My Two Favorite Books

I'll contradict myself immediately, to set the bar low. The idea of a 'favorite' book is counterproductive; it is unnecessarily reductionist when there are uncountable charms to uncountable books.

My second-favorite book right now is House of Leaves. As I will soon explain in a more complicated way, this is not necessarily a literary comment. In the way it makes its artistic statements, House of Leaves is the proverbial sledgehammer used to open an aspirin bottle. Trapped inside the bloated text is a stunningly immersive and compelling novel that has been partially strangled of impact by unnecessary complexity, some unnecessary formalistic elements, and an obsession with creating a mythology that rewards people willing to play a glorified version of connect-the-dots to research obscure references and vague clues. All of these limits also reinforce the book for me, though, because I am obsessed with personal and private mythologies. I also tend to give some leeway to ambitious works of art when they partially fail.

The central story in House of Leaves (the one you really care about) is surreal, terrifying, and ambitious to a degree that I have almost never encountered. It is also very fundamentally original, which is a trait that gets more rare each year. There is a passage where the protagonist finds a copy of the book itself and begins reading, and we see that the multiple levels of narrative in the book have begun performing the same effect that occurs when two mirrors slowly line up on opposite sides of our self. Symbolism is supposed to be handled in an elegant and subtle manner in literature, and here the book breaks that rule severely. It is necessary, though; there is no way to go about making this statement subtly, and I thought the effect was worth it.

I have read reviews online that describe House of Leaves as a commentary on the discipline of literary criticism. I think that is missing the point. The irrationality of the terror that the protagonist discovers is most effectively brought into relief through the use of an overly rational approach. I will put myself out there and say that I do not think that House of Leaves is a horror story. It is a Borgesian world, rational in itself but twisted from our world. We approach this world objectively and see that the subject of the story, incidentally, is the nature of horror itself.

My favorite book, in most every way that I know how to judge a book, is Fugitive Pieces. Michaels has a great and unique command of the language, and the the pace and flow make it obvious that she was a poet first. The first ten pages will tell anyone whether this book is for them or not.

The story does justice to the style. There are so many moments that have stuck with me since I first read it. For a person who did not grow up with a sister, I felt closer to understanding when reading this book than at any other time in my life. It also taught me a lot about the nature and dynamics of the places where we find emotional safety. Maybe more than anything, it reminded me that everything happens exactly once; foremost, our lives.

The way the story shifts perspective two-thirds of the way through disappointed me the first time I read it, because I was so absorbed and in love with the story I was already reading. After reading the book a couple times, I started to see the ways that the counterpoint of the second story improved the book as a whole. The immense gravity of the first story is brought into perspective only when we see that the first story's truths extend to us all, and furthermore, when we see how ready so many of us are to ignore them.

My favorite books have changed over the years so many times that I see little point in even sorting them in such a way, except that it helps me to identify what I like so well about them. With many books I read, I never stop long enough to do this; for me, it is quite a task to unwind such a tangle of thread. I believe I fear making mistakes in such a process - the task of understanding concepts, styles, themes, hidden and overt messages is daunting in such a liquid medium.

Brain Dump #001

Mystical thought can best be described as a system of focusing the meaning of some unexplainable portion of the world onto the process of its experience, in lieu of a explanation for its cause.

I am equally excited to turn Only Son's 'Sleepyface' and Fleet Foxes' 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' into sparse, cold guitar torch songs.

I believe that I have fully assimilated the concept of capital allocation into my asset decisions, but I am afraid to apply it to lesser consumption decisions for fear of emptying the enjoyment completely from the process of consuming. (i.e. the moment that I attempt to calculate whether the extra $1.50 I spend for a 6-pack of a certain microbrew is proportionately more enjoyable as a percent of the total cost, can I really enjoy it at all?)

Based on the songs and parts of songs that I most like, Jonny more closely approximates my love for Radiohead's melodic presence than Thom. Although, not by much. (See: Wolf at the Door, The Tourist, evidence from 'There Will Be Blood')

The most important quality for the people I will surround myself with in the coming years to possess is a systematic (or at least rational) approach to self-improvement in the innermost sense.

I need to reverse my slide away from regular exercise.

I am getting too old for 'this shit.'