Vandertron

I'm going to partially rescind the Vander-Bash I had in the last post, because after finishing the book, I realize he does have some strengths in his storytelling ability. However, I still have a problem with his language, as in pretty much every sentence, he's goes just far enough over the line between eloquent and flowery to where it cements his mediocrity as a writer: if he just pruned his metaphors a little bit, his stuff would be much more tolerable. And while the faux-academic pieces like A Brief History of Ambergris are fun and entertaining (not to mention, suited to his voice,) they get kinda old after a while, I think you have to be a hardcore fan of the VanderMeer universe to really appreciate them.

BUT. But but but. He's damn good at establishing mood, I'll give him that. And he seems to favor protagonists that are one or both of the following: a) arrogant as hell, or, b) insecure and uncertain. (in terms of personality, the two pretty much go together). So, since he's good at writing that character, he's also very good at establishing dread, anxiety and paranoia on a really self-directed, personal level. This is most apparent in 'The Cage,' a story in which an enterprising merchant gets devoured by fungus (pretty sweet imagery too).

Since CoSM is the only book I've read by VanderMeer, I don't really know whether his favoring of the above mentioned elements reflects any limited singularity for him as a writer, but I think this combination of moods/characters says something greater about the city he's created in the work (a bustling, westernized metropolis whose original native inhabitants were historically killed off by its current residents), in that the selfish, arrogant character reflects the conquistador persona, while the guilt, insecurity, and fucked up situations that his characters end up in reflect some kind of karmatic justice, or at least on a personal level, the collective guilt of a nation that's killed off a people it didn't fully understand, while at the same time, pompously embracing its own history.

Maybe I'm just fulla shit. In other news, summer is looking pretty fine this year:





This was at the Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction concert a few weeks ago, which was spectacular. There was actually a pretty varied age group, as opposed to when I saw them in August, which was brimming with the young'uns, and the most extreme minority of light-haired people I have ever seen in the south.

I hope you're all memorializing well.

hueg @zz

Seeing TVOTR and Grizzly Bear next month, which I'm immensely stoked about. I've really been enjoying TVOTR's earlier stuff, where you can hear their sound still in the experimental, embryonic phases of what would later morph into face-melting awesomeness on Return to Cookie Mountain. I think what I like the most is how they use the sustained guitar/strings/sample stuff to kind of emulate the tonalities of heavy machinery – the instant in which the ambient drone of a dishwasher or a car on the highway reveals its noiseless, completely musical potential.

But right now I'm listening to Tom Waits. It's a Tom Waits kind of evening.

Today, I kept trying to write and getting stuck, I had to angrily type the phrase WHERE DA FLAVA at least 10 times before anything started flowing.

I'm angry that I trusted the reccomendation of reading Jeff VanderMeer, goddamn, what a verbose bastard. I don't mind complex-ass writing as long as you know how to do it (e.g., Mieville), but with Vandermeer it's just so damn self-concsious and full of itself, maybe suited to another time period, but just as hard to enjoy either way. I think the problem VanderMeer has is that he likes the sound of his own voice too much, you can look at pretty much any passage in City of Saints and Madmen and think, “Wow, this must have been a lot of fun for HIM to WRITE.” And really, his setting doesn't make up for it. Ambergris doesn't feel fleshed out or original, it just feels like London with a lot of Squid and Mushrooms. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'll need a good purge book for when I'm done with CoSM.

B&N sucks now. I never see anyone I know there any more. I walk around and think about all the book titles I wish I could see on display. Not real ones. I hope someone writes a memoir one day called “Prom Was Balls.”

I ain't too enthused to be writin' right now.

'night