Dammit, someone here has to own up to being an actual smartyhead!

I will. I think most of us here are, but most of us are also painfully aware of our perceived shortcomings in areas that matter to us. But isn't that really the point? That if one loves something and that field matters to one (particularly in a field as vast and far-reaching as Western Lit is, not to mention literature the world over), that one feels like a grasshopper at the base of a mountain - overwhelmed by the immensity of the task, but eager to try.

Have you read or seen Arcadia? Lovely language.

Mmm. I love Arcadia, and hope to direct it someday. I enjoy most of Stoppard's work, with the notable exception of The Invention Of Love (which puts me a direct odds with Betsy, among others). The Fringe show I'm directing has sort of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead feel, and it's quite fun.

Wow you lot have been up to very much.

I disagree with everyone!* So there!

* except maybe JZ

when are you coming home and why aren't you home already?

Isn't Hec just the cutest thing?

"Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto" by Barry Targan. Anyone who creates anything but doubts their talent and worthiness must read this story. A guy who works at a hardware store takes up the violin and his dream is to play the Mendelssohn with a real professional orchestra. His determination is polite and reasonable and good natured and utterly, utterly implacable.

The Joyce short story I mentioned many many posts ago is "Clay." Does anyone know it? It baffles me. I understand the events that happened, but I have no idea what the point is.

I was trying to think of something else to recommend but the only thing that comes to mind is "A Rose for Emily" which is a short story. I think it's Faulkner, I'm not sure.

I can't remember who it's by, either. But it is a good story.

Really?!?! I figured he was named after some early medieval king or other.

I didn't know about there being a god-king whatsis by the name of Clovis until a few years ago, actually.

I hardly ever run into someone who reads Saki for fun. Isn't he delicious? He has this sort of dark thread under the wit, which pops up in things like "Sredni Vashtar" and that story about Pan the title of which is escaping me at the moment.

My dad got me hooked on Saki when I was about 9, by reading the story about the open window to me. Mind you, I didn't understand most of what was going on in the stories, but I loved the language in them. Saki's work has only gotten better as I've gotten older, thank goodness.

(Oh, and obligatory Goth-by-way-of-Saki tangent: the band Faith and the Muse has a track called "Srendi Vashtar" on their latest CD, and it is swoon-worthy.)

I disagree with everyone!* So there!

* except maybe JZ

makes out with Rio

Hey, quit making out with Rio!

I was trying to think of something else to recommend but the only thing that comes to mind is "A Rose for Emily" which is a short story. I think it's Faulkner, I'm not sure.

Definitely, famously Faulkner. And Goth as all get out.

Okay, I have a serious bullshit question.

Ignore any contradiction.

Does anybody have any contemporary stuff that they consider "lit'rachoor" that they would like to discuss? Perhaps things they think will be in "the canon" of the next century or something?

I tell you why I brought this up...I'm re-reading, for the umpteenth time, Gibson's Sprawl series (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive). I'm struck, again, by Gibson's take on technology...specifically "brand name" technology, that is to say not "the wheel" but "Firestone"...and its immediate, and simultaneously permanent and ephemeral effect on society at large. In effect, treating Consumer Reports as an indicator of not only the "state of the art" but as a signpost as to where we are as a species, or maybe a global community.

I think this will be of great interest to people of the next few generations...both in where he was right and how his vision was laughably wrong.

Comments?

I think this will be of great interest to people of the next few generations...both in where he was right and how his vision was laughably wrong.

Comments?

Gibby's not alone in using brand names as short hand signifying social class and like that. Stephen King does that quite a bit and so does, whassername - Anne Beattie. Gibson tends to add that fetishistic quality though - he really makes you feel it when the cowboys jack in with their super sleek new gear.

I think in the short term (like in ten more years) it'll look dated, and then after that (let's say 20) it'll be realllllly cool period detail. I know when I read Charles Willeford's crime novels of the fifties I dig on his fashion descriptions and music.

I think in the short term (like in ten more years) it'll look dated, and then after that (let's say 20) it'll be realllllly cool period detail.

That was along the lines I was thinkin'. Indicators of what was the what when it was written.

But the fetishism of it is also telling in regard to the period in which it was written. Every coupla decades or so there's a brand-name high, a time when the "right brand" is a status thing...and I get the feeling, though it's gut with no true solid evidence...that Gibson is riffing on that, slyly mocking the 80's Swatch-worship and, by extension (though pre-dating it a bit), the late 90's - early oughts "hardcore gear" worship as evidenced in Hummer sales and truck commercials.

His later novels (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties) don't evidence the same "hip irony" when it comes to brands...they seem to use brands as timeline touchstones, as you say "cool period detail", without making the same cutting commentary about the period with the same device.

(And...this has NOTHING to do with the recent discussion...but I dig that I can discuss a sub-genre of that hack field "Sci-Fi" with the same seriousness as I've seen other people discuss the works of [just 'cause his name is at the tip o' me tongue, can't think why], Melville or whomever. Tickles me pink, it does, 'cause I don't find that many other places.)

Does anybody have any contemporary stuff that they consider "lit'rachoor" that they would like to discuss? Perhaps things they think will be in "the canon" of the next century or something?

Good question. I do think that some of Atwood should be in the canon when it's reset, but I'm alone in thinking that Handmaid's Tale is *not* the book for it. I'd rather see Surfacing there, because I think she said more with less there than in anything else she's done since.

Many of the contemporary things I'm reading have a historical bent, and while I can see them sliding neatly into place in Things Good to Read and Study, I'm not sure that they really add much to an understanding of current times, which is one of my criteria for considering something part of the Canon to Be. Kavalier and Clay is amazing, but again, it's rooted in the historical (so completely that it feels like reading an especially vivid history text on comics at the start of the novel--I mention this because I am at the moment reading a very vivid text on the history of comics, and it feels a lot like K&C).

Dick, while only modernish, has a level of influence that's rarely seen, and adds to the understanding of current times. Hmm.

I'd love to shove Sean Stewart in there, but I think perhaps more people need to be reading him first or something.