Reading, Writing (and Eating)

I have a lot to do before I head to Clarion West this summer. Aside from all the normal things one does to prepare to leave town for an extended period (catch up on work deadlines, buy plane tickets, finish home improvement projects, spend lots of time with wife and cats), I have been doing a lot of reading and writing as well. 

I love a good story, and have always loved reading, but sometimes it feels like a luxury instead of something "I should be doing." As an aspiring writer, it's ridiculous to consider reading as some frivolous luxury, of course, but sometimes that old Protestant guilt kicks in. Stoopid guilt. 

One convenient consequence of Clarion West coming up is that it gives my brain plenty of ammo to use against Mr. Guilt. "Hey, I'm doing homework, bugger off!" It's working so far, and I'm knee-deep in a best of Locus Awards collection, a book of Michael Bishop's short stories, and Ian McDonald's Desolation Road. I am enjoying them immensely, and have another pile of books to dive into with wild abandon just as soon as I'm done! 

And I've been writing, too. I was well underway on a short story before I got the call about the workshop, but I hit a bit of a narrative snag. Too many characters, I think, and I'm trying to cull out a few to see if the story sags without them. In the meantime, while in the midst of painting a room we're renovating, another story hit me out of the blue, and three hours later, I had a solid draft I felt great about. A week of edits on the new one and I'm still excited. It's very different from the things I've written so far. 

I usually don't indulge those bolts out of the blue -- after all, it's important to finish what you start. I'll just make notes and leap on the new ideas when I'm done with the old ones. But sometimes a story takes you and throws you across the room and you can't ignore that. My winning entry for Clarion West was a bolt-out-of-the-blue story, and you see where that got me!

On the eating front, my wife continues her 52 Cuisines series for her blog, so that means every week we sample some of the great international cuisines that a big city like L.A. has to offer. It's rich material for the mind (and stomach) and fuels my intense desire to learn everything about everything... a good trait for a writer, I think. 

2009: Five Books I Have Read

Happy 2010 Everyone!

We have spent the day reflecting on the year that has passed and the year that is to come. And so I've been thinking a lot about writing and reading. One of my goals (I won't say "resolution") is to keep a log of what I've read so I can better remember. No doubt some of those entries will also appear here on my blog, so keep your eyes peeled.

My final entry on the "5 Things" theme is on books I read in 2009. I read a lot, so this list barely scratches the surface of the dozens of books I've enjoyed all or in part this year. I certainly recommend them all to you, though of course your mileage may vary. Each of these transported me to their respective worlds in a memorable way.

And in no particular order...

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

The final chapter in Vandermeer's Ambergris series, Finch is a noir detective story set in the decaying city occupied by fungal overlords. If that isn't a hell of a hook, I don't know what is. While obviously connected to the previous stories set in Ambergris, Finch stands on its own just fine -- perfect for me since it's the first one I've read.

Detective John Finch works to unravel the mystery surrounding an unusual double murder on behalf of his mushroom masters. Finch and his city really come to life in Vandermeer's staccato, tactile prose. Finch is as fallible and anti-heroic as you expect any good noir detective to be. The mystery is weird, gets weirder, and ends with explosive consequences for Finch and his city.

I was fortunate enough to meet Jeff when I attended his "Booklife" seminar in Seattle in November. He talked about the challenges of adapting the detective genre to a fantasy novel. I think he managed it quite well. Thanks Jeff!

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I've already done a couple of blog entries on this, but it definitely belongs on this list, too.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Another great noir detective story, this time set in a far future where people store their minds on cortical stacks and "resleeve" them into cloned bodies whenever the old body wears out. With such serial immortality in the offing, you wouldn't think murder would be much of a problem -- just resleeve a backup stack into a new body and you're back in business (if you can afford it, that is). But former UN super-soldier Takeshi Kovacs is pulled out of deep storage to investigate why a prominent businessman was murdered. Kovacs' client? A resleeved backup of the murdered man.

Altered Carbon is an electrifying page turner, full of lurid sex and cyberpunk-style violence. It challenges fundamental assumptions of what it means to be mortal--what it means to be human--when the rich and powerful can wear whatever body they want. Protagonist Kovacs is even more of an anti-hero than Finch. Both are unwilling detectives with tortured pasts, but Kovacs is closer to his feral nature. He's a brutal, deadly opponent, wielding the memories of a thousand lifetimes like knives. He's sometimes hard to sympathize with, but that serves to make our peeks at Kovacs' vulnerable side more meaningful.

The sequels to Altered Carbon (Broken Angels and Woken Furies) are also quite good, but they didn't have quite the same impact on me as did Altered Carbon.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

My wife has been encouraging me to read this for years, and I'm so glad I finally did. It's a classic story of well-meaning white missionaries who go to Africa (in this case, the Congo) and manage to ruin their lives in the process. Told from the point of view of the Mother and the four daughters in alternating chapters, the family's disentegration under its inflexible patriarch and naivete is one of the most damning, haunting, true things I've read.

The Poisonwood Bible can at times be painful to read, but it's a tale well-worth savoring. The characterizations of the four daughters is especially memorable. My favorite was Adah.

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

A book of ten short stories, each with a different main character, but linked to the other tales by overlapping events and characters. We start and end with misguided Quasar, a member of a Tokyo doomsday cult who helps perpetrate a sarin nerve-gas attack -- yet who is not entirely unsympathetic. Through the other stories, we experience themes of reincarnation, chance, artificial intelligence, and quantum physics.

Ghostwritten is definitely on my list to re-read.


Other Notables: Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente, Folktales of China edited by Wolfram Eberhard, Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America by David A. Taylor

Still Reading: Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake, and Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón


What did you read in 2009?

Still so much left to read!

The Joad Less Traveled (Reading: The Grapes of Wrath)

Here I am, untold years out of high school and finally getting around to reading The Grapes of Wrath. (Sorry for the pun in the title. I just couldn't resist.)

It's been high on my "to read" list for quite some time, but kept dropping to the perpetual back of the line like some Jean Claude Van Damme movie on my Netflix Queue everytime something new came along. And in case you think I'm a total jerk for comparing one of the Greatest Novels Ever Written to JCVD,  I should point out that my favorite book is East of Eden. (I don't know whether that absolves my sin or compounds it...)

I just started reading, so I don't have a lot of well-formed opinions on the novel yet -- other than as usual, Steinbeck does a wonderful job of evoking character through place. Few worlds are as vivid to me as Dust Bowl Oklahoma or Salinas, CA during the early 20th Century thanks to his masterful prose. I also appreciate the way Steinbeck warms up to a good story, and brings the reader in at the speed of a fierce summer afternoon and a down-home drawl. Which is to say -- he takes his time to unfold his tales. I think it's a style I have unconsciously emulated as I've explored my own worlds; though I'm aware it isn't a popular style these days. Slow beginnings are a tough inclination to fight. 

One of the other things that appeals to me about Grapes of Wrath is the promise of another great "Road Story." Some people love the hijinx of Capers. Others, the dark excitement of Thrillers. Or the War story. Me? I love being out on the Road.

It's a pretty basic conceit to take characters from their literal happy places and thrust them out into the wilderness, but it's one that resonates strongly with me. The mystery, danger, and opportunity that lurks upon the Dark Path Through the Wood promises untold excitement. The desolate road that snakes across the sun-baked desert strips the characters down to their core -- purifying them for the final test as surely as any sweat-lodge or baptism.

I moved around several times when I was growing up, and each move began with an equal measure of dread and excitement. Good-bye to old friends. What would the new place be like? Who would I meet? What would I see?

Summer vacations to the relatives always involved extended car trips as well. Plenty of time to gaze out the window and wonder "who lives in that house? what's the view like over that next mountain ridge? what's down that dark side-road we just drove past?"

It's a big topic, and one I'll explore more in other blogs, and probably even more so, in my fiction. In the meantime, though, here's a few Road Stories I've read and loved, and a few more I want to read. These are random samplings, and probably reveal some startling gaps in my literary education. Anyone have other suggestions?

Have Read:

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (the ultimate fantasy road trip, even though the quest genre doesn't quite grab me like it used to)

Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure, by Michael Chabon (a perfect homage to the old road/buddy genre with wonderful illustrations by Gary Gianni)

Moby Dick, By Herman Melville (Another classic. though the roads are a little wetter!)

Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart (the first of the wonderful chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox)

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler (haunting. it hit me in the gut.)

Have Yet to Read (some obvious ones here):


The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (is that too obvious?)

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (even more obvious)

The Stand, by Stephen King (I have a feeling I'd love this one)

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, by Jesse Bullington.  (newly released and sounds like it's right up my alley)

Bonus! (one of my favorite Road Pics):

Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg (and written by Richard Matheson. I musta watched this movie a million times growing up)

Woefully incomplete lists on all counts, but the Road goes ever, ever on...