Finn

Now here's an exciting recommendation: The novel Finn by John Clinch. He's constructed an entire character, Huck's father, from the brief references to him in Huckleberry Finn. It is a literary novel full of rich symbolism. Mark Twain utilized the first person point of view. He told Huck's tale from Huck's viewpoint. In Finn John Clinch uses an omniscient narrator. Amazing thing is that it works! There are incredibly beautiful poetic passages. No wonder Clinch says that his style echoes The King James Bible and William Faulkner. The narrative is not chronological and can be confusing. I read the novel twice in order to grasp the time line, as well as to appreciate the language of the book. I belong to a book club here in Florida, but I think I was the only member truly excited by this novel. I came to the meeting with passages underlined, things to discuss, and, most importantly, questions about how did everyone else feel about Finn? He is most definitely not a sympathetic character, but I found myself understanding him, even excusing him for some of his evil deeds. Am I gullible? Or did the author make him complex enough to allow some sympathy? Unfortunately, we never got to discussing this in the book club. No one else took the time to fully appreciate this novel. I know that sounds elitist and a bit snobbish, but I feel that a discussion group could spend hours with this one and still be going strong. Oh well. There must be others who view the work as I do. If you're out there, let me hear from you. Oh. I forgot no one reads this blog.

Joyce Carol Oates

I've only recently discovered Joyce Carol Oates, even though I've known of her for decades. Can't tell what prompted me to read her work now. She is probably the most prolific writer alive with, I believe, forty novels to her credit, plus short story anthologies, essays, and plays. She's a Gemini, for those interested in the astrological sign of the authors they read. I didn't know that until after I started reading her stuff. Seems I gravitate to Gemini writers.
The book that I found particularly intriguing is The Falls. Oates has a way of drawing the reader in with unusual characters in unusual situations. In The Falls a young man commits suicide by jumping into Niagara Falls on his wedding night, while his wife is asleep. Didn't he ever hear of annulment or divorce? Seriously, it wouldn't have made a difference given the time he lived and who he was. The novel never strays from being engaging, intriguing. Oates takes risks with the plot that worked for me. There is one scene, however, that I'd love to discuss with someone else who's read this work. This book is perfect for a book club, if I belonged to one, which I don't. In Florida, the book clubs I find meet too early in the day for me.
The mood of The Falls is dark, brooding. Yet it surprises constantly and satisfies at the end. I won't go into plot beyond telling the opening scene.
I just finished Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates, a small novella with more characters behaving strangely, but so believably. Oates has complete confidence that the reader will "buy" the people she creates. I have absolutely no trouble suspending any disbelief when reading her work. For me there isn't much disbelief to suspend. After all, I've conquered One Dimensional living.

One Dimensional Living

Yes, I achieved entrance into one dimensional living on Cape Cod recently. I am the first to accomplish this denial of the other dimensions. I am a nihilist at heart. Compression into one dimension is not what the body favors, trust me. All our organs, cells, tissues are used to the cozy arrangement of height, width, and depth. There is a price to pay for squeezing oneself into just one dimension: Pain, compression fractures, the bends (when you decompress), and all the other stuff that flesh is heir to. Shakespeare knew about this long ago, and that is the esoteric meaning of that quote. Nevertheless, I have experienced something that would make me do it all again in a flash: the unbearable lightness of being. I do not recommend one dimensional being for weight loss, by the way. No, there are easier ways to accomplish that: Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, Jenny Craig, and starvation come to mind. No, ULB, the Unbearable Lightness of Being is a spiritual state and must be approached with all the caution, training, and dedication that one might give to playing a Chopin Etude, or preparing for initiation into the Masons. In another Blog entry, I will attempt to describe the Nirvana-like state of existing in one dimension and one dimension only. You would think, after all, that I wouldn't be able to recall the experience, since my brain was flattened into a virtual pancake. But, what my grey and white matter lacked in the other two dimensions, it gained in the "splat" of one dimensional existence. All one's intelligence is spread out in one gigantic splotch. Oh, the beauty and the truth and the joy! Do not attempt to do what I did! The training process is grueling. Contact the proper associations before you even dream of diminishing yourself. I am truly honored to even be here reporting to you my experience with The One. Be patient. Await more information. I forsee us all there One day soon. They also serve who only sit and wait. Ah, that is what Milton was talking about, after all!
Blessed be, you all.

All Hallows Eve of NaNoWriMo

Halloween or "Samhain" in Celtic lore, according to Mike Nichols, is a night that exists outside of time and , hence, it may be used to view any point in time. At no other holiday is a tarot card reading, crystal reading, or tea leaf reading so likely to succeed. What about the novels all of us are about to create?

Is it coincidence, then, that NaNoWriMo Eve is also the same night as All Hallows Eve?

Meditation leads me to believe not.

Bobbing for apples may well represent the remnants of a Pagan "baptism" night call seining. The water-filled tub is a latter day Cauldron of Regeneration into which the novice's head is immersed. The fact that the participant in the folk game was usually blindfolded with hands tied behind his back also puts one in mind of a traditional Craft initiation ceremony. Also according to Mike Nichol's research.

What better initiation into the craft of novel writing then having it occur on All Hallows Eve? And don't we go into it with our eyes blindfolded? Without prior preparation? Not knowing in what direction we may be headed? We fiction writers are symbolically baptized into our own Cauldron of Regeneration, and creation, during a night that exists outside of time, when our inspiration is about to be brought into time during the month of November with a higher likelihood of succeeding.

Ponder also the oft debated: whether a man can write from a woman's point of view and vice versa. In Scotland, at least, the tradition of dressing in costume on All Hallows Eve consisted almost exclusively of cross-dressing (i.e. men dressing as women, and women as men). It seems as though ancient societies provided an opportunity for people to "try on" the role of the opposite gender for one night of the year.

So my NaNoWriMo friends, feel free to write from whatever point of view you wish! We are beginning during an auspicious time indeed. And the above are only a few of the links NaNoWriMo Eve has with All Hallows Eve.

Feel free to research further, and you will see that we are all truly blessed to begin our work on All Saints Day.

Pope John Paul II said in his letter to artists: Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul...artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption.

Thank you PJP-II for believing in La Perduta Gente!

They're back.

Maybe it's the RaspbeRRy SeltZer that fizzes my brain. I don't know. Several days ago I thought I put the bearded ladies idea to rest for a while. I did come up with two very lovely pictures, didn't I? The text wasn't so bad either. Yeah, it was time to move on to other subjects, whims, and obsessions. What better way to forget the ladies con le barbe then to read some short stories. I picked up an anthology by Ryan Boudinot, which I'd bought several months ago, but hadn't had time to consider.
The third story is entitled Bee Beard. I was hoping it was about a man. But the first paragraph confirmed my fears:
Bette wore the bee beard to work on a Tuesday...At first I mistook the low buzzing for ambient noise from my computer monitor or a fluorescent light fixture...Bette wore what I had come to secretly call her Star Trek uniform, a hideous white suit jacket with too-pointy collars. From her face hung a beard of bees..."You like?" she said, standing, pivoting in a circle.
"Aren't they going to miss the hive?" I said.
"Yeah, they'll want to eat, so I brought plenty of honey," Bette said.
Now this story continues: Bette and Scott go to an up-scale restaurant, and while, eating, one of the bees from Bette's beard flies across the table, bites Scott, who goes into anaphylactic shock and has to be rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.
That prevents Scott from sleeping with Bette who's about to become his boss. The next morning his co-worker Dan arrives at work saying: "I'm a little out of it this morning. Late night, if you know what I mean," Dan says, his face dripping with bees.

Does anyone need further proof of the power of the bearded lady? With hair or bees. Oy. What a world, what a world.

The Kirk (Us) Reviews

I believe blogs are part of The Aquarian Age. Ego plays no part. Or shouldn't. So, when I come upon another blog site with relevant information, I will be the first to recommend it. It is necessary for all of you currently visiting my site to immediately blog out to Another Hundred Crimes blog site and read the reviews of Kirk Davis from Amazon.com. Then, after reading them, you also have to write to Kirk urging him to quit his current job and permanently compose reviews, so that all of us will feel a little less lost in this confusing consumer-oriented society. If you believe, as I do, that it is everyone's mission to transform the lost people (including ourselves), then you will heed my advice to go straight to the Amazon.com reviews and spare yourself a few thousand years in Hell. Laughter is antidote to anything diabolical. Thank you Kirk(us) for your reviews, and for allowing us to work off serious karma.

One of a thousand admirers

Bearded Ladies

Before I get to the topic at hand, the topic at chin, I want to take a sip of Ritz brand RaspBeRRy SeltZer. For those of you not so fortunate to be living in this small segment of the west coast of Florida, you may have to start with a more well-known seltzer

such as Poland Springs in New England or Perrier in France. The seltzer is a preface to submersion into this whirlpool of consideration: Bearded Ladies. A topic not often explored. A topic heretofore of circus sideshows and the like. Here we are delving into the very soul of the bearded lady. The psyche, if you will. The hirsute history of the most bending of genders. This is both a tantalizing preview and a warning. The topic is not for the weak hearted or feeble minded. It is a bracing endeavor. It is looking at something intriguing without flinching, without allowing the mind-as-censor to overtake your interest and further investigation. Think of me as your ring master, your intellectual ring master: one who calls your attention to the center ring where the bearded ladies are spotlighted. Not as freaks. Not as sideshow. But as the Main Attraction. As Boris Karloff used to say on one of those old T.V. shows: "As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, THIS is a Thriller!"

For those of you who are still reading, still hungry for the information promised: I refer you to the upcoming production of the musical LaBarba. Never in musical theater has a subject been explored with such depth. The music has been called brilliant, but it is the book of the musical that is also without equal in the annals of modern, or for that matter, ancient theater.

In two or three acts the musical examines the life of one woman who desires the beard, obsesses over the beard, dons the beard, and faces the consequences, both expected and unintended.

We witness the transformation both literally and internally (and cosmically, I might add) of what it means for the female to deliberately defy natural law (and one might also argue God), cut and paste the beard (not only on her computer screen, but on her flesh) and then ultimately find the magic potion that enables her to actually grow the beard that takes her to the existential and intrinsic elements of the human condition.

We witness it all: the longing (wonderful arias), the defiance of social mores (exquisite soliloquies), the beard worn in private (facing the shame and overcoming it), and finally the exit from the closet into the sunlight, the world (unforgettable arias, duets, production numbers, and tragic recitativo.)

And we know that, as before, for now and ever there will be bearded ladies in our midst. Never again will you view your mother, your wife, your sister, your aunt, any woman again without wondering: does she don? You will sing the appropriate section of the opera and fully know what the beard means to some women. And life will never be the same. (Act Two: La Vita transforma from La Barba.)