Incandescence
Good books glow. That’s why they are so hard to market. The labels attached in all good faith render books into categories and from categories into niches. Niches were carved from stone by the Greeks and Romans as a place to put your things before entering a public bath. In a sense they are the forerunner of your high school locker. Big Roman guys named Biff snapped towels at the unaware: Biff read Ovid’s Metamorphosis but thought it sucked.
Once a book arrives at its niche, it is pecked at by varous bathers, some of them famous, others simply temperamental enough to remark upon its virtues, vices, strengths, and failings. The relative incandescence is not discussed in critical terms since that quality is rooted in an emotional response that is difficult to describe. Critics will talk about a book escaping its niche or breaking out which evokes images of chasing a dog through a park. At the point where your pet rejects the docile trade-off of food for good behavior it is briefly a dog again. The harrowing chase through meadows and ponds is a form of metamorphosis, albeit an annoying one.
Literature is frustrating. Writing it can be maddening. The entire escapade is frought with dark emotions, fleeting joy, and the need to look out the window. Trapped within, your inner Bukowski rebels while an old Jerry Jeff Walker riff enters your brain: “say goodbye to the landlord for me. Sons of bitches always bored me.”
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:51 am
My “inner Bukowski”? Now there’s a concept.
As well as a whole line of self-help books: “Connecting with Your Inner Bukowski,” “Sobering up Your Inner Bukowski.”
“The Inner Bukowski Diet.”
I’m seein’ dollar signs, pal.
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:56 am
And Outer Bukowski is a suburb of Milwaukie.