cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Faith in the Rabble Over the last few nights I've gotten a few more chapters into 'The Sun Also Rises.' It is improving in the second section. I must admit that I am somewhat baffled by a great deal of modern fiction. I mean this in the sense that I am surprised that so very many millions of readers have the patience to read an entire novel that is just about some people doing fairly ordinary stuff. Take 'The Sun Also Rises.' A little group of people with these sort of aimless lives and typical personal struggles that you can plainly see literally everywhere in real life. It's really not a very compelling story. The charm of the book is mostly Hemingway's ability to very quickly sketch out a landscape with sparse use of language that nonetheless creates a very vivid mental image of the scene. Now I do not mean to diminish the value of this. I'm not saying that I think this type of literature is worthless. Just that I am surprised that there is such a large portion of humanity that finds this interesting enough to bother reading. It gives me a new measure of faith in the rabble. Moreover, it makes me wonder if it would be worth writing a novel after all. Everything I've been interested in writing thus far has been nonfiction. If people are so easily satisfied with books about nothing then maybe it's worth taking a crack at. ________________________________________ Trish has gotten glasses for reading and they make her look particularly clever. I asked her to put them on the other night while I fucked her, in order that I might have the experience of fucking an especially clever-looking woman. The results were pleasing. She has gotten quite professional about her smut. She writes Harry Potter slash, which is fan fiction involving gay sex. There's a whole universe of people writing this and reading it and they break out into an array of factions which make communism look like a tea party. Every possible pairing of characters has it's own little world of writers and communities and discussion groups. The sheer volume of literature that these people are producing is astounding. It takes up an incredible amount of her time. First she has to keep up with reading it. Every day people are posting new stories and as an active member of this strange world she is expected to give her 2 cents about it. Then she has all sorts of deadlines for getting her own stuff done, so she's writing a great deal. And on top of that there is a whole online social scene related to this that she is a part of. Chat groups and boards and voice chats and so on. Plus her personal Livejournal to write and maintain. I have never read any of the Harry Potter books. I thought that I probably would but now I don't ever see it happening. Every day I am bombarded with Harry Potter shit the minute I walk through the door. I hear so much about 'Harry Potter this' and 'Hogwarts that.' It has sapped me of all desire to ever read the books. Not that I resent Trish's hobby. Not at all. I'm glad to see that she has a successful creative outlet. She has no idea that this diary exists. I've been writing this and my previous diary here under a different pseudonym for probably at least 6 or 7 years now. Mountains of writing. Enough to fill several books. Not that any more than 5% or so would be worth putting in a book. _________________________________________ The deer are hard to find this time of year. I need to find one and shoot it to keep everyone properly fed. But the forage on my property is all long since eaten so they don't have much reason to come here. It won't grow back until spring. The rut is long over and deer aren't congregating in large groups in the open like they were a few months ago. They are wary and shy again. I go out for about 20 minutes before dark every night after work. When I manage to get home in time. I sit and I wait and I watch and I listen while my fingers go numb. There's a rabbit that darts down a little trail beside me 15 minutes before sunset every day. The same flock of sparrows that flutter and play in the bushes. Sometimes one will zip straight down towards me and perch on the barbed wire fence a few feet away. Cocks his head, looks at me and then zips away. I've learned when to be interested in rustling of dry leaves and when not to be. When I hear rustling footstep sounds that start close by, it is to be ignored. That is a squirrel. The sound started close by because the squirrel hopped off of a tree and onto the forest floor where he is poking around for nuts. Wheras a deer cannot climb trees and cannot suddenly materialize out of nowhere and start taking steps through dry leaves. It can only be a deer if the rustling starts farther away and then comes closer. There's never nothing happening in the woods and field edges. If you stand there and watch and you think that nothing is happening then you probably haven't learned how to pay attention. I will not attempt to argue that what is happening is any more interesting than, say, the lives of a bunch of Lost Generation ex-patriots getting drunk in Paris. But there is in fact something happening. 11:46 - 2008-02-22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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