Yep
Good post today by Kara Lennox over at Romancing the Blog. Do ya feel successful, punk? Well, do ya?
You want me to read what?!
In case you haven't heard, Oprah's back. The book club will once again be featuring contemporary authors. Oh frabjous day, calloo callay! My turn is surely right around the corner (cough, snort, snicker).
Apparently, Faulkner failed to pull in the readers the way contemporary novels have in the past: “While sales soared for some of her classic picks, like ‘East of Eden' by John Steinbeck, others did not reach expectations, most notably this summer's selection of three novels by William Faulkner. “
Uh, ya think? As I Lay Dying is about a corpse which gets nastier and nastier as the family tries to get to town to bury it. The Sound and the Fury is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. Light in August is the most straight-forward novel of the three and it spends an inordinate amount of time on a self-absorbed preacher and his inability to get over an incident that happened before he was born.
Really, in spite of my sarcasm, I love Faulkner. As I Lay Dying is my least favorite, probably. The mother is the most selfish creature and the father isn't any better. Irritating group of people, though the Christ imagery is well done throughout the novel.
TSATF is greatness indeed, idiot or not. The part about clocks slaying time is so good. Quentin Compson's section is probably my favorite. Poor kid. But, Light in August, in spite of the preacher, is a tour de force novel about race relations and not belonging. Joe Christmas is compelling. His story is sad and inevitable and unfair, but you see it coming anyway. This novel should be required reading for everyone.
I'm glad Oprah chose those novels, even if sales weren't brisk. People who might never have otherwise read them picked them up and tried. Surely, more than a few made it to the end. I probably only got through them when I did because they were assigned reading for class. One of the good things about lit classes is being forced to read novels you wouldn't otherwise. Ha!
My favorite Faulkner, however, is Absalom! Absalom! I'd have never finished it if not for the fact I had a grade riding on it, but am I ever glad I did. I've read that this novel is his most difficult and complex. I'd have to agree. It doesn't have the obvious difficulty of Benjy Compson's opening section to TSATF, but it's a story within a story within a story. Getting to the truth is ultimately the reader's responsibility. The novel demands a lot, but it's well worth it.
I never kept up with Oprah's picks, but I know I've read a few of them. I probably have a few more on my shelves. I even have the Franzen, though I think he's a snot. I didn't spend money on it, though. Someone gave it to me. Even if he's a brilliant writer (I don't know since I haven't read him yet), he didn't have to be so damn elitist about being chosen. Definitely a turn off, and insulting to his fellow writers. Really, is Toni Morrison low-brow? I don't think so.
Wine, Writing, and Life
It's been a busy week! Two of my writer pals and I went to dinner last night to celebrate our birthdays. Shauna is the 16th, I'm the 18th, and Leslee is the 20th. We decided to cancel the Wednesday meeting at Borders and head for dinner instead. Shauna found a place called Formaggio Wine and Cheese Bar. It's a hidden treasure, so far off the beaten path that even people who've lived in Hawaii for 20+ years (like Leslee and Shauna) had trouble finding it.
The atmosphere is like being in a European tasting cellar. It's a small, dark place with good food and excellent wines that you can order by the taste (2 oz) or the glass (6 oz). A man with a grey, braided beard played classical guitar at one end of the room. I didn't count the tables, but they were all taken. It's not a dinner place so much as a tapas and wine tasting place. People swirled and sniffed and chewed their wine. I loved it. I'm a wanna-be wine snob. I know what I like and I know how to swirl, sniff, and chew, but other than strong flavors like oak or cherry or blackberry, I can't breakdown all the nuances of a wine. I don't know the origin by taste, and I can't give you the history of the vineyard in question. I wish I could.
First, I ordered a taste of a Petite Syrah. Can't remember what year or vineyard or country. Bad wine snob, bad. Next, I ordered a glass of a California Cabernet, 2001. I had a second glass of that I liked it so much. I am a full-bodied red drinker. Whites have too much acid for me, and delicate reds are too fussy. I like flavor.
Anyway, we dished on Leslee's love life and on writing. Leslee is working on the 6th rewrite of a novel. Shauna is working on the second rewrite. We agreed that lately it hadn't been easy to write for any of us for a variety of reasons. Shauna and I are both full-time writers with supportive husbands. Leslee has a day job. Still, we keep at it, that elusive dream of publishing contracts refusing to fizzle away and die for good.
Ultimately, however, you take life a day at a time. A friend of ours has been given 2 to 5 months to live. We decided to count our blessings and to live in the moment. I can't give up writing. I don't want to. But I'm going to try not to beat myself up when I don't get the pages done. I'm going to be thankful for each day. God gave me a desire and a talent, however small. Perhaps He only intends that we use what He gives us, not that we achieve what is ultimately a human standard of success.
But I still want the contracts. 😉
Best Bloody Marys on the Beach
My birthday started out great and stayed great all day. First, Mike informed me that he was taking me to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie (la-ee-ay) on Monday for the full luau treatment. He also bought me flowers and managed to present me with a card that contained the word “farting.” He was very proud of himself. We spent the afternoon going to see a movie (The Constant Gardener, which I liked and he didn't), and then we went to Waikiki for sunset and dinner.
The bar at the Hale Koa was crowded, as is typical for nearly sunset. Still, we managed to find a table. There really are no bad tables, so we had a nice view. The bar is a hopping place. Men and women in swimwear, sarongs, shorts, and full dinner regalia throng the area. Some folks look really good, like the tan girl in the bikini top, cutoffs and a cowboy hat. Others don't, like the shrink-wrapped woman with fake boobs or the pot-bellied guy with a rug and a leer.
I kind of envy the bar staff. They get to work in this beautiful environment and they get a human show that probably has some hilarious moments. I even had a brief fantasy, while sitting there, that I'd go apply for a job. And then I'd serve cocktails to tourists all day and grumble over tips and get sick of sunsets and human drama. Ah well, it was a thought. 🙂
Prices are good here, much better than the Hilton Hawaiian next door (or any other Waikiki beach location). For $3.75, you can get a Bloody Mary and a view. When I considered a Bloody Mary earlier in Dave and Buster's in the Ward Center, it was $7.00 and no view. Needless to say, I passed on the D&B drink. Mai Tais, by far the most popular Waikiki drink, are $5.50. I think the Hilton wants about $8.
By the time sunset rolled around, I'd had two Bloody Marys and I was feeling good. People stood up, jockeyed for position to take pictures, oohed and aahed their way through the sinking sun and golden orange sky. After the sun slipped beneath the horizon, the people began to slip out of the bar in twos and fours, heading for dinner or back to their rooms for bedtime since many of them are still operating on eastern time zones.
Mike and I continued to sit there, him drinking beer and me quaffing Bloody Marys, until it got dark and we began to think about food. First, however, I wanted to put my toes in the ocean. I don't like to go to Waikiki without dipping my feet into the water. Often, we'll walk down the beach, make the trek in front of the hotels until we pop up near the Duke Kahanamoku statue and rinse our sand-caked feet in the showers there. This night, however, we walked out to the water and played around before heading back to Biba's for dinner. A few people were walking by when Mike was taking my picture and one asked if we wanted our picture together. Mike said thank you, but no, it was okay. They looked at us strangely before continuing down the beach.
For so many people, Hawaii is an amazing vacation of warm sand and blue water. We tend to forget that until we're immersed in Waikiki and its tourists. And tourists we appeared, taking pictures of ourselves standing in the water. Who could blame them for thinking we'd want our photo together, not knowing we've already got dozens?
After the obligatory foot drenching, we went to Biba's and requested a table outside. While we were waiting, we saw someone we knew who was there for a girls' night out. Liz came over to talk to us for a few moments and then our table was ready and we said good night.
We both ordered the Island-style Mahi. I don't know what Island-style means, but the fish was broiled and served with a light peanut sauce, vegetables, and rice. I had wine, but Mike had to drive so he switched to diet coke. After dinner, we decided to go home instead of walk the beach. It was only about 8PM, but we needed to let Nimitz out of his room for a while. Nimitz provided plenty of after dinner entertainment, bouncing off walls and doing acrobatics in pursuit of his toys. I got exhausted just watching him. Sleep came quickly when I finally climbed in bed.
It was a good birthday.
Moon over Hawaii
Last night, we went to St. Andrew's Cathedral downtown and had gumbo, salad, bread, and Bananas Foster, all while listening to New Orleans-style jazz. The benefit, put on by the Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii, was to raise money for Katrina victims. The food was good. I was surprised, really, because I have family from New Orleans and I know gumbo. The people here did an excellent job.
But the icing on the cake, so to speak, was the dessert. A chef, complete with spotless white chef's tunic embroidered with his name and awards, and military-style ribbons hanging from his chest, presided over the flaming bananas with a Germanic-like authority that dictated you wouldn't dare to ask him for an extra ladle of sauce. The warm sauce and cool ice cream melted in your mouth like all the best desserts you've ever had in your life combined into one supremely sweet dish. (I was motivated to dig out my favorite Cajun-Creole cookbook for the recipe when I got home.)
Typically, Mike managed to sit next to a guy who gave Mike his dessert ticket. So, as Mark and I sit there concocting a way to get another ticket, Mike trots off for seconds. He quite nicely shared with us, whether from pity or a sense of duty I don't know. Hell, I'm not complaining, since I did get a few extra spoonfuls.
I was enjoying the plan Mark and I were concocting though. It involved Mike distracting the ticket lady, me peeling off a strip of neon pink tickets, and Mark giving absolution for the crime. One of the advantages of hanging out with a priest is having absolution on tap, I've decided, though I suppose when it came right down to it, he'd have prevented the crime and forgone the extra dessert. 🙂
When we left, we had to walk a couple of blocks back to the parking garage off of Punchbowl and Beretania. A low stone wall fronts the cathedral grounds and we began to cut across the parking lot as a short cut. But I was wearing a skirt and no way could I get over that wall. Besides, the wall connects with the governor's property. Her mansion sits next to the cathedral, and her yard looks strangely unguarded, like it's just another house. There's no gate with guards either, though the property is fenced. I had visions of us hopping the cathedral wall to get back to the street and setting off some sort of high-tech intrusion alert.
And there we'd be, two sinners and a priest, hauled down to the HPD headquarters half a mile away and interrogated beneath bright spotlights until we broke down and ratted each other out in a typical game of prisoner's dilemma.
Mike and I saw the governor at dinner one night. We were in Compadre's in the Victoria Ward Centre one Saturday night not long ago when she stopped at a table beside ours to talk to a family she knew. She was flanked by several women with very short hair, all in their 50s or older. Compadre's is okay, not great, and I remember thinking, “Wow, the Governor of Hawaii eats here?”
She looks different in person, not so big and masculine. On TV, she looks like a bear of a woman. But that night, she looked feminine. Her edges were softened, and her hair, which always looks so severe on television, seemed to suit her. It must be tough, being the first elected woman and the first elected Republican governor in a blue state.
Probably, though, she wouldn't have been very sympathetic had we set off her alarm system. So, Mike and I went around to the gate while Mark hopped the wall somewhat farther from her property. Thus ended another adventurous night.
Sometimes, they really do pay attention….
You know how men tend to be a little clueless about the women in their lives? How you can speak in monosyllables for an entire day and he'll never connect that to the fact you're mad because he put his socks beside the hamper rather than in it again?
Last night, I got proof that my husband pays attention to the stuff that matters (who cares about socks, after all?). We're watching Nimitz play and Mike says to me, “Why haven't you been writing lately?”
I hadn't told him I'd been in a slump, so I was a bit surprised. And I know he doesn't read my blog, at least not with any regularity to speak of. I said, “What makes you think I haven't been writing?”
“You're not yourself.”
Whoa. Not myself. After some discussion and clarification of what he meant, I understood he was right. He says, “You're a writer. You're meant to be writing and you're happiest when you are. So get writing.”
Oh dear. Am I that transparent? Apparently so. When I'm writing, when the novel is clicking along at some sort of pace, I feel like I'm doing something useful. Lately, I feel like a lazy lay-around-the-house sort of person who really ought to be pounding the pavement in search of a job. I feel guilty because I'm home and Mike goes to work every day. He swears he doesn't mind this and most of the time I believe it. But when I'm in a slump, I feel guilty for this freedom. I am supposed to be writing, producing, getting my work sold, and when the muse is off on a beach somewhere, I feel useless. I guess it shows in the way I behave. I didn't realize that, but he sure did.
I may be in a writing slump at the moment, but I'm sure lucky to have a husband who knows me so well. Maybe I'll open up the novel today and see what happens……