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Via a comment on Ann Althouse’s blog, I skipped over today to this review in the London Times of an essay titled Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus (“How to discuss books that one hasn’t read”), which was written by one Pierre Bayard, who is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII. And also (writes the reviewer, Adrian Tahourdin) a “practising psychoanalyst.” How beautifully French.

Bayard’s droll conceit includes a description of the four categories into which he places books:

“LI” indicates “livres inconnus” (books he is unfamiliar with); “LP” “livres parcourus” (books glanced at); “LE” “livres dont j’ai entendu parler” (books he has heard discussed) and “LO” “les livres que j’ai oubliés” (books he has read but forgotten).

Tahourdin next recounts that Joyce’s Ulysses falls into the category LE.

[Bayard] claims not to have read the novel, but he can place it within its literary context, knows that it is in a sense a reprise of the Odyssey, that it follows the ebb and flow of consciousness, and that it takes place in Dublin over the course of a single day. When teaching he makes frequent and unflinching references to Joyce.

I suppose we should delight in his honesty.

I also wonder . . . hmmmm . . . what do his students think?

I’m afraid I can’t relate. Having attended a modest state college, I’m reasonable certain that my lit professors had actually taken the trouble to read the books to which they had the habit of making “frequent and unflinching references.” An alarming lack of pretension, I agree. But I forgive them.

Another thought also occurs to me. What does it say about a literary novel when People Who Read Serious Books can sum it up in a single sentence — sum it up as an idea — without even having to read it — and then discuss it, as that idea, amongst themselves?

Where are its roots?

Michael Blowhard wrote this, a couple of days ago, in a post about mystery writer Elizabeth George:

When you pull an artform out of the earth it grows from, even if you do so with the best or the loftiest of intentions, it’s likely to whither and then die.

I’m not sure we can accuse Joyce of yanking literature out of the earth — I think he was just marchin’ to the beat of his own drunken Irish drummer — but in the end he didn’t need to even if he’d wanted — he has the Bayards of the world to do it for him . . .

Technorati Tags: James Joyce, writing, books, literature

What I’ve been doing instead of blogging :-)

(besides working of course! my day job has been pumping writing assignments to me like an out-of-control gadget in an I Love Lucy bit)

is reading.

One book I’ve just about finished now is Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd, and a couple nights ago got to the chapter covering the period where Shakespeare was writing Coriolanus. One of the themes Ackroyd explores is Shakespeare’s use of contemporary political events in his drama; in Coriolanus, there are parallels between the events of the play and the 1607 Midland uprising by English peasants against the landed gentry. Shakespeare displays an empathy with his characters; for instance, he portrays his rioting Roman citizens as motivated by imminent starvation. Nonetheless, notes Ackroyd, Shakespeare didn’t take a political position in the play. Instead, he “displaced and reordered” the events of his own day “in an immense act of creative endeavor.”

Everything is changed. It is not a question of impartiality, or of refusing to take sides. It is a natural and instinctive process of the imagination. It is not a matter of determining where Shakespeare’s sympathies lie, weighing up the relative merits of the people and the senatorial aristocracy. It is a question of recognising that Shakespeare had no sympathies at all. There is no need to ‘take sides’ when the characters are doing it for you.

To take this a step further, consider Norman Holmes Pearson and W.H. Auden’s introduction to Viking’s The Portable Romantic Poets, in which they write:

Consciousness cannot divide its données into the true and the false, the good and the evil; it can only measure them along a scale of intensity.

Exactly. And so we have in Shakespeare that he seeks the intensity of consciousness rather than, say, ethical illumination; this explains also why “art” in the service of some sort of Message is invariably off-putting, like a note struck not quite in tune; even though we may nod in approval our jaw has tightened slightly; we are burdened by such “art” rather than released.

As it happens, I’ve also just finished another book, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, by Ken Kalfus, which the bookjacket promised to be “rollicking” and “a brilliant new comedy of manners.” The book, if you haven’t heard, is set against the backdrop of 9/11 and its aftermath; the plot is the bitter interplay between a man and wife who are divorcing. It was a 2006 National Book Award Finalist and got press when it was published for having incorporated 9/11, and for the opening hook: both protags believe for a short time that the other had perished that morning, and hate each other so much they both hope it to be true. And so you have the frisson of public horror mixed with private triumph, raising the possibility that the book will somehow conflate or even alchemize public and private worlds, public and private reactions. It’s a book, IOW, that suggests we will find some sort of Meaning, if only of the sardonic sort.

And so I read, hunting. Here’s a bit of what I found: a reference so passing as to almost seem inserted (as if the actual event occurred as Kalfus was drafting the book; it didn’t, it actually happened before 9/11, although in the book, whether by error or literary license, it’s said to have happened in 2002) to a suicide bombing of a pizzeria in Tel Aviv. Marshall is reminded of the bombing when he’s walking in Manhattan and is startled, post-stress-syndrome-traumatically, by the sound of a “heavy steel grille being slammed shut on the back of a truck parked in a loading zone;” he goes on to reflect:

This was a world of heedless materialism, impiety, baseness, and divorce. Sense was not made, this was jihad: the unconnected parts of the world had been brought together and made just.

So Marshall’s personal world is allegorically connected to international events. Nod, nod.

Earlier in the book Joyce, the wife, again in a scene that felt to me patched-in, is said to be “intently” following the invasion of Afghanistan — so much so that she memorizes the country’s geography, the better to follow the military campaign’s every move. She’s also “drawn to the Afghan people, for their beauty and primitive dignity, even if that dignity seemed contradicted by their brutality, untrustworthiness, and venality” and asks

Would American wealth and the expediencies of its foreign policy corrupt the Afghan people? Or were we being corrupted by their demands for cash, their infidelities, and their contempt for democratic ideals?

Meanwhile her life hadn’t changed. She was still not divorced and she had lost hope of ever being divorced; or, more precisely, her marriage was a contest governed by one of Zeno’s paradoxes, in which divorce was approached in half steps and never reached. After the long post-9/11 interregnum, Joyce and Marshall had resumed meeting with the lawyers, who themselves seemed wearied by their disputes despite the cornucopia of billable hours.

You can almost hear the study questions forming in the background. How does the Afghan invasion shed light on Joyce’s behavior toward her husband? Her attitude toward her divorce? How she views herself within her marriage?

And of course there’s also the possibility that we’re intended, as well, to find Kalfus himself peeking through, a kind of parallel world outside the book where he is wink wink nudge nudge “taking sides.” More study questions.

What we don’t find, however, is intensity. There’s the Jerry Springeresque viciousness of Marshall and Joyce’s mutual hatred, but that’s not intensity, that’s spectacle. Certainly neither Marshall nor Joyce “take sides” in contemporaneous political questions, unless moral ambivalence itself counts today as side-taking.

We’re left with mere Meaning.

It’s enough to make one wonder if that’s the most to which a literary writer, writing in America today, can dare aspire.

Technorati Tags: book review

I expected something different from Candace Pert’s latest book, Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d. For starters, the title’s a bit of a bait to the text’s switch. You aren’t going to find that promised Everything here. In fact, you aren’t going to find much, if any self helpy advicey stuff.

What you’re going to find, instead, are two other books. The one that takes up the most room is an autobiographical account of Pert’s efforts to deal with personal “issues” she’s realized have sabotaged her efforts to realize her vision of an AIDS cure. Pert and her husband, Michael Ruff, have pioneered research on peptides that block the receptors that permit the AIDS virus to enter cells (Pert’s a recognized experts in peptides and peptide receptors; as a graduate student in the 1970s, she proved the existence of opiate receptors). The original research they did was funded by the National Institute of Health; the two have been fighting for years, now, to wrest control of it from others who, for various reasons, have either quashed it or tried to leverage it for other, less compelling causes. This content is no doubt of interest to Pert’s fans, and will no doubt be a useful model to people struggling through parallel difficulties, but it’s not what I was looking for when I bought the book.

The other book got me excited. Unfortunately, it’s on the thin side: bits scattered here and there, primarily as summaries of presentations Pert has given over the last couple of years during her many public appearances.

The first bit peeks out at us right away, when Pert tells us she believes in something even more radical than “mind over matter. ” She believes that “mind becomes matter” — and that there is “real science” to support that assertion.

By sorting out the autobiographical diary-of-a-seeker stuff, one is able to find hints of that science. A big piece of it is that James Oschman (with whom Pert has collaborated on another book) has proposed “a physical structure in the body composed primarily of collagenous fibers, the kind that make up your connective tissue.” This structure, which Oschman calls “the matrix,” connects and penetrates every cell of the body, “a new understanding that flies in the face of the classical view of cells as empty little bags whose interior isn’t hooked up to existing structures.”

The significance of this structure, Pert writes, is that it’s “actually a semiconductor, a substance capable of supporting fast-paced, electrical activity . . . [I]n many ways, it’s like a giant liquid crystal.”

Apparently peptides — some of which we recognize as neurotransmitters that affect mood, e.g. serotonin — cause our cells to give off electrical signals which are transmitted by/across this structure. In other words, when we resonate with an emotion, we really are resonating. Furthermore, others around us can be affected by this resonance, rather like a tuning fork, rung, can cause another tuning fork to vibrate. You know the old quandary about how could a flock of birds sitting in a tree suddenly take off at once, as if they were one organism? Well, based on Pert seems to be saying, they are one organism: they are matrices within a greater matrix . As are the crowds of people at a concert or sporting event or political rally or church service.

Our body can also store charges — i.e., past emotional charges can be recorded by or imprinted in our bodies, causing us to essentially “lock in” to certain habitual ways of feeling or responding emotionally.

There are some other bits as well about the frequencies of music, color, and brain waves sharing identical wavelengths. Put it together and there’s the suggestion that, for example, our emotional response to music can be attributed the way the tones stimulate our cells’ neurotransmitter receptors. Wild. Wish there was more of that kind of stuff in the book.

Technorati Tags: peptides, neurotransmitters

Catching up on some things, here: I finished The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant several weeks ago and before I mess with the code to remove its image from my sidebar I may as well blog about it, eh?

I liked the book; I liked the way it pulled me into the 15th century and into the inner life of the narrator. The fact that it raises issues around suspension of disbelief is not any flaw in the novel per se, but in the genre.

One can’t help but wonder whether a 15th century teenager would view the world in a way that could even be communicated to a 21st century observer.

How did women living at that time view themselves? How could they?

In some respects, I think Dunant has probably hit on a few answers. The narrator’s habit of filtering her interpretation of the world in religious terms comes across as plausible, for instance. And certainly her conflict with her parents and siblings rings true, given her personality and intelligence. There is internal consistence, which helps a great deal to make the novel’s pretences work.

But what about the primary themes of the novel? They are essentially feminist: the narrator is precociously bright and desires desperately to be a painter; because she’s a woman, both her intelligence and her artistic ambitions are a liability. This conflict, incidentally, isn’t handled in a way that’s stilted or cloying. Nonetheless, one can’t help but wonder whether any woman at that time could have articulated herself in those terms.

Put another way: could such conflicts have become even close to conscious 500 years ago?

It’s an impossible question to answer; we can’t place ourself inside the skins & minds of long-dead people.

Historical novels are, instead, rather like dreams: they insert a contemporary self into a vastly peculiar landscape and say, “now. React.”

Quite possibly, that’s enough.

Technorati Tags: book review, The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant

It isn’t easy to find, but if you check out the Participation Guidelines that Amazon publishes on the Community section of the site, there’s a clause that suggests sock puppetry is a no-no. It’s under Prohibited Content or Activities, which lists the “conduct or Content that is prohibited” and includes this bullet:

The impersonation of any person or entity or forging of any e-mail communication or any part of a message

I suppose that someone with a slippery enough grasp of ethics might argue that impersonating a fake person — posting under the identity of someone who doesn’t exist — doesn’t count. I mean, it’s not like the fake person would mind. Since he’s fake. Not that you can ask a fake person’s opinion.

But the issue isn’t just that you’ve taken advantage of some hapless fake person. It’s the act of impersonation: pretending to be someone you’re not in order to gain some advantage. (And hey — fake people are entities, too!)

Amazon doesn’t bother policing their site for this kind of activity, obviously. But it’s nice to see they do recognize it undermines the credibility and validity of their reviews and they don’t consider it an acceptable use of their site.

Technorati Tags: sock puppet, bogus Amazon reviews

John Scalzi has some advice. It falls along the lines of the whole Biblical eye-plucking idea.

Nothing about whether it’s a good idea, if your sock puppetry has been outed, to threaten to sue bloggers who blogged about it, though.

Hmmmmmm. I do suppose that if you have removed both hands, it would be hard to phone said bloggers with your threats . . . even hands-free phones need to be dialed . . .

Technorati Tags: sock puppet, bogus Amazon reviews

Writer Alex Kuczynski’s been outed for . . . not sock puppetry exactly. Because she’d revealed on her Amazon profile that she masquerades as one “Walter” — a Walter who’s written glowing reviews of Kuczynski’s books:

Update: Uhhh, we guess it’s not sockpuppetry if you admit that it’s you in your profile. Then it’s just stupidity.

(Actually it looks like her profile has been taken offline. Must be she actually grasps that she’d goofed up. Huh.)

Technorati Tags: fake Amazon reviews

Of the following 15 Amazon lists, each of which lists The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told as the first book on the list, two were compiled by “stan,” two were compiled by “dorky,” and two were compied by “Les T.”

The other nine lists were compiled by other people. Or so you’re supposed to believe.

Below the list of the lists are the reviews of TGWTLSET that these individuals composed.

Can you pick out any two reviews that are obviously written by the same individual?

LOL

That’s a trick question!!! It’s impossible to tell ANY of these reviews apart!!!

You don’t suppose they were all written by the same individual, do you???

Another trick question! Of course they were!!!

Here are the lists:

1. Super Intelligent Rednecks (Tom)

2. Wake Up Inside (stan)

3. Massage Your Genius (Laura D.)

4. Oh Freaking Wow! (dorky)

5. Be happy again (stan)

6. Behold the greatest wh . . . (James Thomas)

7. Truly Feel Stronger and Better (emotionally too) (cory)

8. know what emotionally distraught geniuses are into now (Les T.)

9. Dance with a Devilish Delilah (Les T.)

10. Gain Profound Insight (Pam S.)

11. Be shocking (Jimmy)

12. Gratify Your Brilliant Mind (ahhhhhh) (Fran)

13. kiss my sweet assortment of books (Elizabeth S.)

14. Tickle Your Hi .IQ. (Dorky)

15. Touch the perfect (Crota)

Here are the reviews. Go ahead, match them to the list! I’ve mixed them up! LOL

A. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is truly my favorite story these days. It is full of nail-biting suspense from beginning to end. There is a surprise ending that left me staggered. It is about the beautiful Terra Peoples and the man who loved her. Terra is the queen of the white ghetto. You would have to click on this book’s icon to understand what I’m talking about. Terra is riot unto herself, but the unusual man who loves her is a mystery, a deep, profound mystery. There is a lot of humor in this story, laugh out loud humor. Anyway, I’m recommending this one to all my friends. Again, you would have to click on the icon to understand what I’m talking about.

B. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is a whopping surprise of a story!! Wow! I thought it was just some comedy, but fraught with mystery, suspense, and romance(that males and females both enjoy) it was easily the most powerful entertainment experience of this year for me. Wow! Wow! and Wow again! This is the story of the strange queen of the white ghetto, and if you don’t know about the white ghetto, you have got to click the icon to find out. Is it possible for her to find love? Well, under the circumstances, one would doubt it. This girl has problems, but do not despair, there is a man for her. I don’t want to give anything away– especially the profound and amazing surprise ending. I’m just recommending that everyone click on its icon.

C. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is my favorite book of late. It is actually something way beyond what it would appear. While it is humorous (very!) it is a profound love story– something that women AND men will enjoy. It is about a man whose love is unrequited. It is about the queen of the trailer park, the ever entertaining, Terra Peoples. You get a real sense of the white ghetto while reading this book– you are there to feel the pain but not to wallow in it. The book has more triumph than tragedy. You see the sights– the trailers up on blocks, the muddy feet children, the b-b-q stands, the radios blaring. This book is powerful on so many levels. I love it, truly love it. I am telling all my friends to click the icon for this one.

D. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told shook me up completely. I couldn’t catch my breath as I got into the story. It is about the kindest, most decent man I think I have ever encountered in popular literature. He is extreme, but he is believable. And SHE, oh my gosh, she is the devil. I don’t what else to call her. With her lying smile and beautiful blue eyes, she’s the devil from the time she is a child. Why would a guy like him love a monster like her? She’s downright funny she’s so bad. But hey, who am I to judge? This story is just profound.

If you know what it’s like to live in a trailer or if you would like to know (and trust me, you really need to know) this is a must read. We’re all more alike than unalike.

E. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is about the meanest, cruelest, most vile, beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde you ever met. Terra People’s heart is so hard a jackhammer couldn’t break into it. But one thing (and ONLY one) did eventually get into her heart. In what has to one of the greatest surprise endings in all of human literature, Benny Carpenter, the fellow who just can’t keep himself from loving her manages to… well, I can’t give it away. It has to be the most emotionally satisfying ending I’ve ever read, though. Truly worth. I laughed. I cried. I told friends.

F. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is my favorite book at this time. It is a highly imaginative story set on the wrong side of town. I was shocked but overwhelmed with the hopefuly message contained therein. The main character is a beautiful blonde who is used to getting her way. She has a hard heart and is remorseless in her cruelty. However, there is one man who may have what it takes to wake her up to love. This is a remarkable story, and the icon is definitely one to click.

G. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is an enormously fun, humorous, at times thrilling account of love in the white ghetto. I’m glad I clicked it. It is the story of Terra Peoples, the most beautiful girl in the trailer park and Benny Carpenter, the guy who had the misfortune of falling for her. Terra is a terror. She’s hard to deal with, hard to know, impossible to get close to. She could cusse, drink and fight by the time she was four. Benny, on the other hand, is the living embodiment of goodness. He’s a good fellow with a kind heart. What could possibly bring these two together? As it turns out, one and only one thing. That is the surprise ending. Againt, definitely worth clicking on the icon.

H. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is just a darned funny title. It is also an excellent book that is NOT trashy at all. Quite the opposite. It is a really classy story set in the white ghetto. Despite the hardships, the characters do not complain or whine. The love story is the main thing. The meanest gal in the park, the infamous Terra Peoples, who also happens to be stunningly beautiful from head to to has a heart as cold and dead as ice, but there is one thing that will wake her emotions, one and only one thing. And the nicest guy in the trailer park happens to have it. As I read, I felt like I was there–participating in the story, seeing life from the inside of the trailer park, experiencing it. Definitely good to click its icon.

I. I’m Pretty picky about what I read so you can imagine how shocked I was when I gave The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told a try, got hooked on the first page and could not put it down. If you want to be shocking, love someone the way the main male character loved the main female character in this story– this has to be the most amazing story I’ve ever read. Dang, it just made me feel so alive for a change. I still get teary eyed every time I think about it. Anyway, I could go on for some time. Just do yourself a favor and check it out.

J. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told completely shook me up as I read it. It was like I was lifted off the ground and transported to the story setting. It takes place in trailer parks and post-industrial age schools, mostly. It is about a “white trash” boy who falls in love with a “white trash” girl. Being a white trash girl, she is devious and difficult. She’s impossible. One and only one thing ever turns her around, but you will not see it coming. This story is magical really– a true gem. Definitely worth clicking.

K. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told lives up to its humorous title in a way you would not expect. It is a very suspenseful story about pure love– something men may enjoy as much or even more than women. I freaking love this book. It is about a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed, white-trash girl and the man who loves her. She is the most spiteful, dishonest, hard hearted female in the trailer park. He is all that is good and kind in the world. He finally manages to beat her at her own game– but only in a way you would NOT expect. Laugh out loud funny meets tear jerker– great read. Definitely worth clicking.

L. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is NOT a trashy romance. It is not trashy in any sense of the word. In fact, it may be the purest and best love story I have ever read. It is about an “evil” woman named Terra Peoples. She is as mean as a snake by the time she is five years old. Benny Carpenter, a white trash boy, has the (mis)fortune of falling in love with her when they are in kindergarten. She thinks he’s a fool and will not let him get anywhere near her. But he keeps on loving her until everyone is convinced he is a fool. There is a surprise ending to this story that just really blew me away– so surprising, so shocking I never saw it coming. Just a great, heartfelt story. Glad I clicked its icon.

M. There’s nothing trashy about The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told. It’s a classy book about the purest form of love from beginning to end. Ellis brings his characters vividly to life. For instance, there is Angel Bonsecour, the narrator. She’s a single gal and a nurse, one who has “the inside” tract on what’s happening in the neighborhood. There’s Benny Carpenter, the boy who loves too deeply for his own good. Through him we understand the pleasures that only a white trash boy experiences. Do you know what it’s like to sleep in a small tin trailer when it is raining? There’s probably not a more relaxing sound in all the world. And of course there’s Terra Peoples, the story’s main character, the demented dancer that Benny loves endlessly. Can anything on earth penetrate this evil woman’s heart?

N. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is the funniest, most lovable book I have read in ages! It is about life in the white ghetto. The main characters grow up hard, and if you’ve ever lived in that part of town, you know what it’s like. The story doesn’t dwell on the pain, however. It is what it says it is– a great love story. Be very sure to click the icon. The main female character is as hard as nails, but there may be one thing that can reach her. Does the main male character have what it takes?

O. The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told is the most amazing book I have read this year. In a way that touched my emotions and made me feel great in the end, the story was captivating, absolutely captivating. It held my attention. I was very curious about the intriguing title, and so I clicked it.

It is about life in the “white ghetto,” but more importantly, it is about a very tender but strong love.

btw, you know why I’ve put up this post? Because “libel” isn’t “libel” when you’re telling the truth.

So. Some guy posts pseudonymous reviews for his novel on Amazon. I blog about it and say I think it’s a dumb idea.

Now he’s all upset because my post is there for anyone to find.

And he hasn’t even stopped doing it!

I’m supposed to feel sorry for him? I’m supposed to believe people are lying about him?

Incredible.

Totally a waste of my time too! But what can I say. I don’t like being bullied.

Technorati Tags: bogus Amazon reviews

Several months ago I put up a post about a fellow named Rhett Ellis who has used psuedonymous Amazon reviews to try to pump his self-pubbed novels.

Just got a phone call from Ellis. He wants me to take down the post. His speechifyin’ included the words “attorney,” “libel” and “defamation.”

Aside from disliking the feeling of being bullied, it seems to me that the ethics of removing my post are questionable.

I blog about writing. I think posting fake reviews is a dumb idea. I think Ellis was trying to game Amazon to promote his books. I think that kind of stuff can backfire.

I wrote about something that actually happened (which he doesn’t deny — or anyway doesn’t deny all of it; he claims some portion of what Charlie Hughes published online was untrue) and offered my opinion about it.

Should I now remove my post because he doesn’t want people to know that he did this and that it makes him look bad?

Should I remove this post, too?

Should I remove the post that I’d then write explaining that I’d removed the post, and why?

Hey, if he sues me, should I remove my blog posts about him suing me?

:-D

What do you guys think? What would you do?

There’s a saying, “don’t get in a pissing contest with a skunk.” It’s good advice. I really don’t give a fat rat’s butt what happens to this guy or how he rearranges the furniture in his psyche. And I’m sure he can out-piss me if he puts his mind to it.

What would you do?

Technorati Tags: bogus reviews, skunks

Vanity search on technorati and found some bloggers who have mentioned Outwitting Dogs or have even said nice things about it.

Thanks, you guys!

Technorati Tags: dog training