Mark Beyer's Blog: Mark Beyer Reads and Writes - Posts Tagged "literature"
The Quick and Pithy of MY READING MIND...
Mr Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow
Bellow’s oeuvre has been a show of simmering rage just below a character’s surface. Perhaps a “personal recognition” of his own self? If not, then the observation of people in that world called America in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s … er, was there not a time when people weren’t furious at something or someone or some group? Anyway, this is Artur Sammler, whose peculiarity is having escaped the Holocaust (he won’t use survive, b/c “What did I survive?” – yes, good point).
I like Sammler. He should be appreciated by the reader, because he’s reasonable, if opinionated; caustic, if thoughtful. Bellow lets many of the others in the story play the fool we all know of our time. Zany characters they are: every one of them is bent, almost nuts. Sammler is sanity personified among such kind: the greedy, the depraved, the losers of intellectual ability.
Sound familiar?
-- Mark Beyer
author: “Max, the blind guy” and three other novels
Read samples on Amazon: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
Google Books: http://rb.gy/r89nk7
Kobo Books: http://rb.gy/cecwhw
#Readers #GoodRead #bookworm #goodbooks #booklover #libraries #literature #googlebooks #kobobooks #applebooks #kindle
Bellow’s oeuvre has been a show of simmering rage just below a character’s surface. Perhaps a “personal recognition” of his own self? If not, then the observation of people in that world called America in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s … er, was there not a time when people weren’t furious at something or someone or some group? Anyway, this is Artur Sammler, whose peculiarity is having escaped the Holocaust (he won’t use survive, b/c “What did I survive?” – yes, good point).
I like Sammler. He should be appreciated by the reader, because he’s reasonable, if opinionated; caustic, if thoughtful. Bellow lets many of the others in the story play the fool we all know of our time. Zany characters they are: every one of them is bent, almost nuts. Sammler is sanity personified among such kind: the greedy, the depraved, the losers of intellectual ability.
Sound familiar?
-- Mark Beyer
author: “Max, the blind guy” and three other novels
Read samples on Amazon: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
Google Books: http://rb.gy/r89nk7
Kobo Books: http://rb.gy/cecwhw
#Readers #GoodRead #bookworm #goodbooks #booklover #libraries #literature #googlebooks #kobobooks #applebooks #kindle
The Quick and Pithy of MY READING MIND... Post Office
"Post Office" by Charles Bukowski
Bukowski is crude in his writing; at least, the society he describes is permeated by "the crude", and also some of the crudest among Americans. In interviews, Bukowski seems to be one of the nicest, most mild-mannered gentlemen to swig from a beer can.
He wrote of life in the 1940s & '50s: crude, uneducated people.
He wrote of the late '60s: still crude people, perhaps cruder.
Is our perception of an educated America only that? Or had its softening, through higher education and bromide TV, come only in the late '70s or '80s & beyond? Or, was Bukowski showing us that segment of society few of us congenial sorts (!) ever see? We certainly don't go looking for that! Nor do we wish to fall to its level.
Take life in the L.A. postal system: working stiffs; uneducated sorts, who pick up, sort, load, carry, and deliver the mail. Who among us have ever thought of "the postman" as educated? If he were, he wouldn't be a postman. That's the spirit of the thought-not-made-verbal (except at home around the dinner table).
And perhaps all of this is Bukowski's point. Though his characterization of mail recipients shows that they are not such a fun bunch either. "Post Office" is an American story, well worth an afternoon's reading.
-- Mark Beyer
author of What Beauty and Max, the blind guy, and The Janitor: Or, Dostoevsky in America. To sample and buy: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
#ReadersWanted #GoodRead #bookworm #booklover #dostoevsky #artstory #bookshop #schoolshootings
Bukowski is crude in his writing; at least, the society he describes is permeated by "the crude", and also some of the crudest among Americans. In interviews, Bukowski seems to be one of the nicest, most mild-mannered gentlemen to swig from a beer can.
He wrote of life in the 1940s & '50s: crude, uneducated people.
He wrote of the late '60s: still crude people, perhaps cruder.
Is our perception of an educated America only that? Or had its softening, through higher education and bromide TV, come only in the late '70s or '80s & beyond? Or, was Bukowski showing us that segment of society few of us congenial sorts (!) ever see? We certainly don't go looking for that! Nor do we wish to fall to its level.
Take life in the L.A. postal system: working stiffs; uneducated sorts, who pick up, sort, load, carry, and deliver the mail. Who among us have ever thought of "the postman" as educated? If he were, he wouldn't be a postman. That's the spirit of the thought-not-made-verbal (except at home around the dinner table).
And perhaps all of this is Bukowski's point. Though his characterization of mail recipients shows that they are not such a fun bunch either. "Post Office" is an American story, well worth an afternoon's reading.
-- Mark Beyer
author of What Beauty and Max, the blind guy, and The Janitor: Or, Dostoevsky in America. To sample and buy: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
#ReadersWanted #GoodRead #bookworm #booklover #dostoevsky #artstory #bookshop #schoolshootings
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The Quick and Pithy of MY READING MIND…
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
A highly lively story, this little gem! Almost interactive, I think, because Alice talks to herself and insists that any story must have dialogue. Oddly enough, the colorful illustrations bring more to the story sometimes helps himself to give – DoDos and Eaglets, and that great big Puppy – not so well described for the sake of moving the story at a kid’s-attention-span pace.
This is a fast little story, and more like a game of 52-pickup. It’s no wonder people in the 1960s liked to read this story while high. Actually, perhaps this is the only way an adult can live-ily see the sense of this beautiful dream (kids get it instinctively; their sense of wonder hasn’t yet been weighed down by society).
Carroll’s story did not enchant me. I was, mostly, bored: whenever something was just into happening, Carroll pulled the plug by a) ending the conversation, or b) jumping to a new scene, or c) introducing a new character as though he needed a random change. Talk about being high.
-- Mark Beyer
author of “Max, the blind guy” and three other novels
Read samples on Amazon: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
Google Books: http://rb.gy/r89nk7
Kobo Books: http://rb.gy/cecwhw
#Readers #GoodRead #bookworm #goodbooks #booklover #novels #LewisCarroll #alice
#libraries #literature #googlebooks #kobobooks #applebooks #kindle
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
A highly lively story, this little gem! Almost interactive, I think, because Alice talks to herself and insists that any story must have dialogue. Oddly enough, the colorful illustrations bring more to the story sometimes helps himself to give – DoDos and Eaglets, and that great big Puppy – not so well described for the sake of moving the story at a kid’s-attention-span pace.
This is a fast little story, and more like a game of 52-pickup. It’s no wonder people in the 1960s liked to read this story while high. Actually, perhaps this is the only way an adult can live-ily see the sense of this beautiful dream (kids get it instinctively; their sense of wonder hasn’t yet been weighed down by society).
Carroll’s story did not enchant me. I was, mostly, bored: whenever something was just into happening, Carroll pulled the plug by a) ending the conversation, or b) jumping to a new scene, or c) introducing a new character as though he needed a random change. Talk about being high.
-- Mark Beyer
author of “Max, the blind guy” and three other novels
Read samples on Amazon: https://rb.gy/poyrsd
Google Books: http://rb.gy/r89nk7
Kobo Books: http://rb.gy/cecwhw
#Readers #GoodRead #bookworm #goodbooks #booklover #novels #LewisCarroll #alice
#libraries #literature #googlebooks #kobobooks #applebooks #kindle
Mark Beyer Reads and Writes
Here I'll give my opinions and recommendations (or not) of books I've recently read. I also write about writing novels and that craft. Enjoy!
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