What Happens to a Meme Deferred?
No one tagged me, but how could I let that stop me? Cut and pasted from dear Ann Powers.
A book that changed my life: Sound and Sense (back-up: Grendel by John Gardner)
A book I've read more than once: The White Album by Joan Didion (back-up: Money by Martin Amis)
A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: I guess you’d be a sucker not to take something huge, and I guess you’d maybe be more of a sucker to take something that you identify too closely with the misery of real life. If there were a complete collected works of Charles Dickens, I would take that—but I would have to make sure that the print was big enough for my increasingly functionless eyes to make sense of. Failing that, I liked the Bullfinch’s Mythology answer by Ms. AP. You want to believe you’d take a collected Shakespeare, but it would be a little oppressive after a while. Norton Anthology? Definitely fiction. Definitely big.
A book that made me laugh: The last time I read Portnoy’s Complaint (in a thatch-roof hut on a tiny island in the South Pacific) I laughed so hard it scared the lizards away and made the Aussies wonder if perhaps I had a few ‘roos loose in the top paddock.
A book that made me cry: Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction (both stories, different reasons)
A book that I wish had been written: My Effortless Brilliance, by Sean Nelson.
A book I wish had never been written: I don’t care. How can you wish a book un-written? So harsh. I mean, The Bible, because of all the terrible things people have done because of it (like, uh, believing it), but then, you could also basically wipe away 75% of all Western culture with it. Maybe Illusions by Richard Bach? But only because of all the theater girls I loved in high school who made me pretend to read it. The Celestine Prophecy (a/k/a The Philistine Heresy)? For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy (what a d-bag!)?
A book I've been meaning to read: Everything by Don DeLillo. I tried to read White Noise and thought it was awful, like a Stanley Kramer movie or something—relevant to its time, maybe, but painful now. Then I read Running Dog and thought it was great. So now I reckon I’ll try Libra.
I'm currently reading: Patrimony by Philip Roth, Libra by Don DeLillo
A Book I Wish I'd Written: I feel that way about every book. And every song. And every film. To the extent that when I don’t like something, I even feel relieved, like, well, it’s probably ok that I didn’t write that, even though it’s reprehensible that I’m not writing, even now. The feeling is more like “I wish I were capable of having written that.” Most recently, most palpably: The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem.
A book that changed my life: Sound and Sense (back-up: Grendel by John Gardner)
A book I've read more than once: The White Album by Joan Didion (back-up: Money by Martin Amis)
A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: I guess you’d be a sucker not to take something huge, and I guess you’d maybe be more of a sucker to take something that you identify too closely with the misery of real life. If there were a complete collected works of Charles Dickens, I would take that—but I would have to make sure that the print was big enough for my increasingly functionless eyes to make sense of. Failing that, I liked the Bullfinch’s Mythology answer by Ms. AP. You want to believe you’d take a collected Shakespeare, but it would be a little oppressive after a while. Norton Anthology? Definitely fiction. Definitely big.
A book that made me laugh: The last time I read Portnoy’s Complaint (in a thatch-roof hut on a tiny island in the South Pacific) I laughed so hard it scared the lizards away and made the Aussies wonder if perhaps I had a few ‘roos loose in the top paddock.
A book that made me cry: Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction (both stories, different reasons)
A book that I wish had been written: My Effortless Brilliance, by Sean Nelson.
A book I wish had never been written: I don’t care. How can you wish a book un-written? So harsh. I mean, The Bible, because of all the terrible things people have done because of it (like, uh, believing it), but then, you could also basically wipe away 75% of all Western culture with it. Maybe Illusions by Richard Bach? But only because of all the theater girls I loved in high school who made me pretend to read it. The Celestine Prophecy (a/k/a The Philistine Heresy)? For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy (what a d-bag!)?
A book I've been meaning to read: Everything by Don DeLillo. I tried to read White Noise and thought it was awful, like a Stanley Kramer movie or something—relevant to its time, maybe, but painful now. Then I read Running Dog and thought it was great. So now I reckon I’ll try Libra.
I'm currently reading: Patrimony by Philip Roth, Libra by Don DeLillo
A Book I Wish I'd Written: I feel that way about every book. And every song. And every film. To the extent that when I don’t like something, I even feel relieved, like, well, it’s probably ok that I didn’t write that, even though it’s reprehensible that I’m not writing, even now. The feeling is more like “I wish I were capable of having written that.” Most recently, most palpably: The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem.
posted by Sean Nelson at 12:05 PM
4 Comments:
Illusions by Richard Bach - Could not agree with you more. Due to this book I spent a good portion of my adult life avoiding falling feathers in fear that some silly new age boy I was dating at the time would think it was a sign that we were meant to be together forever. Ugh.
And don't even get me started on The Celestine Prophecy... Double ugh.
Sadly I've read them both, only so I could criticize them with a clear conscience.
I still say I am going to write a sci-fi book someday and start my very own cult. That's where the money is.
But you should read Being There by Jerzy Kosinski if you have not already.
oh, white noise. required reading for one of my college lit classes. only worth reading if an incredibly cute [and, so sadly, gay] black-rimmed-glasses-wearing english professor assigns it.
For DeLillo, I suggest Americana. I keep trying to find time to read Underworld, but I don't think that's going to happen until I'm Dr. Heathalouise.
there is one paragraph worth reading in Libra. move on to Underworld for pure, hopeless, mental masturbation.
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