George Saunders - Tenth of December: Stories

George Saunders is what my professors in the writing department would call a "rockstar writer." While rockstar musicians are likely to wear tight pants and sing falsetto, Saunders achieved rockstar status by writing genre-bending stories that break many, if not all, of the rules that students are taught regarding English grammar and composition. Reading Tenth of December: Stories, I realized that Saunders is the future that I was trained by Ander Monson at the GVSU writing department to be a part of. Saunders pushes the envelope in terms of style, content and format.

If you reflect on literary history, stream of consciousness is nothing new. It became popular and edgy in the first half of the twentieth century. Now that it is the first half of the twenty-first century, however, a writer needs to innovate in order to keep this style of writing fresh. Many have simply retired back into simpler, more staight-forward narratives, but Saunders understands that stream of consciousness evolves just as human language and interaction evolves. As such, stories like "Victory Lap" and "Tenth of December" go into the minds of children who are at once in both a world of fantasy and in the world of texts, blogs, and short attention span. Altered states of consciousness, be they drug- or war-induced, make the stream equally convoluted in stories like "Escape from Spiderhead," "Home," and "My Chivalric Fiasco." Asides are represented by parenthesies, questionable or excited statements are represented with question or exclamation marks in parentheses, and such verbal irregularities such as people who make their statements sound like questions are simply represented by a question mark at the end of a statement. The result of these methods is that each character sounds like somebody you might already know.

Mixing literary fiction, speculative/science fiction, lists, memos, and journal writing, Saunders proves in Tenth of December that he has become a sort of superman of literature. Of particular interest was his ability to tell a creepy story in the form of a message from an employer to employees with the intent of motivating the employees to do their job with more joy in the story "Exhortation." This same story is a fantastic example of the moral content of Saunders' stories. We don't know exactly what these employees are doing in Room 6, but it certainly doesn't sound very humane.

Many are comparing the moral component of Saunders' stories to that of the great Mark Twain. Just as Twain writes about a young boy who goes against conventional wisdom in liberating a slave in Huckleberry Finn, Saunders makes us value every-day suburban life over the irksome issue of human trafficking in "The Semplica Girl Diaries." In what feels like a nod to A Clockwork Orange, Saunders deals with drug trials and behavioral conditioning in "Escape from Spiderhead." No modern sin is overlooked, not child abuse ("Puppy"), nor experimentation on humans ("Escape From Spiderhead"), nor possible torture ("Exhortation"), nor slavery ("Semplica Girl Diaries"), nor even PTSD.

Tenth of December: Stories is likely to become a classic. The benefit of reading it now rather than when it is featured in literature courses in the future is that you can be one of the people who made it a classic instead of merely being one of those people who responded to the taste of more risky readers. This work by Saunders will be on your bookshelf eventually. Why not pick up a first edition?

I've syndicated this review at Examiner. You can read it here. If you click on it a few times, spend some time there, or navigate to a new page, I might get some money. But I'm only asking that of you if you liked reading the article here and want to show your appreciation.

Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot

There was something really historical to 'Salem's Lot, something that made me think that Stephen King devoured the works of John Steinbeck when he was younger. There was also something fantastic to the development of the small town of Jerusalem's Lot that I've never really seen the likes of outside of the works of Stephen King. Of Stephen King's many accomplishments - his book On Writing, his ideas about human psychology, his ideas about places having a kind of emotional memory, his balance between social evil and metaphysical evil - I wonder if his writing on small towns and cultural consciousness might be his greatest.

Now, there were a couple of moments while reading this book that it felt like the narrative wasn't going anywhere, wasn't leaving any hints. But the Prologue was written so sparsely and brilliantly that it was hard not to commit to a few more pages. And the resolution of the story was absolutely fantastic. The last few chapters of 'Salem's Lot were some of the better I've read. I'm not saying that King is the best at writing sentences that grab you, and I'm not saying that King's character development reaches beyond superficial things. But King writes a town as if it is one character, and he reaches into his readers and makes them understand what it feels like to be part of the narrative. I was left, time and time again, wondering what I would do in the same position. Where would I find the tools one needs in order to fight vampires? Would I run for my life or see it as my responsibility to prevent a vampire outbreak? Would I do things that are socially unacceptable in order to prevent that society from falling apart? And how could I draw others to my cause? (Would I want to draw others to my cause or shoo them away?)

King is one of my bumblebee authors. By all measures - even by his own measures - he does so many things poorly. But he has delivered some of the best stories of all time, has made Freudian psychology more accessible and fun, and has delved deeper into the dialogue of good and evil than any other individual I've ever encountered.

Sure, a vampire novel by Stephen King seems out of character. King has never seemed all that interested in re-hashing the horror archetypes of vampire, were-wolf, Frankenstein's monster, swamp monster, mummy, though he has dabbled in one or two of these. But for King there's something bigger going on here. It is in this book that themes important to later works like The Shining and The Stand get laid out. And let us not forget: it was not vampires who searched for evil in 'Salem's Lot, but the other way around. Maybe every town has its own evils here and there, and maybe we all have to find a way to fight against them lest they draw in undesirable supernatural beings.

Mark Mattison's Bible Puns: 100 Original Jokes

You probably remember the name Mark Mattison. I promoted his first book, Commander Chris and the Mystical Orb on this very blog. Well, he's got a second book out titled Bible Puns: 100 Original Jokes, and I wouldn't be much of a friend it I didn't promote this one as well.

Here's the description of this book from Amazon:

Whoever said that people of faith don't have a sense of humor? Indulge in the lighter side of faith with 100 brand new puns. How do we know the Apostles were such a great sales team? Because Jesus gave them a Great Commission! Why wasn't the governor of Judea allowed to fly an airplane? Because he was a "bad Pilate!" Perfect for church bulletins, newsletters, Sunday School classes, or even (if you dare) sermon anecdotes, this book comes complete with an exhaustive Scripture index.

As of right now, Bible Puns: 100 Original Jokes is only available for the Kindle. If you would like to purchase this book, it is available here. Mark's an incredibly intelligent person and a fantastic writer. I find it highly unlikely that you will not enjoy his humor.

George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones

I went to a panel with Orson Scott Card, one of the leading voices in science fiction and fantasy, and he kept speaking about writing and I remember hooting and hollering in support. I've heard since then that Card is quite a bigot, but his every word about the craft that I studied in college was golden. One of the main things he said that I agreed with was that J.R.R. Tolkien did nearly everything wrong while writing his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and yet the series is brilliant anyways. His point was that fantasy writers should not follow the story-telling methodology of Tolkien. It's a great way to make a train wreck of a novel.

Over the last year I've had several conversations with people who love fantasy fiction about why I dislike most of what the genre has for me to read. I'd repeat lines from Card like, "The actual story of Lord of the Rings doesn't even start until the Hobbits get to Rivendell!" I'd throw in riffs I'd learned in my writing classes about the formulaic nature of genre fiction. What I was looking for in fantasy fiction is a book or series that is good on the sentence level just as much as it is on the overarching story level. It needs to be fantastic regarding character development. It has to follow all of the rules that literary fiction follows, rather than the cookie cutter rules of many fantasy publishers. Josh Toulouse of Fat Train said to me, "George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is exactly what you've just described to me. You have to read those books."

It took Amy reading A Game of Thrones for me to really be interested, however. I remember her sitting on her bed, obviously excited about something she'd read, but also frustrated that we couldn't talk about it because she didn't want to spoil the book for me. So I started reading the book, and it is now one of my favorite books of all time. A reviewer called George R.R. Martin the American Tolkien, and I agree with this description if you are talking about the scope and impact of the two writers' best series. I would prefer to call Martin as an American Tolkien who happens to know a heck of a lot more about writing, human psychology, and just about everything other than the evolution of Elvish linguistics over the centuries.

A Game of Thrones, the first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, is one of the highest quality books I've ever read. If you're looking for a great story or if you're looking to learn how to write better, this is the book where you will find what you're looking for.

Christian Piatt's Banned Questions About the Bible

It gives me great pleasure whenever someone I know has the fantastic opportunity of being published, and it is because of Christian Piatt and his book Banned Questions About the Bible that my good friend and fellow blogger Josh Toulouse of Fat Train became a published author.

Banned Questions About the Bible responds to a problem that arises in every religious community. Because certain traditions are held as authoritative, people often feel too afraid to ask important and difficult questions that pertain to their own religious journey. Not only does Piatt pose many such questions regarding the Bible, but the many contributors he's gathered together courageously give a variety of possible answers. In the process, readers find a guide to creative thinking rather than an authoritative law book that prohibits further questioning.

Banned Questions About the Bible is available on-line via amazon and also via the Chalice Press web site. (If you order it on Chalice Press, input the promo code "BANNEDQJ" and get 40% off. This code also works for Piatt's upcoming book Banned Questions About Jesus which is available for pre-order on both sites.) It is also available in most Cokesbury book stores. It may not be available in Barnes and Nobles stores but they are able to order it if you call them. (If enough people order this book, Barnes and Nobles will be more likely to stock the book for other readers.)

I have two personal recommendations: 1. that you pick up this book from one of the above places, and 2. that you hop on over to Fat Train and congratulate Josh on his publication.

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Publication History: Fugitives and Refugees Review

In 2005, I was back in school going for my second bachelor's degree, a writing degree with a creative writing emphasis. A professor of mine, Ander Monson, challenged us to widen our understanding of publication. I took this very seriously, writing a poem on a McDonalds bathroom wall, sneaking a non-fiction essay into Barnes and Nobles and Schuler Books. For this review, however, I did something sort of mundane: I published it on Amazon.com. If you don't believe I was published on such a cherished site, you can see for yourself here.

Portland's Finest (Well, Not Exactly)

Portland, Oregon.

For George Bush (senior) and Ronald Regan, greeted consistently with vomiting protestors, it was "Little Beirut."

For Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland Oregon (Crown Publishers, 2003) this place is called home.

For Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love, Portland is the likely destination of everyone who, looking for a new life, migrates west across America to the Pacific ocean. Why do they end up in Portland, Oregon? Because it's the cheapest place to live.

"We accumulate more and more strange people," she says. "All we are are the fugitives and refugees."

Palahniuk's aptly titled collection of short non-fiction speaks of oddballs and the things that make them tick. He speaks of what makes Portland, more than any other place, home.

Palahniuk is best known for his novels. Since his first bestseller, Fight Club, was made into a movie, Palahniuk has been the subject of a cult following. As a matter of fact, his web site is called the Cult (www.chuckpalahniuk.net). Since Fight Club, he has released a series of grotesque minimalist novels, including Choke, Lullaby, and Diary that delve into the strange: sex addicts, murder hymns, living statues, the works. Personally, I am a fan of Palahniuk's works. For me, he picks up where Joseph Conrad left off in Heart of Darkness, the exploration of the odd and why it is so appealing.

Fugitives and Refugees, though boasting with its name to tell only the stories of the grotesque, is actually something of a journey away from Palahniuk's normal style. While there are plenty of fun stories about strange people, the overwhelming feeling is that this place is home. "[W]hen you walk down the street, every corner has a story," Katherine Dunn says of Portland. "Here, the rolling history of your life is visible to you everywhere you look." This is the sentimental side of Palahniuk as he journeys through the past. It is an avant-garde travelogue mixed with the stories that Palahniuk has acquired on many street corners.

The book starts off slowly. From the interesting interview with author Katherine Dunn, fellow inhabitant of Portland, Palahniuk launches into descriptions of Portland terminology. This list of clever nick-names for places is entirely too long, and though I assume that these nicknames have acquired meaning through the years, they are entirely too contrived. Simple rhyming phrases. Nothing more, nothing less.

There are some interesting anecdotes that are definitely worth wading through the first part of the book for, for example, Palahniuk devouring a woman's scarf while on LSD at a Pink Floyd laser light show. It is not until the chapter entitled "Haunts: Where to Rub Elbows with the Dead" that this book picks up the pace and feels like a normal Palahniuk book. I read this chapter alone in my apartment, in the middle of the night. It is my opinion that Hollywood can produce nothing scarier than a true story. Thus, when Palahniuk writes non-fiction about the supposed haunting of much of Portland, it gets the adrenaline pumping. It keeps you awake, and willing yourself to read more - perhaps for the thrill, perhaps simply to read about something less frightening before you go to bed (like a later chapter on the sex industry entitled "Getting Off: How to Knock Off a Piece in Portland").

According to Palahniuk, the vast majority of Portland is haunted. He even interviews Bob and Renee Chamberlain, founders of Northwest Paranormal Investigations. "Renee and Bob say that something very basic about the Portland area, something organic, possibly the soil, allows spirits to manifest there more easily." This is when it hits you that this is not a normal travelogue. Palahniuk is telling stories about things that would keep most people away from Portland, but yet, this is the home of "the most cracked of the crackpots[, t]he misfits among misfits." This is a book that will help one set up an itinerary if, like Marlowe in Conrad's epic, one seeks that strange and irrational feeling in other people. More specifically, if one seeks that strange and irrational feeling in Portland, Oregon.

But then again, Palahniuk warns: "This book is not Portland, Oregon. At best, it's a series of moments with interesting people." More than that, this is a series of moments with interesting people, many of whom have effected Palahniuk in strange and profound ways. These are the people that fuel Palahniuk's fiction. He writes: "That's my job now, to assemble and reassemble the stories I hear until I can call them mine." Would I be jumping to conclusions to say that when I hear about Palahniuk's drug-addicted friends working for restaurants, I think about the members of Project Mayhem in Fight Club who add their own extra flavor to the New England clam chowder? Or that when I hear the story of Bob and Renee Chamberlain of the Northwest Paranormal Investigations, I think of the characters in Lullaby who have become completely desensitized to the haunting of their town? Palahniuk even mentions that the mausoleum at The Portland Memorial inspired his second novel Survivor, and even mentions that he wrote much of the novel while sitting in the mausoleum, "but the air is freezing and your fingers get stiff."

Fugitives and Refugees is the side of Palahniuk that any of his fans, of his Cult, must see. For newcomers and non-Palahniuk fans, this book is worth reading because it's short and satisfies the thirst for the gross and frightening, which at the same time is transposed into the entertaining and the delightful. For the writer, this is a sample of how one modern writer got started, from the moment he threw his tonsils from an apartment building wishing that he could be a writer to the moment his highly acclaimed first novel was made into a Brad Pitt movie.

And if you're planning to go to Portland any time soon, this book gives you the ingredients for one hell of an exciting trip through the city.

Another Commander Chris Article

Mark Mattison is a child of the Star Wars era, a watcher of Star Trek reruns and a reader of science fiction from childhood. He can now call himself a writer of science fiction, thanks to his first book, “Commander Chris and the Mystical Orb” (Gollehon Books, $9.95)

Chris Morinas, a teenage skateboarder and popularity contest loser, is mysteriously transformed in a lab accident and finds himself warped into another galaxy where he becomes commander of a space ship and its strange crew. They embark on a rescue mission but end up embroiled in a fight to save their world and defeat evil.

“This is a novel broader than its sci-fi genre,” Mattison said. “It’s the story of a young man who doesn’t have much going for him but who is thrust into a world where he calls upon skills to become stronger and better. It’s a great opportunity to explore the limits of the imagination and the confines of science.”

The full article was published in The Grand Rapids Press and on-line at MLive. You can read the full text here.

Commander Chris Signing In Grand Rapids

Commander Chris Article

This is my buddy Mark who wrote the book Commander Chris and the Mystical Orb. Read the article on-line here.

Wizard People, Dear Reader

Wizard People, Dear Reader is an alternate soundtrack to the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone made by Brad Neely in 2004. The idea is that you mute the film and play Neely's thirty-five chapter audio book instead of the film's original audio track. It's similar to the idea that you can play the album Dark Side of the Moon as an alternate audio track to The Wizard of Oz, or The Dark Side of Oz, as the conglomerate has become widely known.

There are three ways that Wizard People, Dear Reader can be experienced.

The first and second involve getting a hold of Brad Neely's audio track and matching it with the film yourself, and lucky for us, a web site called Illegal Art has made that really easy. They even included instructions on how to make sure the audio track matches the video track.

The first way of viewing Wizard People, Dear Reader involves downloading the audio track from Illegal Art. There are two tracks that can be burned onto two CDs. Simply right-click them and select Save Link As... Disc 1. Disc 2. I'm certain that the audio track, as well as a dubbed version, are probably available on most of the more popular torrent sites, if you're into that sort of thing.

The second way of viewing Wizard People, Dear Reader involves sending $28 to Illegal Art to obtain a 2-disc hard copy of the audio track. If you enjoy what Illegal Art does, this is a good option, because it helps fund the non-profit devoted to keeping art free. Order Wizard People, Dear Reader here.

The third way of viewing Wizard People, Dear Reader is via the thirty-five chapters that are already matched with their corresponding movie scenes and made available via YouTube on the HarryPotterCentral channel. I was planning on embedding them on this blog, but since there is matched content from the movie that's not possible, so here are the individual chapter links.

Chapter 1: Power-Baby --- Chapter 2: Pork Family Project --- Chapter 3: Harry's Depression --- Chapter 4: Hagar's Gifts --- Chapter 5: London's Bowels --- Chapter 6: With Money I Am Safe --- Chapter 7: Brandish This! --- Chapter 8: Valmart's Club --- Chapter 9: Whooshers --- Chapter 10: The Bear, The Wretch --- Chapter 11: "F*ck Yes," Says Fate --- Chapter 12: Fortune's Grind --- Chapter 13: Food and Phantoms --- Chapter 14: First Day Sucks It --- Chapter 15: missing... --- Chapter 16: Jesus Christers! --- Chapter 17: More Training --- Chapter 18: missing... --- Chapter 19: The Cribbage Match --- Chapter 20: missing... --- Chapter 21: Christmas Yes! --- Chapter 22: Invisibility On! --- Chapter 23: The Gate of Sh*t --- Chapter 24: Hagar's Tale --- Chapter 25: Guess the F*ck What? --- Chapter 26: Harry Boils --- Chapter 27: Wizard's Release --- Chapter 28: The Bear is God --- Chapter 29: The Bear is Dead --- Chapter 30: Holy F*cking Sh*t!! --- Chapter 31: Holy F*cking Sh*t 2 --- Chapter 32: Harry Kicks Back --- Chapter 33: We Are Gods! --- Chapter 34: Awkward Embracers --- Chapter 35: End Credits

What Is A Poet?

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music. His fate is like that of those unfortunates who were slowly tortured by a gentle fire in Phalaris's bull; their cries could not reach the tyrant's ears to cause him dismay, to him they sounded like sweet music. And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.'

- Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Commander Chris and the Mystical Orb, by Mark Mattison

Mark Mattison is a good friend of mine, and I'm incredibly impressed that he's gotten a novel published. Commander Chris and the Mystical Orb is a science fiction book published by Gollehon Press and accessible to teens and young adults as well as your ordinary adult crowd. Mark's a great writer. He sent me a fairly polished draft of a Franz Kafka homage short story a while back and I thought it was brilliant. Commander Chris will no doubt follow suit.

The book can currently be found at the Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan and at Barnes and Noble locations throughout West Michigan. If you live in the area, I suggest heading over to your local bookstore and picking up a copy there. This way the book will likely be picked up in other Borders and BN markets. If you don't live in West Michigan, the book can be ordered through Amazon.

Go out and pick up your copy today.

Penelope: A Modern Sequel

For one of my recent final papers I decided to write a short epic poem (oxymoron?) titled Penelope: A Modern Sequel. This piece was written in response to Nikos Kazantzakis's Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. A couple of people asked if they could read it, so here you go!

Click here to download Penelope: A Modern Sequel in PDF form.

George Orwell's Spain

LibriVox

LibriVox is a web site dedicated to providing readers access to free audiobooks transcribed from books and writing that are in the public domain.

LibriVox audiobooks are recorded by volunteers. My personal favorite recordings are the renderings of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend by Alan Chant from Tonbridge, Kent, England. Download whichever books or chapters you wish. No obligation. If you feel a special need to give back then you have the option to volunteer to record for LibriVox. This web site has saved some friends of mine in graduate school. Check it out at LibriVox.org.