1. There is a notion of “The Great American Novel”, that is bounced around literary circles, and attached to certain books at various times. I do not exactly know what this term means, but I’ve always assumed it’s reserved for those books that are all-encompassing, brilliant tales that speak to everybody, or as close as you can get with one book. There are a few books that already get tagged with being a Great American Novel, but none more so, at least to my ears and eyes, as Moby Dick.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Grrrrr
you know what sucks?
packing the book you're reading to move, then not being able to find it.
hmmmm
packing the book you're reading to move, then not being able to find it.
hmmmm
Sunday, October 6, 2013
An Unforgettable Journey
I want to chronicle an unforgettable journey.
It
finished with the birth of my daughter under a halo of joy. But the
turning point - the point when everything came full circle - happened
during a lonely lunch downtown a week earlier. The lone-diner must have
made some impression giving several fist-pumps in a dusty
lounge area.
I hope to explain why those fist-pumps hung a "halo" onto my joy a week or so later.
This is not a book review of Infinite Jest. Rather, I want to tell about reading that book in a crazy year and how it all led to a cheerful welcome to my daughter, Amalia, with the help of a British Bulldog. The process included vigorous intellectual challenges to worldview, inescapable illustrations of a farcical and flawed world through a "post-modern" lens (and the worries associated therewith), and, finally, an anchor-drop back to a more "modern" philosophical safe haven that literally parted storm clouds after a flood.
It was a long and brutal battle through serious introspection and macro contemplation shaded with an unsettling skeptical tint... until Winston Churchill reminded me to welcome Amalia to the good in our world as well.
It
finished with the birth of my daughter under a halo of joy. But the
turning point - the point when everything came full circle - happened
during a lonely lunch downtown a week earlier. The lone-diner must have
made some impression giving several fist-pumps in a dusty
lounge area. I hope to explain why those fist-pumps hung a "halo" onto my joy a week or so later.
This is not a book review of Infinite Jest. Rather, I want to tell about reading that book in a crazy year and how it all led to a cheerful welcome to my daughter, Amalia, with the help of a British Bulldog. The process included vigorous intellectual challenges to worldview, inescapable illustrations of a farcical and flawed world through a "post-modern" lens (and the worries associated therewith), and, finally, an anchor-drop back to a more "modern" philosophical safe haven that literally parted storm clouds after a flood.
It was a long and brutal battle through serious introspection and macro contemplation shaded with an unsettling skeptical tint... until Winston Churchill reminded me to welcome Amalia to the good in our world as well.
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