A Few Good Books
I’m reading a succession of crappy books. Not deliberately. That would
be weird. It just turned out this way: dud after dud. Every time I
crack open a new one, I hope that I’m about to get that feeling:
that moment when I realize, “Ooh, this is good.” But: nope. Nothing.
I’ve even started abandoning books before the end,
which I never used to do no matter how bad they were. (Instead, I
would complain to Jen every night until I finished, stopping to point
out particularly egregious passages. She prefers the new method.)
So it’s a good time to remember that I have read some good books recently. Of course, when I say “recently,” I mean “since I last updated my list of favorite reads,” i.e. in the last three years. But if I can assume that you care about my opinion, and aren’t here just because you googled for lonelygirl15, then maybe you’re interested in my recommendations.
Here are some books that, if you stopped by my house and said, “Got anything good to read?”, I would loan to you. I mean, once we had gotten past the screaming and “how did you get in here” stage.
Corpsing (Toby Litt): This was the first book of Toby’s I ever read, and I loved it so much that I keep buying more of his, even though all of those have turned out to be terrible. For me, Toby is that guy you know is trouble but can’t keep away from, because maybe this time it will be different; maybe he’ll treat you right. He never does. He’s a bad, bad man.
The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World (Neal Stephenson): I adored these. Almost everybody I’ve recommended them to has given up about 150 pages into the first book, saying, “Why the hell did you think I’d like that?” It’s inexplicable. I think all three books are amazing. If I had tried to write something like this, it would have taken me about 40 years. In fact, it would have taken me that long just to type them out, because they’re about 900 pages each.
Apathy and Other Small Victories (Paul Neilan): Obviously.
A Certain Chemistry (Mil Millington): The British do excruciating better than anybody. Reading this was like having my fingernails pulled out, only with more laughing. When I’d finished I felt like I had been beaten around the head, but with love. Because of this I’m putting it ahead of Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, which is also very good and possibly funnier.
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger): This one is a rough ride, too. Some of it is astonishingly beautiful, some is unbearably tragic. I thought it dragged a little in the middle, but still loved it.
Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon): I’ve been reading some comics lately, and this one is gorgeous. Book 3 (“Torn”) is especially juicy. Joss Whedon is, of course, one of the greatest human beings to ever walk the Earth, and he’s in great form here. I obsessively read X-Men comics in high school and college, and it’s very cool to return to these characters and see them handled so well.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon): I have never heard anyone say anything bad about this book, ever. So there’s no need for me to praise it. I’ll just say: they’re right.
The Men Who Stare At Goats (Jon Ronson) [non-fiction]: This book started out as a light, ridiculous, funny read, then turned dark and disturbing. I love that.
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse (Robert Rankin): It’s funny and it’s clever, but more than that it has a surprising and truly wonderful dynamic between the two main characters. Warm, snuggly, and gooey (in a good way).
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell (Susanna Clarke): I don’t usually read the backs of books until I’ve finished them, but I snuck a look at this one early and discovered that it was Time Magazine’s Book of the Year (2004). I wish I hadn’t done that, because from that point onward all I could think was, “Well, it’s good, but is it Book of the Year good?” So try not to do that. It is an absorbing read: simultaneously rich and dry.
Watching Racehorses: A Guide to Betting on Behaviour (Geoffrey Hutson) [non-fiction]: I don’t care about racehorses. I have no interest in betting on them. I only read this book because Geoff is a neighbor. But it was genuinely fascinating, very funny, and worth it for the section on clitoral winking alone. (I know. Intriguing.)
Haunted (Chuck Palahniuk): This is a bunch of short stories with a novel wrapped around it. As with any short story collection, the quality varies, but some of the ones in here scared the absolute crap out of me. So even though I wouldn’t rate this as Chuck’s best, it was a good read. Incidentally, I read a review of this in The Washington Post that was more like a drive-by shooting, with several bullets aimed below the belt, and noticed that Amazon.com chose that one, that one, to put on their site. It was nice to see that that doesn’t just happen to me.
The Beach (Alex Garland): Yeah, it’s already on my old list. But I re-read it, and ohhh, it’s so good.
38 commentsThe Brave New Art Form of lonelygirl15
So lonelygirl15
turns out to be a fake. What looked like the intimate video diary of
a 16-year-old girl named Bree is actually “a new art form,”
courtesy of three L.A. filmmakers. And Bree is really a 19-year-old
actress from New Zealand named Jessica Rose.
Some of the thousands of fans who followed her videos on YouTube are upset. Some are angry—very angry. Some don’t see the problem. Some think the videos are more interesting now that they know they’re made up, and some feel like they lost a friend.
Me, I’m voting this a neat piece of marketing.
True, they’re not selling anything. That’s the good news: this didn’t turn out to be an ad for acne cream or a movie. The creators say:
We want you to know that we aren’t a big corporation. We are just like you. A few people who love good stories. We hope that you will join us in the continuing story of Lonelygirl15, and help us usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between “fan” and “star” has been removed, and dedicated fans like yourselves are paid for their efforts. This is an incredible time for the creator inside all of us.
It’s funny that people who created something so interesting could write something this dumb.
lonelygirl15 didn’t succeed because it told a compelling story. It succeeded because people thought it was real. Without the deception, there’s nothing special. The filmmakers knew this; they went to a lot of trouble to keep up the pretense, to the extent of posting personal replies, as Bree, to people who wrote in. They built fake relationships with fans. And now some of those fans feel like pauldonald:
the reason why im annoyed is because people are going to use this website to try to boost there acting career so now you cant trust anyone on youtube and i do wish bree was real because i fell in love with the character. im not sure if i like jessica rose coz from the pics i have seen she seems like the total opposite of lonelygirl coz she seems like a easy party girl but even though this is fake im not mad at the person who made this even though it was a bit of a spit in the face.
This is what makes it marketing, not storytelling. Storytelling doesn’t abuse its audience. Without the bit at the start that says, “This is made up,” it’s not storytelling; it’s just lying.
Every fiction writer in history has probably been annoyed by how much more power a “true story” seems to have. But that’s the deal we make: we admit up front that our tale isn’t true, then we desperately try to make it as authentic as possible. Doing it the other way around—claiming to have a true story and filling it with fiction—that just pisses me off. Storytelling? A new art form? Give me a break. When you agree to the deal, then you can be storytellers. Until then, you’re marketers.
Sing Along With Max
I recently discovered
Pandora, a web
site that acts like a radio station, only you’re calling in
all the time and saying whether you like or hate what they’re playing,
and the sweaty, desperate-to-please DJs rush to change
their playlist to keep you satisfied. I think you’ll agree
that the world would be a better place if more of it operated
on this kind of basis.
I’ve started using this while I’m writing: I fire up my web browser, point it at Pandora, and let the tunes roll. Not only is it very good at serving up my kind of music, but it also tells me what kind of music that is: apparently I am big on synth bass riffs, a highly synthetic sonority, repetitive song structure, a tight kick sound, and prevalent use of groove. I don’t even know that that means. But I like it.
Once you’ve trained up those sweaty virtual DJs, you can share their work with other people. And that’s why I mention it here: if you want to hear what I’m listening to while writing, tune in here:
(If you’re reading this via e-mail and see nothing to click, you probably need to go via my site: start with this link.)
Maximum Words. Maximum Results. Maximum Barry.
(Gahh! I wrote most of this blog, then got sick. It was
the usual. But I’m better now,
thanks for asking.)
Some people recommend that you write a certain number of words every day. Well, not you, necessarily. Novelists. See, those of us who decided it was a good idea to write a novel sometimes find that our key challenge has become not drawing heart-breakingly realistic characters or identifying our underlying unifying theme, but rather getting to the end of the frickin’ thing before we die.
Novels are long. You probably don’t realize how long until you write one. Occasionally I hear that someone read one of my books in some ridiculous amount of time, like a single night, or half a day while sipping coffee in Barnes & Noble, or while waiting in line at a movie, and this is wonderful but also appalling, because people really shouldn’t be allowed to digest a couple of years’ worth of my work that fast. They should have to work at it, like I did. It’s only fair.
But the point is: if a writer isn’t careful (or if he is; if he is too careful), he can find himself with a reasonable amount of pages but no enthusiasm to write any more.
The minimum-number-of-words-per-day technique is meant to help. It’s practiced by successful authors and advocated by admirable organizations, and for many people, it clearly works.
But for me, it’s a disaster. I tried it in 1998, after I’d finished Syrup but before I’d found a publisher. I was starting a book called Paper Warfare, a fairly straight corporate thriller about tobacco marketing, and I was very disciplined; every day for weeks I pounded out my minimum 2,000 words. But it felt wrong, because I knew that some days I was just banging out words so I could close the goddamn word processor and go do something else. The next day, I’d try to avoid looking at the words, because if I did I would be so appalled that I would have to delete them. This didn’t seem very efficient. And, more importantly, I wasn’t enjoying it: writing had become a chore.
I made it all the way to the book’s climax—I even had the ending plotted out—then realized it sucked. Not just a little. Not in ways that could be fixed. The whole book really, really blew.
Since then, I’ve written exactly as many words per day as I feel like. And that’s worked well, because when I’m having fun, I’m usually producing good words. But for the book I’m working on now, I’m trying something new: a maximum number of words per day.
I had something like this when I wrote Syrup, because I wrote during my lunch breaks at Hewlett-Packard: I had one hour to eat, write, and get back to pretending that I knew what SCSI interfaces were. Often I would be forced to leave half-way through a great scene, even though I was chafing to finish it. During the rest of those days I would keep thinking about the book, and come up with little embellishments and new ideas. Next lunch time, I would cram down my chicken sandwiches so I could get to writing as soon as possible.
I think this is pretty close to the perfect state: unable to write quite as much as I want to. So I’m seeing if I can create it artificially.
So far it’s been hard, because when I’m on a roll, I really don’t want to stop. I find myself deliberately avoiding doing a word count, because I know I’m probably already over. (I have set my maximum low: just 500 words per day.) Stopping before I want to is frustrating. But then, that’s the idea. I should finish each day a little frustrated.
You will know if this technique is working, because my blogs will become much longer, as I seek outlets for my pent-up words. Yes. You will be my hookers.
After the First Draft
In
the
grand tradition
of posting news about myself that
chuckpalahniuk.net
reported first: I’ve written an essay. Webmaster Dennis Widmyer is putting
together a great resource for writers called… uh…
The Writer’s
Resource, and asked if I’d contribute something. So I wrote
this piece about rewriting.
If you’re a writer, you might find it interesting.
If you’re not, well… isn’t this picture of Fin cute?
Travel Diary: Days 10-12 (New York, L.A., Melbourne)
I sleep in later than I mean to and have to shower, dress, and
pack so fast that I barely have enough time to steal a hotel pen.
I’m meeting my friend Charles for breakfast, and we decide to use
the hotel restaurant.
This turns out to be a mistake, as Charles manages to order the world’s most expensive
bagel, a whopping $18 because along with the juice and coffee it
qualifies as a “continental breakfast.”
Our plan is to walk to the Museum of Natural History, but it’s such an extraordinarily sunny day that instead we end up just chatting on a bench in Central Park. During this time I watch a lot of parents with prams go by, and enjoy peering at their babies until I see one with beady little eyes and a hairy face. It’s a miniature poodle. Yes. In a pram.
That afternoon I have lunch with my impossibly cool agent, Luke, in the kind of restaurant where ladies come to complain to each other about their nannies. (Seriously. I hear them.) I also meet Luke’s dad, legendary agent Mort Janklow. This is a little nerve-wracking, because if the stories I’ve heard are true, when Mort enters the room editors fall to the ground and cry. But he seems quite normal; friendly, even. I guess that’s how it works: the killer is never the one you expect.
I catch a ride out to JFK where I stand in the check-in line behind a Hasidic Jew and a blonde woman dressed as a cowgirl. I feel as if the Universe is trying to tell me something, but I’m too stupid to understand the message.
It’s a little over six hours in the air to L.A., then I have a couple hours on the ground before the 16-hour flight to Melbourne. The most interesting thing about this is that we cross the International Date Line at around midnight, so I miss Friday entirely. When it’s my time to die, I want that day back.
This makes it Saturday when we touch down in Melbourne. I’ve taken no more than ten steps off the plane when I hear someone saying, “Yeah, they’d make Riewoldt captain in a second anywhere else.” They’re talking about Aussie Rules Football. Ahhh. It’s good to be home.
I find myself walking quickly toward the baggage carousel—not just places-to-be quick, but drug-mule-freaking-out quick, and force myself to slow down. Of course, I know the odds are pretty high that (a) despite our plan, Jen and Fin might not have made it to their airport in time, and if they have, Fin may be (b) asleep, (c) in a bad mood, or (d) cry when she sees this smelly, unshaven man shuffling toward her. But I can’t help being so excited about seeing them again that I have to use the bathroom. In retrospect, I’m a little surprised I wasn’t stopped by customs agents and internally searched.
Then I stand by the baggage carousel for an hour. It’s not just me: the whole planeload of passengers waits and waits. Crappy Australian baggage handlers! I just know they’re outside having a smoke break or reading their union pamphlet on workers’ rights or something equally insignificant. Actually, bags are coming down the conveyor belt, it’s just that there are about a thousand people waiting for them. It seems that a lot of planes have arrived at the same time.
I am seriously considering just leaving the terminal and worrying about how to get my bag later when finally—finally!—it appears. I collect it and, one security check later, am permitted to pass through the sliding doors into the main terminal. There is a huge horde of people waiting outside and I have no idea how I’m going to find Jen and Fin among them. Then I hear, “Max!” I turn and there they are, three-deep in the crowd: my beautiful wife Jen and Finlay in a sling on her chest. And then the most incredible thing happens, something I could never, ever put in a story because it is too far-fetched to be true: despite all these people and all this noise, Fin looks directly at me and gives me a big, gummy smile.