Housecleaning

In the interest of keeping house leading into the new year, I am just noting for posterity's sake the other books I've been reading this fall. They're all worthy of discussion in their own ways; for this post, suffice it to say that the first two have been integral to a fiction project I'm working on, and the other two are written by guys who are my inspirations, my gurus, and the worst possible influences on me as a writer -- particularly ol' Tom, as he makes me envy his prose so much that I inevitably attempt to emulate it. (At least Kurt can be a non-Hemingway model of concise, compact, direct writing.)

The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961-1989, by Frederick Taylor

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins

Look at the Birdie, by Kurt Vonnegut

Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore

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Christopher Moore is known for making people laugh. I've read several of his books in years past, but for this one, I decided to go back to where it all began: his very first published novel, Practical Demonkeeping.

Some people say you shouldn't judge a book by anything outside of its covers; that is, if it is to be compared to other texts, it should be done solely on the basis of its contents without any reference to its time of publication, its chronological relation to other books, and so on. Others argue that a book cannot be fully understood without looking at where it falls in an author's milieu.

Now I'm not saying people are debating such topics on Christopher Moore's books. (For all I know, though, they are.) But I will say that if one is familiar with Moore's work, and one reads this book, one will note some interesting tidbits. For one, Moore causes laughter at a regular pace right from the start. Perhaps he's developed the knack, like a good cask-aged beer develops flavor, but it's all there from the get-go. He's also good at weaving together a location, the people in it, and ensuring that everyone he's bothered to introduce plays a significant role by the end.

Perhaps Moore isn't as outrageous in Demonkeeping as he can be in other books. Perhaps the characters aren't as deep, and maybe they don't develop quite as much as they do in other books. But it's a glimpse into his origins, and heck, I enjoyed reading it.

1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry, by Andrew Bridgeford

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A word I can't pronounce? A year that wasn't in my lifetime? Thoughts of middle school history class! Shudder!

Now hold on just a gosh-darn minute. I'll admit many (though not all) of my history teachers played a part in such reactions to historical references. The number one flaw in my experience of "social studies" courses was simple: the teachers and the textbooks FAILED TO MAKE THIS HISTORY RELEVANT TO MY LIFE.

If history were no longer relevant, we wouldn't study it. So clearly, all that junk about peoples and rulers and wars had some point. Bridgeford's book puts Point Number One in three-inch digits atop the front page: 1066, one of the only years I (and probably most of you) were forced to memorize in school.

Need a refresher? 1066: the year that a group of warriors from France, often simply (and somewhat erroneously) referred to as Normans, invaded the island of Great Britain and defeated the English king's forces at the Battle of Hastings. Big whoop. But from this battle, and the shift in British power that ensued, was born the language I'm using to type, that you know how to read, and that now dominates the commerce, politics, and technology of the world.

So a pretty big deal. And we all learn about (or ought to learn about) it in school. So what's left for Bridgeford to contribute?

Well, there's this piece of cloth, you see, called the Bayeux Tapestry. Someone made it a lot of years ago to illustrate and commemorate the Battle of Hastings, and the events that conspired to cause it. Everyone thought they understood this woven storybook, and used it to help illustrate history. Then Mr. Bridgeford comes along, sees things very differently, and unveils what subversive tales he reads into the tapestry.

If you're not already hooked (I am, and I already read the book!), I should mention that this book is not just a historian blabbering on for 300 pages. Bridgeford illuminates a tale of political intrigue, romantic scandal, noble heroics, and manipulative backstabbing that you couldn't make up if you tried. He does so with the novelist's flair, the art critic's keen eye, and the historian's desire for truth.

I refuse to go into the details, because that's what reading the book is for. But this is one of the best books I've read, and easily the best history I've read. If we'd been assigned this book in high school... well, my classmates and I would have spent more time studying than singing Doobie Brothers songs in the back row. (Which we did.)

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, by Susanna Clarke

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You may remember how Jonathan Strange basically made me say "Eff the rules of what makes a good book."

Well, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories maintained the same Austen-like quality of writing, preserved the same tongue-firmly-in-cheek approach, and applied the same standards to Clarke's modified world as the book's lengthier (by about ten times) predecessor. Which is to say, I should have simply loved it.

But part of what made Strange so appealing was its depth, its complexity, its nuanced expectation that the reader would pay attention, because what happened on page 7 was likely to come back into play eight hundred pages later. In this way, Clarke's writing is much like J.K. Rowling's. I hoped fervently that Rowling would let Harry Potter lie after the seventh installment, because in my opinion no further contribution to the world of Hogwarts could enrich it in any way that benefited my readings (or re-readings) of the original series.

Of course I was happy that Clarke was not done with the world of Strange. But at the same time, my idea of the world was whole. There was unexplored depth there, but it served as part of the magic and charm of the original. And these short stories, while they matched the tenor of Strange, could not hold the same depth. They are part of the foundation of the world, but just as I can appreciate the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal without knowing what keeps them from falling over, I don't think we needed more glimpses into Strange's and Norrell's world of magicians.

Or if we do need them, I'd rather they match the grandeur of her debut novel without merely serving as extensions of it.

Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder

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An idea persists about art that its creation, in any form it possesses, is somehow spontaneous and entirely right-brained; that it is emotional and not rational, free-flowing and uninhibited, not planned and not restrained or dammed or controlled.

Art, simply, is pure. (Or it would be more often, if in order to be considered "successful" by anyone outside the artist's community it didn't need to be made commercially viable.) But the belief among many that "purity" necessarily contains all those above descriptions contributes to some extent, I think, to the common conception that artists don't have to "work." Of course, the time needed to accomplish much art is recognized; artists, however, fail to obtain similar recognition of their time, efforts, and value. Many never understand that while the creativity of art may be spontaneous, the craft of it almost never is.

The need for planning, for working and reworking, for drafting and amending and cutting and altering, is as prevalent in the written arts any other. Which is why Save the Cat is as relevant to fiction writing as it is to screenwriting, and why it's fast becoming a bedside and writing-table standard for me.

We (and I'm as guilty as anyone) like to believe, love to feel, that quality films and books fulfill the standard of excellence just by being inherently good. We don't want to realize that behind the quality lies a structure, and that the structure applies to all sorts of works within and outside of the genre.

But it's there. Good artists can bend the structure, play with it (and, more importantly, within it), but we can hardly get rid of it. Rather than lamenting this fact of storytelling, I've chosen to embrace it, to study it, and to apply it to my own work. And so far, the results are telling.

(Fair warning, though: it's also made me an annoyingly critical movie viewer. In the middle of a film, I'll burst out with "Ooh, there's the whiff of death!" or "But he didn't save the cat!" I don't see how you could read this book and not do the same. Consider yourself cautioned.)

Le Noise, by Neil Young

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With lots of blogging to catch up on, I'm going to shake things up a bit by:

a) going out of chronological order.

b) shamelessly suggesting that you obtain the object of the post.

c) writing about something that is not a book at all.

(Seriously, get the album. Download it. Rip it off a CD. Buy the vinyl, and a new turntable with excellent speakers to go with it. I don't care. Just get it.)

Everyone, quite literally, who knows me knows (or is entirely unobservant and dense to the fact) that I am a Neil Young fan. Or I would be, if "fan" adequately covered the unabashed respect I have for Young as a musician, as an individual, as a philanthropist, as an advocate. Goodness knows that such admiration falls far short of blanket admiration for his work. (Don't talk to me about Are You Passionate?, for chrissakes.) But even when I fail to enjoy the musical products that Young releases, I can appreciate that he is going for something, even if what, exactly, that is lies beyond my personal bounds of certainty.

And I'll admit that when I first heard rumblings of Le Noise, the fan in me was skeptical. Oh, sure, I could appreciate that Young was experimenting with new sound. I was ecstatic that he was writing, touring, performing, releasing new music. (Or, at least in the case of "Hitchhiker," old music I hadn't heard before.) I was tickled at the prospect of an album and a concert with just Neil Young and his instruments of choice--no band, no backup singers; just a cigar store Indian with haunting wolf's-eye reflection.

Then, eight days before the release of the record, I saw Neil Young in Panama City, Florida, where he performed six of the eight songs on Le Noise. The show--the entire trip--highlighted the best of what makes Neil Young so influential in my life (and, really, in my art). He brought people together from around the country. He put on this mini-tour to benefit the people along the Gulf Coast. He was accompanied by his family and by LincVolt, his converted electric Lincoln Continental, to promote his view of an alternate world. And alone on stage, none of that mattered. He was a man with his music, and except for the residual (and powerful) aura of Allen Toussaint, nothing else. Maybe seeing the new songs given the electric spark of life from all of twenty feet away made the album better in my mind.

Maybe. But it's a damn fine record, regardless. (And a film.)

I can say very little that hasn't been said elsewhere. Google the album, read the reviews. They're not all glowing, but they're largely well written. And they say everything I could say about the recording process, the sonics, the collaboration with the producer, the power and simplicity of the lyrics.

But what they can't say is that Neil Young, a musician who has shaped my personal views of art, of integrity, of relevance, and of the power of language, has once again revealed to me what is possible. On this record, he doesn't lose his voice, his style, or his drive, all of which combine awesomely on even his middling works. But he takes those same components and puts out anything but "another Neil Young record."

More artists in any genre could learn something from that approach. I hope to.

The Order of Things, by Lynne Hinton

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Lately I've become fascinated with the idea of "perspective" relative to any artistic endeavor.

A new concept? Hardly. But for the first time outside of literature courses, I'm finally tackling the concept and the ways in which it affects the story told, the feelings conveyed, and the effects on the reader/viewer/listener.

The Order of Things, through the use of extensive dialogue, accomplishes the feat of having, essentially, two narrators--the first person narrator of the text, and the next-door inmate at the mental institution who talks with her through the night.

I remember from high school English classes the term "untrustworthy narrator." I don't think that the narrator of The Order of Things is untrustworthy in any malicious sense; but, like all of us, her view of the story she tells--what is important, the intent behind actions, the way other people worded their statements, even the way in which events unfold--is entirely dependent on her own memory and interpretation of events. In a sense, then, the second narrator in the text is doubly untrustworthy because his recounting of events is streamed through two filters, leaving the reader to determine which bits are "true," which are fabricated, and which have been unintentionally altered in the telling.

The question of what exactly "truth" is might here be appropriate. I'd rather say, though, that while I agree with Hinton's use of first-person narration in this book, I would love to see the story done as a play. A one-act, even, where the audience sees two people who cannot see each other sharing stories through an air vent. Leave the audience to witness both narratives on an equal plane. Omit the inner musings of a single character--rely fully on the dialogue, the setting, the voiceless expressions of the actors to relay the intricate unfoldings of the night.

If anyone wants to take that idea and run with it, feel free. I don't expect credit for it. Just comp tickets to the world premiere, please.