I wonder if the steroid shot is why I had a tossing and turning night. Well, after almost an hour of hitting the snooze button, here I am.
Starting with The Greaser's Lunchbox from Thursday.
Book Riot has a long piece on censorship, The Next Generation United Daughters of the Confederacy: Book Censorship News, April 28, 2023. I have read elsewhere the current censorship program has ties to the segregationist, Lost Cause Southerners.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy still exist and still operate today. But this is not about them.
Instead, it’s about how their playbook is the same playbook by those who insisted on establishing the 1776 commission to spread lies about American history.
It’s the playbook used by Moms for Liberty, who decided what is to be allowed in the hands of young people.
Who claim that schools are indoctrinating children — the ones they are raising and the ones in which they want to instill their versions of truth.
These Moms believe themselves authorities. They are purveyors of a brand of white power and supremacy, making their names known as “defenders of liberty” and “parental rights,” in the same exact manner as the UDC and the “Lost Cause.” They believe they can determine books that are and are not appropriate, and they can write a lengthy blacklist using “evidence” they cherry pick.
Last night, I listened to a couple of stretches of Bill Maher's show. One of the guest's argued the American left, enamored of identity politics, knocked the America as being inherently racist. I agree that there are some off the mainstream do so. I do not know anyone of any sense who does not agree Americans have been racist. We have been. We have also worked against racism. That we do not acknowledge we have been both racist and anti-racist puts me off with those radicals. Meanwhile, the other side has sprouted up and tried to deny there was any racism. We cannot solve a problem by whitewashing it (literally), nor denying there is means of solving the problem because of inherent racism will not let us. Both are small-minded; the former are cowards, the latter are nihilistic; they are anti-American.
After having it out with CC last night, I looked up the disposition of her case. She omitted one thing from her report, counseling/treatment. Yeah, that is not going to work; which may explain why she said they set her up to fail. Whether I was not paying attention, or (more likely) too apathetic, to notice her displays of capability to do better with her life only accentuate her playing poor, poor pitiful me. She is still too blonde, too clever, not to think she can get away with her wild west kind of life. She told I had thought I could pick up where I had left off, when it was her. I came back to see to make my apologies for mistreating her, to see if there was the possibility of something better than what we were doing before my arrest. Soon as I saw where she was living, I knew that was not likely. But I gave her a chance. She took it and proved me right. Yes, it could be that if I had not been arrested, she would not be in the shape she is in. It is just as likely, I would have cut her off, as I am now. I had to give her the chance, now I have to think the ugly side of me was right about her in the days before my arrest. I would have liked to have seen doing something like Voices on Addiction: Want to Believe By Shelley Mann Hite. Too much work, I think, for her - compared to running the streets. Which at 53 is too for that.
I know I am supposed to like McSweeney's, and I do like Dress Code Policies to Ensure Your Employer Retains Professionalism While Knowing All About Your Genitals by Nat Hrvatin, even though it is a bit heavy-handed. It also may be that I am not living in Texas, not working for the Texas government, and it feels a bit of easy humor.
Catching up with the Brisbane Times' book reviews from yesterday.
Katherine Mansfield makes an appearance here, The ‘nobody from New Zealand’ who left her mark in the literary world. It is a review of All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything by Clare Harman.
Mansfield’s latest biographer, Clare Harman, gives a balanced view of her life and work. Choosing 10 of Mansfield’s stories she discusses each one in the context of its time. Her sharp and lively commentary outlines the circumstances in which they were written and the way in which each shows its author’s growing mastery of the short story form.
As well as several little known works that give a sense of Mansfield’s trajectory, Harman discusses the black-comic artistry of Daughters of the Late Colonel, the gentler New Zealand stories, and the painful allegory of war, The Fly.
These days Katherine Mansfield is not well known, so this intelligent and engaging biography is doubly welcome. Mansfield’s comparative obscurity makes me wonder if we are snobbish about literary forms, putting the novel up on the top shelf and giving poetry its special distinction. The short story, which may be the most exacting form of all, doesn’t rate. There are exceptions – William Trevor is one - but on the whole a list of Great Books is likely to be made up of novels, with a polite nod to poetry.
Imagine an interviewer of today fronting up to Katherine Mansfield. “And now, Katherine, after those terrific stories of yours, when are we going to have a novel from you?” What would she say? Read this new biography to find out why short fiction was her unwavering choice. Better still, read her stories.
I did get a chance to read her stories, they are that good. This I say as one who does not think he has the talent for the short story; it is a form that seems to me as having a form that must be respected more than the novel. This review made me wonder if part of the problem with the short story is many of its best practitioners are women (see Alice Munro) (But the devil's advocate in me says, Hemingway's short stories are better than his novels, and then there is Somerset Maugham.) I have written before about Mansfield.
My friend, Joel C, had a theory that TB can be found common among the great writers. Mansfield could be evidence for his theory.
He also is the person who got me to read Yukio Mishima, who is mentioned in Jane Sullivan's The 661-page book that had Japanese readers queuing in their thousands, also from The Brisbane Times. What kind of book caused this queuing up?
I’ve just come back from Japan, where a huge literary event was happening. People were queuing outside bookshops in a way we haven’t seen since the heady days of Harry Potter. What were they so eager to buy at the stroke of midnight? The first novel from Haruki Murakami in six years.
Sadly, my tour, which was excellent in other ways, didn’t take me to bookshops. The only queues I saw outside shops were high-end consumers waiting for their Rolex or Chanel fix. But even if I had bought The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I wouldn’t have been able to read it. The English translation won’t be available until later this year, but it’s bound to cause excitement. Murakami is one of the few writers who enjoys worldwide success both as a literary and as a popular author.
She goes on to report on newer Japanese writers, which probably should not interest American readers. We are not keen on translated works, but I found the three Japanese writers I have read the most (Murakami, Oe, and Mishima) to be accessible to my provincial Midwestern mind, to have a viewpoint that opened mine, and could give me ideas I could use. I agree with Ms. Sullivan's judgment:
Where can we find their books in English? There are several useful online guides and too many authors to mention here, but if they have anything in common, it’s a tendency to write about the dark and the strange.
Dark and strange covers a lot of what I see around here.
I really like the Brisbane Times' book reviews, so I am going to quote this, so you can get it yourself: The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
Speaking of short story writers, Michael Martone will be a speaker at Midwest Writers Workshop 50th Conference, Wednesday, July 19 – Saturday, July 22, 2023. He is, in my not so humble opinion, a short story writer to read and the best living Indiana writer. Too bad, I will not be able to afford the registration fees.
The sun is shining. It is 8:40. I am thinking of doing some other posts from older notes. Dawn patrol is over. I need to get at the screenplay. The plan is to take a break after noon, get some milk and other things for the larder.
Nathan Bransford summarizes better than I do: Can writers feature a protagonist from a different race? (This week in books)
Screenwriting sites I am looking at: Screencraft and Coverfly.
8:59 am
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