A Blessing & A Curse — mnchrm vol. liv
Hello, friends.
It’s a darkly overcast Monday morning here in Chicago, though actually warmer today than the frigid temps we’ve had lately. I went for a run yesterday, because for the first time recently, it was above freezing, and why the fuck not. (I am very out of shape, which is both a reason I wanted to run, and a difficulty with trying to get back into it.)
Winter is both a blessing and a curse for me, much in the same way writing and running are. On one hand, there’s a consistency in Winter I struggle to fall into in other seasons; I can just stay at home and write or read† while a stew cooks down on my stove and the radiator whistles and whirrs to my side. On the other hand, it’s cold and dark, hard to get up and out of bed or moving at all, hard to do anything with the days being so short.
[† An Aside: I need better vocabulary for the generalized form of reading / watching / playing / listening / etc. I’ve used the computerized phrasing of “Input / Output” before, but it feels so clunky in a sentence, like I’ve got to explain it right away. Let me know if you’ve got a better idea.]
It’s a balance, like most things, and one I expect to settle in more as it goes. Still trying to figure out the most efficient mode for myself, but having some consistency is a welcome change.
I got some notes saying you were fond of the dividers, but they were a bit distracting in their pink-ness. I’ve toned them down a bit; see if they sit better with you.
After mentioning last newsletter or so how I haven’t read many books aside from what I’ve reviewed, I went out and bought a novel to read for fun. I got Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson. I wasn’t familiar with Wilson’s writing before this book, but I bought it because of this New York Times review that made the rounds on critic Twitter. It’s a super non-conventional review, of course; I’d never write something like this. Yet, it made me interested in the book enough that I bought it and read it.
The response to the review was generally torn between people unable to decide if this was a great review or terrible one; I’m torn on this as well, and I think part of that comes from trying to determine the purpose of a review. If a review is something to get me to buy a book, it worked. If a review is an attempt in writing to assess the merits and shortcomings of a work, determine how it sits in a context and culture, then this review is an unmitigated failure.
I’m not sure what sold me on the book from the review. Probably something about being sharp and funny, and having good dialogue. But overall I didn’t end up liking the book as much as I wanted to; and certainly wouldn’t go half as far as the critic to say it’s “perfect”. For one, I found the stakes to be shockingly low in a book about children that burst into flames. I won’t say more, lest you want to read it yourself, and because I wasn’t asked to review it, so why bother? I will say though, reviewing has turned on a critical eye that I find really interesting in reading anything now.
I also just picked up (but haven’t read yet!) Lydia Davis’s collected short stories, and book of writing advice, called Essays One (does this imply a forthcoming Essays Two?) her book of stories is 700+ (!!) pages, and her book of essays over 500 pages. So I think I’ll be working through these for a while, but in both cases am excited to read what the famous writer / translator has to say.
I’ve always heard her translation of Swann’s Way is the best, but since she only did the one book, not worth the trouble to switch back to the other translations for the rest of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Wish she translated the rest!
I’m waiting to hear back about one piece I’m really excited for that I submitted to a publication I’ve been wanting to get into for a while. I might have one more review go up, but I’m hoping that piece gets accepted; that would end my writing year on a really good note. I had a few pieces go up recently that I’m not sure if I shared yet, so I’ll do that now.
For The Chicago Review of Books, I interviewed writer Jac Jemc about her work, the difference between horror and terror, and genre. It was really wonderful to be able to meet up with her in person and discuss her work.
For The Chicago Reader, I did a write-up about a talk I went to with Ben Lerner and poet Srikanth Reddy. It’s so cool to me to have a piece in the Reader, even if only the online version. This piece got cut down a bit, but was a pleasure to write. And goes hand in hand with the review I wrote of Lerner’s book, The Topeka School.
I tweeted this past week about wanting to take December off to just relax and consume (Also bad. See note above, at †.) media. I would love to take the last month of the year, or even just two weeks or so just to get caught up on some of the great things from this year that I missed. I haven’t stopped thinking about this idea since. To me, it seems like the perfect end to a creative year, and part of the life I’d like to build as a creative.
I’m pretty obsessed with this song, right now.
That’s all for me, folks. Hope your week gets off to a good start, and finish out the year strong! It’s a good time to start considering how your year went in review, and looking forward towards what you might like to do different this coming year forward. Don’t wait to start making changes though! Waiting until January 1st to institute a change is a recipe for disaster, imo.
Be strong. Fight on.
Your faithful commander,
— I