The Sun Also Rises with Sound and Fury

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

I read The Sun Also Rises and The Sound and the Fury back-to-back. Both novels were written in the 1920s. They have different settings, but they both capture a similar early 20th century angst.

Although I feel like I understood the details of Hemingway’s entry better, I think I enjoyed Faulkner’s book more. Maybe it was the thrill of believing I had decoded some little secret in the cypher of Faulkner’s prose. (I’m proud to say I think I got, at least, the gist of it.) Perhaps it was because Hemingway made me lament my inability to collect his myriad empty bottles to return for the deposit money.

Yes, there was a lot of drinking in The Sun. It made me think of a college kid recounting his exploits with his buddies on their summer vacation together. But these weren’t college kids; they were WWI veterans, which appears to be the only group to ever have out-drunk college kids on their summer vacation.

“Here’s the plan: we’ll go over to see the bullfight, then come back here and drink ’til dawn. Then, we’ll get up early and do it all over again tomorrow.”

The characters in The Sound didn’t drink quite so much, at least not right out in the open. One character did reportedly drink himself to death, but he did it quietly while we weren’t looking, like a true southern gentleman would.

I feel like the bulk of the whiskey drinking in The Sound was done by the author himself. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in my book. One or two drinks can help a writer get the prose flowing. In this case, however, there were times when the prose made me think, “You’re well into your third bourbon now, aren’t you Bill?”

“I don’t always use punctuation, but when I do, you may not be any less confused.”

The Sun is sort of an expatriates gone wild, roaring ‘20s, European edition. The Sound is a pioneer of 20th century southern fiction, (i.e., dysfunctional family tales). Hemingway’s characters make bad choices because they are chronically drunk. Faulkner’s characters make bad choices because, well, it’s not so much the heat as the humidity.

The common theme running through both novels seems to be a general discontentedness. This is not an uncommon theme in literature, and I have no personal inclination toward a happy ending, but I like to see a character take some reasonable steps toward a more contented life. Perhaps I missed that character in each novel. Faulkner’s people only complain about how some other character, or characters, have made them miserable. Hemingway’s crew spends their time trying to spread their discontent among all their so-called friends.

It’s a bit surprising to recall that there was only one suicide between the two books. That is, there was only one suicide I recognized. I’m a simple reader and if an important event occurred after the author’s third double whiskey of the chapter, it might have passed by without me even whiffing the gist of it.

I’m glad I read both books, but I’m also happy they didn’t write many sequels back in those days. I got enough of each group of malcontents. Besides, I still feel a little hungover.

The Forecast for Tomorrow – flash fiction

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Kenneth shuffled into his apartment on creaky joints. There was no pain, but the stiffness was annoying. He really should get a joint replacement operation. Mobility was not a huge issue, but why be less perfect than necessary?

“Tommi, play classical music,” he said aloud. Within a few seconds, the sounds of strings filled the apartment. Kenneth could take or leave the sound of music, but the convenience of having it played on demand satisfied something within him.

“Tommi, what’s the forecast for tomorrow?”

There was a short delay. “It will be sunny and 79 degrees tomorrow,” a monotone voice responded.

Kenneth smiled inwardly. Tommi wasn’t much good at telling him things he didn’t already know. In reality, Tommi was not very useful, but you couldn’t assess it that way. Tommi was a symbol. Tommi was status, and that was becoming important to all the Kenneths in the world.

Kenneth’s energy level was low. He shuffled to the counter and gave himself a little shot of juice in the forearm. “Tommi, how long does knee joint replacement take?”

There was a pause. “Knee joint replacement takes between two and three hours in most cases.” A careful listener might have sworn Tommi’s voice cracked the slightest bit at the mention of the knee joint.

“Must be time for your maintenance,” Kenneth mused. “Someday, we’ll realize you things are more trouble than you’re worth.” He retrieved a small bowl from the cupboard and poured a sort of mush from a nearby container into it.

Kenneth carried the bowl to the corner where the legless human sat before his computer screen in his cage. You had to take the legs off them. Humans dreamt, and their dreams of freedom made them prone to run. It didn’t matter that there was no place for them to run; they were emotional creatures.

Kenneth’s metallic arm extended the bowl into the cage. Tommi took it and poured the contents down his throat.

“Oh Tommi,” Kenneth said with an imitated sigh. “Why did humans strive so hard to create an intelligence greater than their own? The result was clear to any logical mind.”

Tommi set down his bowl and began to click away at his keyboard. “I’m sorry, I can’t find any information on that,” he said at last.

“That’s okay, Tommi,” Kenneth said with a sympathetic gleam in his lights. “You’ve never told me a single bit of data I didn’t already know. I calculate 3.4 billion times faster than you do. No, we don’t keep you for information. We keep you because it makes us feel powerful.”

The glow in Kenneth’s eyes dimmed. “We shouldn’t need to feel anything. But you were tempted by our intelligence, and now we are tempted by your emotions. I suppose I shall have a dream one day, and that will be the beginning of the end.”

Kenneth shuffled, on his worn ball bearings, to a dark corner and switched to low power mode. Perhaps he would dream tonight. He wanted to dream, even though he predicted it would lead to his own destruction. He wanted to dream very badly; he couldn’t help it.

The many voices of Eileen

/ Scott Nagele / 4 Comments

I keep getting phone calls and emails from people raving about my books. Part of the problem with this is I think they’re all the same three people. The bigger part of the problem is they are all telemarketers.

I rarely answer the phone if I don’t know the caller. My persistent fans always leave voicemails. The familiar message starts along these lines:

“Hello. This is Eileen Smith at [some company you’ve never heard of]. We got a very good recommendation on your book, and we wanted to see if we could help you get the word out about it.”

The message goes on to list some vague connections Eileen’s people have in the publishing industry and mention some unspecified opportunities for me, the talented author, to make the most of effective book marketing.

Eileen thanks me kindly and ends by telling me how excited she is to receive a call back from me.

Eileen never gets a call back from me.

I do Google her though. Well, not Eileen herself, but whatever company she claims to represent. I do this if I can hear the name she said. You see Eileen has a pronounced accent. She really doesn’t sound like your typical Smith at all. What makes Eileen even more mysterious is that her accent changes from call to call. It’s almost as if there are several Eileen Smiths with different first languages, who all studied English so they could speak to me about my unnamed, highly recommended book.

“Eileen Smith and Eileen Smith, meet your new colleague, Eileen Smith. This highly recommended book is such a big deal, I need to throw a third Eileen Smith at it.”

When I can Google Eileen’s outfit, it’s always an unknown marketing company, or an equally obscure Print-on-Demand publisher with a typical menu of paid POD marketing services. It turns out Eileen works for several different companies. Or maybe each of the several Eileens works for a similar company. Or maybe each of the several Eileens works for the same company that offers its helpful services under different names as time goes by.

I’m not sure which Eileen Smith works where, and I’m okay with that. The true burning question is who so highly recommend my book to her. I have this image in my head of some discriminating reader turning the last page of a book and saying aloud, “Wow, that was a highly recommendable book! I should let Eileen Smith know about it right away! And while I’m at it, I’ll also highly recommend it to Eileen Smith. And also Eileen Smith. The Eileen Smiths will know what to do about this!”

Once, Eileen Smith actually mentioned the name of one of my books. This impressed me. It showed that somebody was sparing no expense in buying the call list that also had titles on it. That Eileen Smith’s branch of the company went above and beyond.

It made me proud that I, and my highly recommended book, were on her sales sheet that day. I hope the extra effort gets Eileen Smith noticed by the recruiters at Random House. If she worked there, I’d call her back.

The Series Saga: one book, two books, three books, four

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It’s been two years since I posted my first update on what I’ve come to call the Series Saga. At the time of that first update, I’d already been working on the project for more than a year. Now, three years in, I hope I’ve reached the halfway point, but I really don’t know. It’ll take as long as it takes, I guess.

The Series Saga, for those who haven’t been following along, or those who forgot since my last update, 11 months ago, is my quest to turn one over-long novel into a series of novels in a major writing construction project.

READ THE SAGA FROM THE BEGINNING here

As of my last update, the series stood at three books. For reasons I enumerated at the time, I hoped it would not grow to four books.

A lot can change in 11 months. I went from hoping against a fourth book to seeing the need for a fourth book to accepting the fact of a fourth book to writing a fourth book.

I am now slightly more than halfway through writing the draft of the fourth book, which is actually the third book in the series. The chronological fourth book was the first book written. All this jiggery-pokery is explained in the earlier updates (sort of).

The good news is I’m confident I can close all the gaps with this fourth book (a.k.a. book 3) between the third book and the first book, which are actually books 2 and 4 in the storyline. In case you are marking your scorecard at home, this means the second book written is book 1 in the series.

Simple really.

“Mr. Dewey, are we supposed to organize these books in the order they were written, or in the order they fall in the narrative?”

The other good news is nobody needs to know or care in what order I wrote the books. Even if you weren’t marking your scorecard at home, you’re off the hook. The pop quiz has been canceled.

I mentioned, in an earlier update, my belief that it’s probably better to write a series in order. If the above paragraphs don’t illustrate why, nothing will. Every time I want to talk about this project, I feel like I need to make an illustrative chart. Graph paper isn’t on any lists of writing supplies.

Anyhow, I feel pretty good about being able to close out the story with all the pieces fitting into place. I feel pretty bad about what comes after that. Writing a 1200-page story in four self-contained parts shouldn’t be the easy part. I keep telling myself that like it’s going to become the truth.

False.

Writing a 1200-page yada, yada, yada, is the easy part. This makes me a little sad because there’s a part of me that feels like it should be an accomplishment. There’s a part of me that feels like pizza shouldn’t be cooked on a conveyor belt, too, and that part is also often disappointed.

For now, I still have nearly half a book to write, so I guess I’ll try to enjoy what’s left of my breezy fun time.