Entries from October 2008

October 31, 2008

the last day of October

“The weather was unusually warm for the last day of October.  We didn’t even need jackets.  The wind was growing stronger, and Jem said it might be raining before we got home.  There was no moon.”  To Kill A Mockingbird  by Harper Lee 
I read it in school.  I read it again in June of 2006.  I just finished [...]

October 30, 2008

family history

Dani Shapiro is one of my all-time favorite writers.  She knows how to tell a story–how to slowly release details in order to build tension and lure the reader forward. The first book of hers I read was Family History, published in 2003, but which I did not discover until October of 2005.
How does a writer know [...]

October 28, 2008

circularity

The Lucky Ones is Rachel Cusk’s fifth book. 
In it, there is a Contents page, which announces five sections.  Each section stands by itself.  There is a passing reference in each section to at least one character in another section.  With a lovely circularity, the last section ends with, I believe, the only reference to the [...]

October 27, 2008

all its rich hours

Pine Mountain Trail
Pine Mountain, Georgia
October 26, 2008
23 miles
11hours, 7 minutes

The day grew light, then dark again–
In all its rich hours, what happened?
 
from Apple by Jane Hirshfield
Given Sugar, Given Salt

October 26, 2008

a day in the woods

Today, Sunday, October 26th, I’m walking.  It’s a day in the woods.  An autumn ritual (because of spring snakes).  A 23-mile hike, which last year took 11 hours.  We choose the date by trying to maximize the chance of cool weather with enough daylight hours.  This is tricky.  Already we’re down to less than 12 hours.  Sunrise in Georgia [...]

October 25, 2008

out of her head

Pam Houston is one of my all-time favorite writers.  She is a master at getting it out of her head and onto the page.  Take for example this bit of dialogue from her novel, Sight Hound:
“You know,” she said, “I’m not going to be one of those girls who plays hard to get, because first, I’m [...]

October 23, 2008

word-smitten

Charles Frazier’s second book,Thirteen Moons, is narrated by Will Cooper, who has a friend named Bear, a Cherokee Indian chief. 
“I cannot decide whether it is an illness or a sin, the need to write things down and fix the flowing world in one rigid form.  Bear believed writing dulled the spirit, stilled some holy breath.  Smothered it.  Words, when [...]

October 22, 2008

the kitten

marry tale #2:  the kitten
 
Once upon a time there was a man and a woman, who decided to become the husband and the wife.  They were very new at being the husband and the wife and had no skills at it.  And so they had a problem.  They weren’t quite sure how to handle it, [...]

October 20, 2008

what’s in a novel

In a 1921 New York Times article entitled, “What is a Novel, Anyhow?”, Henry Kitchell Webster, writes “A novel is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as a fictitious prose narrative of sufficient length to fill one or more volumes.  Well, do you know, that is just about what I thought it was.”
Michael Ondaatje calls [...]

October 18, 2008

collaboration and commitment

The Oxford American Dictionary defines collaboration as
“working jointly, especially in a literary or artistic production.”
It defines commitment as

“the process or an instance of committing oneself.”

And committing as

“pledging or binding oneself to a certain course”

Something different for today–a movie. 
This summer one of my sons, Bobby Martin, was in Paris taking a film class.  I had the opportunity to [...]