Another Coupland Interview Post

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On Reading

I read Requiem for a Dream during my last winter break. In my opinion, Selby is an author that should be pulled into the canon of American Literature. The text’s focal point is a bastardization of what we consider to be ‘The American Dream.’ There’s something intellectually masochistic to the downfall of the characters. Given the nature of Henry Rollin’s work and his perpetual cynicism, I can picture him identifying with Selby’s writing. In the video above, Rollins talks about suffering from writer’s block. While we all don’t have the ability to look for our favorite writers in the phone book, I think it could do a writer justice to remember where they’re coming from as readers. Maybe revisiting their work is just the best we can do.

One of my professors once told me that he identifies first and foremost as a reader before either a teacher or a writer. Reading through all of this theory and criticism this summer, I’m really starting to reshape what I consider the role of the reader to be. ‘Reader,’ when you lift the lenses back, is synonymous with self. I don’t think the reader is actually a role, but the text is an experience of the reader. It’s a definition I want to play around with some more.

Last week, I finished reading McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. Captain Jack, who is an Irish lit enthusiast, had been prodding me to finish it for a bit. While the Captain and I could probably be categorized in a similar niche, we both read this book completely differently. Both of us have rejected our catholic heritage, but I was generally more pessimistic and made extremely rude comments on the role of religion and pride in the novel. I complained about his final confession to St. Francis—probably one of the most pinnacle moments in the novel in terms of Frank’s development, but I didn’t like that religion was still being curtailed into his life and that it ultimately followed him on his way to America. Jack asked me what I thought the ashes were. I argued for shame, but he thought it was Angela’s solace. For either of us, it wasn’t the same experience. Somebody once said that English majors just read a bunch of books and talk about their feelings. Is there any truth to that? I think one of our responsibilities is creating somewhat of a textual collage of experiences. Which will inevitably help us understand ‘the experience’ or something.

I’ll get to ‘Tis at some point, maybe even by the end of the summer. Right now I’m reading through Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler and Mark Vonnegut’s The Eden Express. I’ve been trying to get my hands on Calvino’s stuff for a while and my girlfriend gave me Vonnegut’s book for my birthday. Both of which are very optimistic, despite the two styles of desperation the works are showing. I’d like to write about both.

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Currently Reading:

I’m not much of an environmental activist, but this has been a good read. Most of the information takes place in the pre 9/11 America, but I think that goes to show how much worse the climate struggle has become.

You can read an excerpt here.

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New King Book

I’m very excited for this:

Stephen King is a brilliant writer of short stories and novellas. His reputation speaks for itself, but I had a little mini-discussion in one of my literature courses a few weeks ago about him. The only thing we could agree on was that his smaller works we found to be more enjoyable than his larger books. Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of small novellas and short stories, which I’m hoping we get the same quality of stories we’ve seen ranging from The Skeleton Crew to Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

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Currently Reading

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What determines ‘best?’

In my Creative Writing class we’re being asked to complete an essay this week on what determines a piece to be successful and effective based on the Best American series. I’ve seen publishers before mention that “If you want to know what we’re looking for read Best American (insert genre).” I’ve never actually opened one of these anthologies until now, but I feel like this is a critical assignment that most writers don’t consider. We’ve been assigned the 2009 copies, because ’10 would be more expensive, but the way in which we’re approaching it is taking it piece by piece, determining what makes the individual works to be classic works that best represent American writing for that year. Because I’m doing nonfiction, I’m reading Best American Essays. From my analysis, I have determined for a work to be considered ‘best,’ it must:

…actually, I’m still not so sure.

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Shadow over Innsmouth

Something that irks me with a lot of popular fiction is the decline of storytelling within the story itself. I feel that a lot of writers, some of my favorites included, are hesitant with having major chunks of plot told through the lips of unreliable characters. Instead, we get a very algebraic plot formula in popular lit where the author is the one who shows the reader the story from A to B.
This is embarrassing to admit, but I’ve read more adaptations to Lovecraft’s work then I’ve actually read of his original work. Neil Gaiman’s short story, Bay Wolf, is probably one of my favorites. However, from The Call of Cthulhu to some of his lesser known works, I’ve seen Lovecraft show his readers the Shoggoth demons through the words of a old ship captains. The Shadow over Innsmouth, which I finished earlier today, is a good example of this. The protagonist is told the secrets history of the town by Zadok, a man who’s mouth is only moved for booze, and whether or not you can take this for truth is questionable until the narrator gets chased out of the hotel. I find this style refreshing.

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Customer Request

As I was stocking the strawberries today, a customer wearing an obnoxiously pink sweater approached me. She mentioned that the quality of the berries has been horrendous, and customer service has been giving her a hard time when she tried to return them. She told me to prepare one of the plastic strawberry cartons for her while she went to go and look at apples. I did. She returned and thanked me, and I wished that I had poisoned them. Later on, I mentioned to my boss what had happened, and I got in trouble, because if we do that for one customer, then we must do it for them all. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.
Also, I’ve come to learn that the other departments don’t think to highly of us.

Coming home from work, I received one of my books for the Intro to Literature course I’m taking. It’s to fill a humanities credit, so don’t judge me! But, it has Hawthorne, Poe, Gilman, Chopin, Joyce, Kafka, Fitzgerald, Hurston, Hemmingway, Faulkner, Updike, and Erdrich all under one cover. I really can’t wait for my workload to be all books instead of bagged potatoes and customers trying to find the minced garlic. It’s on the side of the friggen tomato cart!

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Dolan’s Cadillac

I’ve just finished reading Dolan’s Cadillac, by Steven King. I bought a copy of his short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes at a thrift shop last week, and have been debating whether or not I wanted to read through it. This first story, Dolan’s Cadillac, is a well-written revenge story which takes place mostly in the head of this third-grade teacher, and partly on a stretch of highway on the way to Las Vegas. I like the way in which King personifies the voice of the man’s wife, after she’s killed. In the end, it’s almost as if she becomes a malicious entity in his life—just like Dolan.

At some point next week I will be visiting a larger thrift store in Rhode Island, and I hope to make some better finds in terms of books. In all honesty I shouldn’t be putting the money into more books, because the list I need for next semester is going to run me into the ground as it is. I’m glad that my courses will be exploring more in regards to the literary canon, but I can also kiss my free time goodbye.

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Strangers

I’ve broken the book-a-day pace that I’ve been on since returning from the cape, but I don’t feel too guilty about it. Right now I’m in the middle of Alan’s Lovecraft collection. I feel that I have a lot to catch up with in both the literary and horror cannons. This upcoming semester does not look promising in terms of time to free read—or write for that matter.

Recently, I’ve just read Camus’ The Stranger for the first time. It’s short, but says a lot about our search for the meaning of life, and how we convict each other socially. The scene with the trial is set out to prove that the protagonist is guilty of being a criminal and harboring dark intentions, than it is to prove that he’s guilty of murder. It reminds me a lot A Fraction of the Whole, a contemporary book by Steve Toltz which was given to me early this summer. The trial of The Stranger really irks me because it’s an example of society attempting to understand this man’s life based on universal truths—which I don’t believe in.  It’s ironic, because two years ago I would have agreed with the Objectivist A=A. How can we establish a concrete awareness for all of existence? Perhaps I’m tainted with the allure of postmodernism, but I feel that as individuals we will only ever know the truths we establish ourselves. I think the closest we will ever be able become to one another is through our stories.

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