Trying to make feeling stupid into a good feeling...

Captain woke me up at 6 a.m. wanting to play. I cannot say work was easy after such an early wake up call. While I was half asleep at the library I picked up the “Tin House Summer Reading” magazine. I thought about taking it back home with me for the twenty-four hour loan period but decided against it. The possibility of me inadvertently stealing it was too risky, not to mention Captain’s love of eating softer books.

What made me read this magazine was an interview with Roddy Doyle. I read one of his books, Paddy Clark, Ha, ha, ha, about three or four years ago. I didn’t know a lot about him as an author before this interview, but now I feel the need to go pick up another one of his books and explore his writing again. He sounded so ferocious and opinionated. One of my many favorite quotes from the interview: “When I’m writing and researching, trying to recreate a place that’s gone or a place that won’t be familiar to most readers, I try to find images that are very visual and promise meaning beyond the visual.” (Page 69) This topic came up when the interviewer, Tom Grimes, began to discuss 9/11. At first I was appalled, thinking, haven’t we heard enough of this, when will this question end! But he took it into a new direction about the horror I think we all felt and re-feel when we look at pictures of the twin towers. The horror that is caused by the blue-sky effect, the visual of such a perfect day becoming what it became. Doyle’s discussion on visual seems so perfect after Grimes’ discussion, and brought everything back to writing. I was amazed he could take a discussion of sky color on a tragic day and make that about writing.

The other exciting discussion in the interview, for me at least, was when they brought up Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize Speech. I have to admit when I know who is being talked about in any of these magazines I get excited and feel slightly nerdy in a good, warm feeling way. Their discussion of his “denunciation” of the United States lead Doyle to say he agreed and disagreed, but where he agreed is important. He thinks that part of writing is “to be stupid—and tell the truth. It’s how we tell the truth, how we tell the story—that’s where the writing, the hard work, comes in.”(Page 67) For some reason this quote re-assured me on my own writing journey. I think as a writer, and one who considers herself to still feel somewhat young, I try and stay away from being stupid, but I feel stupid all the time. It might be something I could try and embrace more often. It also made me feel stupid for taking myself too seriously sometimes. I’m not sure if that is confusing or just trite. This discussion reminded me of Colbert's Truthiness and how important that idea has become to us as a culture. We seem to all be searching for Truth and meaning, and I think what Doyle is trying to say is that we need to be stupid to tell the truth and do it in an honest way.

I feel like I need to wrap up my thoughts. I have to say I really enjoyed reading this magazine, not just for the interview with Roddy Doyle, but the first story, “Memory” by Stephan King was powerfully mesmerizing and I have to say felt more horrifically human than his twins (from The Shinning). The ending was so horrific and real to me I cannot stop thinking about it. Especially since Captain wants to watch the dog show tomorrow night (he would watch it tonight but brother is here watching the history channel…we can tomorrow night when brother leaves the house with unusual date…) The story really got me thinking about the line between something that is scary and something that is horrific. I now feel the names have been misused, especially with movies. I think that to be a horror genre book or film there has to be something very human about the scariness. That it has to be something you can imagine happening to you. I will assume we have all seen The Hills Have Eyes, but that was horrific because of the rape scene. Everything else was just scary. King’s story was horrific because the accident was real, powerful, and the pain that happened to his narrator seemed like it could happen to any of us.

I also loved the piece “Eating Fish Alone” by Lydia Davis. It made me want to go home and make fish or watch Food Network. Of course I didn’t go anywhere near the kitchen, but it made me want to. The piece made me want to write lists as well. I feel it better to not explain this, if you haven’t read this piece, read it and make a list.

I’m not sure how to end today, how about I just say adieu until tomorrow.