{"id":70669,"date":"2013-09-16T15:46:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T19:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=70669"},"modified":"2013-09-16T19:45:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T23:45:19","slug":"stuff-ive-been-reading-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=70669","title":{"rendered":"Stuff I’ve Been Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

— I wanted to cheer reading Ron Rosenbaum’s cranky reaction to people who assume that Holden Caulfield IS J.D. Salinger<\/a>. And, for the good of the planet, read the piece, not just the title. I’ve seen a lot of folks basically reacting to the TITLE on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, which is super annoying. Confusing author and character is a common error, but its very commonality is why it’s enraging. (It’s similar to my beef with those who try to boil down Shakespeare into cross-stitch statements, like “First, we kill all the lawyers,”, etc., as though it was Shakespeare himself who said that, as opposed to the character in the play. A character who, by the way, is an illiterate moron wielding a knife. See how Shakespeare gives that line to a very UN-reliable and UN-exemplary character? But people parrot it off as though it was Shakespeare’s actual attitude. Often his most famous quotes have a much more cynical context than the cross-stitch crowd cares about or even has the patience to investigate. For example, Polonius. Everyone thinks his speech is totes amazing advice, like, wow, it’s so deep, words to live by, Imagine all the people, etc. But Polonius is a blowhard, a pompous ass who can ONLY speak in suffocating cliche. He is a walking Hallmark Card. He has never had an original thought in his head. Ever. Bill Murray nails that vibe in his portrayal of Polonius<\/a>. And Laertes is basically like, “Dad, stop. Please. I know all this already. Love you, but honestly, stop talking.” Makes his soliloquy seem a bit different if you take it in context, yes? But people continue to confuse Shakespeare the Man with Shakespeare the Great Dramatist who liked to, you know, make shit up.) Clearly this is an enormous pet peeve of mine, and Rosenbaum treats that attitude with the contempt it deserves. (And I agree entirely with Rosenbaum’s point that if Salinger’s point of view is really represented in the book, it’s NOT through Holden, it’s through Phoebe. Mr. Crothers, our 10th grade English teacher, helped us see that. Phoebe, as you will recall, views Holden’s fantasies\/ideals\/goals with an enormous and practical grain of salt.)<\/p>\n

— Dan Callahan’s fascinating piece on Mary Pickford<\/a>. <\/p>\n

— A beautiful post<\/a> from my good friend Cara Ellison (RTG, to those who remember the good old days). She’s in England now, with her fiance, and doing awesome. Her writing still stops me dead in my tracks sometimes. <\/p>\n

— Fantastic: Pal Self-Styled Siren with Laver’s Law: An Illustrated Cinematic Guide<\/a>. <\/p>\n

— I am still having a very good Reading Year, in terms of books. I feel like I have been making up for lost time. I slowed down quite a bit since the Crack-Up Non-Reading-Year of 2009. My health diagnosis has dictated a sort of paradigm shift in my whole schedule, which is still difficult to maintain – it requires daily vigilance, but I understand how necessary it is. I’ve been reading in bed. I know I’ve mentioned this before. It’s a whole new world for me! That 45 minutes before sleep, lying in bed … reading? What country, friends, is this? I always thought I had to be at least sitting up to read. But no. I’ve broken that pattern. I finished Ripley Under Water<\/i> recently, and it’s so damn good. One of the reasons I love this one in particular (although I think my favorite is still the first one) is that we get to see him in operation with his “colleague” and “friend” (quotation marks necessary) – Ed, the gallery-owner from England, who was in on the art-forgery business with Ripley. In Ripley Under Water<\/i>, Tom Ripley finds himself needing help and moral support and so he calls on Ed. Ed is eager to help, but then, spending time with Ripley at his home in France, you can see that Ed starts to realize just what sort of a human being Ripley is. Often, these books – because they come from Ripley’s point of view (their greatest strength), we are in the bell jar with his psychopathy. It seems perfectly normal to him. His wife accepts him, doesn’t question much. His housekeeper is oblivious. But Ed … Ripley finds himself having to adjust his reactions to things because he senses Ed’s agitation. FASCINATING. I wish there were more Ripley books. I’m continuing on with my chronological Shakespeare project<\/a> (a bit slower-going right now), and am currently reading Henry IV Part 2. Getting ready to say goodbye to Falstaff. I’m reading The Sound and the Fury<\/i> right now as well. I’ve read some Robert Parker, I read the last Quirke novel by Benjamin Black (aka John Banville), and I am still on a Hilary Mantel tear. I re-read Darkness at Noon<\/i>. I want to re-read 1984<\/i> (while we’re on the topic of totalitarian tyranny.) A book I read recently which was fantastic was Bluets<\/i>, by Maggie Nelson. It was a recommendation from a big reader, and so I decided to check it out. It’s slim, but deep as the ocean. My mind feels open to fiction again, in a way it hasn’t for YEARS. It’s pretty awesome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— I wanted to cheer reading Ron Rosenbaum’s cranky reaction to people who assume that Holden Caulfield IS J.D. Salinger. And, for the good of the planet, read the piece, not just the title. I’ve seen a lot of folks … 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":[1],"tags":[2134],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70669"}],"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=70669"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70694,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70669\/revisions\/70694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}