Jack’s Comments (group member since Feb 12, 2012)

Jack’s comments from the KC /int/ Book Club group.

Assuming that we are all well versed in literature, how is our own writing? Something that I feel has helped me over the years is flash fiction and the "mini-saga". These short pieces are great for writing, and are always fun to share.

A mini-saga is a story of 50 words exactly. Not 49 or 51, but 50. With some discipline and creativity, you can say a lot in 50 words. Seeing as we all fetishise Ordnung, this is an exercise that fulfills that feel. Here is an opening example from me:


In the deep, tranquil vastness of the open universe there hangs a curious object - vestige of a forgotten people.
A lone Cosmonaut entombed in his celestial womb dances among stars and nebulae.
To a spherical orb descending.
Thawed.
Awakened.
A deity to be venerated. Arrival of a seraphic form.

So has anyone finished it or has it all gone to fug?

For the next book, I suggest we only read epub books after we've successfully found them, that way we can all read it.

I've started by reading the short story itself, then weaving in and out of the others.

My edition (Penguin, 1986) also came with "The Gold of the Tigers: Selected Later Poems". Some fantastic ones in there such as this one which could be our (albeit extended) group motto:

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My books (which do not know that I exist)
are as much part of me as is this face,
the temples gone to grey and the eyes grey,
the face I vainly look for in the mirror,
tracing its outline with a concave hand.
Not without understandable bitterness,
I feel now that the quintessential words
expressing me are in those very pages
which do no know me, not in those I have written.
It is better so. The voices of the dead
will speak to me for ever.

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That feel.

Everyone should read Riddley Walker, Expanded Edition for it is a perfect take on what is going to happen when shit hits the fan. The detail behind the words, character names and places are so well crafted, the story sends you to different places (in your mind of course)

Muutant wrote: "I previously suggested The Crying of lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

It's under 200 pages and pretty dense for it's size, so there will be a lot to discuss. Not to mention it's a great entry point for P..."

Why don't we just read Gravity's Rainbow and get it over with. It's the only good Pynchon book.

My suggestions go for the following:

Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities - Herman Melville
The Long Day Wanes - Anthony Burgess

All are pretty deep reads, excellent and different in their own specific ways.