Richard Wright & Harper Lee

Considering how many 9th graders across the country get their first taste of "protest literature" of sorts by sampling Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird wherein they glimpse into the old world of the deep south through the eyes of a precocious young white girl named Scout Finch, as a high school English instructor who has taught TKAM for many years now, I keep wondering about what other work of American fiction to pair with this work so that readers might be shown a similar set of circumstances, but through the eyes of an equally perceptive youthful narrator who doesn't happen to be white. The most obvious nominee, for my money at least, would be Richard Wright and his great memoir, Black Boy, the time-frame of which actually precedes Lee's novel by several years and, in my humble opinion, offers a wider swath of territory, nuance and prescient insight...

War and War by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, in southeast Hungary, in 1954. He is probably best known through the oeuvre of the director Béla Tarr, who has collaborated with him on several movies. Mentions “Werckmeister Harmonies.” In “War and War,” György Korin, an archivist and local historian, travels to New York, finds lodgings with a Hungarian interpreter, and begins to write the text of the transcendently important manuscript. Slowly the reader confirms what he has suspected from the start, that “the manuscript” is a mental fiction, a madman’s transcendent vision. Krasznahorkai’s most recent work in English is not a novel but a collaboration between the writer and the German artist Max Neumann. “Animalinside” (translated by Ottilie Mulzet, and published jointly by New Directions, Sylph Editions of London, and the Center for Writers and Translators at the American University of Paris; $20) is a series of fourteen exquisite and enigmatic paintings, with paragraph-length texts by Krasznahorkai. Resembling, in form, Beckett’s “Texts for Nothing,” Krasznahorkai’s words often seem to be a commentary on late Beckett. Krasznahorkai is clearly fascinated by apocalypse, by broken revelation, indecipherable messages. His demanding novel “The Melancholy of Resistance” is a comedy of apocalypse, a book about a God that not only failed but didn’t even turn up for the exam. The pleasure of the book flows from its extraordinary, stretched, self-recoiling sentences, which are marvels of a loosely punctuated stream of consciousness. - from "The Very Strange Fictions of Laszlo Krasznahorkai" by James Wood (article abstract)

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/07/04/110704crat_atlarge_wood#ixzz28zt7Ff68

Hello, October

The Incorrect of the Political

The following is experimental fiction only (you've heard of irony, right?): Out of the blue, and somewhat abruptly, a young boy from wealthy parentage and a privileged background was told by his liberal-minded mother not to walk down a certain street all alone in a crowded area of town, so he decided to ask an obvious question: "Why not? Are there bad people there who will hurt me?" - "It's not that," the mother replied vaguely, "it's just that I'd rather have you walk down a different street." - "But mother!" the boy protested,"I can't think of a quicker way to go to the Children's Museum. So why can't I go there if I promise to walk fast?" - "I know, I know," the mother said, stalling for time. "I know it sounds harsh, but I want you to be safe, that's all." "But if anyone tries to be mean to me, I'll just tell them that I'm on their side. Because you always say that we're on the side of the people who live on the not-so-nice streets even though we live on a much nicer street, and we live in a very nice apartment and can see Central Park from our 10th floor suite.  Isn't that what you always say, mom?" "Yes, yes, that's right. We are on their side. We DO want the best for them..." "Then what's the problem?" "Well, you see, dear, despite the fact that we try our best not to flaunt our advantages, sometimes we get mistaken for the evil trolls who (by their insane political backwardness) are making life so difficult for the people on the not-so-nice-streets and then they look at us and get angry, and they end up resenting us just as much - if that makes any sense?" "Oh. We kind of look like the bad guys, the evil trolls - even though we dress and talk much better than them." "Yes - unfortunately - no matter how hard we try - even though we smile more and show real compassion, andvote the right way in every single election and show solidarity for the downtrodden masses at rallies and fund-raisers and every charity-event under the sun - they just think that we're not with them - because we enjoy such amazing benefits, because we have good jobs, and nice houses and condos, and 5th avenue apartments, and because we take long vacations, and have reliable health care plans, and advanced educational degrees and because we're culturally literate and we never shop at Walmart - not that there's anything wrong with that..." "And do the evil trolls (who are politically backward) hate us as well for having these amazing benefits?" the boy shrieked, almost breaking into tears. "I'm afraid so, dear, the backward evil trolls and upwardly-mobile evil trolls (those with a special bug up their bonnets!) despise and revile us very much and resent us, while the wealthy evil trolls only think of us as soft and foolish. The world isn't very fair, is it? We just can't win..." And the mother herself began to cry and wandered about aimlessly for some minutes while questioning her basic assumptions, until finally finding her bearings, she began to lead her child down the forbidden street....

Innocence Learns from Experience

I - Hey "E". I'm having one of my panic attacks again.  I'm getting worried about people again...

E - People again, huh?

I - Well, if not a full blown panic attack, then at least kinda nervous.

E- Sure.

I - You don't think I'm nuts.

E - No. Just incredibly naive. Please continue.

I - It's not everyone. It's certain types of people.

E - Certain types of people? Let me guess, you mean like dangerous criminals and other miscreants?

I - Yeah - sort of. But I'm really getting worried about the average young person out there...

E - Yes. They do pose a problem don't they? Average young people. Not the stand-outs, the mediocre ones. An annoying bunch - not like you and me. But....what can one do? That's why they invented b-movies, I suppose...

I - But you know I've been thinking about how, like, if certain "average young people" who are already, shall we say, a bit high-strung to begin with...well, let's say one of them decides to get "high."

E - Perish the thought! High on drugs, you mean, not high on life?

I - I mean high as in they took a weird pill or smoked a banned substance?

E - We're talking beyond clove cigarettes here.

I - Oh - way beyond.

E - Okay, so we've got high-strung person who is high on crystal-meth. Then what?

I - Well let's say that same average, high-strung drug-user goes back to his posse - I mean - a group of his closest peers...

E - Yes I know!

I - And some of these same friends who already can't tells the difference between fantasy and reality - start to unveil this stash of weapons that they just happened to find.

E- You mean plastic squirt guns, I hope...

I - No real ones. Switchblades or -

E - What are we talking here - West Side Story?

I - Not just switchblades  then.

E - Yeah.. so like where did they find them?

I - Find what?

E - The weapons!

I - In somebody's father's closet....I guess....

E - (somewhat incredulously) - Okay? And? What are you getting at?

I - Well and then just imagine that some of these intoxicated young people (everyone smoking meth at this point) now start to mess around with these dangerous weapons at which point another one of the hooligans hatches the crazy ideal of dressing up in para-military garb and egging the others on to go jump in a car and -

E - So you're saying we're got a carload of drugged up teenagers with weapons driving around looking to get their kicks...

I - I'm just sayin' it could happen. Don't you think, the police should be on the lookout for this sort of thing?

E - I hate to break it to you kid  - but stuff like that happens all the time.

I - No way!!!

E - Way. That's life in big city.

I - But E. If we don't keep an eye out for this kind of behavior, I mean, things could get out of hand.

E - With young people you mean?

I - Sure. I mean young people grow up.

E - And some of them form dangerous habits - right?

I - Yes, I for one am concerned.

E - Me too, kid. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm wanted back on planet Earth...

On the Road by Jack Keroac

....started reading On the Road by Jack Keroac at the Curtis Memorial Library on a whim...I made it to chapter 3 and by then, Jack had already met and parted (temporarily) with Dean Moriarty, then made it past Chicago into Iowa or Nebraska (was it?), but was still desperately trying to get to Denver, while debating whether to sample Ogden, Utah, before meeting up with one of his many mad/crazy compadres in good ol' San Fran...eating ice cream and apple pie all the while...

Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield

For starters, check out "Revelations" - "The Doll's House" - "Something Childish but very Natural" - "Prelude" - "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" - "The Garden Party" - "Miss Brill" - "An Ideal Family"- "The Canary" - and "A Dill Pickle."