A teacher in Texas (does the city really matter?) has been suspended for the unforgivable crime of allowing a student to read a book.
Kaleb Tierce "is being investigated for allegedly distributing harmful material to a minor after the student selected Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy's "Child of God" off the list and read it."
Tierce, an assistant football coach, is a third-year teacher at a place named Jim Ned High School and is apparently popular with the students. But that's beside the point.
Coincidentally I recently re-read Child Of God.
Now that I have a son people ask me if I would allow him to do this or that, often these questions are directed at things that I have done, not books I've read. Would I let my son read a book about a necrophiliac murderer who lives in a cave where he stores his victims?
The answer is unequivocally yes. I will let him read anything he is capable of. If he wants to read Child of God I will not only allow it, I will encourage it (after all, McCarthy is my favorite author). Here's my question for the idiot parents of this poor kid - is Child of God anymore violent than the book allegedly handed down by God? A book loaded from front to back with infanticide, genocide, fratricide, war, incest and more miscellaneous murder and mayhem than anything else written since the advent of language?
Are these people afraid their son will start murdering people and having sex with the dead bodies? If that's the case they need to look a lot deeper into their lives (and their son's) than a high school reading list.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Nobel Prize
Doris Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature.
What does it take to win the Nobel? Here's a list of Lessing's works in English:
The Grass is Singing. 1950
This was the Old Chief's Country. 1952
Martha Quest. 1952. – (Children of Violence; 1)
Five : Short Novels. 1953
A Proper Marriage. 1954. – (Children of Violence; 2)
A Retreat to Innocence. 1956
The Habit of Loving. 1957
Going Home. 1957
A Ripple from the Storm. 1958 (Children of Violence; 3)
Fourteen Poems. 1959
In Pursuit of the English : a Documentary. 1960
Play with a Tiger : a Play in Three Acts. 1962
The Golden Notebook. 1962
A Man and Two Women. 1963
Martha Quest and A Proper Marriage. 1964
African Stories. 1964
Landlocked. 1965 (Children of Violence; 4)
A Ripple from the Storm and Landlocked. 1966
The Black Madonna. 1966
Winter in July. 1966
Particularly Cats. 1967
The Four-Gated City. 1969 (Children of Violence; 5)
Briefing for a Descent into Hell. 1971
The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories. 1972.
Collected African stories. Vol. 1, This was the Old Chief's Country. 1973
Collected African stories. Vol. 2, The Sun Between Their Feet. 1973
The Summer Before the Dark. 1973
The Memoirs of a Survivor. 1974
Stories. 1978
To Room Nineteen : Collected Stories Volume One. 1978
The Temptation of Jack Orkney : Collected Stories Volume Two. 1978
Shikasta : Re: Colonised Planet 5. 1979 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 1)
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five. 1980 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 2)
The Sirian Experiments. 1981 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 3)
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. 1982 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 4)
Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. 1983 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 5)
The Diary of a Good Neighbour. 1983
If the Old Could ... 1984
The Diaries of Jane Somers. 1984
The Good Terrorist. 1985
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. 1987
The Wind Blows Away Our Words. 1987
The Fifth Child. 1988
The Real Thing : Stories and Sketches. 1992
African Laughter : Four Visits to Zimbabwe. 1992
Shadows on the Wall of the Cave : a talk by Doris Lessing delivered 19 January 1994
Conversations / edited by Earl G. Ingersol. – Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press, 1994
A Small Personal Voice : Essays, Reviews, Interviews 1994
Under My Skin : Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949. 1994
Spies I Have Known and Other Stories. 1995
Playing the Game. 1995
Love, Again. 1996
Play with a Tiger, and Other Plays. 1996
Walking in the Shade : Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962. 1997
Mara and Dann : an Adventure. 1999
Ben, in the World. 2000
The Sweetest Dream. 2001
On Cats. 2002
The Grandmothers : Four Short Novels. 2003
Time Bites : Views and Reviews. 2004
The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog. 2005
The Cleft. 2007
Dig in.
What does it take to win the Nobel? Here's a list of Lessing's works in English:
The Grass is Singing. 1950
This was the Old Chief's Country. 1952
Martha Quest. 1952. – (Children of Violence; 1)
Five : Short Novels. 1953
A Proper Marriage. 1954. – (Children of Violence; 2)
A Retreat to Innocence. 1956
The Habit of Loving. 1957
Going Home. 1957
A Ripple from the Storm. 1958 (Children of Violence; 3)
Fourteen Poems. 1959
In Pursuit of the English : a Documentary. 1960
Play with a Tiger : a Play in Three Acts. 1962
The Golden Notebook. 1962
A Man and Two Women. 1963
Martha Quest and A Proper Marriage. 1964
African Stories. 1964
Landlocked. 1965 (Children of Violence; 4)
A Ripple from the Storm and Landlocked. 1966
The Black Madonna. 1966
Winter in July. 1966
Particularly Cats. 1967
The Four-Gated City. 1969 (Children of Violence; 5)
Briefing for a Descent into Hell. 1971
The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories. 1972.
Collected African stories. Vol. 1, This was the Old Chief's Country. 1973
Collected African stories. Vol. 2, The Sun Between Their Feet. 1973
The Summer Before the Dark. 1973
The Memoirs of a Survivor. 1974
Stories. 1978
To Room Nineteen : Collected Stories Volume One. 1978
The Temptation of Jack Orkney : Collected Stories Volume Two. 1978
Shikasta : Re: Colonised Planet 5. 1979 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 1)
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five. 1980 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 2)
The Sirian Experiments. 1981 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 3)
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. 1982 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 4)
Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. 1983 (Canopus in Argos: Archives; 5)
The Diary of a Good Neighbour. 1983
If the Old Could ... 1984
The Diaries of Jane Somers. 1984
The Good Terrorist. 1985
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. 1987
The Wind Blows Away Our Words. 1987
The Fifth Child. 1988
The Real Thing : Stories and Sketches. 1992
African Laughter : Four Visits to Zimbabwe. 1992
Shadows on the Wall of the Cave : a talk by Doris Lessing delivered 19 January 1994
Conversations / edited by Earl G. Ingersol. – Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press, 1994
A Small Personal Voice : Essays, Reviews, Interviews 1994
Under My Skin : Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949. 1994
Spies I Have Known and Other Stories. 1995
Playing the Game. 1995
Love, Again. 1996
Play with a Tiger, and Other Plays. 1996
Walking in the Shade : Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962. 1997
Mara and Dann : an Adventure. 1999
Ben, in the World. 2000
The Sweetest Dream. 2001
On Cats. 2002
The Grandmothers : Four Short Novels. 2003
Time Bites : Views and Reviews. 2004
The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog. 2005
The Cleft. 2007
Dig in.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Process
When I was in grad school there was much heated debate about the process of writing. Or, more succinctly, Process.
These self-important and masturbatory conversations usually centered around the physical process of placing words on paper.
Keyboard, pen, pencil, tape recorder, hammer and chisel, crayon...
Computer monitor, legal pad, lined white paper, cocktail napkins...
While I wanted to discuss mental and emotional aspects of Process everyone else seemed caught up in the minutiae (and pretense) of what mechanical tools were being used, as if somehow the 'magic' was not in your head but in the material objects used to record it.
I often wondered (and still do) whether this avoidance was due to a serious interest in the physical act of writing or a serious lack of consideration about motivation.
People would tell me the more they thought about writing the more they became blocked.
Blocked?
What are these people? Toilets?
That's like saying the more they thought about food the less hungry they'd become Or the more they thought about sex the more impotent they became.
The old saying goes that writers write. I believe that writing is not so much a physical act as it is a form of thinking out loud. When people think of writers (and of course I'm speaking in general terms) they don't think of someone who is physically capable, they think of someone who is "smart" (and boy is that a mistake).
So while others discuss pen vs laptop or PC vs. Mac (as if the brand actually matters) I'll turn my attention inward. And see what I can dig up from the deep (and maybe not so deep) recesses of my consciousness.
These self-important and masturbatory conversations usually centered around the physical process of placing words on paper.
Keyboard, pen, pencil, tape recorder, hammer and chisel, crayon...
Computer monitor, legal pad, lined white paper, cocktail napkins...
While I wanted to discuss mental and emotional aspects of Process everyone else seemed caught up in the minutiae (and pretense) of what mechanical tools were being used, as if somehow the 'magic' was not in your head but in the material objects used to record it.
I often wondered (and still do) whether this avoidance was due to a serious interest in the physical act of writing or a serious lack of consideration about motivation.
People would tell me the more they thought about writing the more they became blocked.
Blocked?
What are these people? Toilets?
That's like saying the more they thought about food the less hungry they'd become Or the more they thought about sex the more impotent they became.
The old saying goes that writers write. I believe that writing is not so much a physical act as it is a form of thinking out loud. When people think of writers (and of course I'm speaking in general terms) they don't think of someone who is physically capable, they think of someone who is "smart" (and boy is that a mistake).
So while others discuss pen vs laptop or PC vs. Mac (as if the brand actually matters) I'll turn my attention inward. And see what I can dig up from the deep (and maybe not so deep) recesses of my consciousness.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
20 Books
The 50th Anniversary issue of GQ (they've been making men feel bad about themselves for 50 years?) includes their list of "20 Books that Changed Men's Lives."
What men they are talking about I can't say, but here's the list:
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Universal Baseball Association Inc. by Robert Coover
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Roots by Alex Haley
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
What men they are talking about I can't say, but here's the list:
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Universal Baseball Association Inc. by Robert Coover
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Roots by Alex Haley
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
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