Empire Falls- Richard Russo

Blog-dom, I have another book report for you.  I typed it up and printed it out and brought it to class.

I am reviewing Richard Russo's "Empire Falls."  This is a first for me in terms of the author.  I had never heard of him before I received a large stack of excellent books from my uncle and aunt (thanks!!!), and now, post read, hope to delve into his literary repertoire.

So, I think I'm just going to hit this one head on.  No big subtitles or anything, just a meandering flow of words which convey the river that was this book.  Funny, a river (The Knox, to be specific) was actually a central catalyst in the novel.  And the river, in classic literary fashion, is again a metaphor for the journey of life and death we all boat through daily.  I am getting ahead of myself, maybe some boundaries are needed. Maybe a few less literary analogies pertaining to Siddarthian lore.  Lets start....

Here:

The setting is rural Maine.  Prologue: Backwater town, once a thriving little gift of life and land, booming with industry.  The introduction of semi-main characters.  Chapter 1 (and on): cut to present day (maybe 2000?) and the main character is an in-the-process-of-getting-divorced, heavy, humble, simple man named Miles Roby.  He has a daughter whom he loves, he is smart and witty, and he has an intensely dysfunctional lifestyle.  He is morose about it, but too much seated in inaction to move forward.

Miles' wife is divorcing because of his lack of manly appeal and well, bluntly, sex drive. She is on the road to further discovery.  His daughter is early high school, a standout mind and a bit of a loner.  There are the Whitings (particularly Mrs. Whiting and her cripple daugher Cindy) and the Robys (the father, the sons, the daugher, the distant relatives) and the priests and the past and the resturant, Empire Grill.  Then there's Martha's Vineyard and the effects of old money on small populations, river pollution, mystical magic moments in Mexico, and a murder mystery.  And...and.....and.....

 .....and I could go on and on. (Through editing I actually covered most of it)  What this means, people, is that this book is about characters.  Each character is crafted like the statue of David.  Russo chisels away, slowly but surely, at the history, job, education, and most importantly mindset of each of his characters.  (Counting in my head now...of which there are eight or nine.)  He chisels for almost 500 pages, and by the end you feel like all these randomly screwed over screwed up people in rural Main are distant relatives.  Russo takes his time to create an intimate setting in a quiet place, gives little shoves to each of his protagonists (they are all good guys when it comes down to it) and then shifts his fictional world in such slowly stuttered filtered effects that it feels like real life.

You may be getting the impression that it was long, which it was, but this is not a complaint.  I just want the potential reader to beware that it is a character piece, a languid study in the actions of humanity.  And, historically, that has never been a quick process.

The plot of this book is like the tectonic plates.  They shift always, they are movin' and a-groovin' to a deep earthy rhythm we cannot hear, and similarly, the little threads of life that Russo writes edge forward until they collide.  I would say the uniqueness of this book lies in the collision.  No, I won't spoil the ending or anything like that.  But, I will say that the monumental discovery and emotional transformation of the main character (Miles Roby) is hinted at and hoped for, and when it does finally happen, it is small. What I mean by this is that, objectively, his discovery of self is pint-sized, there is no reshaping of human future (think Ice-Nine Vonnegut) or religious transformation including horns (Satanic Verses), but instead a simple fact.  A simple fact that flips Miles' entire world upside down--much in the way our lives can be so altered by small realizations.

Overall, I don't really understand how one writes a book like this.  So much is about building the world, not about what is happening, and yet the further you read the more all the pieces come together.  There are adventures and stories, ridiculousness old world oddities and a strong tie to the modern man and his plight.  Russo impressed me, which is always a plus.  Read it!

                                                                                -----

Just so you know, I love character studies.  The building of a character is sort of the mindset I have been in for some time as a writer--how do I create a character worth reading about, regardless of what he/she is doing--and I have found it to be quite hard. Russo does it easily, and for that I am both jealous and proud.

A quote from the mind of Tick, the daughter of the main character, on this slowness of which I speak: 

"And that's the thing, she concludes.  Just because things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them.  If they happened fast, you'd be alert for all kinds of suddenness, aware that speed was trump.  'Slow' works on an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there's plenty of time to prepare, which conceals the central fact, that no matter how slow things go, you'll always be slower."

p.s.  a lot of this post was about speed...it is nice to feel time having slowed a bit. Typing that I currently think about how the weeks fly by.  What is time?  Where is time?  Why is time?  Help??

The Dawn

Hello all.  So, it's not Sunday, it's actually past Sunday and there is no post for Sunday. There are three main reasons for this: I am lazy, I went to a rockin' concert on Sunday night (thereby taking up all my lovely Sunday-night blog time), and I GOT A JOB!!!  No, I didn't work on Sunday (man Sunday is starting to sound like a fake word...), or the day before or the day after, but my mental preparation was in full effect and it's hard to find the time to blog when concentrating so seriously.

New things in my life:

1. Well, the job.  I am now a Barista at Starbucks.  No joke.  I got a job in coffee...I got a job at a major corporation...and I got a job where I have to sell the crap out of stuff. Had my first shift today and I think it's going to be really fun.  Seriously.  But even more seriously, the money should start rolling in and maybe mayybe we'll find some independence sticking to me.  Oh also, people at coffee shops do weird things and talk to strange people, they overhear tales of the world and can, like, talk about them and stuff.  Hopefully some epic masterpieces will come of my 9-5.

2. The second new thing is music related.  For those of you that don't know (most of you do, as you are in fact my family and close friends, and therefore know I have lots of awesome, read expensive, gear) I play music.  And I have gear, and I like gear, and I go a little bonkers with gear when I get in one of those deeply satisfying obsessive phases of life.  Well, I got a pedal board (look it up) and a new $300 effects pedal via craigslist trading (got to love the free market future) and am STOKED.  Weird noises count for around 10 points in the game of life. (Cereal? Board-game? Vague wisdom? Who knows...)

Also in this vein, I am playing my first show with my band, Larusso.  I haven't played a legit show in about 4 years, so this is pretty darn exciting for me. (Let me know if you want to come...)

3.  I have decided to become a hobbyist, but need someone to teach me how to solder. This is new, very very new and I will be curious to see where it goes.

4.  Finally, and this is more related to new thing number too, I have not been writing very much. In the literary sense, that is.  I did just post clips from a short story, but I wrote that a while ago and needed to appease my eager contingent of young teenage girls in love in my blog.  What I have been doing, in terms of creativity, is writing music. Songs, lyrics, chord progressions and funkadelic riffs.  But not just writing, I am recording them.  Which is a new phase for me-- trying to create something concrete in order to become immortal. (Classic Gilgamesh complex.) As I notice more about myself and the world while life slinks on by, as I watch my mind and body in action over vast periods of time, I realize  that I am a very creative individual, but I have trouble burning more than one creative candle.  So, right now, it's music.  I hope to have some quality beats pretty soon.  Ghetto blasta status.

So,  I think that is all for now.  It is hard to think of cool lessons in writing when I am not really writing.  Maybe I'll post some lyrics or something.  OH! I am also about to finish the book Empire Falls by Richard Russo.  Look for a review...good good good.

p.s. I did not do a p.s last time!!  I am sorry, I was very forgetful.  I have a reputation to uphold. Trying trying.  Sleep tight me hearties.

Hear Me Roar

Blogees!  I remembered about two hours ago the promise I made to myself and the internet to post at least once a week.  A week has gone by, believe it or not.  What did you do? 


Anyway, I'm having trouble with topics and inspiration, so I've decided to post some fiction I am working on.  Novel concept, right? (Novel, ha, get it??)  Anyway I wrote this a while ago and edited it a little less than a while ago, and have dragged it up from the lengthy desktop folder entitled "Creative Writing."  I hope you enjoy, and in case you are wondering about my awesome ending, there isn't an ending.  It is ongoing, and I am literally leaving you where I have stopped.  Let me know what you think!


(Also, it's untitled, so read this parenthesis as a title...)

My jeans are soaked to my thighs, this damn storm, let me tell you. In the early part of the century, back when men wore thick coats and bowler hats, long black garb that cloaked them in the color of death, real men, you might say, well in that part of the history of the world I survived a storm ten times this size, and my jeans, well...no, not my jeans because real men did not wear jeans back then, my pants, they were soaked, right to my thighs.

This was in the big city on the gold coast; San Francisco. It roared, oh boy did it. All curved cabs and ladies wearing gloves; even in the rain (torrential this time of year) they smoked cigarettes, inhaled it like they drank tobacco for breakfast. Top that off with vodka and orange juice, what you have there is one American way to start a day. This was pre Peace, pre Love, pre Haight and that damned Ashburry, two hooligans of grandeur proportions. Not to confuse the reader, I fell head-first through a cloud of acid rain just like the rest of you, but it was hard with this stiff hip, and all those boys wanted to do was run run run.

The city bumped and jived, a cesspool of sin and luxury, but fun, mind you. On this night, of the storm, that is, I was enjoying a whisky dry in a cozy little speakeasy. Easy jazz with chords of velvet; brass and stand-up, lover’s laments that made you want to curl up on Saturday and write lust letters to people you’ve never known. I could hear the wind beating drops against my sanctuary, my Mecca (pre-world knowledge of Mecca of course). There is nothing but the sound of a lightly brushed cymbal; a woman turning over in her sleep; the sky letting a feather fall silently. And that pianist! Such a virtuosity in his limbs, a lilt to his back. I remember his eyes closing as he played. All that, with those dim rouge lights, the small-talk of lovers, war and money (quality topics in any age I’ve found) on the tips of tongues. Lulled me, they did.

Anyway, that damned storm was so loud it clashed up against the sound of this aural phenomena, my song of songs, and drove me to a great fury.

I quickly became disgruntled, my inner peace shaken, and, anyway, my cup was empty. I nodded to the tender and he waved me off, looking neither distracted nor interested. I had been there some time, come to think of it, and when I stood the blood rushed to my head, making me waggle as I cleared a path towards the exit. Fur coats and lengthy umbrellas were crammed into the corner as people came in, and I grabbed my own parachute as I exited.

The wind hit me in the face, speckled me with drops of “light precipitation” as the news prints had read. Bullshit. These drops slicked my hair back for me, had me pumping the shaft of that umbrella like a flapper in the red-light. I routinely tried to light a cigarette, cursed when the wind blew it out, and decided to walk back to my apartment, just a few blocks towards the Bay. 

Now, in 1922, a man walking down the street with a curve to his path was highly suspicious. The Noble Experiment was in effect, and us lab rats ran around licking the ethanol off every surface we could find. I was just shy of military legality (something everyone should aim for) and had been hammered well into the morning every night that month. All this while Johnny Law walked around this city like the damn gestapo (anachronistic, I know, but I was ready and able, not willing mind you, for that second attempt at world peace, and they were like the damn gestapo). Upending coffee mugs and the like. Then they had the audacity to “retain” what we were drinking and imbibe it themselves. The Station was rowdier than any bar in the city night after night.