Title: Wolf Totem: A Novel Author: Jiang Rong LC Rating:
Every once in awhile I find myself reading a book that is just so impossibly true that it depresses the hell out me and compels me to continue reading non-stop thru the day until my eyes are strained, my nerves frayed, and my sense of indignation has been brought back to the forefront to the point that I feel like screaming at people. I imagine you’re currently scratching your heads and asking how it is that someone can actually enjoy this process. I loved this book, because it’s not just a book; it’s a weapon.
So I’m out and about, hanging out with plant last night; standing in his backyard talking about the strange sort of stuff the cognoscenti tend to talk about, watching kids run about, assembling bicycles . . . you know, the usual.
Anyway, I’m standing there looking at a radio-flyer tricycle, we all know the one, classic design, I had one when I was a kid; but I’m standing there looking at this ubiquitous piece of childhood paraphernalia and it strikes me that this particular example has, very much like my own as a child, a marked difference between the aim of the handle-bars and the alignment of the front wheel.
how do you help the dead?
do the dead need our help?
more to the point, do the dead need our loose change?
Last night my friend and I went out on a beer run to the local market, and as we’re standing in line, I notice this container on the counter. It was a plastic tub that originally held a nationally known brand of margarine, but now the top had a hole cut in the center and there was a hand-written note on lined paper taped to the side. I will make no claims to be able to reproduce the message word for word, but the main thrust was quite simple, and the note read something like this . . .
i wish i could’ve
work was fun tho’ hahaha
man we should hang soon,
and if yer gonna have a myspace
thingy to look at all the band shit
you have to click the little button
that says you want to be my friend,
or else i’ll spread vicious rumors of you
all about the internet
So, I’ve been spending too much time on the six word story experiment. As a writer I’ve always strived for the great art of impassioned brevity. In coming up with story after story about myself I came to see that they all tend towards the tragic.
That frightens me more than a little.
You really have to be honest when you try to reduce your life to six words.
well it started out with a robbery
that was followed by a death investigation
of a baby who was found in a trash can
then later it moved on to an upcoming meeting
about how to budget
and stay out of foreclosure
bush had some important things to say last night
i couldn’t bring myself to care
now i just keep thinking about the jury selection
for the mother who microwaved her baby
. . . he said, taking the guitar off his shoulders and casting a wary eye over the assembled crowd. He was looking for reaffirmation through negation, but after a momentary pause had yielded naught, he continued speaking with a false air of disregard. ‘I might never be famous, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this doesn’t matter.’
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.
He was seated in a café’, telling the waiter that the cappuccino needed more milk when the bomb went off.
The explosion rent a concussive bubble into the air, which quickly sped outward. Things behind the front of force were knocked sideways at it sped past. It was gone almost before it happened, leaving him to doubt that it truly had taken place.
So i’m going to see Modest Mouse at The State Theater tonight, yee-mother@#$#@-haw!!, and last night i had this dream that i was at the concert. Of course, the dream had very little contact with ‘reality’ as it is generally agreed to exist; it certainly wasn’t The State Theater as i know it, the crowd was gathered about the band on folding chairs, i was in the second row, and for their first song they began playing trombones that they ‘played’ by flinging the slides (you know, that which you move to change the note of a trombone) off of their instruments onto the floor, and proceeded to make this unearthly low rumbling warble . . .
[first frame]
“How can it be so hard to tell the truth when it always feels so damn good?”
This in a speech bubble from the jester; who . . .
[second frame]
realizing he’s caught up (once again?) in pointing out a most glaringly-obvious-truth, looks abashed and exits the frame . . .
[third frame]
a car passes, life goes on
this not in a speech bubble from the jester who leans back into frame to provide commentary on the great not much of everything that keeps occurring as he tries to define it
certainly not fixing on sharing it all here,
but in keeping with the spirit of
‘must actually do this’
voila
fiction!
- -
{partial transcript of voluntary intake statement}
K - County Psychiatric Institute
11/13/07
Patient : [perhaps inevitably the name is blacked out]
Complained that he’d met god and was no longer to be
trusted mingling with ordinary people.
. . . people called him crazy, and he was, almost without regard for how you might choose to define crazy, he’d find a way to fit it . . .
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
