Odds & Ends

A few quick notes to make up for that last (long-ass) post:

1. There’s going to be is a mass read of 2666! (Thanks to Rise for pointing it out.) Mass reads are those things where a whole bunch of people read a book on the same schedule and get together (via the intrawebs) to talk about it chapter by chapter. Last summer the concept got pretty big with the “infinite summer” reading of DFW’s Infinite Jest, but I have yet to try it out. But I’m totally doing this one! As are several friends! So, if you’re looking for something to fill those idle hours with meaning (and madness), I hereby command invite you to check it out. (The schedule officially starts Jan. 25th, but you have the whole week to read the first 50 pages – still plenty of time to order a copy and catch up.)
2. If you’re looking for some distraction with less serious time commitment involved, here are some book-related thingies I found interesting (and damned enjoyable) this week: a memoir cum review (mentioned in the previous post) over at the rumpus; another really beautiful memoir/review hybrid over on bookslut (must be a new trend); and a wildly funny send-up of Cormac McCarthy.
3. I’ve been meaning to blog about the following sites for a while now, but: if you’re looking for some more serious reading, of a cultural analysis bent, with references to the Frankfurt School and Merleau-Ponty, then I really, really recommend Generation Bubble and Marginal Utility. Sneriously.

Bolaño Overflow: 2666

Over on The Rumpus, I got embroiled in a debate over a review of Kevin Sampsell’s A Common Pornography. The question seemed to be whether this thing could even be called a book review at all, concerning as it mostly did the reviewer’s own experiences and life story as it related (perhaps only tangentially) to the book. Some people said this was solipsistic bullshit. I said it was one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read recently.

People who’ve been with me a while (or with me in classes) know by now my opinions about literature, and criticism: I think the best response to (receiving a) story is to tell, in turn, another story. This is, I think, the essence of conversation, and to enter into such a relationship with a book is to be in conversation with literature (as opposed to about it). In opposition to the sort of “meta” position that criticism usually attempts to hold –commenting from a lofty, ahistorical, “objective” position about the “subjective” workings of literature and language– this approach makes the writer-as-reader a subject of/in language. Call it (to steal from Spivak) a form of critical intimacy.

All of which is a long build-up to the fact that I want to tell you a story.