Dewey's Read-a-Thon: Fit the First

I'm up I'm UP!! Barely squeezed in a nap but all is well, breakfast is being ingested hastily and coffee has already begun kicking in. Thankfully, the fine folks at Dewey's have provided a launching pad of sorts for today's mix of frantic blogging and fervent reading. WIthout further ado:

1. What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
The heart of the Rust Belt, Youngstown, OH

2. Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Probably About a Mountain, as it's the only book with which I've zero familiarity.

3. Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Total candor here—a tin of sardines to top off my protein and omega-3 levels.

4. Tell us a little about yourself!
This week is actually the 6th anniversary of my decision to dedicate my life to writing.

5. If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what's the one thing you'll do different today? If this is your first readathon, what are you most excited about?

Touching base with other writers is something I've explored before, but it bears repeating: there are few things so important to the craft as an ongoing and meaningful exchange with a variety of fellow aspirants. I've very much enjoyed perusing the blogs of others so far, have picked up more than a few pointers through observation alone, and I'm fairly certain that the frivolity of the event will prove contagious enough to make for a truly memorable day!

Breakfast officially over, first round of coffee's down—commencing book one, The Time Traveler's Wife!

You're Doing What? For How Long?? - Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon

For all my plans for upcoming reviews and reflections, it's been a slow month for reading. Some of that has to do with the way I've tackled the challenge of my reading list, which has been much less "one book at a time" and far more "read ALL the books!". I always realize, after the fact, that amassing a sizable workload all in one place only serves to daunt me into submission, but for once the approach might actually work. Maybe it hasn't just been the construction of a literary mountain too tall to scale, maybe it's been the lack of compatriots, cheerleaders, mini-challenges with prizes...enter Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon.

I was only recently introduced to the Read-a-Thon, thanks to my friends over at A Reader's Respite. According to the Read-a-Thon's History page, Dewey was inspired by her family's participation in the annual 24 Hour Comics Day. The idea was simple: Get some people together and celebrate literature and the love of it, by dedicating an entire day to reading. That first year, 2007, there were 37 participants in the Read-a-Thon; the latest tally for 2013 includes 426 bloggers who will spend the day alternating between the books they've chosen and sharing their experiences on their blogs, Dewey's Facebook page, the Read-a-Thon's Twitter feed (#Readathon, #Dewey, #MiniChallenge, #RahRahReadathon), and even Instagram.


As it's my first Read-a-Thon, I'm not sure how well I'll be able to juggle tasks; I have enough trouble focusing on Twitter when it's the only thing I'm doing. But I've got some simple meals lined up for the day, plenty of tea and coffee to keep me going, and three solid choices to hold my attention as the day progresses. First on the list is The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.

My first encounter with this title was the movie, which caught me completely off-guard and left me in tears (more on this in a future Page-to-Screen review). It's a bittersweet exploration of causality, determinism, and free-will, set against the backdrop of a relationship that unfolds in a different order for each of its participants.

By the end of my second read-through, it had become my favorite book. I found myself yearning to follow the last page with the first and begin reading it anew. Since then, I've made a habit of re-reading it once a year, but this time around I've faltered quite a bit—I've been stuck on page 110 since mid-September. So I've decided to make it the priority when Read-a-Thon begins tomorrow morning at 8am.


For my second choice, provided I finish The Time Traveler's Wife, I've selected About a Mountain, by John D'Agata.

I know little about this book, but it comes highly recommended by one of my closest writer friends. I was first intrigued by this quote, which he had posted some time ago:

"This is not an honorable place. It is not the marker of a glorious deed. Here is nothing at all of worth buried. This place is a message and a portion of a message-world. Pay attention well. We are earnest. This message-giving was great for us. It seemed to us that we were a very great people."

The blurb on the back of the book describes it thusly: "When John D'Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government's plan to store nuclear waste at a place called Yucca Mountain, a desert range near Las Vegas. Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life."

I expect that I will, after all's said and done, regret not having read this promising book sooner.


Should I complete both The Time Traveler's Wife and About a Mountain before 8am Sunday morning, my final choice is Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn.

Miller's Tropic of Cancer—the first in a trilogy, of which Capricorn is the last volume—is renown for being one of the first major victories against censorship in the 20th century. All three volumes (Cancer, Black Spring, and Capricorn) explore Miller's life and struggles as a writer. I had begun reading this back in June, but my introduction to Miller was quickly supplanted by numerous volumes of Hemingway's work. By the end of the month I'd taken up fishing, and left Miller's deftly woven proto-Beat stylings by the wayside.

Before that had happened, though, I had come to appreciate the way that Miller had turned his life into literary material, and was struck by how much I identified with much of his experiences. Having previously experienced some difficulty convincing myself to write my story, I was emboldened by his success, and became inspired to attempt a similar effort. As my NaNoWriMo novel will be written in this vein, it behooves me to immerse myself further in Miller's world, and I can think of no better time to do so than amidst the obsessive reading frenzy of Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon
 

So for now, I'm doing my best to clear a number of comfortable reading places, prepping the coffee maker, and hopping off to bed at an uncharacteristically early hour. 8:00am comes pretty quickly, and I'm going to need my rest—it's going to be a long, exciting, amazing day of reading.

Back in Action - a Quick Report from the Front Lines

Greetings from the far side of Summer! It's been a spectacularly busy few months, and there's no sign of things slowing anytime soon. I'll have some fresh reviews and musings up in the coming weeks, but nothing can distract from the imminent arrival of November, and that of course means it's time for another NaNoWriMo!

 It would be nice to be able to say something along the lines of "Now, those of you who followed last year's effort...", but there honestly wasn't much of an effort to follow. I'd decided to enter at the very last minute, with absolutely zero preparation and barely an inkling of an idea. And while I've tinkered with Breggin's Grasp since abandoning the WriMo, the goings have been mighty slow.

This year, however, I made up my mind well in advance, and signed up as soon as the site allowed. I'll detail some of my preparations soon, but suffice it to say there have been many, including the creation of my favorite means of self-inspiration, the cover.

This year's WriMo attempt won't be Science Fiction. Much as it pains me to leave the comfort of my favorite genre, I've felt a change of literary scenery might do me some good. My summer reading list included the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller, both of whom had a tremendous influence on me. I may not be able to fully comprehend Hemingway's Iceberg Theory as yet, and Miller's proto-Beat prose might well be some of the finest I've ever seen, but I'm confident I can manage to satisfy the urge to write in a similar vein.

All in all, I'm rather upbeat about the remainder of the year. It's been an interesting one, and I look forward to expounding upon it further in the near future. For now, I've amassed a mountain of preparatory reading, and every tick of the clock brings me that much closer to November's starting gun.

In Which I'm Caught Identifying With All the Wrong Characters

It's been a truly hectic week at the Fane, or more accurately outside the Fane. There's been much to do well away from the comforts of the writing desk, so much of my work has amounted to little additions to ongoing projections, jotted down on the fly. I thoroughly enjoy practicing the art of toting the necessary work materials around with me, and I think the current contents of my messenger bag might be my favorite combination of traveling scholarly and literary materials: two notebooks, one for fiction and one for reviews; a moleskine journal; two novels, one for research and one for review; a dvd of the review novel's cinematic adaptation; a copy of Stephen King's On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft; and The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner. Unfortunately, despite my preparedness, I've been more or less scrounging for time to work, as the exceptionally fine spring weather has inspired a host of cleaning projects and outdoor activities. To be sure, this time has been well spent, but exhaustive, particularly when combined with the onset of allergy season and the zombifying effects of allegedly "non-drowsy" antihistamines. And so it is that, after several action-packed days abroad, I find myself home, and feeling not only worse for wear, but quite a bit like a number of characters with whom I'd rather not empathize quite so strongly...

Gregor Samsa - The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka 

For the short story on which I'm working, which is developing what can only be described as Kafkaesque elements, I've been re-reading Kafka's The Trial, thus far the best of my admittedly limited experience with the author's work. Though I can appreciate the legacy of The Metamorphosis, I failed to enjoy it as I'd expected. That having been said, I cannot escape some of the latter title's poignancy, especially while I, much like Gregor Samsa, have persisted in my devotion to my family and friends, neglecting entirely the fact that by burning the candle at both ends I have, metaphorically speaking, found myself having transformed into a rather large insect. I've had much better luck than he, as far working around the effects of the past week's harried lifestyle, but the essential bug-ness of my allergies and exhaustion has remained. It's been amusing, to say the least, to find myself identifying with this somewhat loathsome creature, considering my response to his story. Then again, maybe that was Kafka's point all along...

Charlie Gordon - Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes

As the days have mounted, rather than passing in succession, my wits have succumbed to an interminable exhaustion, and all but resigned their post entirely. I do a fair job of scraping along on the precious few brain cells I have left, but I begin to despair that the damage might become permanent. I'm left thinking of poor Charlie, Daniel Keyes' human guinea pig from Flowers for Algernon, and Charly, the 1968 adaptation thereof. The novel, written from the perspective of the aforementioned guinea pig, details the intellectual rise and fall of a mentally challenged man who, through a miracle of neurosurgical science, is transformed into an unparalleled genius. Charlie's progress on the path to actualization reaches a blistering pace, but it's a level of output that can't be maintained for long. After discovering nuances to human existence previously beyond his limited grasp, Charlie is left frustrated and helpless as the effects of the procedure begin to wear off. It's at this point that my empathy comes into play, the powerlessness in the face of mental entropy. Slowly but surely, I've felt my brain flickering, sputtering, grinding to a halt...

Robert Arctor - A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick

I know it's not just the busy schedule that's led me to this dilapidated state. I can't say I recall ever suffering from allergies quite so badly as I have this season, and I've been relying on antihistamines far more regularly than ever before. Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse, the sneezing fits and waterlogged vision or the complete numbness of having taken something to alleviate those symptoms. More than any character, I find myself identifying with Bob Arctor, whose drug use slowly chips away at his grip on reality in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. It's one of my favorite novels for many reasons, but this is not one of them. Being able to identify with the increasingly incapable Arctor is far from fun. I'd seen it said once that the fictional drug in the novel, Substance D, was inspired by use of a real OTC medication that happened to be an antihistamine. After a week attacking my allergy symptoms, the connection isn't hard to see. Much like Arctor, I feel as if everything—within and without—has become impenetrably murky...

_______________________________________________________

So where does this leave me, now that this brief run of busy days has finally given way to freer time in which to catch up on sleep and various ongoing projects? I did well to realize that my distaste for these negative associations was part of the problem: none of these characters is particularly happy about being themselves, either. By rejecting the connection, I was still participating in the identification process. So what did it take to break these chains and return to my old self? I embraced each of them in turn. Poor Gregor, never really understanding what had happened, nor how his behavior had effected his family, needed only to worry about himself a bit more and trust that things would work out for everyone else just fine in the end; Charlie needed to accept that his character was revealed not in the alleviation of his handicap but throughout the transition from his natural state to that affected by the procedure and back; Bob Arctor, who not only wished for an escape from his lifestyle but nearly forgot he was Arctor at all...well, he just needed to lay off the pills. 

As conditions have improved, I've been able to rely less on allergy medication, and things are slowly coming back into focus. I've got some great notes for the work in progress, and a few new reviews in the works (including A Scanner Darkly). The forecast calls for isolated thunderstorms, which will hopefully knock the rest of the pollen out of the air. My sinuses are relatively clear, and my schedule and mindset are getting even clearer still. I expect it's going to be a lovely day back at the workdesk, then, and I'm looking forward to spending it not as Gregor, Charlie, or Bob, but my recently revived—and fully functioning—self.

From Page to Screen - Fight Club

As the 20th century entered its denouement, humanity cast a retrospective glance upon the most industrious hundred years any civilization has ever known. When calling the ‘90s to mind with a nostalgic air, one cannot escape the impression that the era was viewed with a sense of supreme accomplishment, as if looking down the slopes of times past from the zenith of a monumental climb. Wars were being waged on a far smaller scale, over the course of weeks rather than years. America had regained its footing following its most recent recession at the decade’s dawning. The Internet and cellular phone industries, though still in their relative infancies, had already begun to impact our lives, forever changing the ways in which we connect with one another. For many, it seemed as if the Future had finally begun to arrive.  

It’s a funny trick of human existence that achievement contains, hidden beneath its pride and self-satisfaction, the seeds of discontent. Complacency is typically untenable, particularly to any culture so infected by impulse and the drive for instant gratification.  As the industries of construction finally began to give way to more powerful industries of distraction, a vague realization slowly crept into our midst. This idea, a growing awareness of the lack of a genuine sense of fulfillment, led some to a rather simple question: “So what’s next?”


Enter author Chuck Palahniuk, literary agent provocateur, and his answer, in the form of his incomparable debut novel, Fight Club. 

Fight Club is the rare sort of novel that is so perfectly entrenched in the times in which it was written, it seems absurd to suggest that Palahniuk had anything but the most direct of intentions, seeking to address the oft-ignored problems inherent to our society’s corporate, consumerist nature. However, in a twist befitting the author’s own style, the novel actually began as a project of spite. After rejecting his first effort himself, Palahniuk submitted Invisible Monsters for publication, only to be rejected by the publisher due to the book’s disturbing content. The author began crafting a short story, born of his own reticence regarding a weekend brawl, meant to disturb the publisher even more than his rejected novel. Eventually, this story was expanded and, to the author’s surprise, accepted for publication. Fight Club was published in August of 1996. 

Well received by critics and readers alike, the novel nevertheless received minimal attention. For many, the work remained obscure, if not unheard of. That would change when 20th Century Fox producer Laura Ziskin saw in the novel the potential for a gripping cinematic experience. With screenwriter Jim Uhls in charge of adapting the novel and director David Fincher at the helm, Fight Club was crafted into a movie every bit as disturbing—and enthralling—as the novel itself.

Both novel and film begin in media res, just before the climax, as the characters await the destruction of several office buildings at the hands of underground fighters turned militant anarchists. The reader is then led through a semi-linear retelling of the events that lead back to the precipice of that climactic moment. In the novel’s case, the sense of linearity is much less rigid; affecting a much greater impact on the reader’s thought processes, Palahniuk’s minimalist, conversational tone makes for a superior connection between material and reader. To compensate for the depth lost in translation from page to screen, Fincher’s film makes brilliant use cinematography—sweeping, impossible camera shots and brief flashes of images thrust into otherwise normal scenes—to imbue the unstable mentality of the narrative.

The anonymous protagonist and narrator, played by Edward Norton in the film, is a 30-year-old recall campaign coordinator for an unspecified auto manufacturer, leads a life of quiet desperation. Norton’s deadpan delivery emulates the novel’s narration, establishing the character’s malaise with aplomb. It should be a satisfying life, as the narrator’s followed social convention to the letter in virtually every respect; from his job to his clothes, his IKEA-supplied apartment to the Audi he drives, everything he has achieved is as it should be. Noticeably absent from this lifestyle is the expected gratification of living it. Thrown headlong into an existential crisis, the protagonist begins to suffer an extreme case of chronic insomnia. Living with insomnia, he explains, makes it so that “everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy.” Through Fincher’s direction, this addled state is put on display to brilliant effect in the film, offsetting the necessary linear nature that so contrasts that of the novel.

To address his insomnia, the narrator attends support groups for the terminally ill. In these groups the narrator finds, rather than a sense of perspective, a catharsis that allows him to purge enough neurotic tension to allow him to sleep at night. Allowing members to believe what they will of his condition by remaining silent, he begins attending numerous such groups throughout the week. Though effective, this unusual method of treatment doesn’t completely resolve the dark thoughts that result from his continuing crisis. After two years of combating his insomnia through meetings, Marla Singer (brought to life by Helena Bonham Carter), another such ‘tourist’, begins appearing at each meeting as well.  As Marla’s lie reflects the narrator’s, his path to nightly catharsis is thwarted, and the insomnia resumes. The two eventually resolve to split their schedules, and a complex love/hate relationship ensues. Despite the removal of Marla from the meetings he attends, this brief lapse in sleep triggers an unraveling that continues throughout the remainder of the story.

The account of how the narrator comes to meet Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) differs between page and screen, though the change is likely a practical one. The core of Tyler’s character is transferred perfectly and intact to the cinematic portrayal. Tyler is described as the complete opposite of the narrator’s character. Where the narrator is constrained by his lifestyle and neuroses, Tyler leads a life of relative freedom—not to mention slight insanity. Unlike the narrator’s responsible office job, Tyler’s professions are several: he works as a movie theater projectionist—and splices frames of pornography into family films; he works as a waiter at an upscale hotel—and befouls the food before its served; he makes homemade bars of soap—out of fat stolen from the medical refuse bins behind liposuction clinics. Representing everything that the narrator is not, Tyler is an utterly fascinating, seductive character to behold.

When the protagonist’s apartment mysteriously explodes and effectively destroys everything he had made of his life, the narrator calls Tyler, asking for help. Tyler welcomes the narrator into his home, but only if he’ll do something in return. “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” Neither man has ever been in a fight before and, to Tyler, this is an unacceptable condition in which to live. As the movie Tyler asks, “How much can you really know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” In the moment those first few awkward punches are thrown, Fight Club is born. 

Before long, the thinking behind Tyler’s antisocial existence finds fertile soil in the minds of the men who join Fight Club, and blossoms into a fully-fledged philosophy. Completely in awe of Tyler, the narrator is at the forefront of those swept along as club events begin spilling out of the basement and into the rest of the city. In both novel and film, the emerging school of thought is spelled out in such a way that even readers and viewers find themselves similarly swayed by Tyler’s apparent wisdom. But when ritualized self-destruction leads to widespread anarchy, the narrator begins to harbor misgivings. The question becomes, is there anything he can do to stop it?

While the novel, as is usually the case, possesses far more depth and intricacy than that for which film typically allows, the film loses none of the story’s potency in the adaptation process. Much of the dialogue in the film is transferred verbatim from the novel, capturing the essence of Palahniuk’s style, and subsequently his genius. Though the endings of the two formats differ, both are quite apt. Debate continues to this day as to which is superior, though the author himself has, in interviews, expressed some regret that he had not conceived the film’s version of the ending himself. Fight Club performed poorly at the box office, owing in part to its publicity having been stifled by the studio. However, both novel and movie have gone on to achieve legendary status as cult favorites, with fans emulating the story’s ideals in countless amateur fight clubs across the country. With a plot twist so mind-blowing as to warrant only passing reference, lest the surprise be spoiled, and a gripping narrative that is every bit entrancing as it is disturbing, Fight Club is a truly compelling story, and one of the very best examples of adaptation from page to screen.