The heart wants what it wants

People never say that about things that are, like, convenient. Oh, that's completely in line with my plans! The heart wants what it wants!

I have acquired a lot of books -- in my life, yes, but more specifically, in the last four months or so, and they have been arranged into a perfectly logical priority order. There are some awesome-looking books in that stack, and of course I have a staggering amount of professional reading I should be working through.

But man. I just have not wanted to read any of those things. Just about the only thing I have wanted to read is Aubrey/Maturin books.

The only illustration anyone needs for this topic

It's gone exactly according to script. Maybe two months of not reading anything at all, then finally, I give in and suddenly I'm reading all the time, in all those situations when I was so frustratingly stuck before: just not what I was so stubbornly focused on making myself read. So that's where I'm at: I have nothing to report except comfort reading: many books about ships.

It's so good, though. O'Brian has an almost Wodehousian ear for language, I think; both authors have those perfect turns of phrase that make me stop and laugh out loud in sheer appreciation. Much more importantly -- and I'm only just putting my finger on this -- O'Brian is like Jane Austen in that he generates humor as well as character by slyly slipping into a character's own perspective (if not his or her own voice) as part of the narration without giving any particular explicit indication that he's doing so. He also does the Austenian thing of reporting conversations telegraphically which just always tickles my funny bone. I probably mentioned these things the last time I wrote about these books? It's all still true.

So in short: I hope you are also reading things you enjoy this summer.

Thank you!

You were right. Yep, I feel pretty confident in predicting (projecting?) that you, dear reader, probably read The Rosie Project and then wrote a blog post or a tweet or something about how cute it was. When I saw that, I made a little mental note. And you were totally right!

I was at a book swap event* and spotted this being put out onto the Romance table, and immediately I thought, That's that book my dear internet friend -- yes, her/him -- said was adorable! Gotta grab that one! So thank you for that recommendation, because it was adorable. I read the whole thing today, start to finish, breakfast to dinner. I thought it was like having a really good burger and fries and beer at the end of a long day. There might not be anything especially innovative or surprising about that, but it's so satisfying.

The haul.

A photo posted by Julie (@jfount2) on Apr 16, 2015 at 4:59pm PDT

* The book swap was quite interesting. I can't help myself, I am always interested in how things get organized and I've been thinking about the concept of book swaps lately since at least three have appeared on my radar this month. The one I went to was totally free (*fist pump*). People arrived with their books (the organizers requested a maximum of 15). They dropped the books off at the front table. The organizers then assembled stacks of same-genre books and carried them out to the genre tables as rapidly as they could. Us patrons milled around in an addicting loop examining the tables. It was all extremely simple, and devilishly hard to leave because there were new books being put out constantly and what if. In this case, the leftover books were going to be donated to Open Books, Everyone's Favorite Book-Selling Chicago Literacy Organization. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the books (although of course there were some clunkers being offloaded too). I brought eight and left with five, which I was quite pleased about.

As so often is the case, the ending of The Rosie Project was less fun than the rest of the book, but that was ok. The best parts were the "Don is oblivious" parts so the conclusion was bound to be a little underwhelming. I mean:

'You want to share a taxi?' asked Rosie.
It seemed a sensible use of fossil fuel.

Adorbs. I saw the ending coming from a mile away but it was fine; just because you know that burger and fries are going to be awesome doesn't make them any less awesome.

I was sort of intrigued by the little author interview in the back of my edition, where Simsion reveals that the book is actually the product of many years chasing a passion for screenwriting. I have to admit, that's not the kind of thing I expect someone to admit to: a kind of Plan B success. Or Plan C, I guess, since Simsion had a career in IT that he quit for film. I feel like this little anecdote will be useful in the future.

Oh, and I scored 61 on the questionnaire (also in the back of my edition).

At the intersection of "oriental" buffets and western homesteads

Lee Lien, uncertain about her identity and future, and faced with an implosion in her Vietnamese family, goes investigating a favorite childhood author, making connections between her own immigrant background and an American cultural icon along the way.

On one level that premise seems a bit trite, but in practice Pioneer Girl gets it right.

I've had this title bookmarked (read: lounging on my Amazon wish list, because capitalism has thoroughly subsumed my life and ambitions as a reader) since Meg reviewed it as an ARC. The blend of fact and fiction makes an interesting premise for a book, and it's done in a really light-handed way. Lee's life and family problems have that touch of reality to them, where things aren't always clearly defined and problems (including research problems) aren't always "solved" in any sort of final way. On the other hand, you have convincing fictional research about real women, positing a secret baby given away for adoption. You learn about the careers of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane (real), the Lien family history (fiction), and the Vietnamese/Asian experience in the Midwest (real), while Lee researches Rose's secret baby given up for adoption (fiction). It's really well blended, where a couple of times I flipped back to read the author's bio just to remind myself that Beth Nguyen is not Lee Lien and therefore it's probably not totally scandalous to be revealing Rose's baby in a novel.

Right, I'd better go study this some more.

In her review, Meg writes "I had some feelings about Rose’s secret child, but I Had Feelings over the improper archival methods." It's true. Lee steals a few things during her research and I had to put the book down at one point, this was so upsetting to me.

Judging from novels, literature scholars think nothing of stealing documents from archives. APPALLING. #posession #pioneergirl
— Julie (@jfount) June 15, 2014

There should be warnings on books that feature scholars doing this kind of thing. I was made happy again, however, when one of Lee's friends points out that she's going to have trouble publishing anything based on stolen materials. THANK YOU. It gets glossed over a bit (at the end, Lee's working on an article but it's not clear how she's going to get over the theft problem) but my eternal thanks to the author for acknowledging this. One thing I liked, otherwise, was how realistic Lee's research was: she's drawing plausible conclusions but you can see how thin the evidence is even as you are drawn along with agreeing with her interpretations.

I picked this book up and finished it the same day, which is a testimony to how good it is. It does a great job linking "American" and "non-American" experiences, collapsing those categories along the way: the mobility of immigrants and pioneers, the drama of success and failure along very small margins, the strain these things place on family life, and the difficult expectations created for the next generation.

Something Different: Something Other Than God

A few points to note before we get started today, class:

1. This is a review of a Catholic book written for a Catholic audience. Act accordingly.
2. This post contains links to where you can buy the book, but they are not affiliate links.
3. This post is being entered in a random drawing for a prize being offered by the author of the book to mark its launch and encourage people to read and write about it. However, the post is not sponsored or anything like that, and the opinions here are 100% my own, blah blah blah.

Now, on with the post... 

It occurred to me this afternoon that the Church gives us saints in response to our desire for celebrities. A celebrity is someone we want to think we know; they represent something — sex, or genius, or a particular system of belief — and we watch them like hawks. We think we know them, and we think we know their story, ignoring the fact that they are human beings like we are, in the middle of an uncertain life with unknown twists and turns ahead. When our celebrities fall or stray from their designated narrative we criticize them, we question or abandon our beliefs and affiliations, we recontextualize and rationalize and talk and talk and talk. We want so much to see particular values played out in someone else’s life, to have someone to point to (not always positively; we want someone to represent wrongness as much as to be our role model). The saints are an answer to this. Their lives have been lived, with all their messiness, but they have lived out particular virtues and heroisms, and we know that they have run the good race. In short, the Church tells us that if we want someone to model for us what virtue and devotion look like, we should look to these saints who are now eternally with God. (True to Philippians 4:8, the Church apparently isn't particularly concerned with providing bad examples.)

I was thinking about this because the book I’m reviewing here, Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God (click for links to buy, a free excerpt, a video featuring a man in a banana suit, &c), is an example of a genre I really don’t ever read: the conversion story.

This is the gif Fulwiler made to celebrate the book launch. She is my people.

Fulwiler grew up as an atheist (in Texas, no less), without any real knowledge of religious culture or lore, and her objections were more to religion itself, as a guiding principle in someone’s life, than to any particular doctrine. This is more the culture that I recognize in my own surroundings, and part of the reason why I like reading Fulwiler’s blog. Her explanations and ponderings speak to the kinds of pushback I feel around me, and the currents I feel invited to fall into (that’s a terrible metaphor but whatever). The other reason her blog is so great is because Fulwiler is a funny, lively writer, who’s able to tell a hilarious story in all its absurd glory. She’s been working on this book for years (always a good sign), and when it was finally available to preorder I jumped on it. I also set up text alerts from Amazon to let me know when it was on its way. One of those texts arrived as I was counting down the minutes to a phone interview; if it had been my mother texting to wish me good luck I might have been annoyed at the near-heart attack it gave me, but since it was this book, I was just that much more excited. Priorities.

I was so psyched when it came I had to document the moment. And the tiles in my building's foyer. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.

If I had to pick two words to describe the writing I might choose “clear” and “tight”. I was seeing reports on Twitter of people reading it in four or five hours, and I believe it. It’s not a quick read in the sense that there’s nothing to it, but in the sense that it draws you in and doesn’t slow you down. Since I’m a grad student I am contractually obligated to (a) like books, but also (b) make critical remarks, and this is really my only criticism: the book is so lean and focused that it can feel, well, too lean and focused. All the description of Fulwiler’s pre-conversion life is centered on her spiritual crises and the questions she had trouble answering within an atheist worldview. I would have liked a little more — I hate phrases like “word painting” or “pen portrait” but fine. I would have liked a little fuller pen portrait of atheist Jennifer Fulwiler, rather than getting it later on as a contrast to whatever was currently happening in the narrative. That being said, this tight focus gives the book a humble quality: it's not here to offer too much interpretation beyond the demands of the narrative. So, in my usual academic way: it's a plus and a minus.

The focus of the book is on the conversion process itself which is wrapped up in several dramatic changes that took place in her and her husband’s lives at the same time. This story is really interesting and relatable, even though it deals with fairly unusual circumstances, and in spite of the (realistic) complexity of all this, it's easy to follow. If you want to know the details, you should buy the book (also available as an ebook).

Which brings me around to the thoughts I opened this post with (eh? eh? I’m a writer). Conversion stories are like memoirs, being autobiographical narratives published while the writer is still alive. (That sentence is mocking me, pointing out that there is a ton of theory on exactly this topic that I have not read, but I am pushing through.) A conversion story could potentially play into a desire to latch onto celebrities, pulling us away from the real spiritual growth that could come from studying the lives of the saints into the roller coaster drama of constantly evaluating someone else’s life and opinions. As I was reflecting on the book, I thought about how difficult it would be to publish a narrative of your life like this. It would be strange to read a book written by a friend, offering her decided-on version of the part of her life which included you, particularly if you were part of the “before” picture. So what’s the point? Given that we don’t want to be idolizing our contemporaries, what’s the point of reading a story like this?

My answer to that question is that a book like this offers a unique kind of faith-sharing, where we can see what thoughts were going through someone else's mind and what challenges they faced, all in the context of a larger trajectory. Each of us is in the midst of our own story, striving to make little before-and-afters out of our faults and failings. Each of us is called to conversion throughout our lives: am I embracing that, or am I just trying to get comfortable? A story like this can also make us reflect on how we are helping others on their own way. Am I the camp counselor who pressures people in my care to conform? Am I the parishioner who celebrates the presence of a seeker?

This isn't a book that has all the answers, and of course it shouldn't be; Fulwiler, still alive (and long may she be) is not a saint, and she wisely isn't setting herself up as a celebrity either.* What it is, is a fascinating story about how — to quote the subtitle — the author "passionately sought happiness and accidentally found it." Something Other Than God is more than just a blog book; for one thing it gives a much more complete version of Fulwiler's story than I ever picked up reading her blog. More importantly, it's also a thoughtful account of how "conversion" means changing your life along with your mind. I enjoyed it just as much as I thought I would, and I can't wait to read/hear other people's thoughts about it.

* I am emphatically not telling Jennifer Fulwiler "Careful Icarus", just to be clear.**
** Mostly I added that footnote so I could link the Careful Icarus clip. I'm only human.

A Spark of life

Strangely enough, I have more short fiction to share with you today. I guess these are what would be called "novellas": The Driver's Seat and The Finishing School, both by Muriel Spark.


If I were at all smart, I would not be talking about two books in one post. It should be pretty obvious that I need all the material I can get these days; with my return to the US looming in the very near future, I've been reading more scholarly stuff and spending my time on the trains staring at the ads fretting (and frankly the future forecast looks like more of the same). The highlight of my bookly life lately has been recommending a book to The Manolo (!).

But it's best for you the reader if I talk about these two short books together, and I am all about you the reader and that's why you love me. Ahem.

The Driver's Seat is a creepy, creepy little story: there's a lot that's off and unsettling but I couldn't quite put it all together until the very end. Whereas...

The Finishing School is lower-key, featuring two characters who are obsessed with each other, and how their obsession grows and impacts the rest of the community. The Driver's Seat was first published in 1970, and The Finishing School in 2004. The Finishing School understandably has that little bit of unreality about the way it portrays its young adult characters. It's hard to put a finger on any particular scene or detail that's wrong; although the characters have cell phones and laptops it just doesn't quite feel organic. Really the effect is to make the time frame of the novel feel vague, which is not such a bad thing.


Reading these two novels... novellas... really brought out an interesting characteristic of Sparks' writing, which is the way she plays with the timeline and with what you know and don't know. For example, in The Driver's Seat, she states fairly early on that Lise will soon be found murdered. She doesn't hint; she states; it's not so much foreshadowing as foretelling. She does this in The Finishing School as well, and there she also will abruptly move into a scene with two characters discussing something whom you wouldn't expect together. Then the camera moves back, so to speak, and Sparks tells you that they're discussing the matter in bed, and they've been sleeping together for the last several weeks. It's an interesting technique, and I think it helped keep both these shortish stories moving.


The Driver's Seat is part of the Penguin "Modern Classics" series and has an introduction -- which is actually really good. Or maybe I'm just saying that because the author tells you to stop reading at a certain point if you don't know the story already. Thanks, introduction writer! It was one of the hard lessons I had to learn at some point in my grown-up reading career, that "introductions" despite the name are rarely any good for someone reading the book for the first time. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it's an exaggeration I stand by.

Woman in White: All the cool kids are reading it

It's another fabulous Reading Rambo Read-along! And it starts today! RIGHT NOW, IT IS STARTING.

Alice suggests we all post today about "what you think of Wilkie Collins, have you read any of his other works, how giant his forehead is and how that makes you feel, etc."

Here is the extent of what I think about Wilkie Collins: Wilkie Collins is a dude? Who am I thinking of then? Oh, Willa Cather, that's who.

Off to a good start then

Armed with this new knowledge, my next thought was "what the heck kind of a name is 'Wilkie'?" Sadly, it does not appear to be short for anything ridiculous; it's just a family surname used as a middle name. "William Wilkie Collins" is a little disappointing when you spend your time reading memos written by people with names like "Sir Folliott Sandford".* I think my real objection is that it's not William 'Wilkie' Collins. Wilkie would be a better nickname if it were actually a nickname instead of part of his legal name. But that's really points against his parents rather than himself.

You'll notice there that Alice mentions his big forehead.

Except that it's floating, his head seems normal enough.

Maybe Alice is just being mean for no reason...

YEEAAGH FOREHEAD MONSTER

Right so, I think we've gotten this off to a good start here! Classic literature, here we come!

*What Wiki doesn't tell you is that Sir Folliot could write some very sharply-worded memos when he wanted to.

Meet my new favorite author, same as my old favorite author

Alternative post title: Judging Books by their Covers: Sometimes it Works Out

Here is a lovely book I bought at Daunt because it had an Orla Kiely print on the cover. Orla Kiely + arty reissue = catnip.

And lo, I was completely delighted by Excellent Women. Mildred Lathbury (what a name!) is an unmarried woman living in London in the late 1940s and standing on the verge of spinsterhood; the daughter of a vicar and a decided member of the churchgoing crowd, she's both satisfied and unsatisfied with life. Satisfied in that she rather likes the elements of her life and doesn't have any precise ideas about what she'd like better -- dissatisfied in that she hates to think that romance and excitement have definitely passed her by. The action of the novel comes when some very worldly people arrive in Miss Lathbury's little world and threaten to shake it all up.

Ok, that sounds like I've copied it out of Bland Book Descriptions Monthly but (a) it's accurate and (b) the real joy here is in the characters. Pym is marvelous. Her characters are so distinct, and their opinions and personalities are immediately recognizable. I found myself giggling at conversations that I could just hear. There's a scene where Mildred, discombobulated and upset, finds herself buying a lipstick called "Hawaiian Fire" to reassert her femininity in the face of spinsterhood. As she's choosing it and dealing with the saleswoman, she knows it's ridiculous and the wrong color and an embarrassing name and she just can't stop. I'm not describing this well, but it's such a great scene; and something I could totally relate to. Once I decided to treat myself to a nice dinner out to celebrate [something or other]. When I got to the restaurant, the specialty dish I had especially gone there to have wasn't on the menu anymore, so I ordered something else. Which turned out to be out of stock so I had to order something else. Whereas usually waiters are quick to suggest dessert, I had to flag down mine to take a dessert order, which she practically tried to talk me out of ("the portion is very small"). And then the whole thing cost waaaay more than I had anticipated.

Or how about the time(s) I decided to celebrate [something or other] with a mani-pedi and ended up having a utilitarian manicure in a color I wasn't crazy about? Yes indeed, nothing but the best. Poor harassed Mildred buying Hawaiian Fire lipstick is an image that is now close to my heart.

The ending threw me a little bit. It was such a charming, funny book; and one does not expect the unexpected when dealing with charming, funny books any more than with the Spanish Inquisition. I just assumed that things would sort of come together in a standard sort of chick lit way. You know what they say about the difference between Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies (or at least I think they say it: that the difference is that one ends in marriage and the other in death). And yet the book ends with Mildred poised to carry on as an Excellent Woman for the foreseeable future. I guess taken together with The Making of a Marchioness that makes two books in a row where I expected some kind of major change for the heroine that simply didn't come. Maybe my expectations have led me to overlook things -- that's happened before. But between the two I liked Excellent Women much much much much better. And certainly I won't use this as an opportunity to learn my lesson about expecting novels about women written by women to follow predictable plotlines. Pah!

I posted about this book on Facebook (back before Lent started and I was on Facebook all the time), and through the conversation discovered the international Barbara Pym Society. Oh yes! They have a website and lovely-sounding events on both sides of the Atlantic. I enjoyed reading about Pym's life and career there; she has a fascinating story. AND -- here's where the post title comes in -- they note that she's often compared to Trollope. Well then!

Nothing to see here

Generally, I read one book at a time and I finish them. Sure, I'm not the most careful reader much of the time, and often I have to sort of knuckle down to get through the last few chapters, but usually I finish, even if I hate the book. So the worst books are not the books I hate, but the boring books; the books I can't bring myself to finish.

I first started reading Alexander McCall Smith's books while in London doing research a couple of years ago. Now, archives generally don't open to readers before 10:00am and they tend to close around 4:00 or 5:00pm; not only are weekend openings rare, some repositories are only open four days a week for researchers. Plus, archives are cold (generally) and filled with old papers, and I'm usually there in the summer when it's nice out, and hello it's London, so the idea of working for even six hours a day is really pushing it.* What I'm saying is, I tend to have a lot of downtime, which means I'm looking for things to read, and Smith is a goldmine. The guy's written a zillion books, and every used bookstore has a stack. I've stuck to the series that are set in Britain -- Isabel Dalhousie, 44 Scotland Street, and Corduroy Mansions (yes, these are all series; I'm telling you the man is prolific) -- and even when I'm not off being an extremely diligent intellectual in foreign lands, I have picked one or another up when I want something quick and entertaining.

But it seems that the shine is off for me, at least in the Isabel Dalhousie series. I started reading Comforts of a Muddy Saturday a week ago and I'm barely halfway through. It's not the lack of speed that's bothering me really; it's the lack of interest. In the last week, I've found myself forgetting the book at home or deliberately leaving it behind; even when I have it with me, I more often choose to stare at subway ads or check Facebook for the thousandth time rather than get my book out. This is unusual behavior and my brain seems to be sending a message: DO NOT WANT. So I'm giving up and moving on.

Why has this series gone from "unchallenging" to "boring" for me? I think I have to point the finger at the main character, Isabel. Here in the fifth book she's become actively uninteresting to me. Isabel's always been independently wealthy, but now she owns and edits alone the scholarly journal she used to work for (this seems epically, discreditingly weird, but then Philosophy isn't my discipline). She has an adorable baby and so many people and resources to take care of him that she barely needs to do anything. She's still involved with her niece's ex-boyfriend, but the niece seems to have forgiven it, so that's all hunky-dory. Everything's great! The only possible area of non-greatness is her insistence on not tying down her lover/baby-daddy and her neurotic anxiety over their age difference. Meanwhile, he loves her and she loves him and basically no one seems to have any problem with this relationship, so really it's all in her head. Bo-ring.

The philosophy angle of the books is obviously Smith's favorite part, and all of his books that I've read feature lots of introspective characters who think a lot about why people do what they do, and what they should do, and the why's and how's of morality. Isabel, as a professional philosopher, is no exception whatsoever of course. But, being bored by this book, I started getting annoyed at how thoroughly relativistic Isabel's thinking is. In general, you can sum up her little mental monologues as: "What a strange practice that is! Why do we do this instead of that? But then I suppose some people do that instead of this, and they prefer it. What would happen if we all did that instead of this? I suppose it all comes down to the individual situation." Bo-ring. Her one slightly controversial belief is that once she knows of an injustice she's morally obliged to get involved, but this is mostly just a hook to get some sort of plot going. Did I mention that these are technically mysteries? At the time of giving up, I am halfway into the book and we are just now learning about the mystery, and it's just too little too late for me.

Oh alas, it's not fun to find that books you liked well enough have lost their charm. I don't want to diss Smith. I respect someone who obviously loves what he does. He seems like a nice guy putting out nice books, and I really do respect that. I think it's neat how he's dabbled in a kind of revived serial publishing with 44 Scotland Street, Corduroy Mansions, etc. And I really genuinely did like the Isabel Dalhousie books at the beginning of the series. So if you like the series or any of the other series, more power to you, is what I'm saying. But I don't think I'll be pursing them anymore.


* Exaggeration for comic purposes. Please don't not hire me.

"Waiting on" Wednesday: MINDY KALING MINDY KALING

[Oops, forgot the link: there's a meme here by this name, which I sought out basically just so I could gush over this book. Yeah, I'm getting the hang of this "blog" thing.]

Guys, I am super excited for Mindy Kaling's book. I can't explain it. Well, yes I can: Mindy Kaling is hilarious. Any woman who would make Michael Scott say "I like waking up to the smell of bacon -- sue me" is a-okay in my book.

Plus! The title!

Kaling used to write a blog called "Things I Bought That I Love" (which she has now revived on her new website) which was really my first contact with her solo work. As an homage, I would like therefore to offer you today:

Julie's Things That I Bought That I Love: AndesNature Cabernet Crema Antioxidante

So I have to take public transportation to the church I attend, which means that every Sunday I either come charging in late or end up spending a half an hour browsing in the CVS across the street. I'm just paranoid enough to think the employees know that I'm loitering, so I feel the need to wander around a lot, looking thoughtful even though I'm not actually paying any attention to what's on the shelf in front of me. Which is how I ended up in the "Hispanic Care" section this past weekend, which is where I saw this:

This facial moisturizer smells like delicious grape Jolly Ranchers, which is a good thing because if it smelled like wine, you might find yourself in the middle of what can only be called "hijinx". It's got a mousse-y sort of texture, thick and rich but also light and whipped. It sinks in really quickly, which is basically all I ask for when it comes to facial cremes. And it's from Chile! Let's face it, everything is better when it comes from another country.
Get it: in the vaguely racist aisle of Walgreens or CVS.

The War of Art

Another quick Kindle read, but diametrically opposite to How to Quit Twitter, Steven Pressfield's The War of Art has been sitting unread for a while. I read about it on the Conversion Diary blog (not normally where I get book recommendations, I guess), and then I think I picked it up on deep discount. At any rate, seeing that the book is about overcoming resistance to produce creative work, I figured it was something I should read. Over my years in grad school, I've discovered in greater and greater detail the ideas and problems I find interesting, even as my ability to sit down and focus and work and write seemed to be evaporating. Very worrying, going into the dissertation. So I read The War of Art.

The first part of the book is about Resistance. Yes, it's always capitalized. Pressfield informs you that your self-doubts, your procrastination, your self-sabotage, and your general feeling of despair are all part of Resistance: a negative spiritual force that is actively trying to prevent you accomplishing the things that will help you better yourself and the world. Pressfield catalogs all the forms and characteristics of Resistance and throughout this, I was like the Samaritan woman of the Gospel.

"Come and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done." (John 4:29 - the rest of the verse is "Is he not the Christ," but note that in the interests of not blaspheming I have cut that out)

Pressfield just nails it. The "chapters" aren't even chapters, they're sort of zen-like blurbs, little nuggets of all the troubles and anxieties and whatnot you've been feeling but unable to articulate for ages. By the time I finished this first section, I was pretty much sold.

In part two, Pressfield argues that the one way to defeat Resistance (however temporarily) is to "be a pro", and again he catalogs the traits of the professional and how these counteract Resistance. Although "being a pro" is an act of the will, something you have to decide to do, in part three, Pressfield describes the angelic forces, the muses, the inspiration that will start to help you once you decide to put your head down and do the work. The third part gets a little... out there... but it still has plenty of good concepts.

The most prominent metaphor Pressfield uses is that of warfare, and even before he talks about his time in the Marine Corps, you can tell the guy's a Marine. This is more a slap-in-the-face sort of self-help book than a healing circle, and the bottom line is: you need to get to work. As I read this, I could feel myself becoming more energized. My problems felt more concrete, and I felt more motivated to address them. I felt harder, meaner, ready to fight. I draw the veil over whether any concrete action or productiveness results (but you'll know if you see me announcing my graduation in fall 2013).

What I definitely take away, though, is my further conviction that "being a writer" is a tough, unpleasant, terrible vocation. As a kid, I always said I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and my parents took me to various writing workshops and local how-to-be-a-published-author events. What I took away from these was that (1) the vast majority of aspiring writers suck in a completely irredeemable way, and (2) writing is a path full of grotesque levels of suffering. By the time I got to high school, I was telling people I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. Pressfield only confirms that impression, but I think he does a valuable thing in arguing that the suffering is there to be fought.

Literary Blog Hop: Dinner with authors

If you could invite any three literary figures from different eras to a Sunday Dinner who would they be?

I have to be perfectly honest up front and say that, generally speaking, I dislike the Fantasy Dinner Party genre of questions. I'm very bad at asking people questions in person. I'm not a quick thinker, I'm a little shy, and in general, I would much prefer to interact with famous people through writing. Which works out well as it happens!

Anyhow, I am reading this question perhaps very literally, but I am intrigued by the idea of authors "from different eras".

My first dinner guest therefore is Mr. Anthony Trollope. I am currently almost halfway through Barchester Towers, and one thing I've noticed is his very interesting relationship with his medium. I have a post planned in which I will (attempt) to expand on this point, but right now I'll say that he often sort of comments on his own role as a story-teller: his limitations, his ability to show or hide things, etc.

So I think maybe my second invitation would go to one Publius Ovidius Naso, known to his friends as Ovid, who can also be rather playful in his relationship with the reader. There's a fascinating passage in Barchester Towers where Trollope basically writes that authors put too much stock in suspense, and if knowing the ending ruins your book, maybe it's not such a great book to begin with (I'm paraphrasing, of course; and like I said: more on this to come). I think Ovid, with his experience (re)writing age-old myths, would substantially agree with that, and I would love to hear them develop this line of thinking.

For my third, I'm really going to go out on a limb, and ring up P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse is, for me, the master of employing the most exquisite language in the service of popular entertainment. Wodehouse is a breathtakingly good writer, and he absolutely churned out stories by the bucketload. I feel certain that he and Ovid would get along in their respect for the general reading public and the nobility of humor -- I don't know as much about Trollope, but I think he'd be on board too. And Wodehouse could certainly chime in on the conversation about novelty, suspense, and originality. He certainly knew a thing or two about what sells, and could bring a 20th century multi-media perspective, having written for the stage and magazines as well as stand-alone books. If you look at Wodehouse's works overall, the man only had a handful of plots, so I can imagine him jumping into that conversation. To wit:

A certain critic--for such men, I regret to say, do exist--made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

So! There you have it: a Victorian, an ancient Roman, and a 20th century author walk into a dining room. At the very least, I think they'd be pretty entertaining.