Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides

Now here's a modern classic.  For those that haven't read, this is essentially the story of a hermaphrodite telling the story of him/her-self from a gleam in the grandparental eye up until his/her late forties.  So that I can stop doing the him/her thing, I'll let you wonderful readers know that the name of the protagonist in Middlesex is Cal.  Or Calliope.  Or Calli.  Identity, I think, becomes quite complicated when you have a penis and a vagina. That, in basic terms, is what the book is about.  Who we are, and why we are, and how all parts of ourselves merge together over time to create an individual that has some semblance of a modern man or woman.

Now, there are a number of points this book touches on, so I'll take them one at a time.  First:

History- Eugenides, with his strong voice and straight-forward style, is a historian.  He takes the fictional (albeit seriously realistic) life of a confused young person in the 70's, fast-fowards to their forties in the 00's (this is my denomination for the beautiful age of no-time we just spent a decade in), and has that person tell the story of their grandparents and parents, starting in a small town in Turkish Empire (see Ottoman...)  Sounds complicated right?  Like, whoa man, can you hold all the threads together?  Nope.  Eugenides is concise and detailed; Cal as a narrator is unfaltering in both his (I'll explain the masculine later) omniscient reproduction of a life he admits to only sort of know, and in the engaging way in which he tells it.  The book really starts in war-torn Turkey/Greece.  It describes the horrible conquering and massacre of the war of Smyrna (something that actually happened and we as Americans, at least me, have literally no idea about), the lives of a silk-weaver and her brother that become lovers on a refugee ship to the U.S.A, and then their blossoming as a married couple in pre-depression emerging auto industry Detroit.  Zuitsuits, speakeasies, prohibition, the invention of the Cadillac, the riots in Detroit, the slow deterioration of a once great nation.  I'm telling you guys, Eugenides really knows his shit.  It is always, always a pleasure to enjoy the narrative of a story and then learn about real parts of this world without having to do two things at once.

There is some more to history, but this book is dense so that's it for now...on we go.

Authorial Style-  Let's just say that I checked numerous times to see if Eugenides was a hermaphrodite, to see if this was based on a true story; I parsed the pages to see what was real and what was fiction.  Cal gave life to a sexual and identity struggle through humor and history, and Eugenides gave life to Cal.  It is like reading the diary of some brilliant person (this blog...perhaps..eh, eh??), seeing the inner workings of a complicated mysterioso that seems to have some cool business going on.  Cal takes you in and makes you feel like you've known him for ages and finally, finally get to hear what he thinks.  My only comparison is that of Garp, in The World According to Garp by John Irving, in which after reading the book I realized how much I had thought was true, true to this political fact recording world, that he simply made up.  The style is not flashy or presumptous, it uses long sentences and short ones, correct commas and semicolons, but it brings with it the force of authority and some degree of labor.

Genetics- Now a big part of the hooplah about this book was its genetic bent.  Eugenides writes often like a scientist (another profession?) in describing the physical and genetic disposition that Cal has.  This makes little sense to me.  He explains it well, as you would read in a journal on modern science, and I tend to blow by this. I'm sure (the back cover tells me so) that many people enjoyed this aspect immensely (I think Eugenides covered his bases by being a historian, a scientist, and a novelist; we all had to love it).  I did not connect scientifically, but rather Biblically.  I felt his categorizing and serious use of genetic history to mirror the awfully long sections of our beloved Western dominant paradigm: the lists and lists of genealogy.  Blank begat blank begat blank.  Now, yes, dull it seems, but I feel Eugenides used an old idea and brought it to life.  He traced the life of his narrator back before his narrator was born, and in doing so, much like the Bible, gave us all little lessons from a multitude of times, helping us along our own way.

Identity- Now this is the nitty-gritty of the book.  The stuff that is past words and past plot.  This book won a pullizter and is read by Oprah, people have talked about it and an impact has been felt. Why?  Because we are all somebody.  We all look at ourselves at some point and wonder, who am I?  Who do the eyes in the mirror reflect, there is light there and we know it means life, but what are the details?  Eugenides supplies the details of an intensely complicated person, and makes you feel connected.  Identity is the core of this book in two ways: it is a definition of self through ones literal history, who our ancestors were and how their lives will forever shape our own.  It is also identity through the chance of fate, in this case, the blending of sexes to create a confused, beautiful, puberty-wrought girl that turns into a boy at the age of 14 and spends the rest of their life becoming comfortable.  I think the power in this book lies in the fact that we all struggle with these things. Everyone hates puberty, everyone wonders at some point how they look in the eyes of their peers and sexual equals; it hits the issues head on but from a seemingly more complicated and confused perspective than our own, and in doing so gives us hope.  Because, well, Cal found hope. We can all breathe again knowing that someone so predispositioned to confusion can come out ok. Eugenides teaches us that all skin crawls, all locker-room situations are less than satisfactory, and that, most important, we decide who we want to be.


Getting pretty deep here.  Book review, for real yall.  Also, this is starting to look like an academic paper.  Sorry about that, I haven't written a paper in so long I must be craving it or something.  This was an incredible book.  Read it, please.

p.s. after the age of 14 Cal decides to be a man, and therefore is a "he" for a large portion of the book and that is why I use "him" to describe him in most of this post.

p.p.s I love reading!!

Oh the places you'll go...

Bloggers! Hola. Sawadee-kap. Oy. Sup. I am greeting you more than once because I have been away too long, and also because languages are interesting when transliterated.  So, my internet is finally up.  Huzzah! I can, again, waste hours a day looking up random facts and, well, blogging.  I took too long of a break.  I should have gone to a coffee house and ordered a tea with little bits of milk and honey, sipped and typed and let you all in.  But I didn't.  I've actually been a little bit out of the writing habit, which is a shame because I was doing a pretty good job for me.  So this is the first step (again) of getting into a habit.  Hit me with your literary nicotine patches, cover me like that pretty man from that smoking movie, give my blood something to scream about.

Because I have been absent for longer than I'd like this particular post is a little post-dated.  I had the idea about a week ago and couldn't get out of my sweatpants long enough to type (in jeans now!), so here we go.

Jobs.  Employment, position, co-worker, proletariat, hands over cash, the river of green and the lost treasures of paradise.  I STILL need a job.  But this isn't me complaining, this is me posting about all the various lives I could be living right at this very moment.  Here we go (yes, again, keys in ignition, rev rev):

Ventura Theater Company- There's me, black AmerAper hoodie, checking the date on your ticket as you try and hide the little joint that sticks out of your shirt pocket.  It's cool, dude, Snoop here encourages the puff puff.  I set up the mics backstage and maybe wipe the floors clean after a show, sticky from beer and dropped thiz pills.  I work weekends and have started a band, I'm stoked but obviously don't get paid enough (minimum plus pity tips) or get enough hours.  My fun free time is eaten away by nights laid awake wondering if I should have given Pepper my demo or how that new chorus is starting to sound an awful lot like honkey tonk blues.  But I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Nature's Grill- Do you want fries with that?  Not really, I mean, they serve blue tortilla chips with salsa and are super hip low-fi class, but I am taking your order and wiping the tables after you leave. I've met the relatively few number of true hippies in Ventura; don't get me wrong they have punk tendencies like everyone else but they do enjoy the Grateful Dead a bit.  I know where Lassens is and what is in that fake hamburger crap.  No, I still won't eat it.  But I'm pretty happy.  No pity tips, but rather real change due to good friendly service and my awesome hair that did not manage to get into your food.  I've met people my age and can bike to work, and slowly, yes slowly, I'm writing that quintessential novella that defines what it means to be an honest hard-working college graduated hippy bum spirit-life-seeker.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Paradise Pantry- No, no I don't work at a sex shop.  I work at a wine and cheese shop.  The people come here right before the sex shop down the street, get drunk and lactaided up, have a good night overall.  I wear a nice black apron and my converse, but other than that I'm still lookin' like me. Maybe my not-yet-happenin' beard is a little long because in the dark small space that I make money, all those long bottles and mildewing cheese, I feel that the extra hair gives me an edge.  I'm getting to know all the different varietals, how that particular brand of cow crap gives that particular year a little zest, a little nudge in the acidity.  I begin to speak as if I've been to Italy three times (oh, wait, I have, culturelaugh) and as if I go to France bi-monthly to check on my small but reasonably well off vineyard estate.  My parents home in Petaluma is actually now in Sonoma County, it kisses up against a long, stalwart Pinot traditional to the area.  Cheese has taken on a whole new meaning. "Cheddar"? What do you mean by "cheddar," sir?  ....Man, even I can't bullshit knowing about chesses, sorry guys.  Look at me in the wine and cheese shop, I'm a little snooty and I know A LOT about cheese. Brie. Goat. String.  I make a decent wage and feel that these skills will get me far in life.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Patagonia- AHHHH this mountain is so gnarly bro!  DUDE that wave almost ate your life.  OH MY GOD that piece of paper was so recycled.  Do you like this really cool shirt?  Do you want it?  Its twenty-five bucks.  No we don't take cash, we don't use paper here.  Credit card?  Sorry, plastic hurts the environment pretty seriously.  Have you seen the news about climate control?  You can wear it in the store, I guess.  We are organizing a Reiner hike to clean up the water-bottle trash near the summit.  Want to come??  Um, will you be in sub-zero temperature zones?  Go shop at REI then. -----So I'm using my pretty powerful tools of humor to humiliate a company I really want to work for.  If, somehow someone from G.P reads this, I'm just jokin' around man.  If I were there I'd be getting decent benefits, going hiking often, and wearing snazzy expensive American made clothes. I would also be part of the future young space explorers mission to Patagonia's semi-near planet called RUGGED.  Sounds like fun, right?  I'm healthy and fit and know how to not get killed by ice and poison oak.  I have beefed up a tad. I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

These are the potential lives I could be living people. Don't you want to know all of those dudes? Currently the front runner is a coffee shop that just opened, has no employees, and will hopefully need at least one in the next coming weeks.  Working there I would just be, well, me.

Love peace and happy times, fellow bloggers.  Till we meet again!

p.s. the only part of this that has to do with writing is that this post was pretty creative.  Also, there was a job as a music journalist that I literally just remembered but don't want to doctor the post majorly to include, so....hargenshnargen as music journalist: super freaking happy.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-James Joyce

So I'm trying out the book review thing.  This is for a number of reasons, but the main one is because I have spare time and I love to read.  My thoughts, of which I have many, usually come from books.  And, believe it or not, I have an opinion about the books and authors I read.  Thought I'd share.  Thats what blogging is right? Sharing? Caring? Anyway...

James Joyce.  For some reason I always thought he was a she.  Not like a pen name or anything, but because the last name Joyce seems feminine to me, I just skipped right over the James.  So I picked up the book on an old bookshelf, saw lots of notes scribbled inside (thanks Lelah) and decided that yes, I now have the time to read a classic.  And it's not that long, so why not give it a shot?

Mind equals blown, ladies- and gentle-bloggers.  How did I not know about Joyce?  He's coarse and cryptic, his words slip and slide across the page and through the mind of the reader, but he is so incredibly savvy with the English language, it astounds me.

Here is a book about his infamous character, Stephen Dadelus, growing up and discovering himself. He goes to Irish prep school as a younger boy-confused and bossed around by priests-, then as a teen among fellow Irish teens-still confused and slowly turning into a priest-and then as a college man by the end-confused in an enlightened sense and renouncing all he's ever known (sounds like college). "Portrait" is the story of a young, self-conflicted, mildly depressed, incredibly smart soul growing up in the early part of our last century.  Ireland is painted in grey and blue hues, the deep green of the countryside usually overshadowed by an impending cloud bank reflecting across a morose pond, all of which mirrors the mood of our young protagonist.  Dedalus is said to be an image of Joyce himself, and so as I read I felt as if I were connecting with the author, always a great pleasure.

Some interesting writers techniques: Joyce combines words.  He throws them side by side and they are brilliant: "cricketcap" "drinkingbout""gasflames."  It goes on but I can't find any more examples at the present.  From a writer's perspective, it is always loveley to see an author make up his own language.  Joyce does this with specific attention to detail, and all of his combinations seem to have always made sense, as if they were supposed to be that way in the first place.

Another technique: Stream of thought.  This book is so hard to read (objectively speaking) because of it's haphazard storytelling.  Sometimes you are an omnipotent reader, sometimes inside Stephen's head as if this were always his world.  And sometimes, thanks to Joyce, you are just floating on a drift of words.  He seems to want to write, simple as that is.  He loves words and wants to put them down, the way he sees his homeland and his people, and so there are vast passages that have little to do with anything plot or character or even book related.  This, I feel, is refreshing.  I write like this too sometimes, and because I have now seen Joyce do it, I feel that there is some precedent for my reigning bouts of confused word play to skip across the page of a novel as well.

A quote, read it aloud: "It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for an iniquitous abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscene scrawl which he had read on the oozing wall of a urinal."

We see Joyce employing a great amount of repetition, something I try and avoid, but he does it with diligence and therefore builds recurring moments or revelations that follow us as we read.  He also blends all of his lavish wordplay with simple, understood physical description, such as the wall in a urinal.  I guess people were doing that then, too.

The last part of this book I want to comment on: the religion.  Being as interested as I am in this subject, "Portrait" was a goldmine of information and delectable imagery.  A large section of the book occurs when Dedalus attends school to become an Catholic priest, and in doing so we hear the vast array of description given to young impressionable men in that time period.  Hell is weaved through our mind, the repentance of sin and the feeling of unlivable guilt.  He tells it all with such passion that it reminded me how religion is alive and well, good or bad, and that everyone should know a little more about it.

Overall, this book opened my eyes.  Joyce caressed me with his words and left me actually wanting to read Ulysses, and so I recommend this to all who dare.

p.s. this is my first book review, and I have read a book and a half since reading Portrait, so spare me the lack of examples.

Home Sweet Home

Blog viewers! I am back, sorry for the painstaking delay.  No, I was not delayed on account of weather or terrorism; I moved.  And so I am currently piggy-backing on a local corporation's unprotected wireless internet.  Oh the things I do for you.

Yes, I moved, and I am stoked.  My posts will be slightly sparse in the coming days because of all the commotion, but I will try and throw some new stuff on here.  It turns out when you rent a house they don't also give you a job, so I am still looking for gainful employment and therefore still have serious time in which to blog, once the internet is a little more stable.

It is so nice to set up your own house.  Holy bajeesus.  I love the sponges I bought and how the burners burst to flame.  Our shower is warm and soft, our fridge is way too big for us, and we don't have any furniture.  It's a delight.  I am currently on a rolling ottoman (spelled like the Empire!) in front of a kitchen table that has no chairs.  But it's not ghetto, the walls are well-painted and there is ample space for all the stuff we don't have yet.  Coolest item yet: rad (yes rad) psychedelic reflected shower curtain.  It's a trip.

I think that finally having a house of your own (as opposed to sharing it with four other people), especially with a significant other, does an incredible amount for your daily routine.  And lets be honest, the daily routine of a writer is what makes or breaks his output; did you write a novel or a page?  All depends on your schedule.  So, in setting up my place, in putting paintings just so or the wine rack in that corner, I think I am finally moving closer to scheduling some writing into my life. I also put up a bunch of words on the fridge, they call that magnetic poetry, but I will attempt to make it prose.

With that said, this blog as been excellent practice.  I feel as if I am writing more, and eventually it will transfer over to fiction as well.  Question for writers/people with thoughts: How do you schedule writing into your life?  Do you at all?  Do you give yourself a page quota for the week?  For the day?  I am curious what works for you, because I have never found a consistent pattern.  I usually just write when inspired and then sleep for hours.  Answers are appreciated, but you can also just think about it...

I think that is all for now, more soon.

p.s. I wonder which room I'll write in most...