Belated book report

I did read before the semester started. Not as much as I would have liked, but it was a good opportunity to give Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski the attention it demands. Look, I even feel compelled to stick to the color schemes of the text - and I've messed up my usual text color in the process. I read his House of Leaves last year, which nests narrative inside narrative; this book has two narrators, Sam and Hailey. They each begin speaking from a different end of the book, so that there are two sections of print, one upright and one upside-down (depending on how you look at it). The recommended way to read it is eight pages at a time, alternating Sam and Hailey. Their stories dovetail in many ways, both in page number and on each physical page. Sam's Os are green; Hailey's are gold.

I was frustrated at times that none of this actually means anything, that Danielewski was just trying to make me look at the text as text without anything behind it. But that's not accurate, I don't think. The reader just has to work much harder than usual--although it helps that, like House of Leaves, there is a forum of readers that discuss OR's various mysteries (some a trifle obsessively). For example, there's the stilted language. He's clearly drawing from some kind of word- or alphabet-based dictionary that only allows him to use words or letters a certain number of times. It's like a giant poem in that way; part of the point of writing it is the test of what you can accomplish with constraints. The word "or" is important - it's the initials of the title, it's always in bold, and the programming symbol for "or" appears on the spine.

Anyway - I realize this is getting a little into detail for those who haven't read it. There are rewards to it, even for the non-obsessed reader. Even though the language is odd, it's beautiful. It's easy to see that all the Os represent eternity, rings, circles, etc. (Each story has 360 pages; the two characters are most synchronized around page 180.) It's an epic about the history of the United States - anytime the characters say "us," it's capitalized. And most of all, it's a love story that acknowledges (and yet still fights against) the ultimate constraint of time. (Sam's story runs from 1863-1963, Hailey's from 1963-2063.) If you yourself have time...and patience...and you know what you're getting yourself into, I highly recommend it.

Three more recommendations now, of a more amusing nature. First, if I haven't bugged you about it in person yet, the TV show Veronica Mars. I'm almost done watching the second season (the third season is on the air right now on the CW). It's witty, and gripping, and even those not as gullible as I are prone to being surprised at the plot twists -- though not in an unfair way. There are always clues available to you, and you will wonder afterwards why you didn't see them. Oh yeah, it's because the writing is really good. I want to thank Amy and Ryan publicly for sucking me in.

Second: as Clare mentioned in her blog, Mountain Man Dance Moves: the McSweeney's Book of Lists, which I was lucky enough to come across randomly in the Strand when I was in New York two weeks ago. Many of the lists, for no reason, have to do with unicorns. An abbreviated example:

Song Titles, Before Editing for Efficiency and Clarity
"It is Impossible for You, or Anyone Else for That Matter, to Purchase Love for or from Me"
"Hey, What's Up? It's London"
"Baby, You Hit Me Once, and When You Did, All I Could Think Was That I Would Relish Your Doing It Once More"
(pp. 88-89)


Third: Hipster Haiku by Siobhan Adcock. I saw this book and simply had to own it. (Student loans? Eating? Pshaw.) I'll give you a short selection, and you'll want it too. Youll see.

Writ on my tombstone:
"Never bought a Greatest Hits
compilation disc"
(p. 43)

Why are you dancing?
Just stare gravely at the band
Act appropriate
(p. 57)

Hand-rolled cigarettes
You call everything "po-mo"
I think I love you
(p. 7)