What I’m Writing & Reading

I visited a cabin this weekend, and borrowed The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Beagle, a collection of fiction. Peter Beagle, for those of you who don’t know, wrote “The Last Unicorn”, which is included in this volume. The first story is a short called, “Lila the Werewolf”, which I read many years ago and loved. It’s good to read it again, and I can’t wait to see what “The Last Unicorn” is like.

Okay, I’m lying a just a little bit. I’m not currently reading this book, because it is so short and I devoured it last week. What a beautiful and thoughtful ode to the sport of boxing! Or, as Joyce Carol Oates observes, boxing is not a sport. Other sports, like baseball and football, are played. Nobody plays at boxing. Each match is a mutual, brutal attempt to hurt one’s opponent and cause enough brain damage that they drop.

This sounds terrible, and Oates does not lie: boxing is terrible. Yet she also shows how it can be elusive and wistful, moving and heartbreaking, and exultant. This is among the best books I have ever read. It takes only a few hours to read, but I will think about it forever.

It has been about 30 years since ABC released their miniseries of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. In my youth, I remember renting it from the video store (remember those?) to watch it during summer vacation. Those big VHS tapes made it seem like a big deal, like it was special. Nowadays, big-budget TV series are very common, but in the late 80s, these three expensive, historical episodes reignited the concept of a miniseries.

Last summer I rewatched my old DVD copy of it. It was interesting to see it after all these years, and interesting to see how different I interpreted its meaning. That viewing, it struck me as old-man-torture. I realized I had a paperback edition of it, and started to read. Then I got caught up in all my self-improvement reading and Lonesome Dove got lost.

However, I miss reading for fun. Lonesome Dove gives me that. So far, it takes its time, and seems to revel in its joyfully irritating characters. If the book takes its time, so will I! Lonesome Dove will be read whenever I need a break from life, and need a break from reading for my own betterment. Thanks, Larry!

As I learn more and more about The Enneagram of Personality, I’ve come to understand a few important terms in the human condition. One of those terms is “shame”. Shame is feeling bad about yourself, not because you’ve done something bad, but because you believe there is something wrong with you. I am Enneatype 4, and Type 4 feels shame far more acutely than any other.

I now understand how much more difficult my life has been because I was unable to heal my shame, my feeling that there is something deeply wrong with me. I am now resolved to change that. My path is to achieve Santosha: a sanscrit word meaning wholehearted, satisfied, and not wanting. I want to banish shame, but maybe that’s not realistic, since it is a part of me. Instead, let me make peace with shame, coax it out of hiding, and show it to the world.

Shame researcher Brené Brown will be my starting point. She has inspired millions with her TED talks about vulnerability and shame. In her talk she says that the way to diminish the power of shame is to be vulnerable and “enter the arena”, be grateful, and “be enough”. I have already done my best to enter the arena with my various artistic efforts. An article on The Art of Manliness has given me a starting point for practicing gratefulness, and I have now begun a gratefulness journal, thanking people all the time, and sending thank-you notes.

But what does it mean to “be enough”? I mean to answer that question. I am now reading Daring Greatly, by the good Dr. Brown. I will discover what wholehearted people do to feel like they are enough, that no matter what gets done during the course of a day, they did their best, or not, and it’s still good enough. Thanks in advance to Brené Brown for writing this book, and all the people she studied that helped her formulate the concepts that went into this book!

I watched a documentary recently called Best of Enemies.  It was about the rivalry between Gore Vidal and William Buckley, and their famous television debates.  It reminded me how much I love Vidal’s writing, so I decided it was time for another of his novels.  After hearing that a character in his novel, Burr, was based on William Buckley, I knew this was the one.

So far, it doesn’t have the immediate interest that his novel, Julian, sparked in me, but I am still enjoying it.  Gore Vidal’s gift was inventing striking phrases that appear suddenly: striking both in their beauty and the brief kernels of truth they contain.

This book was recommended to me by my friend Max, and I purchased it a few years ago.   I have enjoyed the George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series immensely, and I was interested to see what Fraser writes like when he writes pure comedy.

So far, it’s fantastic.  The writing is still impeccable, and the turns of phrase are funnier-than-hell.  I knew I would be hooked after reading his description of Captain Avery, the hero of the book, in which the narrator gets lost in praising his cliche virtues, then ends with an “etc, etc.”  He gets lost in praise again in the next paragraph, and apologizes.

Knowing the broad strokes of history helps the enjoyment of this book, as well as a healthy sense of humour.  Love it so far.

I only got to skim this one a year ago when I was doing research for my novel, so it’s good to actually read the whole damn thing. Nathan M. Greenfield’s account of the Canadians at the 2nd Battle of Ypres is gripping and easy to understand.

My friend Kevin gifted me this book, and it appears the title-character is based on Julian the Apostate. (note: I hate the phrase “the titular”, so I didn’t use it in that last sentence. For the longest time I thought it meant “the sexy, but sassy”, so now, whenever I read “the titular”, I feel dumb). Julian the Apostate was the star of one of my favourite novels of all time, Julian, by Gore Vidal. Also, it’s set in a future after oil, and humanity isn’t doing so awesome. I think the future State of Athabaska, where the action starts, might be in Saskatchewan or Alberta. Neat.

The mystery genre has never been one of my favourites. All the more reason to investigate it further. And If I’m going to do it, it should be by one of the masters. Chandler practically invented the hard-boiled detective, so I know I’m in good hands. My sister Kristan gave me this one.

The verdict: Great novel. It has the sparseness of a Hemingway novel, but unlike Hemingway, the narrative takes you someplace exciting.