Collected Miscellany

Via Bookslut I found this interesting interview with Jonathan Carroll. Is an enthusiastic fan of Carroll’s work and he asks some interesting questions. He had this to say about Carroll’s work:

Jonathan Carroll does not shy away from giving us the hard choices, the hard stories. His tales are not candy-coated, sugary, feel-good-about-yourself quest fantasies. Jonathan Carroll is writing about life, writing about the Big Questions and the things that matter… the things that make us human. That is what the fantastic can do.

I don’t know, sounds suspiciously like humanism to me! (That was a joke, BTW)

Given recent discussions about low versus high art or genre versus literature, here is an interesting exchange:

gc: A trend in current fantasy is to root the fantastic firmly in the realistic; sword fights with guts and crunching bones, magic with alchemical formulae underpinning it, genetically-enhanced ‘creatures’ and the like. Do you think that adhering to the rules of realism robs fantasy of its power? Should the fantastic be bound by rules of any kind?
JC: Someone who works for McDonald’s in Austria told me an interesting thing– they said part of Mc’s great success overseas from the beginning was many people, especially Americans abroad, go there only because it is safe and predictable, not because it is particularly good. You know what you’re getting when you walk in the door and it’s never, ever more or less. The same is true with fantasy full of swords, dragons and people with ridiculous multisyllabic names. It is a meal at McDonald’s. For some people, obviously a lot of people, that is exactly what they want– a Happy Meal made of paper. These books sell in the tens of millions but it doesn’t make them good, only fast food for the brain.

Anyways, read the whole things as they say.

If you want my take on a couple of Carroll’s books, my review of White Apples is here and The Wooden Sea is here.

Now that spring has arrived in Ohio it is harder to find time to blog. I am embarking on a three game a week soccer season and the dogs flat out demand to be walked when the weather is nice. So to hold you over until I can post more (hey I am going to have a book review published in an actual magazine so give me a break ok?!) I offer the Boldtype “Self” Issue. What’s Boldtype you ask? Well, let them explain:

Still a discerning eye on books, but no longer a part of Random House, Boldtype has been reinvented by Flavorpill Productions. The former web-based literary magazine has relaunched as an email-based review, presenting each month a short list of books worth reading.

Cool ain’t it?

Anyway, here is how the most recent issue is described:

As the seasons change, global alliances shift, and unmanned rovers roam the red planet, it’s as good a time as any to break it down and meditate for a moment on the self. The many selves. Whether they be fake lives, frat brothers, elusive loves, illusory heroes, or just those around you, coloring your body or reacting to your face, they all play a part. There would be no self without the other, and it wouldn’t be much fun to read only the stories you write.

Here is a list of the reviews:
1. Goat by Land
2. The Rachel Papers by Amis
3. My Life as a Fake by Carey
4. The Autobiography of a Face by Grealy
5. A Fan’s Notes by Exley
6. Zhang Huan ed. by Dziewior

Good stuff.

That laugh was not encouraging to strangers; and hence it may have been well that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon it. It fell in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have not pity for weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration to greatness and strength. Its producer’s personal goodness, if he had any, would be of a very fitful cast – an occasional almost aggressive generosity rather than a mild and constant kindness.

— The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

I wonder at what point you have more information coming in than you can possibly handle. I feel like I am at that point right now. I have never been very good at focusing my interests. If I really wanted to write for a living, for example, I would need to focus on something that would give my writing an edge; a subject area or geographical or cultural focus perhaps. Instead, my interests race off in every direction: history, politics, culture, sports, literature, philosophy, religion, etc. My reading is wide but shallow and I am an expert at nothing.

I have way too many sources of information. I subscribe to the following magazines: National Review, The New Republic, First Things, and The New Criterion. I regularly read postings at Slate, National Review Online, and more blogs than I care to count. I receive information from a variety of foundations and think tanks, not to mention headlines from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Not content with these information streams, and being a book addict, I have shelves full of books I want to read. Since I am a member of the Conservative Book Club and the History Book club I am constantly tempted to buy even more.

This tendency to seek information from everywhere yet never really settle on something increases my melancholy nature. Lately, I have become aware of how this habit undermines my happiness. Like most obsessions it leads to frustration rather than gratification. Chasing endless streams of information never leads to satisfaction but exhaustion. Even when I read books I enjoy, I am sometimes distracted by the books I have yet to read or want to read next.

I guess what I am saying, is that in the information age one has to try and balance and focus ones reading; or at least I feel I must. Otherwise, I think the chase over-takes the act itself. Instead of enjoying, learning from, and appreciating the things I read I will simply be swallowing bits of information for the sake of checking it off my list. In the days ahead I hope to work on more depth and less breadth. I don’t plan on buying more books, or at least restraining myself greatly, and I hope to re-evaluate my subscriptions in order to focus on what I can actual digest and enjoy. In this way perhaps I can get off the merry-go-round and enjoy my reading more fully. Perhaps, that will result in better postings here as well!

Andrew Careaga of Bloggedy Blog fame is working on a book about Jesus and punk rock. To get feedback he is is posting sections on his blog. The introduction can be found here and the first chapter here. If you are interested in that kind of thing, give it a read and let him know what you think.

Here’s a shocker. Apparently, those Left Behind books are not particularly good unless you are a fundamentalist premillennial dispensationalist (say that three times fast!). The twelfth, and final, volume Glorious Appearing has been released. Carl Olson over at National Review Online isn’t impressed:

After nine years, twelve volumes, forty million total copies, two movies, and an endless flood of apocalyptic merchandise, readers of the “Left Behind” series have reached the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for them, episode #12, titled Glorious Appearing, is underwhelming and pedestrian, poor qualities for a novel about a Big Event . . . Having read many of the other “Left Behind” books, I readily admit that I expected Glorious Appearing to be bloated, stilted, and corny. As it turns out, that combination would have been a welcome relief from the 400 pages of repetitive, numbing bombast that assaulted my weary eyes. Nevertheless, I fully expect this latest episode (of what once was going to be just a trilogy) to top the charts and sell a quadrillion copies.

Maud hasn’t read them but she understands from personal experience where the fundamentalists are coming from:

There’s something about the apocalyptic message that works on the most fearful among us. LaHaye and his ilk scare people shitless and then offer them the Ultimate Salvation: Christ, and by extension Heaven, and Eternal Life!

She recommends Neal Pollack’s review of the series instead. First of all, did Pollack really read twelve volumes in and hour and a half? I think that might have involved a little skimming. No matter, he offers a quick review of each book if you are interested.

I did want to mention Pollack’s conclusion. Here it is:

You may not have heard it here first, but you’re hearing it now. These are not people of faith, or true Christians. These are lunatics bent on the destruction of civil society by using us as pawns in their Armageddon passion play. And our President is one of them.

Let me state for the record that I don’t share LaHaye’s theology and have some real problems with his perspective on politics (reconstructionism, etc.), but Pollack’s slam on Bush is just a cheap shot. Just because there are some connections between LaHaye and Bush doesn’t mean Bush shares his theology or his worldview. I don’t believe that Bush is a fundamentalist in the LaHaye vein and he is certainly not a Christian reconstructionist. This is just a lazy guilt-by-association drive by. Not that Pollack will care but I wanted to note it for the record.