Yes, I have been reading biographical Oscar Wilde all day. What of it?
I know we all like books or whatever, but with a very few exceptions (and I'm so sick of hearing about Dave Eggers!) we really don't care about writers at all. I want a return to the age of the literary celebrity. I want to see famous authours as personalities, to see them portrayed like we see musicians portrayed, rife with wit and feeling and excitement and style and sexuality. I want the Fitzgeralds!
In terms of the arts, it seems as though literature is only above dance* in it's frequency in our conversations, because books aren't really very accessible**. They're too long. Who has the time? I'm not patient enough for novels! If we've required our music to make the cut from hours long symphonies to three or five or however many minute sections, brilliantly packaged in hourish long bundles, surely we can do the same for books. Life would be so wonderful if the standard book was a hundred pages long. I would re-read things all the time. Then we could all talk about them together!
Music is so easy. It can sit so plainly in the background or devour all our attention if we let it. And we pay so so much attention to it! Books are a bit harder, and there's less point to them because unless we're bibliobsessives we don't do anything with them other than read them and kind of think about them. I mean, how often do we get worthwhile book-themed social events? Visual art and film and music? Sure! Books? Not so much.
I think that my original point was that I wondering if it would be trouble to have the book club meeting on Friday the 19th, early evening (to allow for late-night hobnobbing with all the literary sex-symbols and party-folk whom I imagine will be coming out of the woodwork upon reading this entry). This is also a reminder to read the book. If only it were a hundred pages long...
*And I still think of dance as a sport.
**By accessible I don't mean available so much as readable.
In terms of the arts, it seems as though literature is only above dance* in it's frequency in our conversations, because books aren't really very accessible**. They're too long. Who has the time? I'm not patient enough for novels! If we've required our music to make the cut from hours long symphonies to three or five or however many minute sections, brilliantly packaged in hourish long bundles, surely we can do the same for books. Life would be so wonderful if the standard book was a hundred pages long. I would re-read things all the time. Then we could all talk about them together!
Music is so easy. It can sit so plainly in the background or devour all our attention if we let it. And we pay so so much attention to it! Books are a bit harder, and there's less point to them because unless we're bibliobsessives we don't do anything with them other than read them and kind of think about them. I mean, how often do we get worthwhile book-themed social events? Visual art and film and music? Sure! Books? Not so much.
I think that my original point was that I wondering if it would be trouble to have the book club meeting on Friday the 19th, early evening (to allow for late-night hobnobbing with all the literary sex-symbols and party-folk whom I imagine will be coming out of the woodwork upon reading this entry). This is also a reminder to read the book. If only it were a hundred pages long...
*And I still think of dance as a sport.
**By accessible I don't mean available so much as readable.