Counterbalance

Lit Bits & That Book Everyone Loved (Except for Me)

It's been awhile, hasn't it? This is why.

But CEO or no, I haven't stopped reading and having far afield opinions on all things bookish. And so I've reminded myself (for the umpteenth time) that I don't need to cut out the readerly parts of myself just because another part of myself is really busy. Is this a return to regular blogging here? Probably not. But let's not end the party before I've arrived. Let's just consider this the RSVP and see how we do.

Litty Bittys

Some lit bits that I've been mulling over as of late:

• Remember when I re-read all of Murakami in the lead-up for 1Q84? That was awesome. So why am I so reluctant to read 1Q84? Is it in some way related to why I won't read DFW's Pale King? Is there a support group for last and/or most recent novels that we are afraid to read for unclear but very powerful reasons? Tell me I'm not alone.
• I've been power-reading recently and I note that my superstition about completing a book and needing to start another immediately following (and I mean immediately; as in, moments after) is as strong as ever. I've recently made my way through Panorama City by Antoine Wilson, Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas, The Map and the Territory by Michael Houellebecq, This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, All That Follows by Jim Crace, Luminariaum by Alex Shekar, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil.
• I've moved on to NW by Zadie Smith. The thing about Smith in general is that I read her less for her plot and characters and more for her uncannily spot-on observations of daily life. I often find when reading her I have a lot of "yes! exactly that!" moments. 
• I snarkily tweeted about Houellebecq here and here.
• I really want to make the LA Novels Project happen. I read so many of the novels on the list but was stuck with how to execute a digital exploration of the novels that would be interesting to all five of you. I'm all ears.
• It's a way off, but I'm crushing on the Making of the Great Bolaño: The Man and the Myth event put on by LAPL on May 16th. Reserve now. (Also, funny. Have been thinking of a re-read all Bolaño marathon. But, that could be too whoa for my life right now.)

The Book You Raved About & I Didn't

So. You know all those incredibly glowing reviews for Narcopolis? There are twenty-nine rave snippents included at the beginning of the paperback. Everyone I know (and respect a good deal) really loved it. I, of course, didn't get it. Not even a little bit. And you know me. I can read a book with no plot and characters I could give two nuts about as long as there are a few lovely sentences to keep me unraveling the thread.

What magic was I missing? It felt like one long heroin dirge to me. I was intrigued by Mr. Lee and rather enjoyed his backstory. But that's where my interest started and stopped. Is this book revalatory because it is not what we've come to expect from an "Indian novel," as the jacket copy suggests? To wit: "Narcopolis completely subverts and challenges the literary traditions for which the Indian novel is celebrated." 

The Guardian exclaims "Nothing like this exists in Indian literature."

So, that makes it somehow magical beyond all comprehension? Dear, dear friends adored this book. I feel like I don't know them anymore. What. Did. I. Miss? Again, I'm all ears.

Reader-Writer Moment #583

I'm at a very specific juncture in my life. I have regrets and opportunities and decisions to catalogue. I've not done many of the things I'd hoped to have done by now, but dammit I've done some things I'd never dreamed of, too. I've not kept my word on several fronts (LA Novels project, anyone?) because some pretty incredible things presented themselves in lieu.

I've also somehow realized (with age?) that constant pursuit (of so many things) is not nearly as lovely as constant enjoyment of the present. As the list of those I've lost in my life grows ever longer, I'm finding a desire to simply be, not strive. To live, not document. To vibrate with the gift I've been given to choose among all this and find my own path. And reverse course. And find another. And switch paths again.

One of the downsides of these new in lieu opporutnities is that I've not read novels with any regularity this year. I have missed it deeply. I picked up a copy of Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? while on a recent work/think trip to Napa and though I've only been able to dip into it sporadically, it has given me jolts of joy.

Case in point:

"There's so much beauty in this world that it's hard to begin. There are no words with which to express my gratitude at having been given this one chance to live---if not Live. Let other people frequent the nightclubs in their tight-ass skirts and Live. I'm just sitting here, vibrating in my apartment, at having been given the chance to live.

I am writing a play. I am writing a play that is going to save the world. If it only saves three people, I will not be happy. If with this play the oil crisis is merely averted and our standard of living maintains itself at its current level, I will weep into my oatmeal."

We are all, I believe, seeking our play that will change the world. As I consider my options, I'll be here. Vibrating in my apartment, lucky I have the chance to consider my options at all.

This Deafening Silence Means Something

The dead air between my #LANovels extravaganza announcement and this post? It is what I've learned to accept in my life. As soon as I announce a big project I'm extremely passionate about in my non-working life, my working life rises to meet that energy and crush it. Wholesale.

But I'm wiser now than in years past and instead of worrying about it and fretting and feeling oh so sure you will all no longer care about my project, I'm taking a fresh approach: sod it. So there was a big gap? I'm human. So are you. Let's do this anyway.

I've been traveling a bit and on my last jaunt up to San Francisco (seventeen posts should come out of that trip alone, we'll see...) I hastily grabbed one of the books on the #LANovels list in hopes it would be a great kick-off point for many locations in Los Angeles that I could explore and illuminate for you. That book? Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries. A good book, if not an infuriating one (for all the right reasons), though not chock full of notable LA landmarks. There are a few good ones in the mix, though. 

So this is where we start. As wiser adults unencumbered by the fear of what others think about our project that got off track and may well do again. We start at perhaps not the ideal novel at not the ideal time. But we are wise now. We will do this with grace. To hell with the avalanche of work just over the horizon.

Stay tuned for the first installment. And a few bits in between.

#LANovels Shortlist

I never imagined I'd be writing a post here that included my own shortlist, that's how allergic I've become to longlists and shortlists and prizes that are not awarded, etc. But, here we are.

What I've only come to appreciate (or freak out about) after announcing this fine project of mine is how many amazing novels set in Los Angeles feature parts of L.A. that no longer exist and how much fiction that is "quintessentially LA" for many people is crime fiction. A few contributors bemoaned the "crime" fiction situation in Los Angeles so much that I feel certain they went out of their way to suggest other books. 

After many of you submitted your favorite #LANovel for the project I announced last week, here are the top 20 picks with the most votes (in random order):

• Our Ecstatic Days by Steve Erickson
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
• Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• Ask the Dust by John Fante
• The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar
• What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg
• Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion
• Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
• The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
• Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
• Shopgirl by Steve Martin
• Jamesland by Michelle Huneven
• The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler
• L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
• My Hollywood by Mona Simpson
• Zeroville by Steve Erickson
• The Flutter of an Eyelid by Myron Brinig
• This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes
• The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

Quite a list, no? Now that you've seen it, what do you feel is missing? Are you among those who suggested a novel that didn't make the Top 20? Will you still follow along anyway? Or are you now over this entire thing before it has properly begun?

It should also be noted that many of you suggested I add all of Michael Connelly's books and all of Robert Crais. If there's clarity and consensus among you as to which ones are truly top of the pops and deserve to be on this esteemed-company list, let me know.

The real task looms: How to select a novel that has places I can actually visit vs. simply sharing photo archives of a razed Bunker Hill with you all? As a proper bookish LA nerd, this is a task I'm relishing. Next week, I'll announce my first pick and I'll get to reading. 

Social Reading, Story and The #LANovels Project

I've been thinking and writing about social reading for a long time now and have been advocating for an element of social that is local, even hyper local. My post about social voting vs. social reading was a first grasping effort to quantify what social reading was to me. My first app attempt centered around check-ins. Instead of checking in on Foursquare and knowing what dish the other checked-in folks in the coffee shop recommend, I wanted to build something that would tell me what everyone in the coffee shop was currently reading. Imagine the conversations that could take place offline, in our own community, around books! Nearly two years later, my perspective has shifted.

While I'd still very much like to create this app (and many new apps have sprung up since my wild vision years ago that could almost get at it with a bit of kluge-y usage), I've since realized it would only offer the initial touch point for conversation. It would connect you with others that either loved or loathed the book you were reading, but it couldn't connect you more deeply with the story itself. I believe this - the desire to connect more deeply with the story - is the underlying premise of nearly all social reading endeavors, whether they are ultimately successful or not. And many are unsuccessful because their focus is on the reading of a story, instead of the story itself.

Since I started banging on about social reading long ago, there have been so many definitions and spirited discussions about what "social reading" means, what it is, what it isn't, what tools reflect this, how readers really read, how they really want to interact with authors (if ever) and will they ever use these social tools that have risen up to fill the "social reading" void. Some excellent tools have been developed that allow readers to share and discuss text in a multitude of new ways. Are these tools the final definition of social reading? For some, probably. For me, they are one way "in" to a book but are certainly not the only way. I continue to be primarily interested in "social reading" as something that's not just about technology, but how tech tools can help us shed our online-only lives and connect offline with a novel, a character, a setting, a community or other readers who share a love of the same. This view is part of a larger philosophy I have about stepping away from computers and taking part in the world that lives just beyond your front door...something I fully accept not everyone subscribes to with as much fervor as I do.

I'm not alone in this line of thinking. Small Demons is centered around all the elements within a novel - including place - that you connect to as a reader. Their site allows you to delve deeper into the "storyverse" of a novel you loved (or loathed.) This gets at something much deeper than sharing a quote on Twitter or Tumbling your favorite passages while you're mid-read or hosting a roundtable discussion of a specific novel on your blog or even attending your local book club. This is story as social, not reading as social.

This idea of story as social is what I'm most interested in exploring further. It is what led me to the #LANovels Project. Through social channels (natch) I've gathered up a list of your favorite LA novels. Most of which I've never read (terrible LA resident that I am) but have meant to read for a long time. Here's my plan: pick a novel, read the novel, explore the local landscape of the novel and document that exploration using a variety of tools that may (or may not, this is purely an experiment) help illuminate the story for you. Don't live in LA but loved Fante's Ask the Dust? What if I read it and left audio-notes on Broadcastr at each location in the novel? Never been to Echo Park but it features heavily in your favorite LA novel? How can tech allow me to connect you with the area in a way you can't without being there? How can tech allow you to connect me with a novel setting in Baltimore that I've never seen?

Surely you can argue that any novelist worth their salt would do a landscape or city or setting justice...no additional after-the-fact tech/social enhancements required. I don't disagree. But I'm interested in exploring this notion of place as character which also happens to be the place in which I live. It's already happening around me with every film filmed on my street. With every car commercial filmed outside my window. (It would shock you to learn how many national car commercials are filmed in the same one-block stretch of downtown LA, my 4th-Street-Bridge-view somehow deemed a perfect stand-in for "any city USA.") What you see when you watch a new car commercial is not what I saw when it was filmed. My additional perspective adds to the story in some way. I know what this bridge looks like when no one is filming. I remember the car crash there last year. The choir that sang on it last month. The way it looks just like Paris at night if you have a drink or two and squint just so. Might the same be true for novels? If so, THAT's the social component I'm most interested in. Story. Stories set in your local community...a community of other interested readers and those who cannot physically be here.

This is all a wild experiment that could reveal much or reveal little. I'll be announcing the initial list of novels and the first pick next week. I hope you'll come along for the ride.