(no subject)
its been a while since i last updated. i know i'm never very regular about it. i just sorta lost interest. i mean i like reading what my friends write, especially since that's the only way i keep tabs on some of them. but i never felt any compulsion to jot anything down when i was logged in.
as for now, well i guess im writing to get this inner voice out of my head for a change. i had a weird and introspective weekend, and when i think things over in my head i never get anywhere, so maybe this will be different?
now there's something that's always bothered me. can you really ever figure something out on your own? i mean usually if i'm thinking about something, i already know my stance on it, and i don't think i've ever changed my mind on something by myself. i mean i can think over possibilities and weigh them out, but at the end, i never come up with some new viewpoint.
i had a friend in grade school that could do that. he'd come over to me and start a conversation about some innane topic. i wouldn't say a thing and he'd start talking about whatever was on his mind at the moment. i'd continue to say nothing and eventually he'd come to a conclusion that was totally different than where he started. and of course, he always ended it with, "i'm glad we had this talk." i guess he was more sorting something out that had just popped in his head. i can't imagine him agonizing about the kind of stuff he talked about all day.
it's funny how our mind makes these weird connections and gets us places we didn't think we were going. that happens to me all the time. i'll be having a conversation with someone and something will trip a thought in my head. then that thought will lead me somewhere else and so on. eventually by the time i decide to say anything, i'm so far off topic that it would horribly tedious for me to actually bring up whatever's on my mind and have to explain how i got there. so i just leave it.
if you couldn't tell from my rambling, i just finished reading catcher in the rye. i've heard things about it, i know some stuff about salinger, but i'd never actually read it. i borrowed it from kaitlyn the other day and set to it. my first impression was that this holden character was a total homo, but after finishing it i don't think that really matters at all. what struck me was that i guess for some reason i expected the book to have more of a plot. i tend to think of narrative as a story that introduces a middle, describes something happening in the middle, and then reaches a new equilibrium at the end. you know, like how every freakin musical from the 30s or 40s or whenever they wrote all of those is about a small town where one day, a stranger comes, stirs things up with the small-minded locals, hits on some local darling of a girl, horribly messes things up, only to be redeemed and accepted in the eyes of the town and the girl at the end.
however, that's not the case at all with this book. and after i realized that it wasn't going anywhere in particular, i stopped wondering about what was gonna happen and enjoyed the ride. i like when writers do that. there's no great hero's journey, and things aren't really that different when it's over. it's just a slice of life, literally. life is like that, not like books. things don't change that dramatically all the time. who knows what happens to holden. maybe he straightens out and becomes a phony just like everyone else. maybe he finds his niche in the world and lives a fulfilling life. maybe he ends up giving blow jobs for spare cash in train stations. who knows?
at first, this method can be seen as lazy. the writer can't be bothered to write a good beginning or end, so they just mire themselves in the middle. it's like a song that fades out at the end. there's no resolution, that song could continue playing for all eternity for all we know. but if the writer is a keen enough observer, as holden is and i assume salinger must have been, then this slice of life can tell much more about real life than any fantastic story of the triumph of the human spirit.
even the fantasy epics that i enjoy, say harry potter and the lord of the rings, what gets me about them is how detailed the world's that they create are. my favoite part of the harry books is not when harry is fighting evil or whatnot, it's the downtime between the serious stuff, when you can see he's just a kid going to school and hanging out with his friends. the movies, especially now that the franchise is firmly established, seem to gloss over these incredibly important, yet not cinematically eye-popping moments. with the lord of the rings, my feelings are a tad more complicated. when i saw each movie in the theater i was quite upset for the same reason as the harry movies, but when the extended cuts came out on dvd, most of my issues were resolved with footage that really brings you into the mundane, gritty details of that world. footage that i know peter jackson was adamant about but made the film executives cringe.
ok that's enough of that, if anyone actually made it to the bottom of this, i congratulate you.
as for now, well i guess im writing to get this inner voice out of my head for a change. i had a weird and introspective weekend, and when i think things over in my head i never get anywhere, so maybe this will be different?
now there's something that's always bothered me. can you really ever figure something out on your own? i mean usually if i'm thinking about something, i already know my stance on it, and i don't think i've ever changed my mind on something by myself. i mean i can think over possibilities and weigh them out, but at the end, i never come up with some new viewpoint.
i had a friend in grade school that could do that. he'd come over to me and start a conversation about some innane topic. i wouldn't say a thing and he'd start talking about whatever was on his mind at the moment. i'd continue to say nothing and eventually he'd come to a conclusion that was totally different than where he started. and of course, he always ended it with, "i'm glad we had this talk." i guess he was more sorting something out that had just popped in his head. i can't imagine him agonizing about the kind of stuff he talked about all day.
it's funny how our mind makes these weird connections and gets us places we didn't think we were going. that happens to me all the time. i'll be having a conversation with someone and something will trip a thought in my head. then that thought will lead me somewhere else and so on. eventually by the time i decide to say anything, i'm so far off topic that it would horribly tedious for me to actually bring up whatever's on my mind and have to explain how i got there. so i just leave it.
if you couldn't tell from my rambling, i just finished reading catcher in the rye. i've heard things about it, i know some stuff about salinger, but i'd never actually read it. i borrowed it from kaitlyn the other day and set to it. my first impression was that this holden character was a total homo, but after finishing it i don't think that really matters at all. what struck me was that i guess for some reason i expected the book to have more of a plot. i tend to think of narrative as a story that introduces a middle, describes something happening in the middle, and then reaches a new equilibrium at the end. you know, like how every freakin musical from the 30s or 40s or whenever they wrote all of those is about a small town where one day, a stranger comes, stirs things up with the small-minded locals, hits on some local darling of a girl, horribly messes things up, only to be redeemed and accepted in the eyes of the town and the girl at the end.
however, that's not the case at all with this book. and after i realized that it wasn't going anywhere in particular, i stopped wondering about what was gonna happen and enjoyed the ride. i like when writers do that. there's no great hero's journey, and things aren't really that different when it's over. it's just a slice of life, literally. life is like that, not like books. things don't change that dramatically all the time. who knows what happens to holden. maybe he straightens out and becomes a phony just like everyone else. maybe he finds his niche in the world and lives a fulfilling life. maybe he ends up giving blow jobs for spare cash in train stations. who knows?
at first, this method can be seen as lazy. the writer can't be bothered to write a good beginning or end, so they just mire themselves in the middle. it's like a song that fades out at the end. there's no resolution, that song could continue playing for all eternity for all we know. but if the writer is a keen enough observer, as holden is and i assume salinger must have been, then this slice of life can tell much more about real life than any fantastic story of the triumph of the human spirit.
even the fantasy epics that i enjoy, say harry potter and the lord of the rings, what gets me about them is how detailed the world's that they create are. my favoite part of the harry books is not when harry is fighting evil or whatnot, it's the downtime between the serious stuff, when you can see he's just a kid going to school and hanging out with his friends. the movies, especially now that the franchise is firmly established, seem to gloss over these incredibly important, yet not cinematically eye-popping moments. with the lord of the rings, my feelings are a tad more complicated. when i saw each movie in the theater i was quite upset for the same reason as the harry movies, but when the extended cuts came out on dvd, most of my issues were resolved with footage that really brings you into the mundane, gritty details of that world. footage that i know peter jackson was adamant about but made the film executives cringe.
ok that's enough of that, if anyone actually made it to the bottom of this, i congratulate you.