I can't remember if I did a book report on "David Copperfield". If I haven't, I probably will as long as I remember. I just finished "Wonder Boys" by Michael Chabon today. I was reading "Crime and Punishment," but it was hard to get into after a long read of Dickens. So I decided to shop around a bit and find something a less lengthy, and I certainly found that in "Wonder Boys." It was a very quick read, a lot of it being dialogue. I got it after a friend made the recommendation. That goes to show you that I do really appreciate and take seriously your suggestions. Cooper, thanks for the suggestion. It was a wonderful read; I enjoyed it immensely. I would say that anyone should check it out, but it seemed to me that this book is intrinsically male. That's not to say that a female couldn't appreciate it, but if you read it and hate it and you're a girl, I told you so. Anyway, it seems that Chabon writes a lot about Pennsylvania, mainly areas near and around Pittsburgh if that is something you're into. I'll probably post a little book report about "Wonder Boys" after I do the "David Copperfield" one.
"Wonder Boys" got me thinking a lot about writing and writers and the industry of writing in general, spanning from the birth of an idea to the publishing of a book all the way to a book sitting in an old cardboard box or library, covered in dust. Working at Barnes & Noble, I think about that a lot too when I'm not trying to pick up the bookseller jargon. This book was accidently very well timed for me. There are other things I'd like to say about it, but the Celtics are playing right now, so it'll have to wait until the book report. In my thoughts about writing, I couldn't help but think about the really awful stories I used to write in my high school English classes. I remember both loving and hating creative writing assignments. I loved them because I could write about whatever I wanted which was a welcomed relief to the critical analyses of short stories and their longer counterparts. Don't get me wrong, I often enjoyed writing those too, but it gets old after a while. The incorporation of the creative writing helped vary the styles of writing and the amount of thinking needed. At least this is what I thought at the time. I never really took my creative writing assignments very seriously. I knew I could get away with writing a crazy story that really didn't make much sense as long as I wrote it well, grammatically correct and so on. After reading "Wonder Boys," I kind of feel a draw towards creative writing that I hadn't felt before. I feel like I wasted a lot of great opportunities to experiment with that side of writing. I guess it was always more work than I wanted to put in, so I just skated by, and Mr. Brown (English teacher) would say "Nice Effort, Khiet" or "Cute Story," but I never got a chance to develop anything I slaved over or put a lot into. I was definitely sympathizing with the narrator, Grady Tripp. Creative writing seems like so much fun to do for a living, incredibly tough but fun - inventing characters, places, traits, happenings.
I was looking through some old stuff I had in my basement to throw away and I think I came across some old short story-type things I wrote in high school. Since my aim in this blog is to help you pass your time at work, I think I just might post such a story on my blog and we can all have a grand old laugh.
1 comment:
That's bold of you to post old stuff. I just cringe and blush with embarrassment when I look at old stuff. This includes Dartmouth stuff.
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