Short stories are not my cup of tea. I enjoy reading on what can quite possibly be considered an unhealthy level but I require a continuous story. Books can keep me on this very couch for an entire weekend moving only to bathe and acquire coffee and food because I’m lazy, and that’s the laziest way I’ve found to be entertained. Books alternately inspire me to learn more, knit more and to dress in corsets and gowns. They take the reader to alternate realities; various, as my tastes tend to wander from Charles de Lint and his “fantasy” world of Newford to Biographies/Autobiographies such as the dreadful book I recently ready about Katherine Hepburn. Ask me later, I can tell you several books to avoid. I also very much enjoy historical fiction set usually in Paris, London or Scotland. I’m oddly uninterested in American history, at least not in the time periods I tend to enjoy the most. I can also pick up damn near any knitting novel and love it and go out and over spend on yarn immediately upon completion. My point here it two fold really.
One - I can recommend several books NOT to read. I have this issue with starting a book and not finishing it. Even if it’s horrible. (Case and point the Katherine Hepburn book. The author is convinced she was gay and that’s about all he seemed to care about proving about her life.) I think there have been two books in the last 10 years that were so offensive that I didn’t get past the 1st chapter. One was about a woman in 1920’s bohemian Paris and the back of the book gave no indication that it was about her having an affair and cheating on her husband. This honestly disgusts me and it is now covered in dirt because it is what I throw at the dogs when they’re barking too much be it indoors or out. The other was a biography called “Running with Scissors”. A quote from the back of the book - “Running with Scissors is hilarious, freaky-deaky, berserk, controlled, transcendent, touching, affectionate, vengeful, all-embracing…It makes a good run at blowing every other [memoir] out of the water” from the Washington Post. Granted, the “freaky-deaky” bit should have been a tip off, but I read the back of a few of his other books and settled on this one. It is disturbing. I won’t even give this one away. Unfortunately for me, I already have a book to throw at the dogs so maybe this one will become something to get a fire going in the fireplace. Where am I going with this?? I’ll tell you. I have also noticed this trend with me and relationships. My last relationship lasted just over 2 years but should have ended after about 8 months. You might ask why it lasted as long as it did if I was cognizant that it wasn’t working. Well, same thing with books. For the most part, I just can’t NOT see it through. I wore that relationship into the ground, but I saw it through. I’m not left with any doubts as to whether or not it was meant to be. I likewise am never left wondering what happened to a character in any give book (with the exception of the whore and the memoir).
Two - Two of my favorite authors have books that are solely short stories. The first is the aforementioned Charles de Lint. I have become addicted to his novels. I don’t see them as fantasy really and I feel rather uncomfortable in that section at the bookstore trying to find one to purchase. I’m surrounded by books with Star Wars themes and pimply teenage boys that don’t know who or what they are yet. I bought a few of his books all at once because of this, I decided I wasn’t going back into that section anytime soon so it was buy now or go online and wait for them to be delivered. I ended up with 3 very good books and 2 that are wholly made up of short stories. I’ll make an attempt to read them. They’re probably good. But I’ll likely get bored with them and set them down and wander off to do other things. The other author is Chuck Klosterman. All of his books are in this format because he is/was a writer for SPIN Magazine and before that, for Akron Beacon Journal among others. I love him. I love his books. I love his perspective. I want to marry the Kansas City version of him. However, I am currently trying to get through his book “IV” (4) and I’m getting bored. He is a fascinating essayist and I can’t suggest him enough to casual readers but he is very fond of 4 words: zeitgeist, adroit, dichotomy and iconoclast. I can’t claim that I don’t overuse certain words so I’m not annoyed at him for this. I’m actually curious at the beginning of each essay how many of them he’ll be able to work in. He also does an a) this and b) that in a lot of his work but now I’m just getting picky. I guess my attention span just isn’t THAT into starting a new story every few pages at the moment. All that being said, let me give you a couple of excerpts from “IV” that I thoroughly enjoyed…
1. This one is obvious as it is about Metallica so it can be said that the odds of me not liking it are nil. It’s from a piece he did for New York Times Magazine about their movie “Some Kind of Monster” in June 2004 entitled “Band on the Couch”.
“There is a scene midway through the documentary Some Kind of Monster that defines the film’s vision; it’s arguably the movie’s most emotional moment and certainly its most archetypical. We see the rock group Metallica - the most commercially successful heavy-metal band in rock history - sitting around a table with their therapist, trying to establish how they will finish recording their next album. The recording process has already been complicated by the departure of their bassist and the drinking problem of singer James Hetfield; Hetfield has just returned to the band after a lengthy stint in rehab. Fifteen years ago, Metallica drank so much they were referred to by their fans as “Alcoholica,” and the band members all thought that was hilarious. But now, things are different: now, Hetfield can only work four hours a day, because the other twenty hours are devoted to mending a marriage that was shattered by alcohol (and the rock-and-roll lifestyle that came with it.)
Metallica’s drummer, a kinetic forty-one-year-old Dane named Lars Ulrich, is having a difficult time dealing with these new parameters. He paces the room, finally telling Hetfield that the singer is “self-absorbed” and “latently controlling.” Everyone slowly grows uncomfortable. “I realize now that I barely knew you before,” Ulrich says, despite the fact that he’s known Hetfield since 1981. The language he uses sounds like outtakes from an Oprah episode on self-help books - except Ulrich punctuates every sentence with a very specific (and completely unprintable) expletive. The scene closes with Ulrich’s mouth six inches from Hetfields ever stoic skull, screaming that singular expletive into the singer’s face. It’s the most intimate, most honest, most emotionally authentic exchange these two men have ever experienced.
This is also the scene where - if you are in the audience - you will probably laugh.”
I did, I totally giggled at that part. I could go on and retype the whole thing for you, it is a very good (in my opinion) review of the movie and Metallica’s reasons for making it.
2. This one is shorter. Its a rant about the Olympics that he did for Esquire in 2004 entitled “I do not Hate the Olympics”. I’m giving you a snippet from this one because he’s right, and it shows a little bit more I believe of the way he thinks.
“…This is when I started to realize that the Olympics are designed for people who want to care about something without considering why.”
“…Yet this is what they Olympics ask us to do - they ask us to support athletes solely because they happen to stand on U.S. floors when they pay their federal income tax. We could toss a bunch of serial killers into the pool in Athens, and we’d still be told to support their run for water polo gold. And isn’t that style of thinking the core of every major (and minor) problem we have in this country?”
Buy it.