Monday Word Count
Last week’s total: 4200
This week’s count: 369
Total: 4569
Sometimes there will just be these weeks. But I keep writing. I have to.
Monday Word Count
Last week’s total: 2692
This week’s count: 1508
Total: 4200
Not too bad considering I finished some quilting deadlines. Now, let’s just hope it doesn’t take me three weeks to finish reading Stoner. Although I’ve hit a wall with it - Edith is making me tense.
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Her name was Rita Achenbach. She was short and feisty with tussled brown hair. She walked and talked fast - in a hurry, very busy, and always purposeful. She was tough but emotional and always cried when we talked about the Vietnam War. She smoked - Marlboros I presumed. I saw her husband a few times. He drove an old Ford Bronco, wore white t-shirts and a cowboy hat and mustache without irony in a mid-1990s, Pennsylvania suburb. They looked like they were a couple that had always been together.
Mrs. Achenbach was my high school English teacher. I went to a small Catholic high school and I had Mrs. Achenbach for 10th and 12th grade honors English. I wanted to become a teacher because of her. I did become a teacher because of her. She told me not to do it. Years later I still wonder if I should have taken her warning personally. (I didn’t and still don’t even though she was right.)
She went to college in the South - the University of Alabama, if I remember correctly - and we read a lot of books from the South. She introduced me to Carson McCullers (Ballad of the Sad Cafe) and, most importantly, William Faulkner. In 10th grade it was As I Lay Dying, in 12th, A Light in August. And I knew where my heart was. It was in her class, in her books, struggling to show that I got it or at least that I felt it. Reading The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter was like being transported back all those years, sitting in an old wooden desk, with a plaid skirt hanging just to the knee, thinking and writing about the symbolism of the South.
What can I say? I’ve never been to the South. A weekend trip to Knoxville, TN doesn’t quite count as having the Southern experience. And yet. Each time I read Southern literary classics it is so familiar - almost like coming home. I am comfortable among those characters, lost in a continually changing and confusing identity and trying to find a way out of internal and external turmoil. The lost is my home.
I should have loved The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. It is a beautiful book. I found it hard to put down. And, when I did, I found it hard to pick back up. Reading it felt like I hit my saturation point. It felt a little too textbook. I recently discovered it was her first novel and for some reason I feel like that explains a lot. I get it. I wish I would have read it in high school or college. And if I were still teaching high school (and had a choice), I would assign it.
While wonderfully written and beautifully sad (I’m not sure I can add too many more adverbs to describe an American classic without sounding too much like a high schooler myself), I feel there are reasons it is a classic besides how well it is written and it’s compelling characters - both Mick Kelley and Biff Brannon almost brought me to tears. Is it a criticism if the book is too good? I felt I knew the book before I finished reading it - as if I was back in Mrs. Achenbach’s class discussing Southern Gothic literature and religion (in Catholic school all literature goes back to religion - can anyone name the Jesus symbol?*).
*Funny, how we were never assigned the Bible - as literature, of course.
Monday Word Count
Last week’s count: 2008
This week’s count: 684
Total: 2692
In defense of my numbers, I am working with a few quilting deadlines…Oh, the excuses never end!
In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense. Sometimes he would pause, remove a volume from the shelves, and hold it for a moment in his large hands, which tingled at the still unfamiliar feel of spine and board and unresisting page. Then he would leaf through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, his stiff fingers careful as they turned the pages, as if in their clumsiness they might tear and destroy what they took such pains to uncover.from Stoner by John Williams
A confession
I often think about my reaction to my writing after becoming a mother. This is how it felt. Thankfully, it no longer feels this way:
But now no music was in her mind. That was a funny thing. It was like she was shut out from the inside room. Sometimes a quick little tune would come and go - but she never went into the inside room with music like she used to do. It was like she was too tense. Or maybe because it was like the store took all her energy and time. Woolworth’s wasn’t the same as school. When she used to come home from school she felt good and was ready to start working on the music. But now she was always tired. At home she just ate supper and slept and then ate breakfast and went off to the store again. A song she had started in her private notebook two months before was still not finished. And she wanted to stay in the inside room but she didn’t know how. It was like the inside room was locked somewhere away from her. A very hard thing to understand.
-Carson McCullers, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
I understand. Time to finish those stories.
Monday Word Count
This week’s count: 530
Total: 2008
I’m not quite sure the point of this exercise other than to make myself feel badly for not writing more. I’m hoping public shaming* will force me to make more time to write.**
*As if anyone reads this.
**Yes, I’m going to put the blame not on me but the rest of my life. I don’t want to feel too badly about it.
Monday Word Count
To keep myself in check, I’m going to start documenting my weekly word count:
1474
(Not bad considering last year’s total was close to zero. And, yes, I know it’s Tuesday.)
Weekday reads
I’ve hit a bit of a wall with The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and am in need of a good distraction. I’ve got a few tabs open in my browser just waiting to be read*:
- A long article from The Atlantic on Joan Didion. It’s by Caitlin Flanagan. Could be interesting or enraging. I’ll try not to be too biased.
- Guernica considers how book design will affect the future of the printed book.
- I’ll admit I don’t quite get Gertrude Stein. I’m hoping Lynne Tillman will help.
- Oh, and this, because I’m having a hard time not being angry at smart women pretending not to be or assuming the rest of us aren’t. I’m looking forward to this review.
*Sure, I could use Instapaper but I rarely go back and read things. It has become my reading purgatory.
Why I keep books
Recently, I saw that Granta had published a story by Jon McGregor. I instantly clicked on it because I loved both So Many Ways To Begin and If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. I liked his books so much that I read them just about back to back, something I rarely do - there’s just too many new books to discover.* As I clicked over to Granta I realized that the story is a reworking of a story originally published in 2002. I also noticed the cover of that particular issue looked familiar. So I went over to my bookshelf and sure enough there it was. What a find! A long time ago I used to ‘collect’ Granta magazines, particularly if there were pieces by Milan Kundera. Not sure why I collected them (or why I looked for Milan Kundera above anyone else) other than they are always beautiful and have great writing. I subscribe now and then, when I feel like spending the money; but, mostly, if I’m at a used bookstore or book sale I find one or two and pick them up.
This particular issue is a treasure trove with writings from:
- Milan Kundera
- Rachel Cusk
- Edmund White
- Arthur Miller
- Jon McGregor
- Gary Shteyngart
I can not wait to go back and reread some of these pieces. Just when I think about getting rid of more of my books I realize why I keep them in the first place.** I am always discovering and rediscovering.
*A sentiment I no longer believe. I am now more concerned with reading whatever I feel is the right thing to read right now. If I want to read two books by Jon McGregor, one right after the other, then that is what I shall do.
**I understand that this could easily open a discussion on the physical book versus its electronic version. I have not formed a concrete position on this issue other than that it should always, always be about the writing.
