First Post-You Are What You Read
I'm never finished with a book. I've spent the past few weeks thinking of the books I've read during my life, and I've been struck with how much I remember of them, but also, with how they "feel" in my memory and how they continue to affect me. Books have changed who I am and how I think. Since this is the very first post commenting on how those various books resonate in my life, I find myself intimidated by the auspiciousness of the selection. The list of candidates is long: Should it be formative books like James and the Giant Peach, written by the very first real life writer I ever met, or Captains Courageous, or Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel; or books that somehow changed how I view the world, Captains Courageous (again), or Atlas Shrugged (my view did subsequently re-change), or A Sand County Almanac; or books I loved to read: China Mountain Zhang, Dune, Smoking Poppy, Lamb, About a Boy; or books by friends: The Patron Saint of Plagues, Archangel Protocol, Webmage. Too many to choose from.
Much to my relief, I have come up with the perfect Premiere posting: L.Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. I don't actually remember anything about BE, other than that I read all 1000+ pages of it in a single night, but that failure to remember anything about BE is precisely what makes it perfect for a first post. It is emblematic of the literary composting of me. It must have been at least coherently written for me to read that quickly, though not the least bit memorable. I remember before reading BE thinking that I should probably read something by L.Ron, given that the guy is arguably the most influential writer of all time (I said "arguably", but he is the godhead of his very own religion [name me one other writer revered as a deity {other that self-reverentially, of course}]). But I do know this, I am different for having read Battlefield Earth. And as I spend a few minutes thinking on it, I find I do remember some things, (a guy in a cage, or box, or something. And aliens [though maybe I'm thinking of Larry Niven's Footfall]), and just having read the thing dumped all 1050 pages of it somewhere in my memory. You can't come out of an ordeal like that as the same person you went into it. (Though the most significant change might be that I no longer feel the need to ever read anything else by L.Ron.) Who knows, maybe some night I'll wake up in the middle of the night with some mental problem solved by what I learned from L.Ron.
Much to my relief, I have come up with the perfect Premiere posting: L.Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. I don't actually remember anything about BE, other than that I read all 1000+ pages of it in a single night, but that failure to remember anything about BE is precisely what makes it perfect for a first post. It is emblematic of the literary composting of me. It must have been at least coherently written for me to read that quickly, though not the least bit memorable. I remember before reading BE thinking that I should probably read something by L.Ron, given that the guy is arguably the most influential writer of all time (I said "arguably", but he is the godhead of his very own religion [name me one other writer revered as a deity {other that self-reverentially, of course}]). But I do know this, I am different for having read Battlefield Earth. And as I spend a few minutes thinking on it, I find I do remember some things, (a guy in a cage, or box, or something. And aliens [though maybe I'm thinking of Larry Niven's Footfall]), and just having read the thing dumped all 1050 pages of it somewhere in my memory. You can't come out of an ordeal like that as the same person you went into it. (Though the most significant change might be that I no longer feel the need to ever read anything else by L.Ron.) Who knows, maybe some night I'll wake up in the middle of the night with some mental problem solved by what I learned from L.Ron.