Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:23:18 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Madoc

>Tim, thanks for posting that wonderful quote.  I am particularly interested
>in literary works that deal with music, so with one not-so-fell swoop you've
>made me want to read an author I've not had the joy of encountering!

  Well, _Witch Woman_ is a collection of three short stories, the
first one (the one I quoted) being my own personal favorite.  About
Madoc the composer.  You can probably find it in a university library.
Cabell's books are largely out of print these days.  (A friend tells
me that "Madoc" is the savior figure in Welsh mythology.  Um, FYI,
I suppose.)

>Say, why don't you spend more time over here, rather than dallying with the
>egregious silliness that passes for human discourse on ALLMUSIC (or could
>that be a different Tim Johnson?).

  Same Tim Johnson.  Chatty lists have their place.  ;-)  Actually,
the trick in Allmusic is the same trick in travelling cross-country
in a car without a tape deck.  In between cities, the stations start
to fade.  I'll listen to my song through the worst sort of static
until it completely fades out.  That drives some people nuts.

  On allmusic there is lots of static, but there are some genuinely
knowledgeable and interesting folks there.  Some people can take it.
Some people can't.

  I've been reading this list all this time, and have even felt
obligated to contribute to the Beckett thread, but you can see
that nothing has come of my good intentions.  Haven't been in much
of a writing about writing mood lately, as that very minimalist
endorsement of, Cabell, one of my own favorite authors demonstrates.

  Beckett - reading him is a sort of masochism, I think.  I always
find myself drawn to fully into the mind set of his characters.  Not
a pleasant sort of place to be.  I get completely apathetic, read at
a snail's pace, and feel like life has become a crushing weight.  It
is hard to discuss novels that have that effect in any sort of dis-
passionate, or even coherent, way.  (Kafka, too.  I had the same
feelings about reading _The Castle_ that the protagonist did about
his goal.  Perhaps there is a topic of discussion here -
meta-literature.  Related to onomatopea - books about hopeless
objectives that seem hopeless tasks themselves.)


  James Finney Boylan - I wrote a short review of that, I think.
I'd like to recommend it again.  Writing humor, I think, is very
difficult - and it is rare that I find an author who does make me
laugh out loud.  Much preferred Boylan, for example, to Thurber,
who did nothing for me.


  Scott Bradfield, _History of Luminous Motion_ - a cross between
_Tin Drum_ and _Clockwork Orange_.  Not as good as either.  Not bad.
The back cover blurb said Gunter Grass crossed with Sam Shepard.
You get the picture, I suppose.  If you like that sort of stuff....
(I myself much preferred _Local Anaesthetic_ to _Tin Drum_ or
_Cat and Mouse_ - the three Gunter Grass I've read.  And I felt
that the latter half of _Tin Drum_ was a rather different book than
the first half.  For some odd reason, the scenes in the pillboxes
are inextricably linked with Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_.  I
just can't seem to separate them in my head.  Anyone else feel that
way about them?)


  Cabell, _These Restless Heads_ - a not quite random collection of
shorts.  The best are the first (which could be subtitled "The Later
Adventures of Prospero" or Shakespeare meets Ecclesiastes) and the
(hmmm...) 4th, I think, about conformity and the writer's hypocrisy
and self-delusion.  (The idea that any book he or she may write will
actually mean anything.)


  Walker Percy, _Signposts in a Strange Land_ - Walker Percy is another
of my favorite authors.  Not the least of his appeal is his unapologetic
preference for the South.  (Cabell is also from the South, and while he
is cynical and often critical of his state (The state.  Virginia.
Graduated from William and Mary.  What more credentials could one
need?) it is obvious that he, too, is very much a Southerner.)
But, the real appeal of Walker Percy is his remarkable (I think)
insight into human psychology.  I highly recommend his book
_Lost in the Cosmos_ to everyone.  _Signposts_ is a collection of
essays, collected and published posthumously.  It is a little uneven,
a little repetitive, and I wouldn't suggest it for a first taste
of Percy...but, it is, in the end, indispensable.  The essays show
him as the thoughful, profound, sarcastic, cynical, insightful, crotchety,
and clever individual he was.  If you are familiar with Percy already,
I recommend going straight to the two interviews in the last chapter.
One of them is a self-interview, and opens, if I remember correctly,
like this:

  Q:  Will you consent to an interview?
  A:  No.


  Siri somethingoranother, _The Blindfold_ - recommended by a friend.
Not bad, but not great.  I find myself unfortunately prejudiced against
it because of my familiarity with Percy.  Siri's thinly disguised
protagonist, Iris, goes through a number of harrowing encounters
while in graduate school (Siri gets sympathy points for that!) which
leave her wondering about various psychological questions.  Siri
failed the Walker Percy test.  She puzzled over these psychological
issues, but failed to come close either to the Walker Percy like
reading of those issues, or a reading which would be at least as
compelling as his.  So, I found the book's protagonist (unfair of
me, I'm sure) difficult to take seriously.

  Mary McCarthy, _Birds of America_ - story of a young chap growing
up in america, going to school in france, worrying about vietnam (the
book was written in the early 60's, I believe) and spending a lot of
time thinking about the things people do.  A book about thinking about
things.  I give it good, but not great marks.  The things thought about
were largely interesting and relevant, as were the protagonists thoughts
about it all.  But it fell short of being profound - and since that was
very clearly its goal, the book can only be regarded as a partial success
at best.  I suppose I would recommend it for a high school student,
actually - or for someone who hasn't been opened to these sorts of
wonderings.  Don't get me wrong, it is a good and fairly interesting
book.  But for people who have fairly well developed ideas on
some of the questions and some of the answers about people and
the odd things they do, the book will likely have nothing to add.


                       -Tim
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