un rapporto instabile

you knew it was coming. i warned you. guess you've figured out by now that i dig reading. i dig books. i dig ideas. and this book is about reading, books, and ideas. surprisingly enough (to me), many people who enjoy reading DO NOT dig this book. again, warned.

italo calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler is one of my more recent favorites. have you ever noticed something you tend to do while reading? i don't just mean sitting in a comfy chair, but that too. i also mean things like notice that the author certainly used the word 'void' a lot. or that if this character says this one thing, someone's gunna die soon. now what if those patterns you notice or participate in were violated? what if they were pointed out to you in the very thing you're dissecting? would it make you uncomfortable? what if the plot wasn't resolved? would you put the book in the freezer? 


this pile of words is so much stinking fun i have to bifurcate again. it's becoming habit, i know, but at least then you can pretend this is like a choose your own adventure or something where you don't actually have to read the whole thing, just the piece you want, but then you'll actually end up reading the whole thing anyway because what could have happened?! ok, you don't have to read the whole thing. but you do. you can't help it. just be glad i'm not.. trifurcating!! because i totally could.


so remember when i said that someday i would compare this book with brautigan's watermelony goodness? apparently 'someday' is today. so i guess you have to call that one guy you told 'maybe someday' and stave him off with the 'maybe' part. here are the things about which i will now expound:

1. the reader!

is she talking about me? she can't be talking about me! yes, i am.

2. comparisons!
watermelons and feedings and travelers, oh my!


aaaaand they're off!


1. reader vs author vs character vs story vs ... verses. 

ha. see what i did there? anywho. this tome of awesome makes a very sharp point about the act of reading. it dives deep into the reader's psyche and pokes and prods it, teasing it. 

i suggested this book to my dear, angelic moms (right), and she assigned it to her book group at the library (you can decide later if that was awesome or mean). parentheticals aside, my moms has a blog too, go read it, she's a pro. and she gives away free books! 


which brings me closer to my punto numero uno. calvino doesn't just pick the scab off your plot and character wounds. you know, all those times you were really into a book but the plot left you with all kinds of dangling chads, or a character you fell madly in love with died or turned out to be an a-hole or whatever. he also plays with the roles we assume and interact with and assign as we read. i am the reader, this dude wrote this book, some people on the east coast published it, a nice lady like my moms will help you find it in the library, your friends will see it on your shelf and give you a funny look like you're a crazy person... and these roles are all mutually exclusive. JUST KIDDING.


seriousface, first paragraph of the book. calvino begins his experiment (on you) thusly:

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, 'No, I don't want to watch TV!' Raise your voice - they won't hear you otherwise - 'I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!' Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: 'I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!' Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone. 

oh, that's right. he went there. the whole first chapter is in the second person. who does that?! YOU. you have been cast as the reader and you are taking directions about how to go about reading this book you're reading. tasty treat: when i started reading this book for the first time i was on my exercise bike, so it really made me giggle a few paragraphs later when he begins to talk about the most comfortable position, chair, etc. for reading.


the first question we asked the book group was,

was this book hard to read?

and the answer was a resounding yes. ok, so this is half of the reason the book group was a little irked: every other (like 1, 3, 5, not every single other) chapter is directed at you, the reader. but the reader evolves. no spoilers. the other other chapters (you know, 2, 4, 6) are stories. like the kind you're actually familiar with. with plots n recognizable tannins. the second half of the reason the book group was a little irked is that none of these little short stories has an end. that's right, and it's not a spoiler, i promise. 


you read the first chapter, get into it, don't really know what's going on because you've just been talked at by a chapter about the act of you reading, but you go with it, thinking ok, that was weird, but i guess this book is about this dude at a train station NOPE. and it is not a choose your own adventure, so don't try skipping the next chapter to see what happens next in that story. you'll just find another beginning. there is purpose and reason, mind you. just no minor resolution to these minor tales. this is a book about your relationship with it, with reading, with words, with stories, with.. your expectations.


moving right along...


2. comparisons are odious.

Meaning: Comparison (especially of people) is not productive and can have unpleasant consequences. People should be judged on their own merits.

Note: comparison (noun) = the act of comparing | compare (verb) = measure or note the similarity or dissimilarity between people or things | odious (adj) = extremely unpleasant; distasteful.


thank you, english club, but i am inclined to respectfully disagree. one can make all sorts of synaptic connections and find more relevant meaning when comparing. and comparing people is just fun. and part of our culture. but i digress.


while this book should be judged on its own merit (and i judge it fan-freaking-tasticulous), i also noticed that picking on the reader, speaking to the reader, and fiddling with the reader's expectations are not totally unique concepts. particularly, i am referring to a reference to which i have already referred: in watermelon sugar. 


in in watermelon sugar, our main character doesn't have a name, and he's speaking directly to you, reader, and so much of what he tells you depends on your interpretation of it. he won't just tell you what you expect, or how you expect to be told; he tells you whatever his crazypants brain feels like, and places the responsibility on you, reader, to make sense of it. this can frustrate some people. 


i also mentioned Feed, and implied this book warrants comparisons there as well. seem far-fetched? ha! ok, it's a bit of a stretch. what made me feel these two are distant cousins is twofold (oh, not again with the forking): the relationship to words - if on a winter's night is all about the reader's relationship to words and to books and the whole world of reading, right? you don't know, i know, so yeah, i'm right; AND the way the author toys with the reader by using different .. angles. in the case of feed, those angles are different media (i mean, still words, but advertisements and song lyrics - not just plot).


well, in feed, books don't exist anymore really. they're not commonplace, anyway. no one reads. there's no reason to, in their new blink-of-an-eye entertainment and knowledge future. and the consequences there are quite fun. at one point our protagonist (or is he?) makes fun of his smartypants girl friend for using a pen and paper. they're totally foreign objects to him. 


then Anderson throws song lyrics at you, Reader, from popular songs in this not-so-distant future. i'd give you a side-by-side comparison of some of the lyrics included in the novel with some of today's pop song lyrics, but instead, let me just give you another awesome chart to make my point. 

what to read if you only have an hour or two and want to devour a meaningful book

"we went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

don't you love it when you're hooked on the first sentence? Feed, by M.T. Anderson, is a postmodern young adult novel. don't you dare give up on it right now because i said it's young adult. c'mon. we're all young adults. if i haven't recommended this book to you personally yet, it's probably because i don't know you or haven't talked to you in the last handful of years.

reasons i recommend this book to everyone include:

• it really does only take an hour or two to read but it's not fluff
• it's hilarious AND relatable (because it's terrifyingly telling and accurate about where our society is headed)
• it addresses some very important questions about our society/culture
• the story could only be called formulaic by a stretch of the old boy-meets-girl, but it's a great story
• anyone between the ages of .. oh.. cognizant enough to use a computer to curmudgeon-y will find something to love about it (or hate, which by translation in the literature world means the book got to you enough to make you feel strongly, and therefore, the book still wins.)

remember the first time you read 1984? or the first time you saw Vanilla Sky? or when you figured out who Keyser Soze was? that's how this book makes you feel. the best way to describe it, i suppose, is that it's 1984 for today's youth. but see, now i sound like a tool. so allow me to elaborate (without spoilers).

the main characters are teenagers in the not-too-unbelievably-distant future. the narrator is a teenager. i'm going to let that sink in for a moment as you think about how current teenagers talk. or think. *shudder.* this doesn't make the novel unbearable, as one might assume, however. it makes it funny. i swear. please refer back to the first sentence. also, it's interspersed with the actual advertisement, song lyrics, etc. with which the teens are being bombarded. it's scary how similar these are to current pop culture. because of the ridiculousness.

these teens live in a future (second generation or so) where, at birth, "everyone" (the way we say 'everyone' has a cell phone) is implanted with a feed. think internet that could fit on the head of a pin, stuck in yer brain, so you can access all the stuff you google and wikipedia just by thinking it. also, you can watch tv. also, you are bombarded with advertisements all the time, in your brain. there is no need for school anymore because anything you need to know you can just look up. in your feed. in your brain. but even further, there's really no reason to learn anything we would consider academic because society is based primarily on consumerism. the kids go to school, sure, but it's to learn what to wear, what to buy, how to decorate their bedroom. school is a corporation. the clouds themselves are trademarked. getting the idea?

another important point: you are profiled, categorized, based on what you buy. what you consider buying. the types of things you look up in your feed. starting to sound familiar? i love google, but sometimes those targeted ads creep me out a little. even further, there are seven categories. doesn't that make you feel special? you are one of seven types of highly predictable consumers.

ok. that's all i'm going to say about the book, besides READ IT. now i'm going to venture into a couple of the reasons it struck me so personally (i.e., if all you wanted was the book review, you may go now). now to address two points:

1. in a world where everyone has all the most up to date information, knowledge, pop culture, etc. accessible by instant thought, things change SUPER FAST.
2. consider the gap between where we currently are and the future this premise predicts. we have netbooks. we have bluetooths (blueteeth?). we have hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, and something called 4G! if "everyone" jumped off a bridge, would you?

1. superfast:
once upon a time, i was having a conversation with my dad (in person) and having a text conversation at the same time (on my fancypants flip phone). my dad was shocked. he said, astonished, "it's like.. you've... partitioned your brain!" oooo, i can text and talk at the same time! wait, that's actually pretty crazy. also, my dad knows what it means to partition (he really meant it like a hard drive partition!). but seriously, what?

i have applied the following thesis to literature, film/theater, music, business, conversation, relationships, adult learning, and child rearing. and it's not that profound. we are goin fast. we are goin faster than we went 10 years ago, way faster than 20 years ago, and stinkin crazy faster than ever before then. by fast i mean our attention spans are shorter because more information is available FASTER. in film, if the camera stays on one shot without moving for more than something like 3 seconds, the modern viewer is bored or uncomfortable. can you imagine waiting on a dial-up connection now? or waiting for a letter from your significant other (written by hand and delivered on horseback) versus the constant texting and chatting of today? seriously, 5 years of courtship in days of yore = maybe a week or two of tech-assisted get-to-know-you conversation now.

so. here comes a future so devoid of waiting, so fast, that in a group of friends - mid-conversation - all the female-types rush to the bathroom and return with a different hairstyle. because that's the newest trend and they're that up to date because they have all the latest pop culture (tv, music, commercials!) playing constantly in their brains. is this where we're headed?

i challenge you to stop everything and see how long that lasts. or, for that matter, do only one thing for more than 10 minutes. don't check your phone, don't go to the bathroom, don't check facebook, don't write yourself a little note, don't turn on the tv, don't pet the cat. IMPOSSIBLE, ISN'T IT?! because in our fast-paced society, we're trained to do so many things at once, and take in so much information that we can't sit still. in brain or body.

2. all the cool kids are doing it:
we're already at a place where it's mandatory to have a laptop for college. where every job you might want requires at least a basic knowledge of technology. what if, to compete in society, to get an education, to get a job, you actually had to implant something in your brain? what if you could get that bluetooth permanently implanted behind your ear? what if you everyone had one? what if you had to make the choice that, to give your CHILD a fighting change in society, you needed to implant some form of technology in them at birth? right up there with counting fingers and toes, standard procedure. we already put tracking chips in our pets. you have poor eyesight; you get glasses; you get contacts; you get laser eye surgery... you get electronic eyeballs?

i'm not saying the advance of technology is a bad thing. quality of life! longevity! awesome! i'm saying, what if something goes wrong? what if continue on this road? will we all end up superhuman? the antithesis of the ubermensch? will we end up like the society in wall-e? fat, lazy, bored, and useless, while our planet and everything of value about human society dies?

wee!! i hope you're not too depressed. just some stuff to munch on.