So you want to hear more?

Glancing around the bookstore today, I considered my negative remarks concerning the junk that is considered fiction writing that is available on the shelves of bookstores today... and I wished I had included names like Madeleine Wickham/Sophie Kinsella, Jane Green, Emily Griffin, Meg Cabot, Ann Brashares... well, just about anyone who can write a book in a year is NOT writing literature. I also considered my probably unpopular remarks concerning these writers and thought, "tough sh--" these women are making money writing the piffle that is left in the bottom of the sink after you've washed dishes. And as a feminist, nay, as a thinking human it is my responsibility to call them to task for the dreck they cloak in terms like "writing" or "authoring". No, they are harming us all by feeding us the same fish that caused the seamen to spasm in agony. We would be better off to tell them to find another profession that does honor to our gender rather than debase us publicly. Meanwhile, women who are putting their hearts and minds into the offering, are often looked over or completely rejected in the publishing world! It is time for this to stop!

You might say, "Well, what can I do? I am just one person. My choosing this other, lesser known writer is not going to change anything." Yet, what happens when you find something so beautiful that it silences the soul and causes you to pause in the everydayness to savor beauty? You tell others and soon the sky is illuminated like the sky at sunrise. All around benefit from the light. Great writing can do that...

You might also think to yourself, embarrassed to say it out loud "They're too hard!" Like Samantha on John Stewart, "Ow, ow, ow, you're hurting my girl brain." I would challenge you, dear reader, that if reading beauty and word filled melodies causes you to think harder than you might want to, that it is necessary, perhaps even dire, for to put your ill-at-ease aside and take up the most challenging novel you can find (and by challenging I do not mean BORING- there is plenty of "literature" out there that is just plain wordy and boring. Don't bother with that!) and take it in and find your way through it. You may find yourself along the way...

P.S. And if you are a writer who aspires to more than pop fadness, then you owe it to your craft to read what you want to write. Reading the best can only cause you to write your best.

P.S.S. And I might add... for those who like to think of themselves as "different" or "radical" or an "individual", the stream is against your finding great literature. Publishers are not really interested in developing great writers, they are merely interested in the bottom line. They market the writers that will produce a book a year because that is how they make money. They SELL them to you on a silver platter and it requires a bit of searching to find the great books. And though it's not popular to say this either-- there truly is a conspiracy to keep you from reading wonderful literature, (though it might not be with the intention of keeping the public from thinking -although it has that affect also), it is with the intention of separating you from your money. In the paraphrased words of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, "They're selling [you] a dream..." will you see through the disguise? (Full lyrics are at the bottom of my blog)

And now this...

Advertising is a blight on civilization as we know it. It creates an unfair marketplace for the small businessperson and creates needs that were unknown up until the commercial enlightened us on our "need" for their product.

An excellent example would be teeth whitening products. I recall the first time I saw the commercial. Beautiful girl sitting at a table in a restaurant, having dinner, laughing, smiling... until! It is obvious that she has a blight on her otherwise pleasant features. Her full broad smile, which generally enhances anyone's otherwise plain looks, has become her nemesis. She has YELLOW TEETH! And now no one wants to talk to her or look at her, she is so imperfect! The answer? Crest's teeth whitening strips... they are her salvation.

And she would have never known if it hadn't been for... the commercial.

Don't you feel better too? Knowing that there is always a product out there to save the day???

What's good

It's good to look out your window and see sunshine and blue skies...

It's good to spy yellow, red, gold, and bronze leaves blowing in the breeze...

It's good to smell the scent of fireplace on a cool (not yet cold!) October eve...

It's good to walk in the brisk morning air...

It's good to find a new favorite place...

It's good to find the perfect gift for someone you love...

It's good to have champagne and a great book to curl up with...

It's good to hold hands and receive a kiss on your forehead...

Life is good.

Good

Touchy subject

What not to read:

I read great books all the time and am always astonished by how many people do not. Having spoken to people in Barnes and Noble (and believe me I am glad people even still BUY books-- let alone read them!) all the time about their favorite authors or what they consider a great book, I am really astonished to see so many of them reading...-- well, I'll just put it right out there-- they read crap. One popular author is Jodi Picoult. Women often ask me about her books- some for book clubs, others simply because she is soup de jour and they want something new. Her stories may grab readers the way a train wreck or an accident on the highway slows rush hour, but the poetry of language and the just-dropped-me-off-on-the-moon feel are absent. She is not the worst of the lot-- try some of the chick lit that is so insanely popular (and I would classify the Twilight series in this category) and you'll wonder. At least I hope you will.

There was a time when it was difficult for women to get published and the most they could hope to write was little more than romance smut. Today, women have the opportunity and are among the majority of writers, but seemingly not the will to write anything more challenging than a self-imposed pablum. One might guess as to why this is... The meat and potatoes of bookstores is the self-improvement section. Reading is on the decline and what is read seems to be escapist material. Best selling authors are rare and making money in the book industry is nearly impossible. If you want to sell books you have to pander to the collective taste it seems.

But perhaps this says more about the reader than the writer. For with the decline of great fiction comes a decline in our collective ability to recognize art from craft, symphony from band, pirouette from spin. If we continue to tell ourselves we need the mental escapism that popular fiction offers, we will soon find that we are unable to enjoy the poetry of the word, the music of the tallest of tales, the word beyond time. When you are at the bookstore next, pick up Jeanette Winterson's 'Written on the Body' (if you can find it!) or take a glimpse into Rikki Ducornet's new book 'The One Marvelous Thing.' Robert Chatain of the Chicago Tribune says of Ducornet, "[she] writes like a stunned time-traveler, testifying in breathless fragments to exotic ages that have gone or never were. . . . It's startling and refreshing to encounter a writer whose work insists so relentlessly upon the magic of making tales."

Today I will leave you with a taste of 'The Leper's Companions' by Julia Blackburn,
"The old fisherman stopped mending his nets. His hands were stiff and painful and he laid them side by side on his lap, the fingers bunched together like the feet of dead birds...
... [and] as long as he kept singing he was cocooned in images: he was out at sea among the rolling waves of a storm, the backs of whales and silver fishes breaking through the surface of the water all around him. A catch of living things was thrashing at his feet in the boat, struggling for breath. But then as soon as his voice was silent, he was only here, frail in the sunshine..."