Some Books I Ordered

One morning a couple of weeks ago I sat down at the kitchen table and started listing everything I knew or could think of concerning the novel. There were hypotheses, and doubts, and suppositions that I thought I might examine that would give me some direction concerning the writing of this paper. Earlier this week I started to look at them, not for the sake of the paper, but with the intention of formatting them in some such manner that they could be published to you here.

I look at these notes, these bulleted lists, for a moment, a mere flashing of my eye across the page, and I panic wondering how I'm going to synthesize these random seeming remarks into a form that is interesting to you, the reader. When I look at them again over the weekend, or later this afternoon, I expect they will appear differently to me. This has often been the case. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right moment when everything becomes clear. You have to wonder how coherent manuscripts are ever formed by anyone, yet somehow, in a strange amalgamation of magic and skill, they are.

Anyhow, today is not the day for bulleted lists about the nature of the novel.

Yesterday's post seemed a little dry to me. Since I got a box of books in the mail from Amazon yesterday afternoon, I'll tell you what was in the box instead, beginning with three by Annie Dillard.

Living By Fiction by Annie Dillard

I ordered it thinking it might shed some light on my paper, since fictionality seems to be one of the few agreed upon characteristics of any novel. Even that idea is contested in some quarters. Dillard's book seems to be generally about the novel, even though it wasn't described in those exact terms. I borrowed this book from my public library once upon a time, but at that time I didn't find the opening pages to be accessible. The mommy-brain may have had something to do with this. I wondered then what sort of fiction Dillard claimed to live by. The book has since been discarded from the library's stacks and I wonder why.

Dillard's primary interest here, it seems, is in something she calls contemporary modernism in literature. For her, modernism has something to do with surfaces, and I haven't managed yet to figure out what that means. In what I've read so far she discusses modernism's tendency to fragment and shatter time and space, just as more visual modernist artists do. Often literature and art attempts to get away with meaninglessness, but Dillard doesn't let them get away with it. I'm excited about reading the book. So much so that I started reading it last night, despite my ever growing list of books in progress.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

I wanted very badly to purchase a copy of this book when it first came out. One day as I was wandering the shelves at Books-a-Million, years and years ago, I spotted it. It was love at first sight. One thing you may as well know about me is that I am drawn by author's names and the cover design of books. I soon borrowed it from the library, but found it difficult. I have a clear memory of lying on the sofa in my living room trying to it.

The cover is so pretty and so minimally designed. Minimally? Minimalist. These aren't quite the same thing are they, even though the descriptive "minimal" forms the root. The books cover is minimalist in it's design. It is textured, and beautiful, in cream and almost imperceptible tan, with those faux penknife-cut edges that can be so appealing. The paperback copy I received in the mail is different from it's borrowed counter-part, in blue and cream, but it appeals to me as well. The book is about a couple by the name of Maytree, not a shrubbery known as a Maytree as I first suspected. It is narrated. Very, very narrated. If you browse through a dozen pages or more you'll see exactly what I mean. Extensive narration seems to be one of Dillard's peculiarities as a novelist. Every detail is presented through the mediation of an omniscient narrator. I'm learning from Ann Banfield that narrated interiority was a late development in literature.

The Living is the last book in the set of books I ordered written by Dillard.

In general it is about a family and the descendants of a family who settle on some land off Bellingham Bay in Washington. It may follow the fortunes of the town of Whatcom. The land may be important as a character. I haven't figured these things out yet. Again, the story is highly narrated, and I am making my way through it slowly, which will be aided now by my having my own copy. I can't tell you what the title of the book means, though I have some ideas, because I haven't figured it out myself just yet. It's possible the title encompasses several shades of meaning. I plan to let you in on some of my thoughts on this at a later writing.

As this post has grown long already, and because I am tired (written Wednesday night to published in the morning), I'll tell you about the other books that were in the box on Friday. Now there's something for you to look forward to.