{"id":136788,"date":"2018-04-18T06:52:18","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T10:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=136788"},"modified":"2018-12-06T11:37:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T16:37:53","slug":"stuff-ive-been-reading-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=136788","title":{"rendered":"Stuff I’ve Been Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

— An incredible article about the Parkland students who are now rehearsing a production of Spring Awakening<\/i>, by Isaac Butler (one of the co-authors of the new oral history of Angels in America<\/i>, which I can’t wait to read). They Don’t Do Sadness<\/i><\/a> is a must-read. It’s so good on theatre kids, and rehearsals, and the bonds that form, what it’s like to pour your present-day life through a fictionalized structure, how cathartic it can be. <\/p>\n

— The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Tom Wolfe. Somehow, unbelievably, I have never read this. Shocker: it’s as good as everyone says. I am fascinated by those, like Wolfe, who can look around – in the middle of a crazy moment – and see (or at least take a stab at) what might really be happening. On a Wolfe kick. Just read his first collection of essays too, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. He has an extremely aggressive in-your-face style. You NOTICE it. For me, it works, especially in this early material. It makes you feel like you are actually on Ken Kesey’s Day-Glo bus. The “scene” depicted is so unappealing to me it actually borders on the violently unpleasant. The togetherness<\/i> of it all … it’s stifling. Wolfe senses in the dynamic some of the dangers which would eventually become clear just one year after the book’s publication, when Manson and his merry band of lunatics slaughtered a bunch of strangers. Wolfe can sense what might be coming. At any rate, I’m having a blast with it. <\/p>\n

— The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1: 1940-1956<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. Holy mackerel, this volume is gigantic. And long overdue (total understatement). The Sylvia Plath Estate has had such a stranglehold on actual exploration of this important artist’s work and life. That is now changing. Never fear: Frieda Hughes is in charge! She is not afraid. As of now, all we have had, in terms of Sylvia’s correspondence, is the wretchedly and dishonestly edited volume Letters Home<\/i>, brought out by Sylvia’s poor mother who – naturally, although annoyingly – felt very defensive. It’s a crazy volume, so filled with ellipses that you know the entire thing is a lie, or at least so sanitized as to be worthless. But when it’s all you have, you dig in, you read it obsessively. But that’s been it. Shocking. But now, here is volume 1 of Plath’s correspondence. Starting with her letters home from summer camp as a child. There’s even a surviving letter to her father, who died when she was young. It’s, frankly, incredible, to read these childish letters, filled with stamp-collecting, poetry, and illustrations, listed out by the editors. Sylvia loved to sketch. It’ll take me forever to get through is, but I am soaking it in. <\/p>\n

— The Trial<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Franz Kafka. I spent January to April reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake<\/i>, a couple of pages each morning, read out loud. (It’s the only way to go.) That book is one of the reading experiences of a lifetime. It’s shockingly easy once you actually submit to it. It’s not hard at all. It’s not as “hard” as Ulysses<\/i> often is. Sure, some passages are dense, and you have to squint to figure out what the joke is (because it’s all a joke) … but in general, it’s a very simple book, and the whole point is to futz around with language. That’s it. At any rate, it took up so much time that when I finished it I wanted to take a small break in the fiction department. There are a couple of other BIG novels I want to read, but not now. Hence: Kafka’s slim book. Which I’ve read before. I’ll finish it in the next couple of days. It’s such a perfect representation of paranoia. Of fears of bureaucracy. Of not being “in” on … whatever “it” is. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— An incredible article about the Parkland students who are now rehearsing a production of Spring Awakening, by Isaac Butler (one of the co-authors of the new oral history of Angels in America, which I can’t wait to read). They … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,28],"tags":[2134,88,2514],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136788"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136792,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136788\/revisions\/136792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}