Out Spoiling Horses

[dirtworship]

I liked this one.


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Fnord

[morgan]

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, yet, but I enjoyed reading it.

[dirtworship]

I fear a "nothing happened" reaction from folks.
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Fnord

[JCarson]

Perhaps it's because it's directly following Chabon (A twofer for me, as I decided to finally conquer Kavalier and Clay after Yiddish Policemen), but I found myself bored a great deal of the time with this.

The day after I finished the book, someone asked me what I thought, and I replied with, "It's like listening to a story my grandpa's telling me. It might be an interesting story, but it takes forty-five minutes to tell me he went to the store."

[Carter]

[Carter]

For a high-school creative writing class I tried to write a similarly introspective, loosely auto-biographical story about the emotional black hole that is created when a person whose life is overly focused on athletics suffers a devastating injury that brings down not only themselves but their entire team. It went over like a turd in the punchbowl. My lack of writing skills was partly to blame, but I vowed never again to write a story that takes place mainly inside my own head.

Well, at the time I think I was only able to articulate it as "That fucking sucked".

[morgan]

Was it about your kickball injury last summer? If it makes any difference, losing you didn't really bring the team down all that much.

[Carter]

[elihoughton]

[elihoughton]

[JeffKamin]

great thread. just finished.

I agree with all these sentiments, good and bad. I liked it, but it did feel longer than its actual length. It does seem like a long short story in which not a lot happens. A lot of life changing events do occur an affair, a divorce, a war, an accidental killing of a brother, a young man comes of age, a family dies accidentally leaving an old man preparing to die quietly and alone. I think it's one that may reveal itself over time and stick with us. It's quiet and introspective and I like what Carter wrote about revealing something about the reader, ourselves. More soon. Keep writing. I think this will need defenders and people to tell others what they missed.


but HEY, our kickball team was not the barrel's bottom:

[/quote] The bottom of the barrel is, after all, the bottom.[/quote]

[Beth]

I felt like the introspective style made this novel more poignant. As Jeff pointed out, there are actually quite a few major life drama events that occur between the covers of this book. I think the "nothing happened" feeling comes from two factors:

1) Nontraditional plot structure - I think we could have an interesting conversation about what the climactic moment of this story might be. There seem to be several pivotal moments that could each be viewed as the climax for various reasons, and the events don't seem to be easily broken down into a three-act structure the way most books and movies can.

2) The events felt hazy and slightly intangible to me, as though tempered by time. To me, that's a pretty intriguing effect to pull off and seems more true to life than a more typical narrative style would have been. I agree with the comparison to a grandparent telling a story, but for me the connection is that sometimes a grandparent will talk about a shocking event from the past in an startlingly nonchalant tone of voice. The drama is still drama, but it's no longer immediate. There's been a whole lot of time to erode some of the sharp edges from those experiences; those edges would make the story more gripping, but if we're being honest, that's not the way this character would tell the story.

I think there's a lot of beauty in the subtlety of this book.

[dirtworship]

I'm with Beth.

Maybe the sharp edges had been dulled with time. But after a number of dulled pivotal moments, I felt I had been missing something quite pointed. Like he (and she, the translator) had lulled me into letting some yet more subdued climaxes sneak by.

Flipping back through it, the dad's affair seemed more direct and certain. I first gave the log moving scene to the boy, not the cuckold. And even from the beginning, most all the characters knew. Jon wouldn't come in.

For example.

This was a grandparent story I felt a need to give time to. A grandparent who usually got down to brass tacks eventually. And more than that, has come to a place I wish to be, when I get there.
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Fnord

[JeffKamin]

People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. (73)

[JeffKamin]

From last night's quiz:

Q: Janteloven, the Norwegian “code of conduct,” recommends what?

You shall not believe that anyone cares about you

I still can't get over this. Love it. Charlie Brown.