The TIME Mag critics present a list of their selection of 100 best novels written from 1923 to the present. Via Miss Snark, the Literary Agent.
I can’t believe 100 Years of Solitude isn’t included. Happy to see that I’ve read about nineteen of them, but I do see at least twenty that I know I’ve wanted to read but have kind of forgotten about and this list is at least a reminder to add them to my reading backlog.
Well, it was a very, very quiet day in the blogworld and I sure felt it’s been a trend, but from if:book, a link to an article that says different. I think the info blogs, those covering current events and politics for example, or innovations in technology, science or economics are just hitting their stride, and the personal blogs that are exceptionally well written or particularly funny are growing, but I still see enthusiasm waning a bit in dedication to posting and content. The same thing applies to reading, as we may grow tired of reading the same old, same old.
Or, it could be just my own input and output.
Four times today I started different posts. Four times I deleted them often after a sentence or two, sometimes after a couple of paragraphs. I am trying to use the emotional of reality in fiction writing, thinking that the feeling should come strong and clear when it’s from the knowledge of the soul.
To write it plain out, I’m halted by propriety, a sense of loyalty and natural inhibition.
To write it metaphorically, I get too lost in the game. Reality demands too much of this right now from one who strives for honesty and I am weary.
To write in imagery, I get too dramatic. It is so small when measured up against the troubles of the world.
To channel the disillusion and despair would be a good thing. Yet it’s still too close, too close to who I am. Or maybe I don’t really write in a way that opens up those feelings in a readable way, or maybe I need be the only reader and writer both and when it’s done I close the book. I cannot seem to write without questioning the purpose. Cannot stray from truth to twist it into something not of, but from me. It’s probably one of the hardest things, next to the proper use of semicolons, I’ve ever had to learn to do.
Today is like the epitomy of what I’ve been suspecting: The death of the weblog. Nobody’s reading, nobody’s writing. There are always a few who post daily, and some diehards that manage to keep their sites open for years, but as I embark on my third year of Spinning, I’m beginning to wonder if I did the right thing by renewing. While I sincerely appreciate the few who read Spinning, and enjoy very much the daily trips through the internet of the writing of others, I can see a huge slowdown on both fronts. Maybe the heyday of blogging is over. Many have turned their time and efforts over to more serious writing, and they are those I probably miss the most simply because of their gift of stringing words together to hold an audience.
Whether it’s my obsessive nature, or the fact that as a lone shopkeeper of a custom type work that I have constant access and not a large amount of interaction with customers on a daily basis, or just suffer from the writer’s angst, I’m feeling the pressure of spending too much time on this whilst not being appreciated and I’m getting downright whiney and morose. I think that the fact that my writing hasn’t exploded into publication is bothering me–don’t we all have those dreams? And no, writing for myself is not enough.
Maybe it’s the change of seasons. Maybe more than just I am affected by weather. Or maybe the party’s over.
Early morning view, but of blue sky and clouds or shadows of the trees upon closed blinds?
With Meme’s lover, Mauricio Babilonia, shot in the spine beneath her window, Marquez foreshadows the child that comes of the slippery nights before that tragic evening, and of course, we expect her mother’s aghast reaction to her suspicions. Fernanda bundles up herself and her daughter and takes off back to her own birthplace on a train ride that passes past together with present:
"the train went through a poppy-laden plain where the carbonized skeleton of the Spanish galleon still sat and then came out into the clear air alongside the frothy, dirty sea where almost a century before Jose Arcadio Buendia’s illusions had met defeat." (p. 317)
And (to me) the dying of the hope of freedom from the family script by way of yellow butterflys that had followed Meme and her lover around:
"Much time had passed when she saw the last yellow butterfly destroyed in the blades of the fan and she admitted as an irremediable truth that Mauricio Babilonia had died." (p. 318)
Beyond the gringo housing for the banana plantation’s workers, beyond the bounds and bonds of home and territory, Fernanda brings Meme to her childhood home, dilapitated and given over to the weeds and ghosts:
"Meme knew where they were because in the fright of her insomnia she saw pass by the gentlemen dressed in black whom they delivered to the house inside a lead box on one distant Christmas Eve." (p. 318)
And settles Meme in the one sacred, secret spot I’ve always feared:
"On the following day, after mass, Fernanda took her to a somber building that Meme recognized immediately from her mother’s stories of the convent where they had raised her to be a queen, and then she understood that they had come to the end of the journey." (p. 318)
Oh yes, this confirms my version of potential unwed Catholic motherhood: "Hie thee to a convent!" It dealt a greater fear (via the nuns, not my mother) than any image of a demanding, squalling infant could bring about. Odd too, that while I’d not thought of this in decades, it should come up twice in one week, the first time in workshopping a ballad-style poem by one of our Narratives members relating the story of a young woman who becomes a nun, and my immediate question as to the possibility of her pregnancy. Or, her unloveliness, as the least likely to be pick of the litter in some Catholic families was often offered up to convent or seminary for both the assured future of the child and the assured extra indulgences and blessings the parents would receive for their sacrificial lamb.
I’m looking for pink-ribboned girls, three bowed heads in church like angel steps to heaven as they kneel together one-two-three lost to a past and penguins’ swish of clicking beads, nor loving hand nor smiling saints above had ever held them tight.
Close your eyes, put on a sweater and socks, and still you’d know it is autumn by its sound of crispy leaves blowing by.
This confirms a recent experiment at our writers meeting where visuals of Facade and Half Life 2 were denied us. Interesting to see it played out by nature. Now to learn to present the sound in text.
There is little question that some of the British TV comedies are among the very best, and two of my favorites are on tonight. As Time Goes By is a very quick repartee type full of wit and sarcasm about a couple who meet years after World War II when he, as a young soldier and she as a nurse, fell in love and then lost touch with each other. Keeping Up Appearances centers on another middleaged couple, and Hyancinth’s (her sisters are Violet, Daisy, and Iris) total absorption with social standing. I just love the way she draws out "Bruce’s MerCEdes" and insists on the pronunciation of her last name, Bucket as "BouQUET." Poor long-suffering Richard is the perfect straight man to her ridiculous pettiness, and her neighbors, a terrified-of-breaking-a-china-teacup Elizabeth, and her brother Emmett who will go to great lengths to avoid Hyacinth are only two of the excellent portrayals of characters. A hot-to-trot Iris, a nurturing Daisy and her husband Onslo live together with their randy but senile father, and a Violet who is wealthy though her husband dresses in drag are all an hilarious trial to Hyacinth’s efforts to hide her upbringing. Over the years I’ve seen just about every episode of each of these series, but I seriously want to see the collections in my Christmas stocking some year.
Maybe this almost daily posting on 100 Years of Solitude isn’t such a good idea. I seem to draw conclusions from a reading, or am struck by something, then further on I’m finding that Marquez indeed does tell me clearly what I’ve pondered over–whether right or wrong. I also get a feel for the writing, and then he turns it around on me. I posted a strong admiration for his giving us little narrator description of his characters, which is still true, but he pins them down eventually, often through the eyes of Ursula to confirm or modify our own estimations:
"Meme was entering a fruitful age. She was not beautiful, as Amaranta had never been, but on the other hand she was pleasant, uncomplicated, and she had the virtue of making a good impression on people from the first moment. She had a modern spirit that wounded the antiquated sobriety and poorly disguised miserly heart of Fernanda, and that, on the other hand, Aureliano Segunda took pleasure in developing." (p. 292)
Amaranta, sewing a shroud both for her enemy Rebeca as well as one for herself and planning her death, is finally defined. I had wondered about her spurning of her one true love, Pietro Crespi when he seeks her out after Rebeca drops him like a hot potato in favor of Jose Arcadio, as well as her unwillingness to culminate a relationship with Colonel Gerinaldo Marquez (and it’s not a sexual dysfunction nor gender preference, as she comes close to love with her nephew, Aureliano Jose). I thought it to be pride. It seems to be more:
"Amaranta was too wrapped up in the eggplant patch of her memories to understand those subtle apologetics. She had reached old age with all of her nostalgias intact. When she listened to the waltzes of Pietro Crespi she felt the same desire to weep that she had in adolescence, as if time and harsh lessons had meant nothing. (…) She had tried to sink them into the swampy passion that she allowed herself with her nephew Aureliano Jose, and she tried to take refuge in the calm and virile protection of Colonel Gerneldo Marquez, but she had not been able to overcome them, not even with the most desperate act of her old age when she would bathe the small Jose Arcadio three years before he was sent to the seminary and caress him not as a grandmother would have done with a grandchild, but as a woman would have done with a man, as it was said that the French matrons did and as she had wanted to do with Pietro Crespi at the age of twelve, fourteen (…). (p. 297-8)
Amaranta’s hatred of Rebecca rivals the love she is capable of giving and has repressed. She is indeed not the cool character spinster aunt, but a woman of deep passion who simply does not know how to act upon it.
Yeah but, what does she represent in the overall scheme of things? She has since died, and time marches on through Meme who has had an illegitimate son from a smooth-talking banana company mechanic. Unfortunately, he has been shot beneath her window as a chicken thief and spends the rest of his life a bedded-paraplegic when all he was trying to do was sneak into Meme’s bedroom at night.
But I have a feeling that my trek through this book will continue as it has, reconsidering a path, doubling back, returning to a point of juncture and moving forward again via a different trail of understanding.
While I’m reading, I’m also putting together our group literary journal, otto #2, for the fall/winter publication. Without the time to gather more submissions, we’ve got a small issue, but it’s all top quality and still involves a lot of reading, editing, layout, printing and collating. What I need to do is come up with a better marketing plan to extend it beyond the campus and local community distribution. Be forewarned, it’ll most likely be put on sale here at Spinning, and more importantly, keep in mind that submissions are welcome. In this issue we’re proud to include the beautiful artwork and inimitable writing style in an essay by Loretta of Pomegranates and Paper.
Just today I received an e-mail from one of the participants at the Wesleyan Writers Conference about a journal that he has produced called Dirt Press, a quarterly publication of new verse, fiction and visual art. Check it out.
The more I read, the more I’m leaning towards striking out on a new path of literature in editing and publishing the work of others rather than struggle as a writer, although it may mean more academic study before I’m truly qualified. I’ve served as editor of magazines before (and layout, selection, etc.), one back in high school and one a few years back on traditional archery with a distribution of 500 nationwide with several readers located in Canada and overseas, particularly in England where it is still considered the "sport of kings."
No, I know that it doesn’t mean a dime more financially than the outlook for a writer, but it does at least keep me in the field. It’s all a matter of available time and interest.
I can’t say whether I shall ever write another word of story, planned-out fiction be it short form, novel, or new media format. Maybe I have ignored the furnace for too long and the bed of coals has cooled to unreadable cinders. But that’s all right, I think, because the greater loss is in my leaving life without the understanding of the greater words already written. Selfish either way; my sharing of my own or in the concentration on those of others just for self-learning of this lifetime.
Read! Read to write! I said. But maybe for me the talent is more in just the reading, for this go-round at least. And that which I just touched upon in prior times becomes my job, and thus my skill for future use.
In embarking on a third year of Spinning, I may redesign the format, or even split off again into separate weblogs. It would be fun to redesign the logo, and in taking a more literary direction, I found that while I have lost readers more into the "reality" of a personal journal, I have gained some readers interested in the analysis of literature–even though my thoughts are by no means academically or proper critical theory-guided.
On the reality end, there is not much good going on, and the backyard of inspiration need be kept fenced within my mind rather than whined about here. No cheery stories in the cloudy skies and treetops. No deep revelations in the burning tip of cigarette waved in the black night. My thoughts are taking on a serious bend of understanding human nature, and with the help of reading and seeing what goes on around me, these reflections at this stage in my life are vitally important.
For example, yesterday I stood at the counter of our little market in town and laughingly pointed out the clean counter and missing Lottery rack. It was early morning, and Ray was just opening up, his help not yet arrived. But he had this story to tell me:
A woman had come in and complained that the fruit and vegetable weighing scale was not in clear view above the register, although a peek around the Lottery rack would easily have provided a reading. Two days later someone from the Consumer Protection Agency came in following up on her complaint. She had turned him in.
"Surely not a townie?" I asked. "No," Ray replied, "and she’s never been back." Another customer and I shook our heads in sad disbelief.
In my immediate quest to confirm my belief in the basic good in human nature, this episode along with personal goings-on has me confounded. While I am often dumbstruck by what drives some people’s actions, I am attempting to understand their intentions, motives, and become more understanding of the diversity in people not a part of race or color or ethnic background, but by a more important separation of consciousness, conscience, and compassion.
In our teens we are misunderstood. In our twenties we are the saviors of the world. In our thirties we are self-confident of ourselves, and in our forties we question and resolve what the fifties should bring as confirmation and content in knowing ourselves as well as others.
But sometimes something happens that shakes and stirs our world to dump it upsidedown in our laps.
Nothing like sitting in a dark garage to get the mind absorbing, turning over what has been read.
Ursula said it, in speaking of Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo, the twin sons of Arcadio (son of Jose Arcadio, Aureliano’s brother) and Pilar (the concubine of about half of the Buendia men):
"Ursula reproached herself for the habit of forgetting about him (Jose Arcadio Segundo) when she spoke about the family, but when she sensed him in the house again and noticed that the colonel let him into the workshop during working hours, she reexamined her old memories and confirmed the belief that at some moment in childhood he had changed places with his twin brother, because it was he and not the other one who should have been called Aureliano." (p. 281)
Very early on I had posted about the repetition of names, hinted at once again by Ursula, and my conclusion of the two, the Joses and Aurelianos within each generation as being two separate but repeated characters that faced the same repeated events in history but perhaps reacted differently with each generation. The Aurelianos were closer to their father in nature, solitary, quiet, intense, dedicated to ideas, cold yet passionate in their interests, and to a degree clairvoyant as their mother/grandmother/great grandmother, Ursula. The Joses were lusty, anxious travelers, partygoers with goldfingers (here I am referring to their knack for making money, but yes, they were good sexual partners as well). Yet in the Segundo twins, Aureliano is the bold lustful one, and Jose the quiet and somber loner.
There are many ways of looking at this. It could be the dual nature of man, it could mean good versus evil, weak versus strong; it could mean more or nothing. There is a reason for the switch, and it is important that I keep this in mind as the story continues to unravel. Perhaps with further reading it will take on new meaning, showing man’s ability to change himself, or maybe just to deceive. As I learn Marquez’s methods, I have learned to spot his hints, pick up his guide and carry it for I will need whatever he hands me now later in the story. This reminds me of IF or Silent Hill style narratives, where the clues/tools are discovered, are "taken", kept in inventory and used when needed as the story progresses.
At this point in the book, Colonel Aureliano Buendia has been struck dead while pissing on the chestnut tree to which his father was tied; as a matter of fact, he splatters the shoe of the ghost of Jose Arcadio in the process. The next generation, the children of Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda are coming into their own, a little different, a little the same as their ancestors. In particular, Meme (short for Renata Remedios) is very much like her father, fun-loving and aware of the pretenses of her mother and of her father’s liaison with Petro Cotes, with whom he resides sinfully openly.
Marquez is setting me up. I realize I must pay attention to Ursula, and to these young folk who carry on the tradition and story of the Buendia legacy of solitude. I really, really, really need that cabin in the woods.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology