PC Reading List

Jeffrey Archer’s Cat o’ Nine Tales

Archer is one of my favorite authors when I am looking for a relaxing read, so I was glad when a friend loaned me this one. Archer’s work is not heavy literary fiction or anything like that, but he still manages to engage the reader’s mind with all the twists and turns his stories takes.

The stories in this collection were mostly gathered during his stay in prison. There were several that were really fun stories. Archer claims that all are based on true stories.

I found more “authorial intrusion” in this collection than any of Archer’s previous ones. I think A Quiver Full of Arrows was still an overall better collection, and none of his fiction has managed to top Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, for me (though many readers seem to like Kane and Abel best). I’ve not read his prison diaries yet, but I wonder if their writing didn’t contribute to the more noticeable presence of the author in the stories.

I did notice, from the blurb on the cover, that I seemed to have missed the most recent release of a Jeffrey Archer novel. I will have to find a copy of False Impressions and remedy that soon.

 

Alfian Sa’at’s One Fierce Hour is a good read.

I came across this poetry collection while browsing through Borders, and I picked up a copy. It was written some years back, when Alfian was only 21 years old. The poems contain a very authentic representation of life in Singapore. I enjoyed reading through the collection, and am currently reading up more about Alfian Sa’at. I’ve put it high on my list to make sure and catch one of the plays he’s written in performance.

I've emailed Alfian, and just got a reply from him about poetry in Singapore. It was good to have contact with him, and to find out more about the poetry scene that he is a part of.

It seems my main blog site might be about to give up the ghost, as the site is down more than up these days. I'll be transferring lots of posts over to my other blogs from that one. This is one of those.

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Heiner Müller is a friend it took me some time to learn to love. I ran across him first during my postgrad studies, when one of my professors was quite enamoured with him, and so spent a fair bit of time discussing his work in class.

I must admit that Müller was not immediately accessible to me when I first began reading him. His images were brutal, and his language seemed too often to be employed for its shock value. The visceral nature of his writing makes SoKP look like a Girl Scout. And that's not meant to say SoKP is a lightweight. He's not. But Müller... that guy can get really rough.

And no wonder. He survived horrors in his life that are beyond my imagination. Growing up under Nazi persecution in Germany, then living out his adult life in the former German Democratic Republic (where he faced all sorts of persecutions as a result of his refusing to be silenced), Müller pretty much saw it all. The images and language that he employs, which might to more sheltered types (like me) appear to be there for their shock value, seem actually to be watered down horrors compared to what he actually witnessed. If his eye is drawn to the bloody and gory, who can blame him? It is what he knows.

But there is a tenderness too, amidst all the brutality. In the middle of the horrific images of his collection "ABC," he steps in with the surprisingly soft-voiced poem "Yesterday on a Sunny Afternoon." He speaks of passing the cemetery where his wife (who committed suicide) is buried, and feeling the urge to dig up her remains, hold the skull in his hands, and "to imagine what her face was like / Behind the masks she wore." It is a beautifully written poem, and the turns it takes the reader on cannot help but be both moving and a little shocking.

And of course, the glance toward Hamlet, with the image of a man holding a skull in contemplation, is something I appreciate very much. Müller's work is covered with Shakespeare's fingerprints, and this was what offered me an entry point in appreciating Müller. His plays often form a sort of response to (or perhaps dialogue with) Shakespeare. The Bard is the ghost that seems to inhabit nearly every play and every poem that Müller wrote. Indeed, he often seems to be sitting in on the interviews as well. With a very postmodern consciousness of the haunting influence of Shakespeare, Müller's life work seems to be a tribute to the great voices of the past. "Shakespeare a Departure" is one of the most interesting poems I have come across for its image of Shakespeare as a tourist. Considering the heritage tourism industry that has grown up around the reconstructed life of Shakespeare, it is a really clever poem.

Müller died the year before I took that class, the one in which I was first introduced to him. I am glad that I have met him in his ghostly form. I think he would have liked it that way.

There's a new blog you need to see. It's called Each New Day, and it is set up to just talk about what the blogger has learned each day. It might be big or small, but it is all about the whole learning process.

I liked her first entry, describing what her program for the blog will be. I think you might like what you see there too.

Lately, it seems I've been bumping into a blogger I've only recently met rather often. I've been browsing through her blogs, and very much enjoying what I have found there. She is a Christian writer and editor. She has a lot of really valuable information on her site about writing, publishing, and editing... and about Christian thinking too. She was introduced to me by a mutual blogging friend, and I am very glad for that.

If you are a writer yourself, you should stop in and see what Lillie Ammann has going on at her site.

I've just finished reading Peter Green's translation of Juvenal's satire. I came across this bit in Satire X that is pretty amazing. the translation reads beautifully.

 

One globe seemed all too small for the youthful Alexander;

unhappily he chafed at this world's narrow confines,

as though caged on some bare rocky Aegean islet. Yet

when he entered the city of brick-walled Babylon,

a coffin was to suffice him. Death alone reveals

our puny human dimensions.

 

The piece goes on, of course, but that bit stopped me in my tracks. It's really superb writing, and it reads beautifully in English. Not all translation does so, as I often bemoan. Not all of Green's translation of Juvenal packed this much punch, for me, but that bit... that was really beautiful.

A big thank you to Todd Boss, who has given me permission to reprint this poem, which appeared in the June 2006 issue of Poetry. If you'd like to see more of his poetry online, I've also reprinted one here (with permission). Other poems appear here.

Ere We Are Aware

 

 

 

we err. We err

              in open air, dare-

 

 

devil as a swallow's

              swerve. We err

 

 

with verve. Our errors serve

              as bearings

 

 

as we flare and dive

              and flounder.

 

 

We scare away our lovers

              and declare

 

 

a territory where before

              there wasn't any.

 

 

Later we share our feelings.

              Say we're

 

sorry. Swear to be

 

              more careful.

 

 

Oh, we show our showy words

 

              like colors

 

and then, in a flurry of ever

              rarer, ever

 

 

braver aerials, there

              we are again,

 

 

famished birds wheeling

              over burials.

than we do
when it's all

wound down.
I don't know

why we settle
to the sound.

Somehow
the regular

click and chime
of passing time,

like water, turns
a water wheel

that turns a gear
that turns a stone

that turns upon
another stone

and fine
and finer in between

 

our dreams like grain
are ground.

 

(by Todd Boss)

 

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This originally appeared in Poetry Magazine in June 2006, on page 241. I very much appreciate the permission Todd Boss has given me, when he visited, to reprint this poem. More of Todd Boss's poems are available online.

 

 

I feel as if a celebrity has stopped in to say hi. Todd Boss stopped by the blog post where I'd written about Poetry Magazine, especially mentioning that I'd like his poetry that had appeared there last year. He's given me permission to reprint those poems here at my blog, which I will be doing in the next few days.

 

In addition, I'd like to point you over to more of his poetry. You can find about a dozen of Todd Boss's poems at this site. I think you will enjoy browsing through it. I am doing so now, and am loving it!

Is your blog a money maker? Mine is. All of mine, in fact, pretty much are.

How am I making money doing this blogging thing? Well, one of the ways is through Pay Per Post. It's super-easy. All you do is look at their bulletin board of available opportunities, and you choose which you want to do. Then, you post it on your blog, feedback to PPP the details of that post, and then wait till the money is sent to your PayPal account. It does work, I can assure you. I've made over $800 just from PPP, and I've only been using them for about 2 months.

Here's how you get started. You click on this tab here:



There, you can sign up. They'll assign your first opportunity, which will be to write a review of my blog and post it on your blog. When it is approved, you'll get paid $7.50, and so will I.

I hope it works out as well for you as it has for me so far!