Ryan Berger > Recent Status Updates

"Trying to be" - Decided to give Gaitskill one more chance on a sick day and I'm glad I did. This was very good, hit close to home for something I've been feeling often in this first year living in NYC.

Kinda sucks :/

This is fun because it’s taking me back to undergrad. This is depressing because it’s taking me back to undergrad.

Either way a very well constructed history of Mass Comms so far. This part is good. But also not elegantly written FWIW. I expect a dip the closer we get to present day.

Not that anyone will care but now having read the book, that Guillermo del toro adaptation was (for whatever else it was) one of the most unfaithful adaptations I can recall seeing. Such a far cry from the original tone and texture.

Dance in America - MAGNIFICENT!!!! Finally some fucking nourishment. Can't even describe how much I not only loved it, but how it was a breath of fresh air after sitting through Mary "mid" Gaitskil.

"Connection" - Every story in this collection makes me so bored, so annoyed, so ready to form A Take, and then there's something mildly interesting I find that pokes through and prevents me from DNFing the whole thing (Lethem has sung the praises of Gaitskill multiple times and I just don't see why). As mid as it gets.

I'm very annoying and dismissive of literary adaptations but I can't get it out of my head that if somebody turned this into an HBO miniseries, it would be a runaway phenomenon.

I wish this surprised me more but it's playing out exactly as I'd expect it to as I hit the halfway mark.

"An Affair, Edited" - A story, I guess, about weak women and how people in college seem annoying the moment you leave.

Every story continues to be at my personal Mendoza Line for fiction

I know Borges is not the first to do this, but it's fascinating to listen to a great poet as scientist. So far almost every poem has alluded to light as it is literally and emotionally felt-- both in all the great nostalgic/beautiful ways and also the literal truth of light arriving from distant galaxies to illuminate our cul de sacs. Superb!

"A Romantic Weekend" - Exciting premise (two people who consider themselves masochists disappoint each other), but something still leaves me cold. Fascinating choice to allow both characters' internal monologues.

"Something Nice" - Reminded me, of all authors, of Chekhov. A lot of this collection so far has been about erotic/romantic fact vs fiction, this one brings it right to the foreground. Best yet but still eh

Hm. I have a take brewing.

I have been coming back to this reading all over the place and I think I'm REALLY ready for it now and having so much fun. Love a Barthelme story like nothing else.

"And certainly, when the power of God shows up in your swing, and the people start to notice, you could always stop swinging, or at least swing worse: That'll get them off your back, won't it? But you won't do that now, will you. If you were that sort of power wouldn't have shown up in the first place."

My GOD this book is so good and I'm a month behind for no reason other than laziness.

It's fucking April!

Amazing but scary and demoralizing in that "I will never, ever be this good a writer if I had 100 years to practice" sort of way

Had this thought while reading one of Gallant's short stories and again here that not only is "show don't tell" one of the most misunderstood pieces of advice in all of storytelling-- but I'll take it a step further and say what we call "telling" (which is already tricky because ask 10 people-- get 10 definitions of what "telling" is in fiction), when done well, is as good as prose gets.

Reading this for the McNalley Jackson's "Reading for Craft" book club-- the first book club I'll partake in since swearing them off about four~ years ago.

"Vibrant in swords and in passion
and asleep in the ivy,
only life exists."

RTC gonna write about this on substack to gain the attention of someone who does not care if I live or die

Squandering a killer premise so far

Who up Beholding They Man ?

[overheated Southern Belle voice] I got the Troubles! (Sorry, trying to delete)

Hmm. No, no I don't think that's true.

Wanted to cram this because I'd heard that Science Fiction as a literary form turns 100 years old in April, but now I have at least three conflicting dates as to when that was. So!

"The Ice Wagon Goes Down The Street" - I would not say that I haven't read anything fantastic lately (far from it!) but this reminded me it's been a while since I have been reading with a gigantic smile on my face. I was hooting and hollering the whole time. A MAGNIFICENT story.

Buy this for your dad for Christmas. You can direct him to me if he doesn't like it. But he will.

Already one of the best craft books on writing ever ever ever ever ever.

I set this down for almost a complete year. I desperately need it now. I have completely lost my reviewing mojo. I'm piling up RTC's. Hoping this will shock my system.

Reading Clute is a pleasure. I don't even think it's hyperbole to say he's probably the best book reviewer alive. What a privilege to have had him cover SFF for so long. Need more of his ilk in the genre space-- someone who takes the work seriously.

This is turning out to be the single biggest disappointment in my journey through SF's landmark works. Dud after dud after dud after dud. Very few bright spots.

Do I, a 30-year-old man, have menopause?