Hey gang. I wrote a review of Laird Hunt's new novel, Ray of the Star. It's up now at Identity Theory.

The review starts like this:

Consider the f-bomb: you can trace the trajectory of the story’s heart by the elegant deployment of that dexterous cuss word across the pages of Ray of the Star, Laird Hunt’s latest (arguably best, unarguably most emotionally engaging) novel. What initially reads with an unsettling, weighty effervescence—comparisons to the massive quantities of sparkling water the characters drink as if it is about to be taxed out of their brackets are certainly appropriate—accumulates context through circumstance so that it grows steadily more sinister with each passing page. By the end, it is razor-sharp, and fast. It cuts.

...and I'm not really sure how the rest goes since it feels like I wrote it in the middle of a blackout fugue-state (this being my first actual published review, for those of you keeping score at home) but from what I gather I rather liked the novel and, if asked for my professional opinion (which, ha ha, I was?) I would (and, ha ha, did?) recommend it to others.

(You can also head over to The Collagist to read an excerpt of Star.)

Genre writers know their audience, and it’s a large one: John Grisham sold 60,742,288 books during the 1990s. That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, and I won’t do that here. But that audience, for reasons that sometimes seem obvious and sometimes are madly mysterious, is almost universally not interested in the same things we are.

We’re interested in good stories.

Hey, wasn't there a genre flick a while back about some kid who saw self-involved snobs who were the death of all things holy and good about literature only they didn't know they were the death of all things holy and good about literature? It was probably too busy making a lot of money and supporting families to bother having any emotional impact on anybody who saw it though.

Seriously: wha? The mind boggles and the goggles they do nothing. LOLz via.

Speaking of Stephen King, I really could not say it better myself, so, quote: "First of all, our inner 14-year-old is like unto bursting..."

I am a huge Kazuo Ishiguro fan. By the time I die I will have read all of his books at least multiple times; I'm currently two-sevenths there. (Which sounds so much less morbid when it's not put into fractions like that.) As a fan, I've set myself certain stringent restraints as to how I approach Nocturnes, his first short story collection. I will not read all of the stories at once (at least the first time through). Check. This is because he does not publish books often and if one of them is going to be a short story collection--the sort of thing that is built to be savored far more than any novel--then I will take advantage of that to the best of my ability. (I at one point considered reading only one story a year until his next book comes out. I did not consider that for long. Savor, yes. Torture, no.) I will also only read a story if I can sit down, read the story, and then stand up in a single swoop in a single afternoon. Check, so far, at least. I want to have the experience of reading something uninterrupted, of taking in a piece of literature the way I take in a film at the theater: whole, and without interruption. This latter restriction helps reinforce the former in that it's the rare afternoon (it has to be afternoon, as well, because the coffee has kicked in, but the evening is still distant, no threat to the present) these days when there's literally nothing to do but read as if life depended on it. Life always depends on it, but let us not go there.

This past weekend I had one of those afternoons and I read the third story from the collection, "Malvern Hills," and I enjoyed it, in and of itself. It is difficult to speak about the ways it may or may not relate to the other stories in the novel--said reading will have to happen when I do read the whole book all together over the span of a week--beyond the fact that there is music and that there are people and that there is the decided presence of Ishiguroian language made oddly more intriguing (rather than less intriguing as one might fear) by the decided absence of that thing he does--that thing he does in The Remains of the Day and the novels that preceded it, that thing that he does in The Unconsoled and When We Were Orphans, that thing he does in Never Let Me Go--as if he set out with the specific intent of writing wonderfully without making any "that thing" of it or critical to it. Though who knows, the second read-through may reveal the unrecognizable skin that holds the bones of the stories to each other; failing to notice this now makes me no less of a fan, and all the more someone who will, or at least fully well expects to, be continuously rewarded by the works of a writer for years to come. Which said, the next story in the book is the title story, and it is the longest story in the book, and perfect afternoons sometimes have to be made, not awaited.

What's great about Generosity by Richard Powers (which comes out in about a month) isn't that it takes a one-note subject of debate like genetic research ("Genetic research will destroy our humanity!" "Genetic research will unlock our humanity!" "Fuck off!" "You too!") and succeeds in making it seem kind of nuanced and interesting; I'd call that merely (if highly) commendable. What's great about it is pretty much everything else that happens in its just-under 300 pages. The fact that it crams a love story and a classroom satire and all the punchy, dramatic, smart language you can handle and a sly look at human literary cliches and a metafictional gambit that succeeds in revealing the ultimate heart of the story while still actually managing to be clever-as-all-get-out (but in a wowee-uneasy-feeling Stephen King Dark Tower series metafictional sort of way) into one book is terrific. Also terrific is the fact that the book manages to talk about today--like, blogs, today, like, NaNoWriMo as a fact of some people's lives, today, like, Google yourself, today, like, the banking industry is imploding, today; today, today--in a way that feels so fresh and current and sharp and like it was written by someone who actually gets all the stupid shit we pass off as modern-day culture and writes about it in a way that shows he gets it without making it clear that he's telling us, hey, guys, I get it; it all just becomes setting, the setting, the only one that for 300 pages matters, the one that makes you look around and think, the hell of it is he's right. For that the book may (will?) age quickly, is at this moment becoming a historical document (and it hasn't even been released yet), and for that I really have to suggest that you should really look into reading it sooner rather than later, because it's a book that's got me all jazzed up and I think you just might a chance at enjoying it a little, yourself, too. By which I mean I am recommending this book. By which I mean: there were chills. Are.

Oh, and I'm halfway through the new Richard Powers book, Generosity: An Enhancement, and I'm pretty sure it rules. Like, get fired from your job because you didn't go in so you could keep reading it, that kind of rules. I scored a free advance copy via Twitter. I hate my life.

"To Twitter. Or not to Twitter. That is the question the publishing world is asking these days."

Which is a shame, seeing as it is a perfectly stupid question. Yeah, that's right: bold statement. I mean, I do wonder if I am the only person on the planet sometimes who thinks this way (I can't be, right?), but I mean, isn't Twitter just one more thing? You know? That people can choose to use (public transportation, the self check-out aisle at the grocery store, condoms) or not use? Is it really still such a big deal? Really? That people are using the Internet for the intended purpose of the Internet, i.e., communicating with other people via asynchronous protocols? Who remains surprised by this? Who is left who can not say that, if the publishing industry is publishing great books and then spreading the word about them, they can then really claim to give two flying fucks whether they do it by Twitter, whistlestop tours, or smoke signals? This guy. Me, I'm going to need freakout control over here. Internet. Whatever. Seriously.

(Original link via oh you know what it's via.)

So here's one for you: Thomas Pynchon's new novel Inherent Vice came out today. Because, yeah, this is something that has happened. I'm waiting for my copy to come in the mail, bundled with the new Vollmann joint. I'm thinking the mailman is going to kick my shins. Because he won't be able to punch me. Because his arms will be sore. Needless to say I won't have the heart to tell him I'm not planning on reading either book any time soon (meaning: not within the next month or maybe two) (fuuuuck) but that I still needed to have both books so I could at least look at them now and then. I don't think that would be a nice thing to say.

Because this is 2009 (a fact I literally had to confirm with my girlfriend earlier this evening when examining the expiration date on a bottle of Advil) nothing is fine enough in itself, least of all a book. So now there are things called "book trailers," which, also, are things that happen. Penguin has released one for Inherent Vice. You can see it here. I suppose it is possible this is something that, independent of all other forms of book-related communication, could cause you to want to purchase and read the book. I suppose that is possible. I suppose it also still possible you might have friends who sometimes recommend books. Cough. Either way, I think my blog needs a trailer. A blog trailer. To motivate people to read my blog. With robots. Robots and coffee tables. And a Japanese game show. And guns that shoot cats. (Snipe!) Who wants to help? By which I mean, make this happen for me without requiring me to put any effort into it?

Oh yeah and there's a chance that the narrator is Pynchon himself. Which means...he's maybe not a physical mute, these days?

Time?

A sentence I once heard attributed to a CEO -- “Anything that can be done can be done in two weeks.” Whereas Samuel R. Delany, in About Writing, mentions what a short time a decade is, from the point of view of a mature writer mindful of posterity...

Time.

And in conclusion, if you are reading The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov, then you are a liar, because, liar, you have not, in fact, read all of the stuff he wrote that he actually did want you to read.

So: I am basically all over the place right now. I'm working on a couple projects I'm not going to talk about right now in case I totally blow them and have to delicately choose to neglect to mention they ever (or never) happened; I have been trying to actually use some of this paint I've bought in the last year in a "What can I conceive, execute, and finish in, at most, two nights, though preferably one, because will I really know what I was thinking the first night when the second rolls around?" approach (some evidence of which endeavors exists here and here); and, in the last week, as part of an effort to not totally lose what tiny bit of ground I've developed in gaining semi-not-horrible drawing skills these last two months, I've done this (from which came this) and this (from which came this and this) and this (from which came this).

For fun, I've started reading, courtesy of the folks at Knopf, Glen David Gold's Sunnyside, which I like, now. I'll admit: it took a couple pick-ups over the course of a couple weeks before I kept it in my hands long enough to realize I might actually like it; the first couple go-rounds with the opening pages generated a certain quantity of "Oh, I see, but maybe not that much, and maybe not right now" in me, but now I'm into it a bit, enough to get the rhythm of it, and I like it, and I can see myself thinking I should blow all this other nonsense off for a while, and just kind of do this, here, now, for longer stretches of time than I have so far, this last week. And not just because of the whole new Thomas Pynchon on Tuesday thing, oh no, not just because of that. Which new Pynchon I probably won't read right away anyways. Because. I mean. This fall, you know, you guys? Nevermind that I've still got three stories from Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes to do, because I keep forgetting to make the perfect (perfect) reading times happen, see, so. So.

(Oh hell, just when I think I'm getting my blogging shit together. Bear with me, here, gang.)

(But in the meantime, if you're looking for something to read...)

Entering the synagogue with Carol and the kids, he thought, "This profession even fucks up grief."

- from The Counterlife, by Philip Roth

Trust.

Rudolph Wurlitzer's The Drop Edge of Yonder, which I'm about halfway through, and which came to me courtesy of (fellow Ohioans!) Two Dollar Radio, is, much to my shock and/or delight, precisely the sort of book I need right now, the kind of literary palate cleanser--the sort of book in which lots of things happen, often violently (the book opens with an axe being buried in a woman's stomach while she's being, and I use this word with a greater sense of accuracy than I usually feel when I use it, fucked, and hers is exactly the opposite of the last body added to the book's steadily rising body count) and with great regularity (any novelist in the act who can't find ways to make things happen should receive a much-needed stimulant from any ten pages of this story), yet which never feels slight for it, thanks to the vibrant but understated historical setting, the sturdy writing with its matter-of-fact, almost off-hand reporting of deaths and carnage playing well with the occasional stretch toward quasi-philosophical moody bits and leitmotifs, and, well, the fact that it feels like it's all about something, things: the way things change; the way we can never really be sure how real all of this is; the conflict between base existence and higher, or at least vaguely unfathomable, spirituality; and money and women, natch; and struggles, struggling, violent and otherwise, against others, against life, the thousands of trials and tribulations; and the like--that I find myself so badly wanting to just chill with and enjoy while I figure out what it is I want to pick up and run with next, having just come off two or three books prior to this one that particularly pummeled me, first one way and then the other way, leaving me feeling kind of dizzy and high, by which I mean this is the kind of time when I would usually long to pick up some kind of bring-me-back-down trashy horror novel except for the fact that I'd know the writing would likely kill my soul (anymore) (because I am a snobbish dick, possibly), and so I don't, and so here I am, with this one, this one that's turning out to be quite good stuff, and that sort of feels like the kind of book William Vollmann might write, actually, if Vollmann were to chill out long enough to edit what he wrote.

Jacket Copy asks, "Oh, lordy: will Michael Bay film James Frey's unpublished sci-fi novel?"

TDAOC answers, "Only if God wants us to be happy, because, WIN."

Elsewhere, The Millions does a far better job than I of illustrating just how screwed you are for the rest of this year, you fan of books, you.

George Drucker on John Barth, specifically, The Floating Opera. (I know Giles Goat-boy is next on my Barth list, but Drucker does sort of make me want to start all over again from the top.)

Infinite Summer.

Oops! Relapse. Rehab! Something. Thing being, someone forgot to remind me I'm trying to do this thing regularly again. Yeah. Oops. I know. Fail. Sorry. Anyways. Ahem. Throat's cleared. See, part of the problem is I've just read two books in a row and I'm going to say more about them but in more of a "real sentences that make sense" kind of way, less of a "the random crap I usually pull on the blog" sort of way. Because, yeah, I'm going to do that thing amongst the other thousand foolish pursuits I seem to be trying to pick up and run with these days. Like, drawing, I guess? What is wrong with me? No idea. No idea. (Cleveland rocks!)

Anyways, it does, I will say this, with zero connection to the prior paragraph, please me to see The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist getting some positive press. Because, yo, check it, here's a statement that is both literally true and entirely absurd: if the only two sources of information in your life are this blog and the Washington Post, then, you can honestly say, you sort of kind of heard it here first.* Professionalism!

Speaking of professionalism, and, once again, nothing much else from that last paragraph, Dan Deacon recently played outside the new east wing of the Cleveland Museum of Art. (That's what us professional journalist amateur bloggers call a journalistic triumph of a photo, btw.) Should you ever get the chance to go back in time and hang out at the museum the night of June 21, 2009, you totally should, because that was awesome. I'd heard his stuff through a stereo once and it was like, okay, that's okay. And then I heard him play his iPod outside the flipping Cleveland Museum of Art and it ruled. Should you be unable to complete the time travel entrance exam of knowing somebody from the future who already has time travel technology, you should still go see the new east wing, because it, too, rules. (Despite.)

And, finally, here is a picture of a bird.

--

* - Which book, see, is what's guilting me into trying to clean up my act and write healthy paragraphs about some books, at least once in a while, because I really do regret not saying more about that one, because being as I am the world's biggest fan of Never Let Me Go, I think I have a unique positioning vis-a-vis the whole "OMG it's people!" theme that runs through these so-called (by nobody but me) organ donor books (which faux title being a prime example of hilarious misrepresentation, to at least nobody but me being akin to referring to Unbearable Lightness as a book about girls, which, actually, never mind, it was, right?), and the fact that I can't focus any more for long enough to etch thoughts into coherent, rational words keeps me up at night. Ish. Point being. There's itches and there's scratches, and sometimes one precedes the other, or at least the threat of one might be hoped to create a demand for the other, and, well. I just need to make myself itch. Oops: sentiment cloaked in impenetrable metaphor. Fail. Sorry. Throat, clearing.