I received my Archie Grand order today.
I had only ordered COMMUNISTS I MET AND LIKED but they also sent me DESIGNERS I MET AND LIKED.
Yes. That is an Elvis sticker on my monitor.
They are all sorts of AWESOME. I don’t know if I’m even going to take them out of the shrink wrap.
Greetings Internets.
I just finished reading HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST by Steve Hely. I thought I’d post some snark of my own on the internets about it. I assume he Google’s himself as does his main character in the book. Hopefully he’ll come across this post – if for no other reason than it would be a REAL person looking at my blog.
HBFN (because tying out the whole name takes too long, much like writing this explanation… damn!) is a book about a guy who thinks he’s figured out the perfect formula for writing a novel. There are 16 rules that he wants to include in his book – they include things like:
Abondon all truth, Write a popular book. Do not waste energy making it a good book, Prose should be lyrical, etc. (though I realise putting ‘etc.’ here doesn’t really help you – my reader – since this list is hardly something you’d know how to finish in your head…)
His character’s reasoning for writing a novel is to get back at an ex-girlfriend who is getting married. Basically spite.
He eventually bangs out his on a week binge on an Adderalish drug called Reutical while holed up in his Aunt’s Vermont not-a-maple-syrup-farm-but-pretending-to-be farm. That’s about the half-way point.
The second half of the book is the aftermath of writing his novel – called THE TORNADO ASHES CLUB. The fake novel inside this novel is the best part of the story. And I’m about to spoil it.
It’s a book that involves and old lady, stories of WWII, loss, redemption, addiction, recovery, tornadoes (naturally), & ashes (again, naturally) – plus some other stuff I might have skimmed over. It’s the perfect book – written to be the perfect book. Too point out what the main character thinks is fraudish way pop fiction is written. Essentially people will buy & do buy ANYTHING.
I’ll leave you to read the book to find out the second half. This isn’t effing Cliff Notes here.
I recommend the book. I’m no going to get into the bigger picture of what he’s attempting to do. Or am I??!?!?!?!?
The whole book – HBFN – reminded me of the Seinfeld episodes where George & Jerry are trying to get their show about nothing sold to the network. It’s the same plot structure. You – as the audience member – are watching (Seinfeld)/reading(HBFN) a story about a person(s) who are themselves creating a TV show/book. Or – to use a more LITERARY reference – it’s like watching Hamlet (and I had to Google this to remember – thank GOD for the intrepid wikipedia editors…) and seeing – or reading, if you’re not in to the theater – Hamlet ask a group of players to perform the MURDER OF GONZAGO. Which, as I’m sure WE ALL ARE AWARE OF – was really just a CLEVER ruse to trick that DUMBASS Claudius into revealing his guilt. DUH. Idiots.
Speaking of SHAKESPEARE – how EFFING post-modern is the TOM STOPPARD play ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD? It’s a play using characters that Billy Shakespeare came up with in a play that doesn’t exist in Hamlet. Furthermore – there’s a PUPPET SHOW in the damn middle of the play. So AGAIN we have a play within a play – this time by two characters from a play somebody else wrote – not just ANY somebody, but BILL ‘MOTHERLOVING’ SHAKESPEARE. HOLLY SHIT! I’d also like to point out that the HACKS over at Wikipedia seem to think that Tom Stoppard’s play should be classified as an ABSURDIST, EXISTENTIALIST, TRAGICOMEDY - I’m not even sure that TRAGICOMEDY is in fact, a real word. Though FIREFOX seems to think it is. By the way – don’t be a SQUARE, daddy-o – get FF3.5.1 (that’s a little shout out to my NERDS & GEEKS – FF RULES!!1!!!!!1! so does O’Doyle) Yes I just checked – turns out TRAGICOMEDY is indeed a real word. I still think it doesn’t look good.
In conclusion. Wikipedia’s definition of Theatre (THEATER for those of us in the UNITED STATES OF GOD BLESS AMERICA) is
[a] term … coined by the critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of a book on the subject first published in 1961 and in two later revised editions; the third and final edition appeared in 2004, in paperback with a new foreword by the author. In the first edition of The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin saw the work of these playwrights as giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus’ philosophy that life is inherently without meaning as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus.
And if life is inherantly without meaning – doesn’t that MEAN, that there are NO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS? Becuase if there were absolute truths – then there would need to be meaning. So ULTIMATELY, my INTERNET MINIONS, Tom Stoppard’s play is a post-modernistic THEATER MASTERPIECE.
Also – go buy HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST.
Recent Comments