May 2005 Archives

In the course of discourse I've come upon a sentence which strikes me with grammatical fear and unrest. A poeticized version of the troublesome sentence is as follows:

"It is sentences like this that give me pause."

The sentence itself is fine. But I was struck with the grammatical equivilant of one of those moments where a repeated word suddenly loses meaning. You know what I mean. Repeat the word "moment" a hundred times and it becomes nothing but meaningless sounds produced by lips pursed together just so, which, really, is all a word is: wind whistling across damp skin, lunatic sounds devoid of context. The above sentence suddenly deconstructed in my mind and did the same thing. "It is sentences" lost grammatical coherency (though valid, how could it not sound odd?), and "this that give me" appeared all wrong (taken out of context it breaks down). I suddenly wanted to say "It are sentences like this that gives me pause" instead. Grammar too, like words I suppose, exists only because we define it to exist. How can there be rules about stringing random barks and howls together? How can we claim one way of streaming and screaming nonsense is better than another?

It are sentences like this that gives me pause.

Say it enough and it sounds right. By enough I mean ten, twenty, one hundred times. If you push hard enough you can fit the round peg of sound into the square hole of grammar. Yes, the peg is round and the hole is square. But it is a very big hole.

Ah, Tom Stoppard. Surely one of the best playwrights of our time. I've been sort of down on theater lately and haven't been reading as many plays as I used to, but every time I pick up something by Stoppard it makes me want to write for the stage. It's all about language and words and how we abuse and misunderstand and talk through each other. Good stuff.

The fantastic book "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo (which I recently read) is now a two-episode movie on HBO, premiering Memorial Day weekend. I saw an advertisement for it on HBO and while I'm not one to review a movie before I've seen it, it looks phenomenal. The characters seem perfectly cast - each time I saw an actor or actress on screen during the preview I could guess which part they played immediately and was correct each time. I suppose the movie could easily fail to meet expectations, especially since my expectations are now unreasonably high, but I hope not.

Unfortunately I am planning to head to NYC this weekend for some much-anticipated revelry, damn it. That means I can't sit at home all weekend and do nothing but watch the premier. Fortunately this is an HBO mini-series event, which means they'll play it about a 1000 more times for the next thirty days. No one better tell me how it ends!!! Oh, wait, I've already read the book.

The newest book, "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk is, first and foremost, perhaps the most digusting thing I've ever read. Really. The first short story made me sick to my stomach, and, unfortunately, I read it just before boarding a plane for an eight hour trip (there was an unplanned three hour wait before takeoff). Was it disgusting in a "this is brilliant how an author can bring literature to such a disgusting new low" sort of way or in a "this is disgusting for the sake of being disgusting with no literary value" sort of way? I'm not quite sure.

The book is made up of about twenty people (semi-voluntarily) trapped together in an abandoned theater and woven between the main plot are individual short stories about each person. The short stories are quite good (though note that the first one of the bunch is the "most disgusting story ever") but the main plot is pretty bad. First of all, I just could not believe it. All these characters are doing terrible things to themselves and each other so that when they are finally "rescued" they will become famous for thier ordeal. It's an interesting premise and it is an interesting extension of our current mass-media culture of capitalizing on our own suffering, but it just didn't really work. In fact, reading this book made me think that some of the antics you see being played out on the news aren't so bad after all - most people would probably (hopefully) prefer to keep family tragedies private and nothing like this book's plot would ever really happen. Second of all, the characters, even with the individual stories, never get any of my sympathy, perhaps because the individual stories are so disconnected from the actual book. I've never agreed so much with Amazon.com reviewers before.

The biggest problem I have with the book is that the character short stories, though individually excellent, are really inconsistent with the main plot. I suspect that Chuck Palaniuk wrote them as what they are, short stories, and then only afterwards decided to weave them together into a novel. Some threads go through each short story, some do not. In fact, it is mentioned multiple times how each character has killed somebody in their story, but, well, that's simply not the case. Plus there is one science-fiction story that, while good, does not fit here at all, and if we are to accept its premise as true in the universe of this novel, it completely negates any sense or reality the novel might have had.

Anyway, great short story collection, interesting but insubstantion and inconsistent main plot. Since I'd have recommended the book if it were simply a short story collection, I still would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes Chuck Palahniuk or overly disgusting narratives. But it's better if you sort of pretend the main plot is distinct from the interpersed stories so as not to lessen the value of them.

Scene: A man sits around a hotel conference room table during a presentation being given by his boss to multiple high level executives (levels much higher than the man's own), expecting at any minute he'll be called upon to answer some questions, and he's sure if he makes a good impression it will do wonders for his career. A hotel-provided hospitality waitress is making the rounds with some drinks and snacks.

WAITRESS: [Whispering] Can I get you something to drink, sir?

MAN: [Paying attention to presentation, he simply shakes his head no.]

WAITRESS: [Whispering a little louder] Sir? Something to drink?

MAN: [He shakes his head no again and motions her away.]

WAITRESS: [A little louder] Drink, sir?

MAN: [Whispers] No.

WAITRESS: Are you sure?

MAN: Nothing to drink, please.

WAITRESS: It's provided free of charge.

MAN: [Getting very frustrated] I'm trying to pay attention. Please.

WAITRESS: Sir, did you hear what I said? It's free.

MAN: [Still whispering, but much louder now] I don't want anything!

WAITRESS: Not even a glass of water?

MAN: No.

WAITRESS: Not even water? Nothing.

MAN: No water. Nothing!

WAITRESS: You aren't thirsty at all?

MAN: [Still whispering, though much louder now. A few people are turning to look.] Look, okay, fine, I'll have some water. Please just get me some water and let me pay attention.

WAITRESS: Just water? I have all sorts of soda and juices. I mean, if you're thirsty you might as well get what you want.

MAN: Just water. I just want water!

WAITRESS: Are you sure?

MAN: Yes, I am absolutely, positively sure all I want to drink is water!

WAITRESS: Okay, one water coming right up.

[Pause]

WAITRESS: Can I get you a snack as well?

MAN: [yelling] GODDAMN IT I DON'T WANT ANY GODDAMN SNACK!

[Everyone in the conference room is silent, staring at the man. The man is horrified. After a long pause the man's boss continues giving the presentation.]

THE END

Note: This actually happened to me once, except for the very last bit with the yelling.

I loved this book. Long ago I attempted to read Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" and gave up about a third into it because the book was just too dense with historical names and facts without enough plot. While "The Name of the Rose" is similarly dense with information I felt the balance with characters and mystery worked great. There are some beautiful Borge-esque descriptions of libraries and labyrinths, there is very interesting historical discussions about Christianity and the Inquisition, and there are great theological and philosophical debates. All this in the middle of a compelling murder mystery.

I don't think everyone will like this book. It definitely has as much (or more) straight exposition as actual narrative, and it can be a little hard to follow at times. But if you're the sort of person who will read the whole book and not give up after the first 100 pages, you'll probably love it.

Hey, the website is back online after a week of downtime. I cancelled my Time Warner cable service since I'm spending the summer in another state and won't be watching too much TV in Austin. Apparently this did something to my network requiring a cable modem reboot, but since I wasn't physically nearby to do so it had to wait until my return.

Of course, I haven't had access to MixedMetaphors either, so the promised "best of" review isn't done yet.

Well, I have officially stopped reading "Vernon God Little" half-way through. This won the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and I couldn't even get through it. My girlfriend read it before me (and, actually, sort of warned me not to read it but I did anyway because I had no other books available) so she was able to tell me how it ended. I'm glad I stopped.

It's told from the point of view of a fifteen year old boy who has been accused of being the second shooter in a terrible school shooting spree. It's riddled with curse words and disgusting moments (not normally a problem for me - I love that sort of stuff when done well, such as by Martin Amis). The main problem I have with it is that it is totally and completely unbelievable. The evil and stupidity of the characters is completely one-dimensional and unrealistic, way past my point of disbelief suspension. I could probably go on but don't really feel like an extended review of a book I didn't like and didn't finish.

Note: Despite the fact that I haven't yet finished reading "Anna Karenina," I still plan on completing it eventually. Unlike this book it has not been abandoned.

The recent death of legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson inspired me to read his iconic work, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I enjoyed it immensely, though it is somewhat disconected and never really gets around to the subtitle's promise of "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream." The whole theme is pretty minor and is barely mentioned apart from a few tongue-in-cheek references and one slightly unbelievable scene where he asks some credulous diner staff where to find the "American Dream" and they send him to an old dance club. Otherwise the book is really a criticism about both the American anti-drug culture and the American pro-drug culture. Finding himself completely high and acting as a journalist for a law enforcement drug conference he shows us how off-track the police force and anti-drug policy is, but at the same time he doesn't condone drug use. It seems like his message is that no one should tell people not to use drugs, but all the same those people would probably be better off if they decided on their own not to use them.

The best moments of the book are when he slips into an almost prophetic self-loathing, such as when he describes his destroyed, drug filled hotel room and says that he can't even try to pretend that it is some sort of "druggie display" for the law enforcement conference because no one would ever have so many different drugs and refuse in their room. But, of course, this is his actual room, and he does have all these drugs and refuse, and he is telling us he has sunk lower than the lowest drug user.

One interesting note: I knew that the Duke character in the Doonesbury comic stip (originally) represented Hunter S. Thompson (check the character FAQ a few questions in) but until reading "Fear & Loathing" I didn't realize that Thompson's alter ego is actually Duke.

Can you believe it's been one year already? One whole year! That's right, MixedMetaphors.net is one year old! Remember the first post, one year ago? Oh, it was so witty and brilliant, and it's been one long and glorious downhill slide from there. Unfortunately I've been traveling and I've had little time for blogging lately, so I'm actually writing this post on May 4th. But just because I can I'm going to label the post as May 1st. That's right, I can LIE about when I posted something. Now you can never trust the accuracy of the post dates again.

When I have more time (not sure when that will be) I'll do a year in review, highlighting the best posts, the worst posts, the longest posts, the shortest posts, the funniest posts, the most controversial posts (i.e. posts producing the most reader response), and, of course, the now-coveted "Most Meta Post" award.