32 Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Coming soon to an auditory system near you!

I read Laini Taylor's brilliant and category-defying novel Daughter of Smoke and Bone. 

It's part one of a hefty trilogy that is on my must-keep list. Like if I imagine moving to Norway or Finland and only taking a few books with me, this trilogy is on the list. Even though e-book is probably smarter. Definitely lighter. 

These books! Are so! Good! They're like literary high fantasy science fiction young adult. See what I mean about category? I think they get shelved with Young Adult. 

Fine, I'll list the books I'd take:

these three and Laini Taylor's duology (is that a thing?) that followed, about Lazlo Strange

Rainbow Rowell's collected works except for Landline because I hated it, but maybe should reread

Joan Aiken's collected works (except the Jane Austen continuation ones and the cynical New Yorky modern ones)

probably a lot of William Mayne even though he turned out to be a convicted serial child rapist (super went to jail and now deceased) because they're wonderful (Also there's a bizarre thing where what he did to those little girls happens to a character in one edition of one of his books [off screen obviously] but it's been removed from later editions so it's very weird to read that book now and know that this awful thing happened, so to speak, in a narrative sense, but got expunged from the record. RIGHT???)

Jane Gardam's Bilgewater

Hammerfall

The Hobbit and LOTR

Rimrunners and a bunch of other C.J. Cherryh because I love them even though they're flawed and boy does she have certain kinks that keep cropping up

The Raven Boys series, despite the atrocious Latin and the way the plot falls apart in book three

Dorothy Sayers, all of her books

The Time Traveler's Wife

Code Name Verity

certain Agatha Christies

my books OBVIOUSLY

Well, I can't think of the rest right now, but I'll work on it. That's already a suitcase full. 

If I were a true minimalist (hahahahahahaha I'm so not) I'd only have those books and nothing else, but guess what. Nope. 

I just bought a whole lot of those black binding Bantam editions of Agatha Christie from Goodwill. Can I take a truck when I go? A largeish boat. How do I take my various beloved pieces of ludicrous furniture? Can I move somewhere non-fascist very soon indeed, though? I will learn the language. I already speak German, French, Norwegian, and a tiny bit of Finnish. Mostly I can talk about how the bunny is adorable and the dog is black, but I grasp the partitive and I've already been there and liked it and I AM READY is what I'm saying. Germany! Sure! I speak it first when my brain reaches for a second language! I like quark! I'm related to absolutely everyone in Steinbach-Hallenberg!

Too much coffee today. Zu viel everything, like I'm saying. Maximal instead of minimal. I'm having flight of the "fight or flight" variety due to the terrible state of things, though of course here where I live nothing at all has changed. I mean, I never leave the house, so. But a powerful urge to get rid of everything and flee has taken me over. Despite a dislocated shoulder, I'm clearing things out.

In German newspapers, the image of that stupid oligarch doing that fascist salute was blocked out because it's illegal to show that there. I would much rather live there, in that case. I lived in Germany for two months! I'm practically a local! Let's talk about Brecht! Let's talk about Günter Grass! Why did I read and see so many plays there? Every time I pick up a chair by its arms (I am always reupholstering chairs) I think about the Max Frisch play Andorra, in which a character is told never to pick up a chair by its arms.

Anyway I'd take Laini Taylor's trilogy with me, that's what I'm saying. That's how good it is. I'm halfway through the second book, so have to record this episode quickly before I get completely muddled about what belongs to which volume. 

Sacred cheese of life!

 

31 Liar

Justine Larbalestier’s Liar, at last!

This is such a good novel. You have to read it before you listen, though. I will RUIN it for you by spoiling every possible thing. This is a book you have to experience unspoiled! You only get one chance. So please go read before you listen.

I usually take five class meetings to discuss this novel, so I talked really fast and didn’t get to say most of what I would have wanted to say. Gaaaah! What can you do.

I would love to hear what you think of the novel once you read it, before you listen to this, so in the event you are that person, please get in touch! The students have more than once thrown their books across their rooms! More than one has come up to me after we’re done reading it and given me their copy to give to someone else, because it made them so wild. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, Micah is the champion unreliable narrator. And no, there is no narrative truth that’s out there!

This is a book that makes you question everything about the reading process itself, one reason I love to have classes read it. Such good times.

Features multiple guest appearances from Eleanor the cat and Tallulah the dog. So verbal today, those two.

The old cover art, the current cover art. You'll know when you listen. 

30 How to write a novel

Oh boy, I keep seeing people wish they could write novels but don’t know how, or where to start, or what to do, so here’s some advice about that.

You do not need to know how to do this before you start. You need a person with a problem. And you need specificity: what that person is like, their skills and weaknesses, their particular situation, plus the geographical location and things like time of year.

Then go ahead and go buck wild. Tell a story. They want to do this thing or solve the problem or find the answer or whatever it might be. Good! Take STEP ONE. Then take step two. What happens? Do it one step at a time. Listen to yourself. Is there a random mycologist in the forest? He turns out to be important later, so if he shows up, write him in!

Also, if you’re writing about a real place, like Eustis, Maine, the place in Landslide whose name I can never remember, then GO THERE. Reality is so much richer than your imagination.

Otherwise, get okay with making mistakes, being bad at things, and making a great big mess. It’s not just okay, it’s essential. You’re not writing a novel but a DRAFT. It does not need to be perfect. It can’t be perfect. You’re making the material now you will turn into a book later on.

Follow the story! Be there! Notice what things are really like! You’ve got this!

Sacred cheese of life!

 

29 A Worn Path

This week I get into the strange linear narrative of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” not in the sort of high school New Critical way of x symbolizes y, but in the sense of episodic versus serial narrative structure.

It’s a very strange story in a lot of ways because we have no idea where Phoenix Jackson is going or why she’s going there. And in fact when she arrives, she doesn’t know either. This story subverts narrative so thoroughly it’s almost like Tom Stoppard. Ooh, we should talk about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at some point. And stories told from the other side in general.

I discuss what makes us get and stay interested in a story with NO PLOT and see how I can apply that to other writing. Normally we assume the plot is what makes us stick around, but it sure isn’t in this case, since we don’t know what it could even be.

Still one of my favorite stories, even if (or because) it’s so strange and in some ways baffling.

Sacred cheese of life!