The Bookends post in the NYT Book Review Section often poses some interesting questions for the two commentators to reflect on. The current question is a good one:
Continue reading “Literary Flip-Flop”Tag: Stephen Dixon
XFX: Stephen Dixon
Johns Hopkins has the reputation for an excellent Creative Writing program and one of its major assets was the writer Stephen Dixon. Dixon was nominated two times for the National Book Award, first for his early novel Frog and later for Interstate. I mention this because it serves to frame my experience with Dixon.
Back in the ’90s I read my first Dixon piece, Interstate. I hated it. If you look back through my early postings it was prominent on my “Worst” list and remains there to this day, even though my opinion has changed considerably. Interstate is not the type of novel that Forster describes: even though you might find the appearance of a plot, or of characters, the narrative structure subordinates all those normal novelistic things and takes over the novel. Dixon tells a simple story of a father driving along with his daughter when another automobile creates a dangerous interaction on the road, a gun is brandished, a tragedy occurs or is about to occur … and then the father is driving along the road with his daughter but the circumstances are slightly different and when the second car arrives …
That’s the book: a short narrative, altered slightly and repeated over and over. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to have my literature-brain poked and nudged at that time because I remember hating this novel and agonizing my way to the last page. But for some strange reason, I read more works by this author and he rapidly won me over. I could see the value of the experimentation Dixon displayed in Interstate: variations on a theme being more common in music but why not in writing too?
XFX: Fourth Quarter Reading
The new quarter has snuck up on us here and we want to introduce the exellent titles which have been selected for reading over the next three months.
The first book (10-16) is by an excellent German author that should be required reading for anyone interested in post-war literature: Hermann Broch. The title we selected isn’t one of the author’s big and hairy novels but the more approachable novel: The Unknown Quantity. Here is a little review:
Born in Germany in the early twentieth century, mild and sensitive Richard Hieck endured a quietly difficult childhood. Raised in humble circumstances, Richard was profoundly influenced by his withdrawn mother and by his father — an enigma whose devotion centered not on his five children but on his mysterious career. From his father, Richard inherited an interest in the night sky, learning to love the constellations and to take comfort in the strength of Orion and the warm radiance of Venus. At the same time, his shadowy, elusive father influenced Richard to pursue studies in mathematics, a field offering the discipline Richard had craved as a child.In The Unknown Quantity, Hermann Broch examines the underlying chaos — and, finally, the impossibility — of life within a society whose values are in decay. As Richard seeks to reconcile the conflicting demands of love and science, of passion and reason, he and those in his orbit must endure the effects of societal and family values — even as the values descend into madness.
The second book (11-01) is another sorter novel from the twisted and always fascinating mind of William S. Burroughs. Many have read Naked Lunch and do not realize that Burroughs has many other novels to his credit; this one starts the Nova Trilogy and is titled, The Soft Machine.
A Celebration of Reading 