Ineluctable Quack's Blog

My first Book Review at the San Francisco Chronicle

ineluctablemoo — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:38:03 GMT

One disadvantage of reading book reviews daily, or almost daily, with the exception of, say, the reviews at The New York Review of Books, which are less 'book review' and more critical essays, an important distinction, according to Cynthia Ozick, a distinction I endorse because, well, "she's Cynthia Ozick man!," although of course there is more to it than that, none of it all that amusing so I will refrain from including it and instead I will just redirect this sentence back to the disadvantage of reading book reviews daily is that, when it is your turn to write a book review, especially your first one, you are bound to unconsciously follow the formulaic contours of the form. A circumlocution equivalent to saying: My first book review might be of interest to you only because you know me. Because we are acquaintances. Friends. http://www.sfgate.com/eguide/books/

May I please call myself a writer now?

ineluctablemoo — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:13:48 GMT

The "what do you do?" interaction--at cocktail parties, art openings, or writers workshops'--usually went something like this: - Fiction, eh? - Yes. - Have you published anything? - No, but-- - Oh. Do you mind if I put on my smirk? Really quick, ok? There. So what kind of [smirk] fiction do you write? - Literary. A bit, experimental. - How cute! My little cousin Bobo is a writer too. On Monday, at 11:30:34 AM, the editor of the Antioch Review, an established literary journal, called me. He said he liked the story I sent him. He said he wanted to publish it in the Fall issue. He said he liked my Hume epigraph too. We chatted about memory and its distortions. He alluded to Nabokov's "Speak, Memory". I tried not to hop around the office. I did not succeed, although of course they were discreet little hops, like a constipated rabbit might hop on his way to--to wherever rabbits go to buy Pepto Bismol. Or is it Lax-C? Either way, my first story will be published this year. Oink.

What could be worse than having to be seen resorting to your own life?

ineluctablemoo — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 04:53:36 GMT

If like me you’re boggled by the persistence of story in American fiction, the same reversals and recognitions and epiphanies on top of a hill overseeing the sea where a burning ship sails away, then read Gary Lutz. The grammarian. http://www.webdelsol.com/lutz/

Why, Doctor Atomic? Why?

ineluctablemoo — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:08:10 GMT

Towards the end of Dr. Atomic, as the detonation nears and most lie flat on the bare dark stage, there's a dance. A few turns and one-two steps, a reproduction of hundreds of cabaret numbers. The dance irritated me. I tried to think, remembering his Ligeti dance pieces, how Christopher Wheeldom would have choreographed this scene, and yet this distraction, which in restrospect seems futile and typical of workshop mentality, was not what irritated me. A congruence between subject and means of depiction need not to exist, at all really, for sometimes it is this disparity that shows us something new. And yet, prompted perhaps by the silly dance number, I wondered what was the point of turning the atomic subject into an opera. Not that opera has to have a point. Most operas do not, actually. They're fluffers around pretty arias, although I guess that qualifies as having a point. I want opera not to be the same staid maid. I therefore look forward to 20th century operas or new operas. Somewhere Adams or Sellars or Rosenberg talk about Dr. Atomic and its Faustian undertones. And yet the Oppenheimer character is not a character but a mouth stuffed in a suit. Faust without Faust in not Faust. What’s left? Atomic talk, as well as some poems, set to music. Great music. Which rescued the piece from the beat of the kitsch stick (the maid doing a robot dance comes to mind). But not from being ponderous. Is it enough? Not for me. Sadly so.

The Goat, or Who are my Friends?

ineluctablemoo — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 20:58:45 GMT

Friends who jump to judge their friends sadden me, perhaps for the same reason Albee's new play saddened me. In the "Goat, or who is Sylvia?", Martin, a successful architect, falls in love with a goat. Or, to put in more crudely (as his son does), he is fucking a goat. Since this is perceived as an abomination, everyone, including his best friend of decades, abandons him. Only if we live a life that is perceived by others as good, Albee suggests, will our loved ones stand by us. And since what is perceived as good varies from friend to friend, aren’t we forever about to be abandoned by a friend? And this of course leads one to the question: so what makes me like someone? Is it really their capacity to make seemingly right choices? Or can one like someone simply because they share with you an inclination for Scriabin? Or because they dance funky? Or because you made love to them ten years ago and the memory of that moment prompts you to keep on living? Or, at an even simpler level, as one of my friends did with me last Friday, because they were kind to you at that precise moment when you were dancing and yet worrying about whether you will be a good father?

The Role of Literature in Disaster Relief

ineluctablemoo — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:02:10 GMT

The chaos in New Orleans--the looting and the rapes and the thuggery--did not surprise me. Anyone, I thought, could have anticipated it. My lack of surprise to our sad news still unsettled me though, mostly because I did not understand why I was sure of myself. After some scrutiny, it occurred to me why I had reacted like this: I had read about this kind of chaos before. Not in old newspapers or history books but in "Blindness," a novel by Jose Saramago. There was more than just recognition in this literary association. There was outrage too. And much of it. Could the speed of relief after Hurricane Katrina, I kept asking myself, have been different if government officials had read Saramago's novel? My question about Saramago's novel, I assure you, is not a rhetorical one--the kind one poses to appear interesting. I live in San Francisco, a city vulnerable to seismic disasters. Soon my family and I could be facing an emergency not unlike that of New Orleans. All inquiries that could avert future mishaps in the management of relief efforts must therefore be considered. In Saramago's novel, an epidemic of blindness complicates life in an unnamed city. Since nobody knows how it spreads, the government decides to isolate the infected, herding them inside a ward without any supervision. The number of the blind escalates alarmingly. The blind struggle to survive. Some help each other, yes, but too many, driven by self-preservation and the freedom of lawlessness, resort to violence. Eventually, blindness infects almost everyone. Supplies become scarce. Pillage and rape follows. Chaos continues until the epidemic suddenly ends. All of this is narrated without judgment. There is no moral to the story. Nor is there a triumph of good over evil. Confronted with a life-threatening crisis, the narrator seems to say, this is just what humans do. I return to my question: could the speed of relief have been different if at least one government official in charge had read Saramago's novel? If, driven by the strong impression left by this novel, he would have picked up the phone in a panic as soon as he heard the disaster news and said: "We need more troops to secure them against anarchy"? If, devoid of any na?ve ideas about Christian solidarity or slogans assuring him that Americans are good people that in times of need will unite, he would have picked up the phone as soon as possible and declared: "Thugs could seize some of these shelters. We need more troops"? The chaos that followed hurricane Katrina was not caused by a few drug addicts in need of their fix, as mayor Nagin has suggested. This is us. The quicker we shed the silly little stories we tell about ourselves, the better prepared we will be against disasters.