Notes to self

While these are mostly personal thoughts I've have recently that I would be sorry to forget, a few might be of more general interest, though as always I'll probably go on for too long (rather than breaking this up into shorter posts).

It has generally been a big relief to read shorter novels from time to time, and I will make more of an effort to intersperse the long novels with shorter ones unless there is a particular reason to read them back to back.  I seem to feel as much accomplishment reading a short novel (and crossing it off the list) as a long one.  Even for picturesque novels with more plot, I think 250-300 pages is a good target.  If I get around to my work, this is what I will aim for.  Iris Murdoch's Under the Net was about 250 pages and it seemed just right.

Being short doesn't salvage a bad novel, but at least it keeps the damage limited.  On that note, I am about halfway through George Eliot's Silas Marner and am not liking it at all.  She piles one thing after another onto this guy, just in order to show that even the most crabbed and downtrodden person can find happiness -- particularly if they open their heart to others (and stop being so miserly).  It sounds like a freaking After School Special.  While there were considerable flashes of insight in The Mill on the Floss (more than I see here frankly), the ending of The Mill on the Floss was so lousy (as much of a disappointment as the end of Uncle Vanya but for different reasons).  Given that many people have problems with the ending of Adam Bede, I am just going to remove this from my reading list.  I can understand why some people do think she was a great writer, but I am no longer one of them.  I find her too bound by moral conventions, even when she tries to bend or subvert them.  Anyone (in these early novels) who doesn't ultimately accept society's dictates will suffer.  I am kind of surprised that she supposedly made this quantum leap into greatness with Middlemarch, and I'll give it a shot, but I'll bail on it fairly quickly if it I am not enjoying it.

A bit of randomness to the TBR pile seems to help.  I sort of just happened across a couple of interesting books while waiting for a book from the library where the person ahead of me hasn't returned it on time (grrr).  So I went ahead and read Douglas Coupland's Generation X (inspired by my recent visit to his show at the Vancouver Art Gallery) and I also saw Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, which was mis-shelved with the children's paperbacks (it really should be young adult or more properly an adult paperback).  Rather than kicking up a fuss, I decided I would check it out and then take it to the main library where it should be shelved appropriately.  Anyway, it is very short (under 100 pages), so I should have it read in just a couple of days.

It's been a bit heartening and rewarding to see how close I am to wrapping up all the books from my January detour from the primary TBR list.  I really ought to be done by the first week of July or so, and then I will have a brand new TBR list to unveil (and which should keep me busy for a few years).  I've decided that since I've done as much as I can in terms of clearing out books before the move, I will reorient the TBR pile just a bit. I've generally been reading books that I feel I ought to read, and I now will mix in more books that I think I will enjoy and add a few more of the books to be re-read (which I know I will enjoy).  There are some books I've owned and been itching to read for years in some cases, and it is silly to keep pushing them off.  That said, I have quite a nice mix of books to keep me occupied for some time.

Ok a quite swerve into New Yorker magazine territory.  I picked up a small stack for $1 on a recent trip to the library.  For once, I went through them quickly, since I had no intention of packing them up!  One of them had a short feature on the fiction writer Lydia Adams.  She does strike me as the quintessential New Yorker writer -- a bit esoteric, and more than a little stuck up.  The one thing I did appreciate about her is that she tried to keep her children out of her work (unlike Sharon Olds for example), though her husband was fair game. But in general, I thought she was incredibly snobby and was running down others' writing, not just when there was a mixed metaphor (which might have actually been intentional or not) but when she thought that some phrase didn't work.  It's hard to convey without quoting directly, but it really as if she thinks there are objective rules governing style, and that naturally many writers fall short.  I suppose there is a tiny chance I'll investigate her stories stories or a novel, but it's so unlikely that I would look very kindly on her writing, given how awful I thought she was about others not making the grade.

It is always so hard to control how others perceive creative work, and probably it is best to not fret too much about it.  Misunderstandings abound for all kinds of reasons.  I was really intrigued and even a bit disturbed by this piece on Young Jean Lee. I vaguely remember hearing about The Shipment which was at the MCA in Chicago in 2010.  I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it, and indeed, in the aftermath, I feel I did the right thing in skipping it.  I find it particularly intriguing that in an earlier incarnation of this work Lee was not able to get her point across to some audiences (and perhaps the majority of white audience members).  I think it is a clear reminder that authorial intent is often misinterpreted, and that may not be a bad thing in all cases.  But I really feel sorry for her that she felt "sick" that she wasn't able to make most of the audience unhappy by the end of her piece. I don't find this at all a productive or constructive approach to changing minds about race or any number of other social problems.  I know that a lot of progressives will do the internalizing guilt thing, and I did a great deal of this in my youth and still do to some extent.  But I am surely not going to pay $50 for someone to rub my nose into white privilege -- and then say they felt sick that they didn't succeed in making me feel bad enough.  So this is another artist, much beloved by the New Yorker crowd, who I will simply avoid.  Life is just too short...

I was going to make some observations on Iris Murdoch's Under the Net, which I actually did enjoy quite a bit, but that will have to wait for another post after all.