I would like to borrow from one of you people these books: The Golden Compass and Love in the Time of Cholrea. Either that or I need to find a branch of the library near my house. The only library near my work, ironically, is the big famous Fifth Avenue library with the lions out front — which does not let you take out books!
I finished Flannery O’Connor’s short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. It’s pretty damn good, if a bit ponderous. Coen Brothers movies remind me of her stories — everything is creepy and eccentric and slow. Also, they all start with quirky, funny character descriptions — but then somehow heighten to a final two page sequence where something HORRIFIC happens. I’ll finish one on the subway and look up and want desperately to talk to someone as if I’m trying to shake off a chilling nightmare. It’s amazing that she reaches that weird place each and every time, but she does.
She seemed to be forever angry at mothers; at prideful people; at people falsely religious; at Protestants; at people who claimed to not be racist. At 26 she was diagnosed with lupus, which had killed her father — maybe that’s why (she died of it at 39). Her sickness made her move back to rural Georgia after having lived at grad school in Iowa, in New York City, in Connecticut — maybe she was pissed off at having to be out in the sticks?
At any rate, she has my favorite titles of all time: epic and compelling and grand: Everything That Rises Must Converge; The Violent Bear It Away; A Circle in The Fire.
Other titles that I have loved: The Turn of the Screw; Tender is The Night; Everything is Illuminated; The Sun Also Rises; My Aim Is True; Human Diastrophism; The Fog of War; One Hundred Years of Solitude; Pale Fire; The Dark Knight Returns. You heard me.
Please to now be reminding me of great titles I have forgotten.
On my iTunes now:
surfin on a rock by Air from "Talkie Walkie"
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Jan 31st, 2008 at 11:43 am
In addition to great titles, O’Connor was good for some very memorable dialogue. I’ve never compiled a list of my favorite lines from books, but what the Misfit says after killing the grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard To Find would almost certainly be on it:
“She would have been a good woman,” the Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
Jan 31st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
A writing teacher I had in college wrote a story called “White Women at Parties,” which is my favorite name of anything.
Also, in mid-town there are a few library options. Notably, the location on 5th and 41st, across the street and 1 block south of the one with the lions. They will let you check out books there.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Oh, shit, I kind of forgot about Flannery O’Connor for a while. I tried to make every English paper I had to write in high school about her. Chris–I love that line from “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, and I fucking ADORED “Good Country People”, from the same book.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I LOVE Flannery O’Connor and I like the story “The Life you save may be your own”. There is a monastery in my (very unCatholic) hometown of Conyers, GA that is famous for a few things: homemade bread, jams and Flannery O’Connor gave several of her peacocks and peahens to the monastery in her will. So there are lots of peacocks wandering the grounds which is really neat.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read Eudora Welty’s short stories, but they are very good too. I love “Why I live at the P.O.” which I would like to buy the rights to and make into a short film, except that I am too lazy to do something so enterprising as that.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I can lend you Erik Tanouye’s copy of The Golden Compass once I finish reading it. Just don’t tell Erik Tanouye. Or allow him to read this blog entry.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
i can lend you my copy of the golden compass. ask mitch to bring it next time you see him.
btw what about the mid-manhattan library? it’s only 2 blocks away from the one with the lions.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 4:01 pm
i gots the golden compass yo. it’s good.
flannery o’connor is one of those authors i have read about without ever actually having read anything they wrote. i should fix that. and i know i read something by eudora welty in HS and i can’t remember what it was. this is going to bother me.
i still haven’t gotten a library card. i almost got one on saturday at the fake midtown library, but then i remembered that i didn’t have a paystub with my nyc address on it with me, and i still have a massachusetts ID.
good story, i know.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I can’t find my copy of the Golden Compass, but I definitely have it’s two sequels for when you need them.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Kaveri is right… Mid-Manhattan is the way to go, Hines.
Jan 31st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
“Good Country People” is my favorite (or second favorite, depending on the day) short story. I also like “Miss Lonelyhearts” (by Nathaniel West)
Jan 31st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Will, if you’re a big Garcia fan, I recommend “Chronicle of a Death Foretold.” It’s about 1/10 the lengh of “Hundred Years of Solitude” and I like it a lot. It’s very spare and powerful.
Bears!
Jan 31st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Or is that Marquez? Whoever wrote “A Hundred Years”….
My brain is very old. If I ran into him on the street, I would probably call him “Sheila” by mistake.
Feb 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 am
Raymond Carver (or was it Gordon Lish? We can never be certain now) was pretty good with titles.
Will you please be quiet, please?
What we talk about when we talk about love
Where water comes together with other water
Bicycles, muscles, cigarettes
Why don’t you dance?
The third thing that killed my father off
Tell the women we’re going
Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit
Feb 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
That’s the same “A Good Man…” I have. I should give that a re-read.