Burning time like it’s my job. (and a booklist)
I’m an adaptable person. One all-nighter, and my sleep schedule spirals into a cycle of waking up at 2pm, going to bed at dawn. When the stars align and I find myself a creature of the day-- then! yes, I can be productive. It’s difficult to spend 6 consecutive hours at your laptop reading about NBA trade rumors (exciting!), studying poker strategy (woohoo!) when the sun is out, cafes are open, and by all accounts you should be doing stuff. But when I become a creature of the night, nothing can be taken for granted. (And, no, don’t mistake this for my not having anything to do—I have a 30pg act to write for next week in addition to a story revision. Ideas, Jimmys?)
Just yesterday, I had to step back remind myself of the possibility of reading. Yes, I am still allowed to read books. For pleasure. In the name of doing something useful with my time, I decided to compile an annotated list of books (thanks for the suggestion Law).
Buffalo Soldiers, Robert O’Connor
I read this as a sophomore, after grilling Adam Johnson for some book recommendations. Buffalo Soldiers is a second-person novel about a drug dealer in the army stationed in Manheim, Germany during the Cold War. There are gems of dark, revelatory prose in this:
You push the plunger down a little more, giving Simmons a rush. Then you pull it back up, milking blood from the vein and mixing it with the scag in the syringe to make gravy. You wait a moment, letting Simmons get a feel for it. His eyes focus on the bloody mixture in the syringe. It contains everything: Hope, Love, Life, Death (6).
This is the type of book you read in a weekend, unable to put it down. At least, that’s how I read it. The novel is more than just voice, drugs, and sex, however. Contained within the blade of the voice is a great deal of insight, and the corruption story it traces is a significant one. After reading this book, I immediately went on to write my own 2nd-person story (the first story I ever wrote) unabashedly ripping off O’Connor’s style. And the rest is history…
A Farewell to Arms, Earnest Hemingway
I bought this book at the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris, across from Notre Dame I’m pretty sure, and I read it basically in one sitting on the flight home to LA. This would be the summer after junior year. Of all the places I traveled to alone, I think I liked Paris the best. It was a great place to be reading, looking around, and thinking.
A Farewell to Arms is a war story and a love story set in Italy during Word War I, with much of the content drawn from Hemingway’s experience as an ambulance driver. What I loved about the book is that I could see Hemingway working very hard to describe things as precisely as possible with simple language. I felt that he was getting at some important things, trying very hard to do so without embellishing. Just flipping through the book, it’s amazing how much of the text is untagged dialogue. There is an amazing scene I remember where the Italian army is retreating and the carabinieri—the asshole battle police—are fucking with everyone (too good not to give a preview of!):
The two men who had me shoved me in the group of officers waiting to be questioned. I looked at the man the officers were questioning. He was the fat grey-haired little lieutenant-colonel they had taken out of the column…
“Why are you not with your regimen?”
He told them.
“Do you not know that an officer should be with his troops?”
He did…
“It is you and such as you that have let the barbarians onto the sacred soil of the fatherland.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lieutenant-colonel.
“It is because of treachery such as yours that we have lost the fruits of victory.”
“Have you ever been in a retreat?” the lieutenant-colonel asked.
“Italy should never retreat.”…
Two carabinieri took the lieutenant to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabinieri on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots…They were questioning someone else…They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it (200-201).
(Unfortunately, to reproduce Hemingway takes a lot of space, because he uses so much repetition, a painful lesson at 5am.)
Others I would like to get to, though probably in lesser detail:
A Flag for Sunrise, Robert Stone
Three Years, Anton Chekhov (from the Signet Classic Selected Stories)
This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
Jarhead, Anthony Swofford
Beloved, Tony Morisson
Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor
Jesus’ Son, Dennis Johnson
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
1984, George Orwell
Just yesterday, I had to step back remind myself of the possibility of reading. Yes, I am still allowed to read books. For pleasure. In the name of doing something useful with my time, I decided to compile an annotated list of books (thanks for the suggestion Law).
Buffalo Soldiers, Robert O’Connor
I read this as a sophomore, after grilling Adam Johnson for some book recommendations. Buffalo Soldiers is a second-person novel about a drug dealer in the army stationed in Manheim, Germany during the Cold War. There are gems of dark, revelatory prose in this:
You push the plunger down a little more, giving Simmons a rush. Then you pull it back up, milking blood from the vein and mixing it with the scag in the syringe to make gravy. You wait a moment, letting Simmons get a feel for it. His eyes focus on the bloody mixture in the syringe. It contains everything: Hope, Love, Life, Death (6).
This is the type of book you read in a weekend, unable to put it down. At least, that’s how I read it. The novel is more than just voice, drugs, and sex, however. Contained within the blade of the voice is a great deal of insight, and the corruption story it traces is a significant one. After reading this book, I immediately went on to write my own 2nd-person story (the first story I ever wrote) unabashedly ripping off O’Connor’s style. And the rest is history…
A Farewell to Arms, Earnest Hemingway
I bought this book at the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris, across from Notre Dame I’m pretty sure, and I read it basically in one sitting on the flight home to LA. This would be the summer after junior year. Of all the places I traveled to alone, I think I liked Paris the best. It was a great place to be reading, looking around, and thinking.
A Farewell to Arms is a war story and a love story set in Italy during Word War I, with much of the content drawn from Hemingway’s experience as an ambulance driver. What I loved about the book is that I could see Hemingway working very hard to describe things as precisely as possible with simple language. I felt that he was getting at some important things, trying very hard to do so without embellishing. Just flipping through the book, it’s amazing how much of the text is untagged dialogue. There is an amazing scene I remember where the Italian army is retreating and the carabinieri—the asshole battle police—are fucking with everyone (too good not to give a preview of!):
The two men who had me shoved me in the group of officers waiting to be questioned. I looked at the man the officers were questioning. He was the fat grey-haired little lieutenant-colonel they had taken out of the column…
“Why are you not with your regimen?”
He told them.
“Do you not know that an officer should be with his troops?”
He did…
“It is you and such as you that have let the barbarians onto the sacred soil of the fatherland.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lieutenant-colonel.
“It is because of treachery such as yours that we have lost the fruits of victory.”
“Have you ever been in a retreat?” the lieutenant-colonel asked.
“Italy should never retreat.”…
Two carabinieri took the lieutenant to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabinieri on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots…They were questioning someone else…They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it (200-201).
(Unfortunately, to reproduce Hemingway takes a lot of space, because he uses so much repetition, a painful lesson at 5am.)
Others I would like to get to, though probably in lesser detail:
A Flag for Sunrise, Robert Stone
Three Years, Anton Chekhov (from the Signet Classic Selected Stories)
This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
Jarhead, Anthony Swofford
Beloved, Tony Morisson
Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor
Jesus’ Son, Dennis Johnson
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
1984, George Orwell
posted by Ari at 5:25 AM
3 Comments:
Welcome to the ranks of the nocturnal.
It warms my heart to see you starting a blog. I'm going to bring everybody to the blogosphere before I'm done ... can we please get Ric to start one?
Adding you to my links ...
I second Justin. Nice to have another blog to add to the "check at least 15 times a day while bored at work" list. Nice PT stats, BTW. I wonder how much of that is due to getting near-maximum action when holding queens against some donkey with 10-10 out of position. What a jopke.
Peace.
- Doyle
p.s. - You a 2+2 guy, or have you found some underground site for your poker research? I stopped checking out the aforementioned site because I couldn't stand Malmuth or Sklansky. Do you see why?
Jimmy, nice site; keep up the good work. Also, thanks for the book list and free mustache publicity. I'll take aim at 1984 just as soon as I give up on Magic Mountain, a recommendation from another liberal artsy friend.
Live strong,
- Jimmy
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