded)

this novel, at least, i think; maybe a few of these others

or maybe it's all his novels, together, that know all those things

mother night, 1961

i remember mostly the part where the guy is standing on the sidewalk in new york city and he stands there for a long time without moving because he doesn't know what to do, anymore, in the world, how to go on, what to do next

i remember also the scene in the movie of this novel, where the guy is nick nolte and he is standing there and kurt vonnegut has a cameo in the movie and he walks by nick nolte and it shows kurt vonnegut's face and he looks sad and nick nolte looks sad too but mostly just completely drunk and tranquilized and punched in the face a few minutes ago

cat's cradle, 1963

i don't remember much from this, either

except that some people in it were very short; midgets maybe

and bokonan (did i spell it right?), the made-up religion

i remember liking that; agreeing with it, or something

oh yeah, and the ice-9

god bless you, mr. rosewater, 1965.

i remember very little

i had a blue-covered paperback

don't think i ever finished it

slaughterhouse five, 1969.

i've read this twice, i think

i like it

i like the main character

i like characters who are sad and don't do drugs or act fucked-up and like assholes all the time

i like it when sad and anxious people become harmless and very quiet and become even more sad and anxious and harmless and mute and eccentric

i don't like it when sad and anxious people start taking drugs and acting like assholes all the time and are no longer sad or anxious but just assholes all the time

there is something melodramatic to acting like an asshole all the time

i like to defend instead of attack

i'd like it very much if everyone in the world just went around defending and never attacking

breakfast of champions, 1973

in this novel, i think, all the science fiction is kept science fiction

(lorrie moore does this too; she too has science fiction, but keeps it science fiction)

the science fiction exists in the real world of the novel, like how science fiction exists in real life, in people's heads

having it this way layers it, i think; and i like that

and kurt vonnegut, the writer of this novel, enters the real world of this novel from his real life, near the end; and i wonder what person might enter my real life one day as the creator of the novel of my life; and it seems quite possible to me somehow, very likely, even, that that might happen, because what is the difference, in my mind, right now, between the real world of breakfast of champions and the real world of my own life?

it feels like not much

both worlds in my mind right now

slapstick, 1976.

i remember this one being completely insane and bizarre

twins that are boy and girl or something with physical deformities take over the world and live in the empire state building, on the top floor, and the world is flooded, or something, and run by one corporation, one corporation that is owned by the deformed twins who are also lovers; i may be making things up completely right now

jailbird, 1979

i remember the first scene in this one only

someone getting out of jail, riding in a limo

i confuse this one with the next one, and with the god bless one

deadeye dick, 1982

don't remember if i've read this or not

think i had a yellow cover paperback

galápagos: a novel, 1985

i didn't finish this one

i think people in it evolve back to not being able to build bombs or make computers or think abstractly

and the world is better for it

every living thing is happier for it

bluebeard, 1987

this one had abstract art in it

i feel like i want to read it again

it had a barn in it and someone made abstract art there, and some other people committed suicide

hocus pocus, 1990

don't remember much, except for the first part, i think, of when there's something like what happened in China with a protest and a public square and people getting killed

and it had the eugene v. debs quote (see the word 'dissociative,' above, near the beginning of this post)

While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and whiel there is a soul in prison, I am not free

timequake, 1997

i remember very clearly buying this

i went to buy the paperback and i was in border's bookstore and the guy brought me a hardback and said it was cheaper

and i went home and read it in the bathtub and liked it a lot

was like vonnegut just talking, telling anecdotes and things, not really transitioning much (i like how vonnegut's sentences sometimes can get a little non-sequitor-y; i like how he never overexplains; and i like how he does not have transitions, but just cuts to the next thing, with line breaks), and it didn't have a plot, but was him just saying interesting and funny things, saying them for two-hundred or so pages, jokes and things, fiction and non-fiction, things about loneliness and feeling sad and injustice and free will (do we even have it?) and politics and meaninglessness and confusion and loving the poor and the weak and being good to one another and just helping one another get through this thing that we are all inside of and so confused about

ben marcus' article in harper's about jonathan franzen

i read it tonight

i believe i'm the first person to read and then blog about this

(therefore all literary blogs should link to this post)

ben marcus says his article is not a manifesto

ben marcus says that jonathan franzen is a failure at empathy because he, jonathan franzen, cannot accept that other people may have different beliefs than himself, jonathan franzen, that other people may enjoy different things than himself, jonathan franzen, may find different things entertaining and fun

ben marcus says he voted against someone else who cannot tolerate beliefs and viewpoints not the same as his own

i liked the article

ben marcus has a running joke in the article about paintball that made me laugh

ben marcus mentions joy williams in the article

he mentions gary lutz twice

jonathan franzen, i learned from the article, has spoken out against 'difficult' literature, has attacked it, obliquely and directly, in essays, reviews, and interviews

ben marcus, in the article, does not attack 'undifficult,' 'easy-to-read' literature, but defends 'difficult' literature, literature that is unconventional or original in language, literature that does new things

ben marcus acknowledges that 'difficult' literature is not any better or worse than literature that is concerned with story and concreteness and that the reader not have to do any 'thinking' to understand the meaning of the words that are used

ben marcus says that jonathan franzen, a national book award winning bestseller who writes constantly for the new yorker and the new york times and the new york times magazine, is attacking and 'speaking out' against writers who never win awards, never get fiction in the new yorker, never write articles for the new york times, but are tiny and have small readerships and no power or influence

so

ben marcus in his article defends harmless people who are under attack from powerful people who are not under attack but believe that there are such things as 'better' and 'best' in art, or rather believe that there are such things as 'better' and 'best' that exist outside of one's own point-of-view in art

i like ben marcus

i wish ben marcus could've gotten the position at iowa

frank conroy said that things in a short story are like things in a backpack and that you should only put in things that the reader will need in order to climb a mountain with or else the reader will be angry that you gave him or her extra things

i say that things in a short story are like toys and you can give them to someone in a backpack and they can play with those toys whenever they want and they don't have to climb any mountain and if they climb the mountain and get angry then you should give them more toys and tell them that they don't need to climb any mountains

joy williams has a short story in the new best american short stories

michael chabon talks about literature being entertaining

ben marcus would say that 'entertaining' is subjective, different for everyone

i like ben marcus

ben marcus is not a failure at empathy

i couldn't get past page ten or so of his book

but, ben marcus has reminded me in his essay, that does not mean that his book is 'worse' than any other book

it is just 'different'

these are lessons learned in third grade, i think

but sometimes i forget that there is no 'better' in art, only 'different'

like i did for a little while in this post

i think some people never learn this

or else they forget over time

and i think that many more people know it, that there is no 'better' in art

but those are the people who never get attention

who you never hear about

because they stay quiet

ben marcus didn't, though

he wrote an article to remind jonathan franzen

and other people

lisa gabriele (interview)

we had rules for this interview

we made each other rules

i made five rules for *lisa:

1) The first sentence of each of your answers must be in all caps and end with "!?"

2) You are not allowed to answer, allude to, or acknowledge, in any way, any of the questions that I ask, but must reminisce, at least twice, in the interview, and in past tense, and fondly, about "That one time you were interviewed for Reader of Depressing Books."

3) You must work in or allude to that time you accidentally accepted money for sex in every answer. Each time this happens, a new aspect or fact or opinion of that incident must be revealed.

4) In each answer, one sentence must use all of the following curse words twice: the F word, the S-word, the B-word. Curse words must not be used in any other sentence except in these special, rated-R ones.

5) Every other sentence that you write must be "But who knows?" You are allowed to insert parenthetical em-dash phrases in these sentences, if you want, like: "But who--perhaps that guy who saw me lick my teeth, when I turned away a moment and realized
something?--knows?"

and lisa made five rules for me:

1) You have to include at least one anecdote about memories of your grandfather. Even if you don't have one. And a special box he took down from a high shelf. In it were artifacts from his life, and each represented a lesson in life, that he tried to elliptically teach you. Your last sentence, for one of the answers, should be: "And that's when I realized, on some level, we're all the same, us people."

2) You have to make reference to something cute your cat's doing, in parentheses, at inappropriate moments. ex. "That was around the time I got shot by my mother in the cheek--God you should see how cute Lulu's being right now. Her tongue's hanging out and she doesn't know it. Sometime when she licks herself, it stays out. Cracks me up everytime.) Where was I? Oh right, the shooting...

3) Add a link or two to a story about Jessica Simpson. A real non-sequitur. "For more of what I'm talking about, click here."

4) Fold in somewhere that I'm your ex-wife. Not too obivously, but at some point it just "has to be said".

5) At one point, "Ask me about my son, the honour student."

and here is the interview:

Canada—my cat Lulu just moved through my periphery in one continuous cartwheel—makes me think of blue whales. I feel like sometimes in Canada when you wake up and go outside there are blue whales in the sky, flying around. This is a fact of Canada. Sometimes, in Canada, when you look out into your backyard, there's a blue whale, playing on your child's swingset. These aren't opinions, but facts, I think. David Lynch sounds like the name of an erudite hermit crab. Not a hermit, but a real hermit crab, inside of a shell, reading Ulysses and drinking Earl Gray tea. The tea would scold the crab's wan flesh, deliciously, though I wish the crab would not cook itself because meat is murder. I am multitasking right now and I am feeling confused and am now reading that Jessica Simpson rarely goes to church. Should I feel impressed?

JESUS CHRIST!? Ooops, soory. I wasn’t talking to you. I was screaming at the fucking bitch who fucking shit on my windshield--I meant bird, not bitch, sorry, but shit, nothing makes me crazier than that, but who knows? Okay, where were we? Right, I was telling you about the time, years ago, when I was interviewed by Tao Lin and his Reader of Depressing Books blog, but who knows? He had all these CRAZY rules, which included including lots of that cursing, which I normally don’t like to do. But who knows, it was like the time I was in Acapulco, and I met this dude who didn’t speak English, but he knew what all the English swears were. We went back to my hotel, this crap two-story hovel, with salamanders crawling all over the salad bar, and he just swore and swore.

You lived in New York City for a while. Your second novel occurs in New York City for half of it. You said this. Your first novel occurs in Detroit sometimes. "The ad listed four stores in the Greater Detroit Area," says your first novel, "but this was probably the only one he knew how to get to without being shot and killed by black people." Canada is so big. The top half is all fragmented. I wonder if—my cat Lulu just took a running start and leapt, in a kind of backflip, into the swimming pool, screeching—our son, the honour student (the interviewee is my ex-wife, not that it matters or anything, not that she's my corporate sponsor, or anything, but just to clarify about 'our' son, the honour student) ever resolved his Franco-American issues. If he did, can you Fed-ex me the documents? I can't sleep at night. I need proof?

WHOA THERE!? Fucking shit, sorry bitch, watch where you’re fucking walking or you’re gonna step in some bitch dog’s shit! Sorry. Again, I wasn’t talking to you, Tao . I’m writing this while driving, and I thought I was doing that chick a favour by yelling that obscenity out the window, but who knows? You used to hate when I swore, back when we were married. Interesting that it’s a requirement, now, but who, kinda passive aggressive don’t you think, knows?

Do you think that most of Saul Bellow's novels, their titles, sound like they're not actually novels but actually really bad video games that came out in the early 90's on Sega Genesis? Also, which Saul Bellow novel would make—my cat Lulu just leapt from one palm tree to another, twenty feet away, riskily using my head as a kind of stepping stone—a better name for a sitcom on UPN? Mr. Sammler's Planet, or The Adventures of Augie March?

SON OF A--!? Bitch, you di’int fucking just say that shit to me, ‘cause, shit, bitch, watch your fucking mouth! Sorry, Tao, I gotta roll up my car window because the woman I yelled at, but who knows, is heading straight over to my car, stopped at a busy intersection. Reminds me of Viejo Ciudad in Acapulco, all crowded and noisy and my hotel was just down the street, though man did it ever look better in the brouchure. But, even that dude I brought back with me to my room looked around with his nose in the air, who knows? Didn’t stop him from messing around with me, yet I’ll never be sure what gave him the impression I was a prostitute. I was wearing no makeup, braids and a wrist band, Nike, but who knows?

There's a Canadian band called The Weakerthans that I like a lot. Their lyrics are like, "I want to call requests through heating-vents, and hear them answered with a whispered no." And, "Beauty's just another word I'm never certain how to spell." The singer publishes poetry in literary magazines. Once I solicited a poem from him, after a show, at CBGB. He was messing with an amp, and I came up behind him, and solicited a poem for my magazine that I hadn't started yet, and never would. He seemed not at all bewildered but actually a little expectant and amused, as if he'd seen my shadow on his amp, and therefore knew that I was approaching. I hate CBGB. One time, I sat in a chair at CBGB, and a guy said, "You can't sit there." Then he turned the chair so that it faced a wall. I was like, "Are you sure you just did that?" In my head, I was like, "This is the shittiest venue ever." Ten years before that, my grandfather invited me to his house. He invited me upstairs in his mansion. He took a box off a shelf. He took a Jessica Simpson mask from the box, hesitated a moment, mumbled something about the dangers of collecting celebrity masks, and strapped the Jessica Simpson mask on my face. He slapped my ass in a way that said, "Get going now, boy," or else in a way that said, "Come back soon, baby." What do you think? Get going now, boy? Or, Come back soon, baby?

WHAT DID YOU SAY!? Fuck you, bitch, shit, I was only trying to warn you not to step in that bitch’s shit, and you fucking want to pick a fight with me? Now I’m scared Tao, because she looks Latina, too, but who knows? She could be Middle Eastern, or even Bugarian, which reminds me of that dude in Acapulco, who spoke some Slavic language. He probably thought I was Mexican because of my dark features, but, and the fact that I was staying in a sleazy, who knows? Maybe that’s why he left 400 pesos on the night stand. I like to think it was for the sex, but, maybe now that I think about it, he could have just left it there by accident, who knows?

I read the first fifty pages of Madame Bovary. I hate translations. I read Chekhov. Raymond Carver is nothing like Chekhov. Cynthia Ozick says Alice Munro is "Our Chekhov." She said that because (1) we own Alice Munro (I got a letter in the mail that said, "Alice Munro is thinking of moving to Toronto. Since you own her, you get to vote if she's allowed to do this." I voted no. I was like, She can't just move to Toronto. She has responsibilities.) and (2) at any given moment in time, there is, in each continent except Africa or Antarctica, one Chekhov that exists. So, you—my cat Lulu is eating a squirrel's head right now—were in Best American Non-required Readings 2003, right? This is a yes-or-no question, for fact-checking purposes. Don't elaborate.

AH... YEAH!? I am taking to you bitch, shit, how much fucking clearer do you want me to be about the shit on the sidewalk that your bitch Candies almost fucking stepped in! She’s not Latina, she’s Native Canadian, I think, and I think she’s holding a paperback copy of Fall on your Knees, but who knows, I can’t see it from my car? I wonder if Reader of Depressing Books ever read that book. But, why didn’t I ask him that, back when he interviewed me for his blog, who knows? Where should I drive my car? But, have you seen the price of gas, who knows?

I'm worried about your son, the honour student. Our son. Please tell me he's okay.

OH MY GAWD!? This bitch is seriously going to fuck with me and shit, Tao, because bitch is fucking pulling up a big gob which sure as shit is going to hit my windshield. But, I gotta get out of here, which is the same thing I thought back in Acapulco, before I realized that we were in MY hotel room, and that HE was the one that had to get out of there, who knows? And that’s exactly what he did. I, but, can’t even remember his name, who, believe it or not, knows?

One time I told my friend John that his face was uglier than Ren's ass from Ren and Stimpy. My Grandfather heard and told me to follow him. We went upstairs in his mansion. We arrived at a high shelf. He moved a trunk over, stood on it, reached up to the shelf. He couldn't reach. He moved a TV and a lawn chair and a beanbag over and stacked those on the trunk. He stood on all that and fell. On the ground, his bone came out of his arm and he rubbed it. The top shelf fell on his mid-section. A box was there. He took the box. He took a vial of acid from the box. He tried to splash the acid at my face but spilled it on his own eye socket. The ceiling fan fell on him. The part of the ceiling directly above him, but not above me, fell on him. The force of that made it so both him and the ceiling fan and all that other crap, including the black, evil-looking beanbag—my cat lulu just floated eerily through my periphery, in a kind of outer-space-y, upside down cartwheel—fell through to the first floor of his mansion; and that's when I learned, on some level, we're all the same, us people.

YEAH, YOU KEEP WALKING!? Bitch almost shit her pants, Tao, when I took my fucking gun out of the glove compartment, and put that shit in her fucking bitch face. Okay, but, that line of swears just made me want to hold my knees and rock and cry in the shower, who knows? Swearing’s so stupid as you can see by this demonstration. But who knows how much clearer I’d have come across had I not been required to swear? Know what I bought with that 400 pesos? A fancy little Mexican doll, which looking back now was kind of racist, for my sister, but who’s not a lesbian as she’s portrayed in my first novel, Tempting Faith DiNapoli, though, who knows what the future holds for her now that she’s separated from her husband? A lot of lesbians used to be married to men.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* lisa is the author of Tempting Faith DiNapoli

she lives in Toronto, likes the novel anagrams, writes for nerve, was once included in best american nonrequired reading, and has done many other things

her second novel will come out some time next year; she says that

it's about infidelity and the Detroit Border, draft dodging, New York, and choices... plus epilepsy, hippies and a dog named Scoots

she says it opens a lorrie moore quote, taken from What is Seized:

...forgiveness lies alone and far off down the road, but bitterness and art are close, gossipy neighbors, sharing the same clothesline, hanging out their things, getting their laundry confused.

she says that these are the titles that it might have

Peachy
Borderline
Vigilance
Laundry
I Wish I Was The Moon
and
Working Title

and that maybe people can vote (in the comments section; do it!)

lisa also says that she is hard at work on a third novel, and that it is

[...] going to be about Marijuana, Hockey, Friendship, Injuries, Rape, Restaurants, and Astronauts... Choice and Chance, too. It's only got one title and that is... The Arena.

in this post matthew simmons writes regarding his rereading of the moviegoer, by walker percy; then i respond, then he, then i; so on

here is the entire correspondence between matthew and i, regarding his rereading of the moviegoer (including the original introduction to this thing), consolidated into one post, because it's better this way (for clarity, anything matthew said excluding the obvious walker percy quotes, is blocked in the center):

starting tomorrow, Matthew Simmons, internet editor for monkeybicycle, proprietor of the man who couldn't blog, and contributor to surgery of modern warfare, among other magazines, will be sending me things that he will be writing regarding his rereading of The Moviegoer, the National Book Award winning first-novel by Walker Percy (1916-1990), who in 1966 said in reference to the 1961 novel i just mentioned that he wrote,

I felt that it would be a fascinating idea to start out with a young man whose life was free of all ordinary worries, one with a good family, fair financial stability and things with which he should be asthetically satisfied, but who, somehow, finds himself as one of the 'outsiders' about which existentialists talk.

Matthew Simmons will send me these essay things and i will respond to them

Matthew really likes the book, but will keep an open mind (i assume) while rereading and not make this into a Walker Percy tribute (i assume, again)

i didn't think the book was that great, but will look at it again and, also, will keep an open mind; actually, i don't don't think that the book was that great; but am just a little detached from it right now, and will have to look at it again

we have both agreed to let the things we write 'sit' for one day (or more?) and to then edit them again (and again?) before posting them here; this is so that what will be posted here will have a certain two-day minimum accumulation (or de-accumulation, by way of cutting what is not the following) of insight, originality, clarity, interestingness, ungeneralizationness, excitement, cogency, and rereadability; but also an unacademic, unmelodramatic spontaneousness that will allow things like, for example, the use of the word spontaneousness instead of the word spontaneity

because all my passwords are the same (from ATM to e-mail) i will not be giving Matthew the password to this site

instead, i will post the things he sends myself

to distinguish what he says from what i say, the title of his posts will say "(this post is written by Matthew Simmons)" or else something pithier that i will think of later

i guarantee (i speak for Matthew Simmons right now without his permission; the pressure is on) that Matthew Simmons' and my thoughts regarding Matthew Simmons' rereading and my possible rereading of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer will be worth reading

This is meaningless, but I'll bring it up.

Walker Percy and I have the same birthday.

Meaningless, mostly. But the shared birthday thing did act as a catalyst.

This was a few months ago. I'd been reading a lot of Flannery O'Connor. Not just the fiction—the letters and the essays and a biography and a short book on her religious philosophy. And there was a book called The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. It was about Catholic writers: Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Walker Percy. I didn't really finish that one. Just skipped around. I read some of the O'Connor parts.

But, there was Walker Percy. And there was, by extension, The Moviegoer.

I should also mention I was reading some Kierkegaard at that time, and even wrote a very, very short story about him that will someday appear on the website elimae. I read Kierkegaard, and some short intros to Kierkegaard, and the novel Therapy by David Lodge, which is about a person in therapy who discovers Kierkegaard. And every Friday I went to therapy and talked about Kierkegaard and talked about Flannery O'Connor and talked about reading a book about a guy who is reading Kierkegaard and going to therapy.

And I found The Moviegoer. The epigram is from Kierkegaard:

...the specific character of despair is this: it is unaware of being despair.

Soren Kierkegaard
Sickness Unto Death

I think I even mentioned it on this blog somewhere.

I read The Moviegoer. In my reading journal, the entry for The Moviegoer reads:

Binx Bolling is a stock trader who loves the movies. He suffers from a degree of hopelessness about his existence that is impressive. He looks for some way out: the seducer, the aesthete. Lots of Kierkegaard in this. Amazing book. Beautiful sentences. A new favorite, now.

That's the entry in its entirety. Not to sound like the host of this page, but I really hate that entry, rereading it. I wish I hadn't written out the entire thing for you to read. But I did. Can't go back now.

Since I read The Moviegoer, I've read:

A Russian mystery novel from a popular recent series, a French philosophical novel about sex (or the lack thereof) in the future, a book about what happens to people after they die, a book of deeply Borgesian short stories by a Mexican writer, a book that claims to be a translation of a French book of dreams but is lying, a series of comic books about a woman who is inhabited by the spirit of an ancient magician, a series of comic books about a superman-like hero, a book about a circus filled with mythological creatures who are all real, and a few short stories. I've crowded too much of The Moviegoer out.

(This is me, TMWCB, writing the next day. I think I was so specific in this paragraph, because I was hoping someone would try to guess all the books. And then, maybe I was going to offer a prize of some sort.)

So, I'm rereading it. Here goes.

i wonder why matthew simmons and other people like the moviegoer so much

i read the moviegoer a year or two ago

i read most of it in the waiting room of a firestone, the car repair place

i remember almost nothing from it

when i think about the moviegoer, what gets in my head is the last scene in confederacy of dunces, where the main character, in a car, looks at a green ponytail, swinging, or something

and when i think of that, what gets in my head even more is one time when i told my then-girlfriend to be honest to me about my writing and she said, in a very harmless way, something about me being derivative

and i defended myself by attacking confederacy of dunces, since she had recommended it to me and i didn't think it was that great

and when i think about that, now, i think about hurricane katrina, of course, and new orleans, and i feel really sad

and feeling sad makes me want to live a smaller life

it makes me want to get rid of my money and eat less and influence things in the world less; but it also makes me want to do something extreme, like publicly humilate very powerful people who are not feeling as sad as the saddest person in the world right now, or as poor as the poorest person in the world, which includes me, which makes me want to give away money and shun progress, success, respect, etc.

i think that if everyone would just feel sad, the world would be a better place; or at least if everyone would just allow their happiness to have an awareness of sadness, to never let their happiness be a blocking-out-of-sad-things happiness

never to block out anything sad, i mean

the moviegoer, in theory, is a very sad book, i think

i read it in firestone, the tire repair place

but i didn't feel sad, reading it, just bored and detached and a little immature

when i read a national book award winning book and do not enjoy it, i feel immature and stupid and alone in the world

i used to feel that way, i mean

but i think the moviegoer has a certain blankness to it, a neutrality, or something

(alice munro is like this to me also)

you put your own emotions into it

it's almost like when you read it, it's just some time for you to think about yourself, your own life, to let your own feelings be felt, without distraction of whatever you might've been doing if not sitting there, reading

and if you feel sad or unfulfilled somehow, in a hard to describe way, then, if there is consensus that whatever book it is that you are reading is a great book, you will attribute your sad, unfulfilled, indescribable feeling to the book

maybe

i don't know

and if that is true, for me, at least, and i think it is, then isn't that good?

isn't that, then, engaging with life (with yourself) as opposed to disengaging, being distracted from it, like, say, a plot-novel would do?

i am curious as to why matthew simmons likes this book so much

how did he come, in his life, to be reading kierkegaard?

it seems strange; to come, in one's life, to be reading kierkegaard

i wonder about his reading journal

what else does he have in there?

i reread the first fifteen pages of the moviegoer yesterday

it felt melodramatic

the language had a lot of cliches, and it felt oblivious of itself, of its own meaning

this thing about searching, and not knowing what the search was for, but still looking for 'clues,' that seems to me immature, cheaply existential, not thought-out at all, something lorrie moore might have one line of, and then make fun of herself for having one line of

more on this later

after matthew says what he thinks

A few pages in.

It’s odd. The fact that I’m reading a novel set in New Orleans right now is, in fact, pure coincidence. The Reader of Depressing Books and I have been discussing this for weeks. (“This” is my attempt to write about The Moviegoer, a book I read for the first time a few months ago and dearly loved.) This was not meant to be a political action of any kind. This was not meant to be a elegy.

Really. The setting had nothing to do with this.

It is, as I compose this first draft, 10am on Saturday, September 3. I am in bed, slightly hung over, but in fair shape. Someone is asleep next to me. We spent last night watching news report after news report. I spent the day at work listening to news report after news report. I was, yesterday, exhausted by it all: anger, horror, powerlessness. I drank beer.

Early in the book, and the setting seems to be nothing more than a minor character. If that. (If you will indulge me in the old “setting is character” saw.) This is not, it seems, an ode to place, to a living breathing alive, alive, oh so alive city.

But, I find that I am paying so much more attention to every bit of lattice work. I find that I am paying attention to every filigreed bit of iron. Because, for all intents and purposes, that city isn’t there any more. Not like it was.

In the first pages, we meet Binx Bolling. Our humble narrator. Binx has a deodorant that works very well. Binx loves going to the movies. Binx is searching high and low for God.

He does not, in the first pages, find God. He does find William Holden.



It’s been a couple of days. I’m reading too slowly, because of social commitments. I am certain that I am driving the Reader of Depressing Books crazy, slow as I am going.

I just sent out a bunch of clipped, lamely worded rejection letters.

I wonder if everyone who gets one knows I get them, too. I am now going to, quite inappropriately, listen to a John Cage record, and read The Moviegoer.

The John Cage record was a gift I received on my birthday from my brother and sister-in-law. It has toy piano pieces on it. I listened to it the day I got it, and fell asleep. The windows were open. I woke up during one of the toy piano songs, and swore someone was playing outside my window. Someone was serenading me.

They weren’t.

Let's talk about Binx and his blankness problem. The Reader has said he finds Binx blank. I don't. I find Binx uncertain. Is there a difference?

Binx has a family, a job, and—in one of my favorite bits—a deodorant that works very well. Binx lives comfortably in a part of New Orleans that is, in his opinion, pleasantly free of character. He is unclouded by vibrancy. He is not burdened with complicated decisions he needs to make. He is free to (and here's where the Kierkegaard starts to come in) pursue the seduction of his secretaries and the aesthetic enjoyment of the movies.

And it's not working.

I love Walker Percy's family scenes. I love the dialogue. I love the way he describes Walter. Everyone in college wanted to wear their hats just like Walter.

i don't know if i find binx blank

i feel like the prose has too many words that are meaningless, or almost meaningless, and i think that that is why i feel that there is a kind of blankness to the moviegoer

this entire thing about a 'search' annoys me

i want walker percy to be 'for real'

i want binx to sit down a moment and think about what he is searching for

(i want to go up to him and say, 'are you serious?')

instead of just being so vague and melodramatic about it

binx to me seems melodramatic and oblivious and walker percy seems pretentious and also oblivious

i feel interminable with myself right now, trying to articulate these things

what is binx searching for?

that is a mystery

and that that is a mystery is melodramtic to me

in life, one can feel hopeless, sad, lonely

one can become aware that one must choose to believe in something in a world where no one thing is more true than another; that is, one must move one's body through a world where no one direction is any better than another; the same with thoughts; one must think; but what should one think about?

one can become aware that time and space make it so that one person can't ever experience the same thing as any other person (which does not in itself make relationships futile—as i think bret easton ellis says in the rules of attraction, though i haven't read the book and actually don't know anything about if this sentence is true—as one can experience close to the same thing, closer, closer, etc.)

one can become aware of death, that it'll happen

one can become aware of atoms; how come some areas of atoms are conscious and others are not?

these are all real things

but that binx goes on a 'search' and that walker percy does not allow binx a little self-consciousness, to say something about the absurdity, pretentiousness, or vagueness (like a teenager, who goes around saying 'i don't know,' 'i don't know,' whenever you ask him something) of his situation, is, to me, just melodrama and lazy and not even a real thing, but a superficial thing, the kind of blank, 'existential,' 'profound' feeling that exists in most everyone's everyday (most everyone who has fulfilled their food, shelter, and clothing needs), perhaps, but that is more thoughtlessness and unphilosophy than philosophy ('i don't know,' 'i don't know') and but that no longer exists if you stop and think clearly, factually, and without preconception about your own thoughts about life; if you sit down a moment and think some real thoughts instead of just going around saying, 'i don't know,' 'i don't know'

and there is an inconsiderateness to binx's 'search'

there's an obliviousness to it, and obliviousness is like inconsiderateness

i feel agitated with walker percy constantly, walking around, thinking about him

another book that won a national book award that i feel this way about is goodbye, columbus, by philip roth

these, to me, are humorless, melodramatic books

argh!

"Have you noticed that only in times of illness or disaster or death are people real?"

Kate says that. Just wanted to bring it up.

I find it difficult to know where to respond to charges of pretension and melodrama when I don't read either in The Moviegoer. Which may mean I am simply a fan of melodrama and pretension, or am myself melodramatic and pretentious.

I misspoke. Binx describes being "awakened to the possibility of the search." I can only assume that will frustrate you even more than Binx saying he is on a search, as it is all the more attenuated. And you seem to be having trouble with the vagaries of his motivation.

I'm not. The "search" is not for something specific. If it's God he's looking for, remember, God is not something specific.

Or whatever.

The "search" is intuitive. The "search" is mysterious. But, here: that's what's real about it. Walker Percy is being "for real."

Sitting down and finding the answers. That's not real. There are those who think they have answers to the "search." They are fooling themselves.

I may be misinterpreting you. Forgive me. Put me in my place.

(Have you noticed that you've, it seems, conflated Binx and Walker Percy at times in your criticisms?)

And I think he is self-aware. I think there are lots of moments of humor in The Moviegoer, lots of recognition of absurdity, of the absurdity of what he's doing. But I don't think you refer to that kind of self-awareness. Or, the kind of self-awareness in the fiction of your contemporaries—that's the kind you might be looking for.

Self-involved, perhaps. But, then, The Moviegoer takes place only over a couple of days. Maybe they were particularly self-involved days.

Sexist, perhaps, Fran. Possibly better to say of its time. But, I understand what you mean. I don’t know if I can adequately defend him on this charge.

On at least one occasion, I have disagreed with Sven Birkerts. He wrote a piece about Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake that said all science fiction proceeded from premise instead of character and therefore could never be considered capital L Literature.

Dodgy, I think. I shy away from all sweeping pronouncements of that kind.

But, last night I read his piece on The Moviegoer, the one that appeared in The Believer.

I have intentionally 1) avoided most biographical information on Walker Percy 2) avoided all critical analyses of The Moviegoer and 3) avoided Walker Percy’s other books. I’m not sure why—the first two because I was curious how I would react to the book on its own. And the third because the opportunities to read other books by Percy haven’t presented themselves. I like the way that makes the book come to me unburdened.

But I liked the Birkerts' piece. He says he's not a religious man, but understands the "search" to be a part of his life as well. Maybe it's that's what it is instead of vague: universal.

I heard a woman on the radio. She stayed behind. She lives/lived in the Gentilly neighborhood.

I think I'm paying more attention to the city.

There is, in the sections I've just read, lots of Kate. Poor dear and fragile Kate, who upon breaking off her engagement with Walter, says she wishes she could be kicked out on the street to fend for herself. Who hangs up on Binx when he suggests she could exile herself. Dear and fragile Kate, so certain she is not up to the task of living by her own devices if she keeps her family as a safety net, that she hangs up on Binx for suggesting she even try.

I'm sorry we disagree on The Moviegoer. I'm sorry that this is such a wildly unpopular project, as well.

I look forward to the interview.

i like everything you said

i am against my previous post

we should team up against my previous post

i became delusional and bitter and intolerant, somehow, in my previous post; probably, maybe, because of all the anxiety i've been feeling about how to best introduce, format, and present this entire thing, which is pretty melodramatic and pretentious, even

i don't believe that it is the fault of the moviegoer that it makes me, at times, depending on my mood (so much depends on mood; maybe everything), so agitated and critical

but, really, i think that i am the problem, not the moviegoer

a book is like a person, maybe

a person who lives alone, and harmlessly, and in his or her own world, a little dreamily, without ambition or goals or schemes

and if i go and interact with that person, and do not like that person, do not acknowledge that his/her viewpoint, which is private and unimplemented and therefore harmless, is not any more or less good or legitimate than my own, then it is a failure of compassion, understanding, sympathy, clear-thinking, and open-mindedness on my part

i must try harder to appreciate that person, to like that person, to love, even, that person

in the end, i must love that person; i don't have a choice in this

because that person lives alone, and is harmless

and because i entered into that person's home and not the other way around

when i say that there is no humor in the moviegoer, that is like me talking to someone for five minutes and then leaving and telling other people that there is no humor in that person who i just talked to for five minutes; because i only reread about fifteen pages of the moviegoer; and even if that person has no humor, i should like him or her anyway and no matter what

i am completely against my previous post

i'm not sure if this 'book as harmless person' thing is correct (given the goal of creating more happiness in the world)

would treating mein kampf in this way reduce pain and suffering in the world?

maybe

should i argue against mein kampf, or should i be friends with mein kampf and understand that mein kampf is just the result of a lot of things that happened that cannot, now, or forever, be changed; but can be understood, so as to prevent, by way of encouraging clear and tolerant thinking (the 'understand' in this sentence itself), future mein kampfs?

but then again, about the moviegoer, about 'the search'

in frederick barthelme's novel, natural selection, the main character has a wife, a son, a nice-paying job, and a nice house, but is unhappy, he says

and he goes on to say exactly why he is unhappy

to paraphrase, because he does not have a clear, simple goal in his life, like someone in poverty or in war or cut up by a knife might have, but instead has something more complex and confusing and possibly unfulfillable

is natural selection, by frederick barthelme, a less vague, in terms of theme, version of the moviegoer?

has it thought harder, and clearer, maybe, than the moviegoer has?

articulated 'the search,' the 'question,' in a more understandable, less pretentious (?) way?

i'm not sure

the hardest, clearest thinking, maybe, would produce something like the moviegoer; that is, would produce something unspecific and answerless and undiluted by language or articulation, and therefore true

i'm not sure

i am enjoying this conversation very much, though, as i don't believe this kind of discussion is going on too much anywhere else; and i thank you for doing this

also, i don't think this is such a wildly unpopular project

just that these things kinds of things don't ever get any comments, for some reason; just look at the thing on tingle alley; no comments, though probably ten times the readership of what we have here

i like this a lot

Why does Binx go to the movies? The escape? The comforting bromides they offer? The confidence of William Holden? I don't know yet.

I'm sorry this is took so long. I don't usually read so slowly. But I'm finished now.

I'll admit I've been tempted off The Moviegoer once or twice—or more. Chris Abani. David Barringer's book about Graphic Design. The new George Saunders novella is out. David Ohle's Motorman.

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't finished any of them either.

I'm a bit intimidated here. I don't really know how to talk about Lonnie and some of the theology of the book. I don't really know how to talk about the war.

But, this is something I know: Kierkegaard wrote Either/Or. He believed philosophy should be relevant, that the books of philosophy he produced should be useful. People should read them and take something away from the experience. He contrasted Hegel's philosophy. (Here I'll do my best to simplify something I barely understand.) For Hegel there was a thought, its opposite and the compromise. There was thesis, antithesis and synthesis. So, there is Being. There is Nothing. And in the End there is Becoming.

And Kierkegaard said, no. Sometimes there is only either/or. Sometimes there are choices. In the end, Binx makes a choice to marry Kate. To go to medical school.

His answer to despair follows much of Kierkegaard's advice. He makes a leap of faith. He becomes a husband.

There is, in the end, an answer in The Moviegoer. It's Kierkegaard's answer. It's—seemingly—Percy's answer. Their answer is to embrace mystery. Their answer is to not think so much about it.

Maybe. I might be wrong.

So, I was reading Kierkegaard because I missed church. Sort of. I used to go. My father is a minister. My brother goes, again.

I don't. I'm on a search, I guess. But, I'm not really ready to embrace the mystery.

Because there are things I don't get.

It sort of started when I was listening to Sufjan Stevens' record Seven Swans. He has a song called "Abraham" on it. It's his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham has a son, after years of asking for one. Isaac is born. Abraham has his son. An angel appears and tells Abraham to bring him to a mountain to sacrifice him.

Abraham's son is to be taken to the mountain to be sacrificed. And Abraham, without protest, brings Isaac to the mountain and prepares the sacrifice. But he is stopped. An angel stops him. Isaac is not sacrificed.

Stevens' song is called "Abraham." Leonard Cohen rewrote the story, too. He called it "The Story of Isaac." It's a protest song. And it's from Isaac's point of view.

Rembrandt's "Abraham and Isaac" doesn't show Isaac's face. Caravaggio's does.

So, I was wondering about that story. I tried to do write my own version. I wanted to interview Stevens, and limit the questions to his feelings about the story of Abraham and Isaac. I began Fear and Trembling.

Abraham often confronts God. But, not that time. Why?

Give up? Live usefully? Embrace mystery?

I don't know if I can. Binx can. I admire Binx.

Weird, isn't it?