Fiction

[poliphilo]

I didn't do any work on the book yesterday. I must try and do some today. I'm revising it, and that is relatively easy but not much fun. You don't get the adrenalin-rush of being carried away by story.

I write novels. But I don't read novels. Not any more. I'm forcing myself to read the Color Purple, but it doesn't do anything for me. I can't really explain this. Maybe I've reached saturation point; I read all the GREAT novels when I was a kid, and now there's nothing left worth bothering with. Or maybe it's just that, having learned the tricks of the trade, I'm no longer fooled by other people's illusions.

Someone asked Stevie Smith what poetry she read. She gave a feline smile and said, "why, only my own."

But I love the movies. That's how I get my fiction ration these days.

Comments

[balirus.livejournal.com]

The movie is always better than the book..., well, for pornography anyway.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I would have loved to direct movies....

I had an interview once with Col Carreras, the boss of Hammer Films. I was completely unprepared (I didn't have any interview technique) and I blew it.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

I used to read fiction voraciously, but now I find that I have limited use for almost all fiction. It's strange really, but I figure it's about like your former statement: I've read almost everything worth reading, understood it, and gotten everything that can be usefully gained from it for now.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I have been jumping back and forth between works of old and the undead authors. Here Kitty Kitty put me in such a terrible mood that I almost didn't finish it.

I'm glad I did, though. I need to start finishing what I start. I never had this problem with books, but I would hate to start. I just now have started reading The Mystified Magistrate and other farces by de Sade, which I think is simply delightful fun.

I don't know whether all the great books are written, whether we change so radically in taste from youth to adulthood, or whether as writers we eventually figure out too many parts of the process, but there is nothing like finding a particular author that moves you.

If I bump into anything particularly amazing, I shall let you know. You let me know about movies worth renting. I am very behind in terms of films--any help is welcome (especially from you, since you obviously possess such good taste)!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've said I'll read all the books my wife reads for her Eng Lit course. This lets me in for Virginia Woolf and Ibsen and all sorts. It'll be good for me. That's my mantra.

I'm currently crawling through The Hypnerotomachia- the renaissance "novel" which gave me the name of this LJ and my own username. It's very wonderful and very, very heavy going- like six-hundred year-old, brandy-soaked Christmas pudding.

Is the Mystified Magiostrate a play or a novella?

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

It's a novella. The book contains this and several other very short stories. I am enjoying the pace of the good marquis--he never fails to entertain and somehow, in the strangest way, he reminds me of my mother.

That has to be the strangest thing I have ever said. I don't know what it is about him. His aristocratic sense of humor, perhaps. His strange sense of justice--I don't know, but whenever I read him, I hear my mother's voice and it's not just amusing, but comforting, too.

You have made me extremely curious about The Hypnerotomachia. I am going to make a point of reading it and let you know what I think of that brandy-soaked Christmas pudding! ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've only ever dipped into de Sade; you know, sidled up to him in bookshops and had a surrepticious riffle. Oh, there are so many books I ought to read.

Hypnerotomachia is like an animated Botticelli. How can a book be almost unreadable yet totally awesome at one and the same time?

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

You certainly should, I think you would be at the very least amused. This man lived three regimes in a time of change, was antagonized by all, and also hidden under their mattresses--it's fabulous.

The more I read about Hypnerotomachia, the more I want to read it. I have just added it to my Amazon.com wishlist. I will buy it with my first paycheck as a columnist. Whoo hoo, whoo hoo!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I look forward to some interesting conversations about it!

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Indeed!