Rejected Books: the near future suuuuuucks

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I tried to read Prophet Song a couple months ago and could tell after a dozen pages I would not be rushing through it before the due date. So I returned it and put it back on hold. It's a Man Booker winner and the great new dystopia.

The Ministry of Time keeps getting lauded as a brilliant bit of science fiction and absolutely hilarious. Comparisons-to-Wodehouse levels of hilarity.

They showed up together at the library midsummer. Perfect timing.

I decided to tackle Ministry first since it was to be a light romp. I mean—when people are comparing you to Wodehouse, I'm expecting jokes on every page. I read over a hundred pages; no jokes. The novel's conceit is fun enough—doomed characters from history are brought to the present just before they would have died. They are assigned a modern person to live with, to help them acclimatize. Also, there's a question as to whether the universe will allow them to exist or not outside their original time.

Bradley has the good sense to not get too deep into the "science" but she seems to think her readers are idiots all the same. Either that or her narrator's an idiot. Every forty pages or so the narrator says something to "you" so I assume there's some reveal as to audience at some point, but whatever.

What The Ministry of Time is best at is revealing the dangers of writing in first person. Were this a third-person novel, a hefty percentage of my complaints would disappear.

But the biggest complaint is that I just could not care. I liked some of the characters but could not believe in their relationships. The world she was building made little sense. The rules the government made for the timetravelers were contradictory. What the characters learned and how they learned and why did not conform to normal human behaviors. If you give this to your Fox News-poisoned uncle, he will find lots of wokeness muddying the narrative and I kinda have to agree. Some elements felt more like a early-2020s-concerns checklist than good fiction. I decided not to take the book with me to Comic-Con and twenty-three hours after our return I found this book, I had completely forgotten I was reading it.

The book I did take was Prophet's Song and I took it entirely because I thought having it as my only book would force me to read it. Not so.

The first issue is the lack of paragraphing and punctuated dialogue. Why? I can see no valid artistic excuse for it. Now, Blindness's lack of paragraphing and punctuation makes sense. It deepens the reader's identification with the people of the novel as they struggle to navigate their world, now that they've lost their ability to see. We feel the same.

(The fact that José Saramago often does this and not just in Blindness, makes me wonder how intentional this effect was, but still.)

What's the point in Prophet Song? I've been able to come up with some reasons I could back up if I were a high-school debater, but let's be honest: they're all b***s***. There is no reason.

Also, I know I only got fifty pages in, but this feels like a dystopia by a guy who hasn't read any. No, that's not right. It reads like a dystopia written by a guy who thinks he's the only one who actually understood Nineteen Eighty-Four and wants to make sure the people of today get access to all the neat ideas in that old thing. That's what it feels like.

Stuff gets explained in lengthy exposition that I understood by the end of page two. This won the Man Booker??? Do the Man Booker judges need someone to explain Orwell to them??

Anyway, reviewers say it ends powerfully but I can't be bothered to get to the end and find out it's as powerful as Ministry of Time is Wodehousian. Or as Ministry of Time is horny/sexy which multiple reviewers have claimed. It's about as horny as a flashing red arrow pointing at waistlevel in an empty subway car.

Good for these writers putting out books that have earned praise.

But ye gods am I depressed.

SDCC 2024: Mormons Who Are Making Comics

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As I just announced on the AML blog, I’ll be appearing at the comic con this weekend. (Or, if you’re arriving here after the presentation I’m doing with Trevor Alvord, Camilla Stark, and Matt Page, I did appear there and now you’re appearing here and aren’t we all having a terrific time!)

As this post goes live, the following link will be empty, but before we begin our presentation, you will find there a copy thereof in Powerpoint, pdf, and gif formats. So you can follow along from home or recreate the experience from the comfort of your hotel’s hot tub after the fact.

I felt this was necessary because people are gonna want access to Matt and Camilla’s links (and perhaps they will want to submit to Irreantum) and I want to make that as easy for them as possible.

Well. Click over and look at those slides, of course!

Numbers 70 through 75

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Diving into genre today: science fiction, historical romance, mystery, food writing, criticism, nostalgia—All the greats. Let's dive in.

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070) Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth by A. O. Scott, finished June 17

I heard about this book when it came out in 2016—on Fresh Air, maybe—and was intrigued so when it came up in a recent search for another book, I grabbed it.

I'm shocked I read the whole thing, to be honest. I read about half in one sitting, alone in an empty football stadium, waiting for a high-school graduation to begin. So that got me some momentum. I thought after that I might skim the rest, reading in full the Q&A portions only. But then last night I was on a long train ride and running out of things to read so I just kept going. And now it's finished.

It's astonishing how he manages to say the same things over and over again without ever repeating himself for 268 pages. His main rhetorical device is to contradict the last thing he said and then to argue that both both are true and neither. Honestly, it's kind of a drag. But he keeps finding new ways to say the same thing (and then to once again disagree with himself) and, somehow, sure enough: I read all 268 pages.

Who is this book for? That's a fabulous question. But I suppose we are an educated people and all of us are critics, so everybody? But really. Who finds criticism a vocation? But few of us. So I guess it's a number actually much closer to nobody.

And thus you see what he has done to me.

thirteen days

 

071) Alice, Let's Eat by Calvin Trillin, finished June 20

I first read this book in 2000 on the recommendation of my cousin the Spook. Lady Steed and I were living with him and his wife before we found our first apartment. It was an excellent recommendation. I've read Trillin since (mostly in The New Yorker but also here) but this is my first return to that first beloved taste.

(This is the edition I read this time, from 1979.)

Anyway, it's still utterly delightful. Good food and a good marriage. Really. What else could one possibly ask of life?

I should add this is the perfect keep-in-the-car book. Easy to dip into and out of as you wait for someone. Ideal.

some months

072) My Lovely Vigil Keeping by Carla Kelly, finished June 21

I've been hearing about Carla Kelly for some time, and this book in particular. When I finally purchased it, I accidentally sent it to my mother who read it and loved it. Then I got it back, then I kept losing it or letting library books interrupt it. It was never my "walking book" or my "bedside book" or one of those categories that get constant progress, but it was a patient book and its characters and situations are so clear and so real that it was never hard to pick up where I left off.

If you know but one thing about this book, it's probably the historical event it's inspired by. But that event doesn't occur until more than 400 pages into a 431-page novel. In other words, while I recommend reading the book, I do not recommend reading the back of the book before you begin. Live your life unknowing just as the people in the book do.

Our hero is Della, sort of a reverse orphan-who-is-secretly-a-princess. Which is to say she is the illegitimate daughter of a miner and a Greek woman (who would barely count as white at the time—if she did at all) who left her an orphan with embarrassingly curly hair. She is raised by rich relations and so the world thinks she is a child of privilege who does things like go to school and get a job our of some peculiar eccentricity, rather than desperate need.

Besides her economic needs, the cruel neglect causes her to run back to the mines, taking a job as a schoolteacher for miners' children need in the Utah mountains. This is a romance and options abound for Della, but only one man can help her excavate her buried shames in order to find her own wonderful self.

It's a lovely, fun, and funny book, and it had me teary-eyed for the entire finale. I now understand the book's lofty reputation and encourage you too to seek it out.

about a year, probably more

073) Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre, finished July 9

I picked this up on Ursula's recommendation and because I was intrigued by a character whose gender is never identified by the text. The lack of gendered pronouns is smoothly done and if she hadn't pointed it out, I doubt I would have noticed.

The novel is episodic in nature and occasionally drops in plot points only to abandon them and leave you feeling a bit wondering why they even showed up (the cat in the cave, for instance), but the story overall is enjoyable and exciting and Snake is an excellent protagonist. (In short, I agree with OSC.) The sex wasn't as wild and frequent as Ursula led me to expect. I've never quite adopted the opinion that it's theoretically possible to develop a culture with utterly casual attitudes toward sex (and although I can't find them now, I've read several articles recently about the attitude toward sex in Gen Z tending to agree), but it's still a valuable possibility for fiction to consider.

Anyway, it won the Nebula AND the Hugo AND the Locus and while that kind of surprises me and seems like a relic of his era, the book HAS aged well all the same and I enjoyed reading it. It's out of print though and largely gone from libraries almost fifty years on from its hardback release, so good luck finding one. Crazy no one's leapt on its publication rights.

more than two weeks

 

074) The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne, finished July 11

I picked this up on Raymond Chandler's "recommendation" and am quite glad I did. The sleuth and his pal are cheery company (not for nothing does this edition quote Wodehouse saying, "I love his writing") and, while I too notched a couple of Chandler's complaints, my only real problem with the story (treating it as airy entertainment rather than literahtoor) was the penultimate chapter in which the culprit writes a lengthy confession. (Which reminds me: Chandler gives the whole thing away. Luckily, enough time passed before I read the novel myself that I had forgotten everything.)

The novel is such that the leaps made by the sleuth delight while the larger pieces of the puzzle fall into place without requiring his explaining them to us. It's that kind of mystery.

about three days

075) Best. Movie. Year. Ever. How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery, finished July 16

Another book I grabbed from the library intending to skim, reading about the movies that most interested me (you can see what he covers here), then returning mostly unread, but I started it postlibrary, sitting in the park while my daughter swung, and then I just kept going.

I should start by rolling my eyes at the let's-sell-books-with-controversy title. While I think Raferty believes the claim, he hardly proves it. Almost every reason he gives he contradicts elsewhere in the book or simply fails to hold up under consideration. The most persuasive version of his best-ever claim is in an interview he did with producer Brad Simpson: "I thought it was the beginning, but it was actually the peak." Granted, without all the other quotations and movie titles surrounding it, less persuasive. But yeah. Maybe it was. Who knows. As writer Richard Curtis said, " Madrigals were huge in the fifteenth century."

Both those quotations get to what's really great about this book though and that is the numerous and voluminous interviews Raftery did with people involved with every element of filmmaking. It's fabulous. As a series of oral histories of movies that were made in 1999, this book is truly excellent. But I guess Some Cool Movies from 1999 wasn't going to move as much copy.

Anyway, it's a terrific book. If it didn't waste the occasional work trying to justify it's title, I might not have any complaints at all. If you're into this stuff, consider Best. Movie. Year. Ever. highly recommended. Even with that title

almost exactly a week to the hour

PREVIOUSLY THIS YEAR

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 2024 × 10 = Bette Davis being Bette Davis

001) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 1
002) The Complete Peanuts: 1977 – 1978 by Charles M. Schulz , finished January 6
003) The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman et al, finished January 10
004) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 17
005) Touched by Walter Mosley, finished January 19
006) Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer, finished January 20
007) Evergreen Ape: The Story of Bigfoot by David Norman Lewis, finished January 24
008) What Falls Away by Karin Anderson, finished February 1
009) Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others by Charles M. Schulz, finished February 3
010) Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished February 3

 A few of my favorite things

011) Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, finished February 3
012) The Return of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, February 9
013) Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke, February 10
014) A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schulz by Stephen J. Lind, finished February 10
015) 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Joseph M. Spencer, finished February 10
016) Dendo by Brittany Long Olsen, finished February 11
017) The Ten Winners of the 2023 Whiting Awards, finished February 12
018) The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life edited by Andrew Blaune, finished February 17
019) Do Not Disturb Any Further by John Callahan, finished February 17
020) Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke, finished circa February 19
021) 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Terryl Givens, February 24

 

Let's start with the untimely deaths

022) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished February 28
022) Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke, finished February 29
023) Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, finished March 4
024) Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay, finished March
025, 026) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished March 6, 8
027) Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, finished March 11
028) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
029) The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett and Paul Kidby, finished March 15
030) Karen's Roller Skates by Ann M. Martin and Katy Farina, finished March 18

 

Four comics could hardly be more different

031) The Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman et al, finished March 18
032) The World of Edena by Mœbius, finished March 23
033) Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith, finished March 23
034) Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished March 23

 

Jacob says be nice and read comics

035) Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction by Deidre Nicole Green, finished March 24
036) Starter Villain by John Scalzi, finished March 27
037) Mister Invincible: Local Hero by Pascal Jousselin, finished March 30
038) The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, finished March 30
039) Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh, finished April 1
040) The Super Hero's Journey by Patrick McDonnell, finished April 5  

 

Eleven books closer to death

041) The Stranger Beside Me: Updated Twentieth Anniversary Edition by Ann Rule, finished April 9
042) Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy, finished April 13
043) Enos, Jarom, Omni: a brief theological introduction by Sharon J. Harris, finished April 25
044) The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson, finished April 27 
045,046,049) The Mysteries by Bill Watterson and John Kascht, finished April 29, 30; May 3
047) The Children's Bach by Helen Garner, finished April 30
048) No. 1 with a Bullet by Sehman/Corona/Hickman/Wands, finished May 2
050) Over Seventy by P. G. Wodehouse, finished May 7
051) The Happy Shop by Brittany Long Olsen, finished May 16
052) Shades of Fear, finished May 21
053) Love Poems in Quarantine by Sarah Ruhl, finished May 21

 

And a vibrator makes it five dozen.....

054) The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, finished May 25
055) Mosiah: A Brief Theological Introduction by James E. Faulconer, finished May 26
056) Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirstin Bakis
057) 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 1
058) Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder, finished June 4
059) Dead Man's Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 6
060) The Next Room, or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 8

 

And with Ursula, 69

061) The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty, finished June 10
062) Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham, finished June 11
063) Mulysses by Øyvind Torseter, finished June 11
064) Between the River and the Bridge by Craig Ferguson, finished June 12
065) Cranky Chicken by Katherine Battersby, finished June 12
066) Mile End Kids Stories by Isabelle Arsenault, finished June 12
067) Tiny Titans: Field Trippin' by author, finished June 14
068) Brief Theological Introductions: Alma 1–29 by Kylie Nielson Turley, finished June 16
069) Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin, finished June 16

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

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Do you remember back when it was likely that none of your friends had seen your favorite short film? Even deep into the YouTube era, it was unlikely that you would get to share with someone your love of “Rejected“ or “Six Shooter“ or “Peluca“ unless they had the same obscure (possibly semi-legal) dvd (or, a few years earlier, when it was, say, Bill Plympton, vhs). Those movies weren’t even old. Just . . . how were you supposed to watch them?

All of which is to say, hallelujah, you can go to YouTube right now and watch “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody” in the way we couldn’t’ve when it was filmed. So do it. Please. Even though the quality is, as the kids say, mid.

Did you notice how it’s basically in realtime? Pretty neat.

Anyway, I love this movie. I think about it pretty regularly. It’s simple. It’s provocative. “Provocative” in the sense that it “provokes” you to think. I should know. I’ve shown it to hundreds of students. It’s provocative.

And it’s about heartbreak. Which is what we’re about this month, right?

Let’s talk about the characters in this film. I’ll refer to them by actor’s name since the characters don’t get names. And we’ll discuss how each one shows off a different kind of heartbreakage.

You’ve watched the movie by now, right?

Okay. Let’s go.

 

MIRANDA JULY

Miranda July wrote this film while shooting Me and You and Everyone We Know, and when there was a break in the action on that set, she took a few people to spend, I don’t know, an hour? to shoot this.¹ She also plays the person to first take the survey.

The question throws her at first, but once she has an answer, she’s delighted to share it: “I am,” she says, as bold as Jehovah himself. And whose favorite person is she? Her ex-girlfriend’s. Miranda’s so happy! She’s “very confident”!

Until that very confidence is questioned, and eventually downgraded to “You think so.” Which she then gives a cheerful “Yeah!” to but, as she walks away, arms crossed, she’s no long the proud god of favorites proclaiming I AM. She’s merely someone who thinks so. Time has passed. Love has become exlove. And if she is her ex’s favorite person, how long can it possibly last?

Miranda shows us that the intimacy of being favorite is fleeting. And possibly never even was, outside of our own ego.

 

MIKE WHITE

Mike White has such a distinctive voice. If he was a radio man, doing guest stints on The Baby Snooks Show and Fibber McGee and Molly, I’m not sure we could know it any better. At this point, I’d only seen him in School of Rock and Orange County,² but I knew his weary eyes and crackling voice. Something about that voice of his is just so vulnerable. Hopeful and hopeless, all at once. And when he takes off his chunky headphones to answer this question—

Incidentally, Mike White is not credited as having done anything for Me and You and Everyone We Know. Which feels appropriate.

Mike, like Miranda, has someone in his life that could be called “girlfriend.” No ex prefix for him, but he is very certain that he is no one’s—including his girlfriend’s—favorite person. The surveyor cannot dissuade him from certainty. No matter how worriedly he doublechecks.

Now, as he told Miranda, “some very prominent people are not anyone’s favorite,” but someone as vulnerable-voiced as Mike White being satisfied with not being anyone’s favorite person breaks our hearts, and we have to believe his must break as well. Don’t let us be sad for you, Mike! Sure, maybe she’s really close to her mother, but you might be her favorite! Ask her! and if not today, surely someday!

There’s something about taking breakfast fruit for your girlfriend that makes us imagine their relationship is far enough along they live together, they serious conversations about the future, they are . . . each other’s favorite person.

But he’s not her favorite. And even if he really truly is okay with that, our heart breaks for him. Because, me and you, we do not want that for ourselves.

 

CHUY CHÁVEZ

Chuy Chávez was Me and You and Everyone You Know’s cinematographer; he hasn’t done a lot of acting (and he’s directed photography on every movie he’s acted in). Based on his bag’s nicely padded shoulder strap, he may be off to take direct some photography right now. And he doesn’t have time for this nonsense. Even if he’s not sure what sort of nonsense it is. Yes, he doesn’t quite understand and, no, he’s not about to take the time to understand. This is not his native culture and trying to figure out the angle of this weird guy standing there, holding papers, asking random questions? Not worth it.

Chuy’s a guy who’s been put in awkward situation after awkward situation, perhaps for his entire American life. Even if you seem nice, he can’t take the chance. He’s been burned before.

 

JOHN C. REILLY

Who is this guy?³ What does he want? Why is he asking this question? Is he his wife’s favorite person? Is she his? He’s standing on a narrow residential street. Not the best place to ask as many people as possible (though pedestrians do keep walking past, perfectly spaced, three per four minutes). At film’s end, the way he looks off. . . . What the heck is he doing? What is he hoping for? What’s it all about?

This survey is not scientifically built. This is not how it’s done. The guy’s an amateur. Both in the nonprofessional sense but also, maybe, in the just-for-the-love-of-it sense. He just wants to know. Why he wants to know or, once he does know, what he’ll do with his results are impossible to discern. He watches Chuy walk off and, what? What then? I suppose he’ll wait for someone else.

He only gives oranges to the fellow who is confident he is no one’s favorite. Take three. You’d be doing us a favor. But what is he doing? What is he hoping to accomplish? Does he have any purpose in this world? What meaning does he hope this stupid quest will provide him? Couldn’t he get more joy just giving oranges to strangers? Do gifted oranges become any more significant when you give them to the unfavorited? Is this supposed to be making you happy, John? Are you delusional?

 

YOU, THE VIEWER

As I mentioned up-top, I’ve shows this film to hundreds of students. Sometimes I let them talk to their neighbors about it. Sometimes we talk about it as a class. Sometimes I ask them to write about it. Or perhaps about their own favorite person. Or whether they are anyone’s favorite person. Or whether that matters. Or what it means about yourself, to be confident that you are (or are not).

Those latter questions are, perhaps, unkind to spring on teenagers. They’re upset enough about poor Mike White who is not his girlfriend’s favorite person (my comment about her mother makes sense to them but is not comforting). It’s so much easier to feel for Mike, than to look inward. It’s easier to grapple with whether it’s okay to laugh at Miranda. Or to sympathize with Chuy. Or wonder what John’s deal is. Than to look at your own relationships and wonder if it’s okay, today, to (perhaps) not be the favorite person of anyone.

So is this our goal in life? Just to be someone else’s favorite? And if so, what if we fail? Or what if they move on to another favorite? Who am I if I am not your favorite person? What’s it all about?

Do you want an orange?

 

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[1] Dir. Miguel Arteta, who gets a “very special thinks” in the concurrent feature’s credits.

[2] Well, and Swingers, but I think we could survey you and me and everyone we know without finding a single person who remembers seeing him in Swingers.

[3] He’s not in Me and You, I can tell you that much.