the humanities are dying and it's obvious

[liminal_space]

a few days ago i finished reading baby teeth and it has really stuck with me.

to be honest, the whole premise turned me off and i hesitated reading it, but i took a chance on it and am really glad i did -- the writing was tightly constructed and the pacing was almost perfection, which in new novels is far less common than it you'd think.

anyway, the story/writing reminded me of modern architecture: clean, functional, with almost every word having purpose and i loved it, even though the story made me squirm.

what's nice about books like these is that you walk away and they stick with you for awhile. HOW they stick with you is obviously different depending on the novel, but this one specifically reminded me that one of the best seeds an author can plant revolves around the question "what if?" some what if questions are simple, some are complex, but the most wonderful novels are ones that germinate from that specific seed and are nurtured to fruition through good writing. and THAT'S where deep, thematic messages come from, not from heavy handed writing that hammers the fuck out of the prose to create unwieldy weapons to beat us with (octavia butler is a prime example).

but i segue.

as i ruminated on baby teeth i remembered a discussion i had with someone a year or so ago about the harry potter books. i love the books. i love their message, i love the characters, i love how the series marries a bildungsroman with a hero's quest and provides something that felt fresh and captivating. this person loved them for the same reason until JK said what JK said about trans women and then suddenly, she just couldn't anymore.

it got to the point where she intimated that if i continued to like the HP universe/books, i was against trans people. i was truly baffled by that -- and still am -- because i have never, ever approached literature (or art) in a way where the writer's (or artist's) life impacted my analysis or enjoyment of a piece; that just seems pointless to me. sometimes using a biographical approach to literature gives a really great contextual jumping off point to dive in deeper, but overall? it's just not that important. i mean, hemingway was all sorts of things i don't approve of, but i still get goosebumps when i read some of his sparse and visceral prose. while i understand that who he was(tm) informed his work and there's value in looking at that, that specific line of inquiry fades quickly away when you dive into his oeuvre.

used to be, it seemed the only books closed minded shit heads wanted to ban were books that referenced/centered around really difficult topics or bits of history we would like to forget (tkamb, the bluest eye, the invisible man (ellison), grapes of wrath) -- but now there are challenges to books from the people who you would think aren't closed minded shit heads because they don't reference/center around difficult topics or bits of history we'd like to forget enough.

so at this point, i'm thinking that we're all doomed to eventually live in a society that closely resembles NOT 1984 but the movie idiocracy. and the literature coming out of this progression shows it.

ok, not ALL of the literature....but a lot of it.

no wonder tyrants go after artists and academics.

*
sort of relevant:

PD James: RULES FOR WRITING...
1 Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.
2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious. (emphasis by me)
3 Don't just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.
4 Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.
5 Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.
*
also sort of relevant:

“I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. Oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly.You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”
— Vita Sackville West, from a letter to Virginia Woolf dated 21 January 1926.

*

we just found out that kid's horse riding lessons are going up $20 a week. i was in a bit of a panic because i'm trying soooo hard to keep to a budget of some....type....but then we found out that we are going to be saving $150 a month in health insurance starting next month (i think), so big sigh of relief. of course, i started thinking about what i could do with the EXTRA left over, then stopped myself. lol :( it's a struggle, man.

*

i find myself in a mood today. some of it is about books (which is dumb), a bit is about shitty authors (which is also dumb), a chunk is regarding the heat (not dumb), a slice is over my dumbass horse (it's my own damn fault...), and a feathering is related to the kid sometimes being, basically, britta from "community."



except her teenage knowitallness comes from youtube videos and her friends who get THEIRS from youtube videos.

punks. the lot of them. =D

Comments

[honor-reid.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could read Baby Teeth but I am glad it gave you something to think about.

Yes, the YouTube videos are the end all be all of human knowledge up to this point according to all the teens I know. lol

[inchpinching.livejournal.com]

I saw the Baby Teeth film, I didn't realize it was a book, and your review of the writing makes me eager to look it up to read myself! Thank you!

[missdiane.livejournal.com]

I don't scold anyone for still liking HP but for me, JK ruined it and I can't watch any more of the related movies and I don't want to see the HP stuff in my home anymore. I don't want to fatten her pockets anymore.

[pinstripe-bindi.livejournal.com]

I read and enjoyed the HP books (and saw all the movies), but it was never a big thing with me. I doubt I'll ever go back and re-read the books, for instance. But I like HP Lovecraft, so you can probably guess where I fall on the "Can you enjoy art created by absolutely terrible shitheads" spectrum.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i've been circling around that book for awhile now — the topic/subject just kept me from diving in.

teenagers are so weird. bless their hearts. lol

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i didn't know it was a movie!!!! i'll have to look THAT up. =D i feel like we did a trade here. ;)

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i completely and totally understand. :)

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i can tell exactly where you fall on that spectrum. ;) i admit i struggle with lovecraft — his style doesn't fit my brain all that well and find myself mentally wandering as i read. which is sad, because we have him to thank for so much of the scary stuff i love today. :)

one of my favorite professors and i had this amazing discussion about how hard it is to sometimes separate the artist from the art — which is why she rarely talked about the authors of the books we read. she was of the opinion that when a book is finished and published, it stops belonging to the author and ownership is transferred to the reader. that felt so perfectly *right* to me and mirrored exactly how important i feel the author is to the final work.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

used to be, it seemed the only books closed minded shit heads wanted to ban were books that referenced/centered around really difficult topics or bits of history we would like to forget (tkamb, the bluest eye, the invisible man (ellison), grapes of wrath) -- but now there are challenges to books from the people who you would think aren't closed minded shit heads because they don't reference/center around difficult topics or bits of history we'd like to forget enough.

Yes, and it's disappointing.

[cosmic-reverie.livejournal.com]

I, too, love the HP books. I, too, don't care about drama around authors. Ender's Game is another example. I don't even know the bios of most of the authors who write books I enjoy.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

terribly so! :(

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Orson Scott Card was a real pip, wasn't he? But I loved that book SO MUCH that I have named two of my most beloved animals after EG characters in the past.

Big beautiful orange cat = Ender
and a sweet little stray dog named Bean. :)