Keep Shining
My sense of organization has always amazed and confused me. I have had bouts of such preternatural concentration, and have managed to keep an utterly unrealistic schedule going for months at a time... but I just seem unable to link this together in a greater framework. Working up North afforded me a real chance at a clear and consistent routine (when 90% of your friends are going to the gym at the exact same time every day, and your passion for work has obnubilated all other activities... well, some things become much easier.) But here, with many friends and plans and a full-time gf (:P)... this consistency seems to evade me. I have it in short beats, periods of days where everything is sequential, and everything fits. I think that it's some of these beats when I was in CEGEP and University that gave me a leg-up... Now, I can only wistfully think of my time up North as if the cure to my amorphousness is to cut myself off from everything. Also, buy a biking machine. Also, have awkward work encounters at 23:00.
Regardless, I've gotten on a bit of a book roll recently, with three books that came out of a recent party.
On Wings of Eagles, by Ken Follett. All about Ross Perot's successful attempt to extricate some employees from revolution-embroiled Iran. I adored the subject matter; it really comes off as this romantic take on The Businessmen of Old, the ones who always called their boss Sir, the ones who wore dress shirts when relaxing at home, who knew how to get things done. It was Mad Men without the need for approval or the unmistakably-60's cultural landmarks? For what was to me an extremely unsubtle book, I really appreciated the very indirect way the book lauded that specific way of life. En fait, the book spent a lot of time (TOO much time IMO) trying to caracterize these people, and their personalities, when their actions already did this, unstiltedly and unstintingly.
I still wonder what kind of reaction the kidnapping of employees would provoke nowadays. I still have immense difficulty, even in this era of Google pardiseOffices and company perks, imagining myself identifying with one company so much, so thoroughly, that I would be willing to undertake a covert fucking operation to liberate coworkers. I actually like that idea a lot, because I find that the book then comes off a bit like an endictment of the lack of company loyalty that corporate and individualistic cultures have wrought in disharmony with each other.
We Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. I was really smitten with this book. I loved the writing style... it had this surrealness written right into it! It took me a very long time to realize that part of this was the author projecting the main character - a young girl - onto the book's style (awkward...) But, as opposed to seeming like an accessory to the story, like one more novel gewgaw that ends up crowding out the important stuff, it really came off as this perfect balance between a kind of Child-Not-Comprehending-The-World spookines, without completely tripping down the stairs of Unreliable Narratordom.) The story was creepy enough, and I really enjoyed the almost innocent callousness (and, ultimately, violence) of the rest of the neighbourhood. It had this Lord of the Flies vibe to it, where the horror seems both mundane and inescapable. It is lying in wait everywhere. The same people that shun you can turn violent in their disdain, can then sorta feel bad and maybe bake you a cake? THIS FOR SURE HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE
There's a great part in the next book on my list, where the narrator describes how being erudite and literate gives one a multitude of reference points to compare all kinds of experiences and phenomena, but also traps one in this impregnable sphere of Déjà Vu, where everything feels connected, everything feels derivative... complexity can feel like it is a horizontal reality (i.e. breadth), and never a vertical one (i.e. depth) And I feel like the unhealthy relationship between the main characters in this book realllly remind me of something, of a clear parasitic relationship which encourages all parties to delve deeper and deeper into denial... but I can't for the life of me remember what! Grrr!!!
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, by Philip K. Dick. What a great and pretentious book! It felt like Revolver, that awful faux-deep Guy Ritchie movie, but done right. The scenario and the dialogue still sometimes feels contrived, but the payoff is fantastic: interesting discussions on faith and religion, lots of fun epistomology, the purpose of literature... Out of these three books, this is the one I most want to reread soon, to go over a couple of these concepts. I still don't ultimately grasp what Dick is trying to say about religion. The book seems to see goal-oriented faith (e.g. to help cope with loss, to temper difficulties) as a crutch, but it also perceives real religious faith as a means of abstracting oneself from the real world... this faith is presented as an academic fixation for one of the main characters, who seems to perceive his understanding of faith only through a series of coherent doctrines (and when these are shaken, the center no longer holds.) But I feel that this may be selling the book's message short, and so I want to reread it to better understand what's going on.
I really liked the writing style, and there's this very uneven notion of foreshadowing that I also like a lot. Dick seems to use it in a similar form to Douglas Adams, but for a different purpose. Adams clearly uses it for comedic poignancy... but I think they might both use it as well to signal the futility of what is about to come. The character's fate is inevitable, and now *you* can see that too. I feel like this is the kind of stuff they must teach in Literary Devices 101, but since I haven't taken that class, I get to pretend that this is unfathomably deep insight. I will be expecting conference bookings later this week.
Regardless, I've gotten on a bit of a book roll recently, with three books that came out of a recent party.
On Wings of Eagles, by Ken Follett. All about Ross Perot's successful attempt to extricate some employees from revolution-embroiled Iran. I adored the subject matter; it really comes off as this romantic take on The Businessmen of Old, the ones who always called their boss Sir, the ones who wore dress shirts when relaxing at home, who knew how to get things done. It was Mad Men without the need for approval or the unmistakably-60's cultural landmarks? For what was to me an extremely unsubtle book, I really appreciated the very indirect way the book lauded that specific way of life. En fait, the book spent a lot of time (TOO much time IMO) trying to caracterize these people, and their personalities, when their actions already did this, unstiltedly and unstintingly.
I still wonder what kind of reaction the kidnapping of employees would provoke nowadays. I still have immense difficulty, even in this era of Google pardiseOffices and company perks, imagining myself identifying with one company so much, so thoroughly, that I would be willing to undertake a covert fucking operation to liberate coworkers. I actually like that idea a lot, because I find that the book then comes off a bit like an endictment of the lack of company loyalty that corporate and individualistic cultures have wrought in disharmony with each other.
We Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. I was really smitten with this book. I loved the writing style... it had this surrealness written right into it! It took me a very long time to realize that part of this was the author projecting the main character - a young girl - onto the book's style (awkward...) But, as opposed to seeming like an accessory to the story, like one more novel gewgaw that ends up crowding out the important stuff, it really came off as this perfect balance between a kind of Child-Not-Comprehending-The-World spookines, without completely tripping down the stairs of Unreliable Narratordom.) The story was creepy enough, and I really enjoyed the almost innocent callousness (and, ultimately, violence) of the rest of the neighbourhood. It had this Lord of the Flies vibe to it, where the horror seems both mundane and inescapable. It is lying in wait everywhere. The same people that shun you can turn violent in their disdain, can then sorta feel bad and maybe bake you a cake? THIS FOR SURE HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE
There's a great part in the next book on my list, where the narrator describes how being erudite and literate gives one a multitude of reference points to compare all kinds of experiences and phenomena, but also traps one in this impregnable sphere of Déjà Vu, where everything feels connected, everything feels derivative... complexity can feel like it is a horizontal reality (i.e. breadth), and never a vertical one (i.e. depth) And I feel like the unhealthy relationship between the main characters in this book realllly remind me of something, of a clear parasitic relationship which encourages all parties to delve deeper and deeper into denial... but I can't for the life of me remember what! Grrr!!!
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, by Philip K. Dick. What a great and pretentious book! It felt like Revolver, that awful faux-deep Guy Ritchie movie, but done right. The scenario and the dialogue still sometimes feels contrived, but the payoff is fantastic: interesting discussions on faith and religion, lots of fun epistomology, the purpose of literature... Out of these three books, this is the one I most want to reread soon, to go over a couple of these concepts. I still don't ultimately grasp what Dick is trying to say about religion. The book seems to see goal-oriented faith (e.g. to help cope with loss, to temper difficulties) as a crutch, but it also perceives real religious faith as a means of abstracting oneself from the real world... this faith is presented as an academic fixation for one of the main characters, who seems to perceive his understanding of faith only through a series of coherent doctrines (and when these are shaken, the center no longer holds.) But I feel that this may be selling the book's message short, and so I want to reread it to better understand what's going on.
I really liked the writing style, and there's this very uneven notion of foreshadowing that I also like a lot. Dick seems to use it in a similar form to Douglas Adams, but for a different purpose. Adams clearly uses it for comedic poignancy... but I think they might both use it as well to signal the futility of what is about to come. The character's fate is inevitable, and now *you* can see that too. I feel like this is the kind of stuff they must teach in Literary Devices 101, but since I haven't taken that class, I get to pretend that this is unfathomably deep insight. I will be expecting conference bookings later this week.