[subsequent steps in a long, drawn-out process of speech production: mumbling in brain noise, vaguely religious, generic-yet-believable inference that connects some inexplicable reality, presumably something deep but incomprehensible, to the deepest innermost depths, the holy, sacred caves of consciousness, which is akin to the early 1950s, with the assistance of happy-twitching Allen Ginsberg]
The [Teeming] wrote a symphony of their own: a surprising and, yes, beautiful fusion of nocturna and sublime sorrow.
It was a tale of unbroken intensity, a somber lament in which the prophetic dead are heard again to tell the longed-for terrors of a lost time.
No cloven hooves this time; no claws, no horns, no hecatombs: in the spirit of the Styx, Eros, and Psyche, it speaks only a deafening lament that pierces all coarseness.
Once more the little wings, once again the little snout, once more the little door, once again the little head, once again the little feet, once again the little claws, once again the little feet, once again the little feet, once again the little feet: the winged creatures of the womb move quickly: the little bodies unfold more quickly: the great body devours the little wings.
The Conch-maker did dance: the tears of the little children did flow down into the embroidery of the [Teeming].”
Non-rhetorical question: Why is there so much anger at Elizabeth Warren at this specific moment? When I go on Facebook it’s like half of what I see. And it’s all criticism of her or her supporters in the abstract that isn’t explicitly tied to a specific recent event.
Obviously a number of relevant things have just happened — Super Tuesday, Warren dropping out, Warren stating she won’t endorse immediately. But relevant things are always happening. I didn’t see this much anger during the Warren/Bernie “feud” about female presidents, for example, which I would have thought was a bigger personal slight against Bernie than “not immediately endorsing him without hesitation.”
and then a few days later after Steven and I returned to school, our dad decided to change our schedule to get away from the rain so he could go running. “Go running” is not something people commonly say in the U.S., but I guess I’m used to it
For those who don’t know, EY is part of a long tradition of weird children’s authors like Roald Dahl and Olaf Stapledon:
“Hussie” : a snotty northern twig, 5'11" and 108 lbs. with curly black hair and an absent-minded recurring gait. He wore reading glasses and was described as having the “grimiest, crummiest face imaginable.”
[…]
[…]
the two-time Hugo and Nebula award winning author of two other award winning science fiction novels: the Awful Truth, which won the Hugo for Best Novel in 2000, and Green and Black, which won the Nebula in 2003. […]
I’m reading about this historical accident now. It’s gruesome and cruel and sad and full of hungry predators, like one of those scenes from a horror movie where a terrified young child runs screaming for her life from a giant beast that suddenly appears out of nowhere and devours her. The young girl is so tiny, so helpless, so vulnerable and the beast, chasing her, is so immense, towering over her. The child and the beast are both being eaten alive by a giant monster but the monster is too big for the girl to notice her troubles, it is too massive, gargantuan and tremendous. The beast is devouring her even though she is so tiny, it is devouring her even though she is so helpless, it is consuming her even though she is so tiny, etc. etc.
And the beast has a pair of eyes – one for the girl and one for the boy – so tiny that they cannot be seen even in the micro sense. And the beast is devouring her and her eyes are those of the girl and the boy, and the girl’s eyes are the eyes of the boy, and the boy and the girl are growing apart, they are being eaten alive, they are being eaten alive.
And it is a nightmare, a nightmare that consumes all of me, a nightmare that is consuming all of you.
boynovak asked: read all of tnc last night and i was so in love w the concepts of it... have u read house of leaves by mark z danielewski? it has similar energy although not the same thing exactly
Yeah, I’ve read House of Leaves. (I read it in 2010, so a long while before I wrote TNC. I’ve heard the two compared a number of times, and I do get why.)
I didn’t like House of Leaves much. It felt like the work of someone who really, really wanted to write a mind-blowing cosmic masterpiece but was much less interested in basic elements of fiction writing – writing a good sentence, creating interesting characters who are more than stereotypes, comedic and dramatic timing, pacing, dialogue.
Fiction doesn’t have to exercise all those basic muscles to be worth reading. There are reasons one might write deliberately flat characters, or deliberately awkward prose, or whatever. But in the case of HoL I felt like I was watching someone fail at the basics over and over again, conspicuously, while assuming I was going to be too wowed by the existence of this big, trippy, 700-page, evidently “masterpiece-shaped” artifact to notice or care that, huh, page 1 actually kind of sucks, and page 2 also kind of sucks, and page 3 kind of sucks, and page 4 kind of sucks, and …
