We have a cat living at my new apartment, a cute and spastic guy named Skip. He likes to run up and down the hallway skidding into things on the hardwood floor. Today, he did this to me as I rounded a corner carrying a glass of oj and a large bowl of popcorn. Since I startle so damn easy, I promptly lost the bowl, scattering popcorn from hell to breakfast (isn't that a wonderful expression?) and losing a little bit of juice along with it. Oy.
In more literary news, I just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The General in his Labyrinth", a fictional account of the last seven months of Simon Bolivar's life. It follows Bolivar on his last voyage down the river Magdalena after his expulsion from office and widespread vilification, and it's a beautiful and terrible picture of political and bodily decay as well as a fascinating partial history of South American independance and of Bolivar's life. I like Marquez because it often seems that plot is not the main goal; I appreciate what I see as a dedication to story. It's fiction so I'm not taking it as the gospel or anything, but I very much enjoyed the portrait of Bolivar and South America that Marquez gave me.
And now, I've moved on to my next book. (Lauren, thanks for the comment about reading and understanding a lot of books, but in truth I think I read too fast. Lately I've even been reading things twice in a row if I think I'll get more out of it the second time because I feel like I miss so much.) Next up is "Weight" by Jeanette Winterson. It's a re-writing of the myth of Atlas and Heracles. (There's also another book in this series by Margaret Atwood called "The Penelopiad" that sounds interesting.) I just started, but I'd like to end with this great quote from the introduction concerning truth and fact.
"Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real."
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2 comments:
Wow, nice quote. That can definitely apply to everything in life, beyond memoirs. I might even rely on it to get through the dissertation!
Got any photos of this cat???
Haha, I'll take one as soon as my camera batteries recharge. He's quite the looker; my roommate shaved off his body fur when it was super hot but left the fur on his head, tail, and legs intact. He looks, as we are fond of saying, like a cross between a squirrel and a lion, although the resemblance is fading as the fur grows back.
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