Finite Thoughts

Next to my bed is a bookshelf full of all the books I intend to read or have begun reading or enjoyed so much that I feel the need to keep close to me as I slumber. For a good while, Infinite Jest occupied the “plan to read” shelf, sitting there in its immensity, spine taunting, the book clearly aware that I am a slow reader and an easily distracted reader, the kind of reader who has five or six books going concurrently and is reading none of them with any expediency. At a little under 500,000 words and notoriously dense, Infinite Jest seemed very much like the kind of book I wouldn’t finish. So I didn’t start. Until, of course, I did (no book gets away with taunting me forever). And an unexpected thing happened: I didn’t once put the book down to pick up something else. I finished it. Every word. Sure, it took a good, long while and lots of hauling around, the book occupying entire compartments in my luggage whenever I traveled, the thing sitting prominently on nightstands in ways that felt a tad ridiculous. But I finished the novel, damn it. I persevered.

If it sounds like the book was a bit of a struggle for me, that’s because it was. Don’t get me wrong; I quite enjoyed Infinite Jest. The language is astounding and the ideas are huge and the effect is penetrating. This is not a novel about which I will soon stop thinking. I would very much like to write a novel as grand. But, good God, the thing can get tedious. David Foster Wallace has no patience for my impatience. It’s his world and he’s going to reveal it in as much intricate detail as he can. Even when that detail lacks any sort of internal propulsion, narrative or otherwise (save Wallace’s enthralling voice).

Plot? This novel has no traditional plot. It has moments that may or may not be part of a greater plot but are, just as often, nothing more than temporal segments extracted from the lives of fascinating characters. These moment/segments interrelate, but the interrelations occur most often in the gaps between sections (i.e.: in the spaces within the reader’s mind) as much as they occur on the page. The last tenth of the novel is mostly flashback and summary of flashbacks of things that occurred well before the events of the novel. The first chapter occurs after the events contained in the rest of the novel. We have here not a story told from beginning to end, but a rain of fragments, a splintered meteor ablating into luminescent parts that incandesce in loose formation, streaking towards us and begging to be assembled back into their whole. Of course, such an assembly is not fully possible, not for this novel and certainly not for life itself where our own moments come and go and end up contained in remembered fragments, some possessing great significance, some merely absurd, and some waiting unattended within us until recalled at a later time and imbued with a new meaning.

Infinite Jest occasionally teases with the possibility of a grand plot, but it ends right before everything seems ready to coalesce. The first chapter gives us clues as to what happened after the “end,” but all we really get to see is the effect those events had, not the grand events themselves. Those events are transformative, but Wallace chose not to write them. I think I like that. Much of our lives are about those things that come “before” and those things that come “after.” The events that change us are just that: events. They are not the change itself. Change is something else. Change is the thing that transpires inside all the other moments. Even the ones that feel mundane.

I have a feeling that reading Infinite Jest has changed me. Many books do. But this one may eventually get a place back on my bedside shelf. Alongside those other favorite with which I like to sleep.

Pre-Order. 'Cause Post-Ordering is for Losers.

I refuse to be negligent. These things must be noted. Proclaimed.

Jason Jordan’s novella The Dying Horse is available for pre-order from Main Street Rag.

Tiny Hardcore Press is offering you Lauren Becker, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale AND Amber Sparks all in one place. Pre-order the chapbook collection Shut Up / Look Pretty here.

These are writers y’all want to be reading.

Something Something

Something cool: Hazel Foster talks about my story “Leap” at Matt Bell’s blog, here.

Something new: I finished three stories this week and sent them into the world. They are all at just one or two places. I find that I prefer this method to the scattershot. Of course, this method may also be why I have so little coming out right now.

Something old: Novel. In rewrites. Thought I was done last summer. Turns out: not so much. This could be a post all its own. I have a second novel just banging itself against my skull, but the first one is still something I want to pursue. Oh the complications...

Something worth buying now: Like poetry? Buy Lauren Schmidt’s new chapbook from Main Street Rag. It’s Voodoo Doll Parade and you’ll love it. Find it on this page. Lauren was in my MFA class and I can more than vouch for the amazingness of her work.

Something worth getting ready for: The one-and-only Roxane Gay has a book of stories forthcoming. Ayiti. Preorders from Artistically Declined Press begin this July!

Something else: Saw a bunch of shiny, youthful Mitt Romney supporters in a Las Vegas casino. They were standing around in a cheery sort of way, apparently anticipating Romney’s arrival. Politicians and slot machines. Plenty can seem bright and alluring. Then you put some money into one and ... well ... yeah.

So Close and So Far

I love a story I could never write, that I couldn’t even conceive of writing, the diction and the plot and all of it existing somewhere outside of myself and yet – YET – somewhere so close to me that the damn thing makes me feel, makes me read the story again, then again.

That’s “Men Glass” by Sarah Rose Etter in The Collagist this month. Good stuff. Good read.

Do You Read Booth?

Should. It tends to publish stories and poems that refuse to let you stop reading.

Check out: "Run Time" by Jesse Goolsby. It's one of those stories where the plot is minimal but that doesn't matter. It holds you.

Talking About He Is Talking to the Fat Lady

When I heard xTx was releasing a chapbook, I jumped. Glad I did because I’m now the proud owner of one of the few printed versions (#36 in fact) of He Is Talking to the Fat Lady; and I love owning printed things. I don’t even have to feel guilty for hording words. The chapbook is digitally available here at Safety Third.

This isn’t a review. This is a suggestion that you get a hold of the stories contained within He Is Talking to the Fat Lady. While a lot of writers are flitting around the edges of ennui and introspection, xTx is driving straight into the gut. The result is a collection of stories that combine physical violence and various kinds numbness to create a beautifully desperate look at emotional frailty and our attempts at resilience.

I often think we live in an overwhelming time, where none of us truly has the capacity to bear or even process the stories of horror and loss and struggle that flood into our lives through all these connections. xTx is capturing that overwhelming experience in a way few writers can.

That sounds like a review. Maybe it’s a review. But I intend it as a recommendation.

The People of Paper

I was in Austin today and stopped by Book People and saw on their recommended table The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia and I thought to myself: I don’t push that book hard enough on my friends and acquaintances.

The novel is brilliant. It’s experimental and deeply moving and lyrical and brain twisting and it does about fifty things I normally dislike in fiction and yet I can’t forget the book. It arrives in my head quite often and makes a mess of things.

You should read it.

Damn Fine Fiction from Ethel Rohan

Some stories crackle under each sentence, the story emerging not so much in some linear ascension but in some exponential expansion until the whole of it overwhelms. That’s Ethel Rohan’s How to Kill currently over at the Hobart website.

Just take this line: “He pushed away his breakfast plate, the leftovers looking violated.”

Amazing. Read it.

Feral Fiction

Some stories are more than stories. They’re explorations of your mind. Or of the collective consciousness. In the new issue of The Collagist, Amber Sparks gives us a kind of all-in-one story about feral children. In fact, it’s called Feral Children: A Collective History.

It’s got a ton going on in a small space. Matt Bell and co. know how to find fantastic new fiction. What an amazing publication.

A Story I Keep Remembering...

I didn't write about this story when I first read it. I think it's possible I hadn't yet started this blog. Or I was busy. But I want to mention:

Yearlight Savings Time by Kevin Griffith. Published in the August '09 issue of PANK.

This is fantastical fiction about Americans trying to relive a year exactly as it happened the year before in an attempt to stave off the end of the world. The story centers on one man, the narrator. His personal hopes and failures are perfectly interwoven into the story of a world struggling to relive the past in order to have a future.

It's fantastical fiction at its best because it makes you think AND feel. Given how many stories I read, I think it's a sign of this one's power that it keeps returning to me. So I wanted to mention it.

And encourage you to read it if you haven't.

Steve Almond on the Newer Generations of Writers

If you’ve never had the opportunity to listen to Steve Almond give a talk, that’s a damn shame. But here’s a taste of Almond courtesy of The Splinter Generation (where I do some fiction editing).

He’s got great things to say. What caught my eye was something he said about younger writers:

The main thing I see in the writing is this strain of what I call “hysterical lyricism.” Certain younger writers are just so saturated by visual media that they feel like the only way that plain old words will hold someone’s attention is if they’re all really dramatic and urgent and sort of panicked. It’s like they’ve lost their faith in traditional storytelling. The result is a lot of confusing stories and novels. Needlessly confusing. It’s too bad, because people are always going to need stories to feel less alone. And we should recognize that.

Interesting comment about younger writers being over-saturated with other media. I think that’s very true. Everyone wants not just my attention but my heart and soul, too. They’re not happy with me simply buying their product. They want me to love it. To make it a part of my identity. I think addressing that over-saturation is probably going to be one of the key concerns of the newer generations of writers. But I also think Almond is right to lament needlessly confusing stories. The idea is to connect because we’re so disconnected. Confusing the reader just creates a greater disconnect.

Take a moment to read the rest of what Almond has to say.

Looking at Photographs of Sean

In the new JMWW, Sean Lovelace has a wonderful story about possibly himself or possibly a character named Sean as described by a photographer who has been taking pictures of Sean for years. It’s called, ”Ten Notes on Photographing Sean” and is in the style of short story I call vignette fiction.

I’m fascinated by this form. It’s basically a deconstruction of narrative into pieces that are arranged not with a plot arch but with an emotional one instead. As a reader, we don’t follow a A to B to C narrative line but rather an A + Q + F line that equals something other than a resolution. It equals an understanding.

“Ten Notes” does this so well. There’s such a growing sense of frustration in the photographer narrator and such a sense of performance, of hiding that isn’t fully successful from the character Sean. The combination leaves me with a yearning. And I like being left with emotion. Particularly want.

Take a moment to read it and see what you think.

A Little Noise for "Quiet"

What I love about reading online fiction is the variety you can find – particularly in the realm of flash (a form that is very suited to the Internet). That’s all just a prelude to the praise I want to throw David Erlewine’s way. Specifically for ”Quiet”, his new story in PANK.

The story is under 250 words and has the weight of a story ten times as long. David does this so well in his writing –condenses the essential flavor of a narrative so that nothing is missed despite the brevity. In “Quiet”, he gives us the entire story of a mother/son relationship. Impressive not just in its ambition but in its effect. Its impact. Its success in causing the reader to pull in a long breath and wait a good moment before being able to move on.

Considering Brian Evenson

Confession: I’d never read a word of Brian Evenson’s until today.

I’d, of course, heard plenty about him. Most of the lit blogs I read speak of the man in breaths of pipapitating awe (yeah, I made that word up). I kept meaning to order one of his books. Still meaning too. But when I discovered via HTMLGiant that a story of his entitled “Windeye” was up at PEN America, I figured I’d better go see what all the pipapitation is about.

I was surprised. I have no idea if this one, brief story is representative of the Evenson style, but I really didn’t expect such clarity of prose and tightness of narrative. Frankly, I expected the story to be “difficult” – the kind of story that takes multiple reads to suss out an ounce of coherence. I don’t know why I expected this. Perhaps because there’s been a trend within certain quarters of the short fiction world (including the quarters where Evenson is praised) towards a kind of linguistical and structural experimentation that forgoes a strong narrative in favor of artistic impressionism. While I often find those kind of stories brilliant in their own right, I don’t often enjoy them as “stories” in any traditional sense.

I enjoyed “Windeye” as a story. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. And what did happen next repeatedly surprised me in the way a very good story can. But, what truly impressed me was how much depth Evenson manages to create in such a small, strange space. There’s a haunting quality to “Windeye” that is very rare in fiction this short. I could tell even after the first reading that the story was going to rattle around inside me and resurface in the months and years to come.

So, yeah, if this is what Evenson is all about, I get it now. No more procrastinating on reading more of his stuff. Orders will be placed very soon.

Stories that Sweat

I don’t write a lot of fiction that you’d classify as disturbing in a gut-swirling way. Maybe that’s why I have such admiration for those who can pull off a good skin-crawling story.

In the newest issue of Kill Author, Mel Bosworth manages to both shock and hit you in deep in the chest with Turn.

It’s the kind of story you can feel pushing against you. Sweating on you. Leaving you sticky. (And I mean that as a good thing).

Force Me Down

A moment of complete honesty. I read a lot of online fiction (that’s not the revealing part). I’d say I stop reading 75-85% of the stories and never come back to them (sad but true). It’s not that they’re poorly written or that I’m such a busy, busy man that I can’t be bothered to keep reading. It’s just that – I get bored rather easily.

And then I think – shit, how many people never make it to the end of my stories? And that makes me think – shit, better write better. Sometimes, I actually do. Or think I do. And then I stumble across a story that forces me to read it in full in one sitting. Holds me down and forces. And I think – yeah, that’s how it’s done.

Roxane Gay has one of those stories up at JMWW. "His Name Is". Love it. And not just because it takes place in Las Vegas and I’m a sucker for Vegas. It’s got force. And it’s got lines like: “He scurries away, his short legs trying to keep pace with his optimism.”

Nice.

Deep Sea Reading

Came across Squid Quarterly today. Their first issue was this summer and it’s great. All short shorts and prose poetry ranging from the more experimental to the more traditional. Lots of very lush writing. I particularly liked Michelle Nichols The Lament of the Fire Baton Twirler. But I read the whole journal in one sitting and am already looking forward to their next installment.

Check it out.