why i haven't been reading as much lately
Today I went to the Strand and spent far too much on books.
Typical thoughts after reading Paul Auster, Jonathan Safran Foer, Haruki Murakami, Chuck Palahniuk, etc. on the subway:
Oh...so that's what the endless city is. I am running there, in my heart--I can see the towers outside the windows, through the tunnels. Man, life is so beautiful, yet so short. To take the quiet misery of everyday existence and distill it into prose...I wish I could do that. Or, at least, I wish I could do it more often. Why is my own writing always so over-the-top? There's such a deep heaviness to these characters, to their situations--maybe all magical realism is is a generation that grew up on television and comic books, products of a bygone zeitgeist, trying to make sense of a different world. To live for tomorrow, in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, only to find yourself forever grasping for the past--that's not a life worth living. The wonderland Alice escapes from is a fleeting nightmare compared to the wonderland Alice escapes to. Human suffering is so deep, and consciousness so shallow. There's so much beauty in the everyday. This technique...it's cheap, maybe, excessively postmodern maybe, but over time it's so natural, so subtle. I wonder if they did this on purpose, or whether it just came to them--I wonder if these writers actually talk like this. Black spirals. Wow. I'll never think of goldfish the same way again. I hope that cute girl on the other side of the train didn't see me cry when I got to the part where the crazy cat guy finally gives in to Colonel Sanders. Why is so much contemporary lit depressing. Why do I keep getting books about miserable people living beautiful lives--what does it say about me that I keep reading this stuff. This girl in this book, she's beautiful and vivacious, she's a lonely soul but she's a dreamer, she reminds me of a girl I've tried so hard to forget. I wonder if she's read this book and seen herself in it. I miss her...
Typical thoughts after playing the Nintendo DS game The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the subway:
thwackity thwackity wheeeeee!
ooh, puzzle.
Typical thoughts after reading Paul Auster, Jonathan Safran Foer, Haruki Murakami, Chuck Palahniuk, etc. on the subway:
Oh...so that's what the endless city is. I am running there, in my heart--I can see the towers outside the windows, through the tunnels. Man, life is so beautiful, yet so short. To take the quiet misery of everyday existence and distill it into prose...I wish I could do that. Or, at least, I wish I could do it more often. Why is my own writing always so over-the-top? There's such a deep heaviness to these characters, to their situations--maybe all magical realism is is a generation that grew up on television and comic books, products of a bygone zeitgeist, trying to make sense of a different world. To live for tomorrow, in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, only to find yourself forever grasping for the past--that's not a life worth living. The wonderland Alice escapes from is a fleeting nightmare compared to the wonderland Alice escapes to. Human suffering is so deep, and consciousness so shallow. There's so much beauty in the everyday. This technique...it's cheap, maybe, excessively postmodern maybe, but over time it's so natural, so subtle. I wonder if they did this on purpose, or whether it just came to them--I wonder if these writers actually talk like this. Black spirals. Wow. I'll never think of goldfish the same way again. I hope that cute girl on the other side of the train didn't see me cry when I got to the part where the crazy cat guy finally gives in to Colonel Sanders. Why is so much contemporary lit depressing. Why do I keep getting books about miserable people living beautiful lives--what does it say about me that I keep reading this stuff. This girl in this book, she's beautiful and vivacious, she's a lonely soul but she's a dreamer, she reminds me of a girl I've tried so hard to forget. I wonder if she's read this book and seen herself in it. I miss her...
Typical thoughts after playing the Nintendo DS game The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the subway:
thwackity thwackity wheeeeee!
ooh, puzzle.