Back by Popular Request: Zombie-Killin' Literary Characters

Hey everyone!  Remember a couple years ago, when I did my all-time favorite post for this blog?  About characters I would like to help me fight for humanity in a war against zombies?  If you do, then you might've been hoping for a sequel.  And if you're new to this blog, you might be wondering what is up with my zombie obsession?  To the latter, I answer: I have no idea.  And to the former: well here it is!  Five more characters I want to have on my side in the case of a zombie apocalypse. 

Five (More) Characters I Want on My Side in the Coming Zombie Apocalypse

1. Biff Brannon (from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers)  A surprise, right?  But hear me out: Biff is a pretty steady presence throughout this wonderful Southern gothic.  He runs his diner and watches strange things happen all around him, but he seems like he might be capable of the kind of level-headednes that might work in this situation.  Yes, there's all that weird sexual stuff going on there.  Let's ignore all that, shall we?  Give Biff a gun and I bet he could get the job done (as long as shooting people in the head doesn't remind him of a time when his niece actually did get shot in the head).  Also, doesn't every zombie apocalypse feature a scene where our scruffy band of heroes shoots at the living dead from behind a food counter.  We can get that with this guy. 

2.  Bobby Conroy (from "Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead," by Joe Hill, from 20th Century Ghosts)  This choice might seem like cheating since this is a story that features zombies.  That doesn't matter; they're just people in make-up, shooting a George Romero film in Pennsylvania, and Bobby Conroy only comes back from the dead in a figurative sense.  But if you put his ex-girlfriend and her son in harm's way in a real zombie apocalypse, I have no doubt that Bobby Conroy would become the hero he never thought he could be.  So meta!

3.  Ben Mears (from Salem's Lot, by Stephen King)  He's fought vampires, so I think this guy is well on his way to becoming a zombie hunter of the highest order.  Obvious choice, really.

4.  Hareton Earnshaw (from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte)  What, did you think I was going to go with Heathcliff?  Hells no.  If that guy saw a zombie Catherine stumbling around, he'd be feeding everyone in a hundred-mile radius to her.  Raised largely by the brutal Heathcliff, Hareton has the coldness needed to get the job done.  But if we are to believe the end of the book, he's also developed the necessary pathos to keep his humanity.  Hang those zombies like you hung those puppies, Hareton!

5.  Shadow (from American Gods, by Neil Gaiman)  The least surprising choice, but I don't care.  Shadow is the biggest badass I've ever encountered in literature - haunted and strong, a fighter with a deep sadness.  As soon as I hear even a rumor of a zombie breakout, I'm calling this guy.  It'll be painful for him to kill zombies, with his wife basically becoming one and whatno.  But he'd get over that to help others, I think.  Shadow is nothing if not noble.  And did I mention how badass he is?  Because he's all kinds of badass. 

Great Interview

Today the AV Club posted an interview with the poetry critic David Orr.  I love this interview.  Orr may be the most reasonable lover of poetry I've encountered in a long time.  Like him, I have made poetry my life's work, but I also don't think it's going to save the world.  It's not even particularly important.  It's just lovely and wonderful for those who like it.  Enjoy!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/david-orr,54791/

Best. Game. Ever.

An AV Club post has alerted to me to what is quickly becoming my favorite thing ever: an 8-bit, old-school Nintendo-style video Great Gatsby video game. Seriously, this thing is amazing. Nick Carraway runs around and assaults people with his hat. And if you look around at the website, the whole set-up is extremely funny. I'm developing quite the crush on the guys who developed this thing. I haven't gotten very far in the game, as I am absolutely terrible at video games and quickly get bored with them. But nevertheless, I urge everyone to go out and give this one a try because it's very simple and a lot of fun. And then go out and Fitzgerald's novel because it's even better.

Enjoy!

The Great Gatsby Game

I Like This

I saw this little piece on NPR's website today and quite liked it. I've been a closet John Irving fan for this very reason, I'm afraid. Well no more! You heard it here: I love John Irving! A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favorite novels!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129235528

Getting Through the "Big Book"

This year, I made one big literary goal: to get through all of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I read the book in the space of a couple of weeks in high school. But frankly, besides the basic plotline and a few key scenes, I couldn't remember much about the book. More importantly, I've grown up a lot as a reader and a person since then. With a huge appreciation for 19th-century Russian novelists under my belt, I figured it was time to revisit Dostoevsky's "big one." Well, I started a couple weeks ago, and I'm making my way through it verrrrry slowly. It doesn't help that I'm continuing to read other things that float across my line of vision, but I figure a book like Brothers isn't going to make very good before-bed reading.
So now, I am about 180 pages in, with about another 600 to go. So far, I am already understanding it a million times better now than I did as a gawky teenager. Part of this is surely due to the award-winning and critically-praised translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that I'm using this time . The translation is clear, clean, and supposedly true to Dostoevksy's actual style and voice.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention this to you all so you might understand why my reading in the next month or so will be so erratic. I am currently finishing a new "trashy read" (and HOLY CRAP, is it the mother of awesomeness in romance - details coming soon!) and some poetry books. And I have the feeling Neil Gaiman might distract me soon, as his books are calling to me from my "bought-but-not-yet-read" shelf. But I promise that sometime in the next couple months, I will finish The Brothers Karamazov, and I will definitely be blogging about it.

My New Favorite Website: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I am proud to announce the new title-holder of My Favorite Website: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. It's a blog dedicated solely to the reading of trashy books (mostly romances), and it actually gives helpful reviews and links for all kinds of readers and writers, particularly those who are new to the bad habit of reading trashy novels (in other words, people like me).

Check it out! It's absolutely wonderful.

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/

Interesting Link

Via NPR's Monkey See blog, I found this very interesting piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education. I am not quite sure what to make of David Alpaugh's claims here. Personally, I find much of contemporary poetry to be really boring, and as a poet myself, I find that really disheartening. So I agree with Alpaugh's claims that anthologies are basically ruining the idea of independent writing. But as someone who hopes to get her MFA so that she can not only become a better writer but become a better teacher of writing, I think his argument is a little shaky. I don't think there should be any sort of stigma attached to being either an independent writer or a writer/professor. While I think academia certainly holds the reins a little to tightly on the concept of what makes a poem "good," I also think there are writing professors who publish and teach because they are equally interested in both those goals. Hopefully, you can all come to your own conclusions here.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Math-of-Poetry/64249/

Fun Link

Today the AV Club did a great piece on overused literary adaptations. They made a list of the most over-used examples of books turned into movies. For obvious reasons, I was most intrigued by their ideas about The Great Gatsby. It might be my favorite book in the entire world, but I absolutely loathe the film versions (particularly the Robert Redford version because Robert Redford is an absolutely terrible Jay Gatsby). Now, thanks to this article, I am super-obsessed with the idea of a really image-based director tackling the book. Fitzgerald's novel is so heavy in imagery and dreamlike obsessions that it would be awesome to see a director interested mainly in those concepts take on the book.

Anyway, enjoy the list!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/put-the-book-back-on-the-shelf-literary-works-that,38199/

Stuff

Hey, all! Here's some notes and apologies and whatnot for the last weird week:

- I apologize for not posting a Poem of the Week yesterday. Because of my job and the Super Bowl (yes, I stop everything to watch the Super Bowl), I ran out of time to post. But don't worry, Poem of the Week will be back to its usual schedule next Sunday.

- I am currently reading two books right now: W.H. Auden's Selected Poems and Alice Munro's new book of short stories. I'll post reviews as soon as they're finished.

- This week, I'll be posting a new list and some other stuff, since I've been so errant in posting lately.

- And finally, for those of you who watched the Super Bowl, let me say that I was really dismayed with how sexist the commercials were this year. I felt like every other commercial portrayed women as nagging, shopaholic, bitchy objects of sexual lust. Women watch the Super Bowl too, corporate America!

What?!?!

Have you seen this? I don't even know what to say. I've been meaning to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for awhile now, and I thought this whole monster/classic hybrid thing was kind of cute. But this might be out of control now. A book about suicide and social morality AND robots? I just don't think this works for Tolstoy for the exact reasons Jay Parini states towards the end of the article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/13/android-karenina-tolstoy-centenary-upgrade

What do you think?

Tolstoy Link to Share

Here's a really good article from The Guardian about Tolstoy and how Russians view him. I really hope the film the article mentions, The Last Station, gets a release somewhere I can see it because it sounds fantastic.

Also, according to the article, Russian schoolkids read War and Peace when they are 14 or 15. Holy crap! When I was that age, there was no way I would have "gotten" that book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/06/leo-tolstoy-the-last-station

On the Sensory Pleasures of a Book

Today at the store, I overheard a woman talking about her Kindle, that electronic device Amazon makes where you can download books and read them onscreen. I considered asking her if she liked the Kindle and might suggest it. Then I argued against myself, resolute in my old Hey-Kid-Get-Off-My-Lawn opinion that Kindles and like devices are an abomination against reading. I know that's not true, and as someone who fears the end of reading for pleasure, I know I should be happy people are reading any way they can. But I can't help it. Because you see, I love books. I'm not talking about the stories or characters or words. I'm talking about the actual object of a book.

I am currently reading Alex Ross's critically-honored history/listening guide to 20th-century classical music, The Rest is Noise. I'm only 20 pages in, but so far I love it. It's full of interesting facts. Did you know Tchaikovsky hated Wagner, for instance? But beyond the book's intellectual pleasures is its sensory delights. This book appeals to my senses in a way few have lately. It's cover has that nice not-glossy smoothness, and the pages almost feel silky, the print perfectly in place. The smell is quite lovely too - very papery and vaguely sweet. I can't help but participate in the sensory details of the book as I'm reading it - touching it, sniffing it, weighing it in my hands (did I mention it has a satisfyingly hefty weight to it?). My obsession might be a tad weird, but I can't help it.

So anyway, this post doesn't have much to do with anything. I just wanted to get out my Kindle frustration. And more importantly, I wanted to recommend you check out the trade paperback of The Rest is Noise, if only just to smell it and stroke it. Is that so inappropriate?

Yes, actually, I think it might be.

Something Fun

Thanks to an old NPR article I found yesterday, I discovered this little diversion: Neil Gaiman reading all the chapters of The Graveyard Book. Gaiman, who is a fervent believer in the power of oral storytelling, posted a video of him reading each chapter at different reading events across the country for free on the internet. It's a really fun collection. I've been listening to it as I get ready in the morning, and I absolutely love it. Gaiman is a fantastic reader, and his voice is both lulling and powerful. It's something worth checking out, particularly Part Five, my favorite (and the shortest) chapter from the book, Danse Macabre.

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving and a nice post-holiday weekend!

As a bonus, I'm including a link to the AV Club's List of their favorite books from the last decade. I adore the AV Club, but I was a little disappointed in this predictable, bleh list. But, in a note of excitement, guess what book made the cut? Gilead! Gilead is having a good year, what with making all sorts of best-of-the-decade lists and President Obama naming it as one of his favorite books. Despite my worry over the list's originality, it's still nice to get some more reading recommendations.