Edgy, discombobulated, depressed and want a hug. Current state of mind. Also would not mind being hit by a bus, although I think I'd probably survive it or be kept alive, since haven't completed my living will yet, and that would not be fun. Am kidding. Well sort of. This whole treading water crap at work is driving me batty, let's face it I've treaded water for so long now that I'm beginning to feel like a prune. Don't know what to do. Usually in these situations - I start hunting a job elsewhere. Am tempted, but the idea of going back out there again and interviewing is not something I want to deal with - especially if it's just for another job like the one I already got.
( TV shows: Alias, Veronica Mars, Desperate Housewives )Currently reading this book by Walter J. Miller called
"A Canticile for Leibowitz", which tapped me on the shoulder in the book store and said, read me. I was there to buy Butcher novels and had three in my hand, when my eye landed on it. Walked away from it. Came back. Read the back. Read the first two paragraphs. Read the introduction by Maria Doria Russell about the difference between fiction and literature - there isn't one. Put it down, left. Came back again. Left again. Came back a third time and bought the thing. Raced through the rest of the not-so-great Sookie Stackhouse novel I'd been reading, and picked it up to read on the train on Monday. Told self if puts me to sleep will go back to Sookie Stackhouse - have one novel left of the lacklustre series - there's six in all. And it did put me to sleep, so tried to put it aside. But no, I had to pick it up again and read some more last night and once again, it found its way into my bag to be read on the train this morning. Persistent little book. Do books do this to anyone else? Say, you have to read me? Now! Probably not. I'm just crazy. I know this.
Near as I can tell, Book is about an order of monks in the distant future.One monk in the desert doing a fast, stumbles upon a fallout shelter and several papers from a by-gone era. The description on the back of the book reads as follows: "Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction [if I had a dollar for every book that claimed that I'd be rich], Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature - a chilling and still provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future."
"In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Issac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes." [It also claims to be funny and tragic at the same time.]
So I open the book and the Introduction by sci-fi writer Maria Doria Russell, [apparently Miller is dead or unavailable and can't do it himself], starts off with the question:
"Fiction or Literature?" [As a former English Lit major who adores graphic novels and genre novels much to the chagrin of many a friend and professor, this amuses me greatly.]
"Go into a bookstore and you'll find novels shelved alphabetically by author's last name but divided into a number of categories: mystery, science fiction, romance. Each genre gets its own section, which is understandable, but then there are novels classified as Fiction and others as Literature. What's the difference between the two?
My first guess was that to be Literature, the novel's author had to be dead.
That hypothesis was disproved the next time I checked the shelves. I looked both words up in the dictionary when I got home. Fiction was defined as 'any literary work portraying imaginary characters and events, as a novel, story or play,' while literature included 'all writings in prose or verse, especially those of an imaginative character, but especially those having
excellence of rom or permanent value."
So basically, Literature is classier than Fiction.
Still curious, I started asking people in the book business how they decided what was classy enough to be Literature. The semiserious consensus among the pros was, "Of an editor has to look up three words while reading the manuscript, it's literature." The best answer I got was from my stepbrother Jack Provenzale, who doesn't sell books but is a passionate reader. He said,
'Literature changes you. When you're done reading, you're a different person.'A Canticile for Leibowitz is Literature, no matter how you define it.
Its author, Walter J. Miller, Jr. is indeed dead: tragically (and ironically, considering the final third of the book), a suicide. [Ah dead. And a suicide no less.] Mr. Miller was by all accounts a difficult person who distanced himself from colleagues, friends and family and finally, after decades of increasingly unbearable depression, from life itself. In 1996, he died of a self-inflicted gunshot at the age of seventy-four. "
Russel goes on to state how reading this novel changed her each time she read it.
Okay....in other words, Literature is in the eye of the beholder, like pretty much everything else on the planet.
Do agree with her brother's view on Literature. I think the novels that haunt us and change us are the ones worth keeping, are literature. The ones that leave our memories, no matter how big and fancy and obscure the words, are fiction or non-fiction as the case may be.
Genre has zip to do with it. What is important is whether or not that magical moment occurs when you feel someone touching your hand and saying what you felt but could not put into words. OR flipping your perspective, so for a moment, you see through someone else's eyes. To do that, you do not need words that have to be looked up in a dictionary, but words that hit you between the eyes and make you sit up and take notice.
At any rate - first sentence of the book:"Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert."
First four sentences of second chapter:
"And then Father, I almost took the bread and cheese."
"But you didn't take it?"
"No."
"Then there was no sin by deed."
"But I wanted it so badly, I could tast it."
Ah, nice. Dialogue that serves a purpose. Been reading Charlain Harris novels, the dialogue is quite scannable. Charlain Harris novels are fiction in my opinion. I didn't leave them changed a wit. Comforting and somewhat distracting fiction, that requires little concentration and not much brain power, also lots of fun. But fiction all the same. Guilty pleasures. Must have them. Cotton candy for the brain.
At any rate new book has given me back my muse, which I'd mislaid for a bit. Actually finished Chapter 18 yesterday, had only been working on it for three weeks. And it's not a long chapter.
Will see how long stay with new book. Have finished first 40 pages. Not bad. Not as fast moving as other books or as gripping, but pulls at me and I can't let go of it. Hard to explain. Don't get it myself.
You must hate these rambles. No organization to them whatsoever.
Okay off for dinner. Feel less discombobulated and depressed at least. Don't know if will leave this up or not. Public for now. Figure haven't said anything too revealing that would get me into trouble. Then again, figured I hadn't at work either, until Boss cautioned me to keep my big mouth shut around certain people who would turn on me in an instant if it fit their purpose - which is one of the reasons felt discombobulated to begin with.
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