not falling down

Another damn book post.

I just finished the last hundred pages of The Blind Assassin–the most I’ve read at one sitting, I think. At one point, probably halfway through, I thought “this should be a movie.” There are a lot of clothes and places in it, but I was still wrong. If it were a movie, I’d be in love with the characters, which would be fine. As it is I’m in awe of the book. Also in love with it.

The only AP scores I’m really proud of were the ones I got in English; upon hearing about the second one, Mr. Munson told me that I had “a gift” for analysis. It sounds generic, but I still rank it high on my list of Best Compliments Ever (even if there was an “apparently” in there somewhere too).

The only English course I’ve taken or will take at Centre was my three weeks of Creative Writing. That’s not just because neither of my majors intersect with English. As far as I can tell, the tools of analysis you learn beyond eleventh grade are so finely sharpened, so stretched and twisted, that they’re turning back in on themselves: overgrown fingernails.

I like having a “gift” for analysis, if I do, and not a skill. Trying to get meaning from Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights was like going at tubs of concrete with an emory board. The Blind Assassin is the world’s biggest tub of hard-frozen ice cream, and it’s mint chocolate chip, and I feel like I was born with spoon in hand.

It’s all there, if you want it–layers and layers that my less-trained analysis would probably never find. I’m fine with that. I think the author would be too.

I’m more interested in watching how she starts by putting two books inside the first book, and then putting another book inside one of those. I’m interested in how, by the end, they’re all the same book. After The Handmaid’s Tale, I was prepared for the title to frame a huge central irony; it crept up and caught me at the end anyway, and it’s stunning.

I don’t want to give any more away, but I want to keep writing about it.

I’m more interested in the characters. There are only two of them, really; there are also exactly six, and then there’s only one. I’m amazed by them all. They are to the phrase “three-dimensional” as the ocean is to “damp.”

I love these books. This book. I think it defines “masterwork,” for me, because it’s the most masterful and most accessible book I’ve ever read.

The Handmaid’s Tale was everything I expected plus three. I mostly remember it as being one of the choices of summer assignments for Mr. Munson’s junior AP English, and even though my choices were fairly mature (Ordinary People and Catcher in theRye), I can’t help but be impressed that he gave it to unproven high schoolers to read.

I’ve been trying to articulate this thought for like fifteen minutes now, and it’s not coming. It’s something like this: But. The fact that he had the balls to give rising juniors books like Handmaid’s Tale isn’t as impressive, really, as the fact that under him we read them and enjoyed them and understood them. Reason number five hundred sixteen I won’t be a teacher–I could never live up to that.

Anyway. The Truth was even fluffier than I expected it to be, actually, but still not bad. I’m most of the way through Enchantment now, and of course it’s brilliant, in its way, but Card’s books are only getting talkier and I don’t like it. He wrote a book called Character and Viewpoint a long time ago, and while I still consider it one of the best books on writing I’ve ever read, he’s stopped listening to his own advice. I wish he’d show me what his characters are doing instead of telling me what they’re thinking. Ender’s Game works so well because it strikes a balance between those two. Enchantment is close, but no cigar. (Children of the Mind missed the whole damn booth.)

And Minority Report was really good,yadda yadda. I just wish, in a fashion oddly reminiscent of Vanilla Sky, that I hadn’t had to pee so bad for so much of it.