Giving Up Life To Be a Book--an SK quote

The great, anguished, existentialist Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, said, “I have given up life to be a book.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but please forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

WHEN MOOSE BECAME PIERRE

A woman from our past has recently been in touch. We remember her and her family fondly, for many reasons, including the tiny black poodle puppy her children named Moose. We moved away and lost touch with them shortly after they acquired Moose. As we caught up after not seeing each other for years, I asked about Moose.

“Moose was a disaster,” she said, and she told the story.

Moose bit everybody, tore up everything, peed on everything, would not cooperate in any way.

“We just had to get rid of him. But we had paid a ton of money, so we wanted to sell him. He was registered and all that. But we are honest people, so we knew we’d have to tell the truth, and so we were going to lose a lot of money. Only one woman answered our ad. When I took Moose over and saw how nice her house was, I knew this would be tragic. I told her at the door she shouldn’t let us in, but she invited us in, anyway. Moose immediately ran over to her nice sofa and peed on it. But she said, Let me keep him for a weekend and we’ll see. Somehow it worked out. She bought him. They got along great.”

“Why do you think it worked out for her when he was such a disaster for you?” I asked.

“She changed his name to Pierre and they moved to California.”

In writing a story, as in life, a character just does not cooperate unless s/he has the right name and the right setting.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in early 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

DON'T RECOMMEND TOO SOON

A follow-up to yesterday’s column on recommending books:

Helen started recommending Donna Tartt’s The Gold Finch when she was about 200 pp into its several thousand pp. [It only seems that way; it’s “only” 771. By contrast, the standard version of To Kill a Mockingbird has 296.]

Now she is sorry she did and is re-contacting the friends to whom she made the recommendation. She just got depressed by the main character’s downward spiral and decided she didn’t want to read any more about it.

I personally am glad I worked my way through all 771 pp. Tartt writes beautifully, both in style and use of words, and in ability to tell a story. I understand why it won the 2014 Pulitzer. I also understand why Helen got depressed reading it.

As usual with me, I read Tartt’s 2^nd book, Gold Finch, first. I’m not sure I’ll read her first, The Secret History, which was published clear back in 1992.

Chase Mooney, who was history professor of The South at Indiana University, had never read Gone With the Wind, despite its obvious importance to history of the South, because he refused to read anything over 600 pp. He said, “If an author can’t tell the story in fewer than 600 pp, it’s not worth reading.”

To Kill a Mockingbird is also important to the history of the South, and Mooney could have read it twice.

I’m not sure I agree with Mooney, but Gold Finch might have been better at 599 pp.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

BTW, Today I am a 25 year cancer survivor. My first oncologist gave me “a year of two.” I report my 25 years not to brag, but because I remember that in those first 2 years, the best thing that happened was when we’d meet someone who said, “Oh, yes, I’m a 20 year survivor,” or “I know a 20 year survivor.” So if you know cancer patients, tell them about me! [Or give them a copy of the book noted below.]

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

DON'T TELL ME I'LL LOVE IT

Recommending books is tricky, because reading is subjective.

I am reluctant to read a book that someone recommends with, “Oh, you’ll love it.” It puts too much pressure on me. What if I don’t love it? What if I read it and the book only confirms me in thinking you are crazy? No, say that you loved it, but don’t say I’ll love it. You can recommend it, but you can’t tell me how to feel about it.

Daughter Mary Beth recently called her mother and said, “Don’t read that book I recommended to you, mother. It’s awful.” It had been recommended to her by a usually reliable friend, and she had passed on the recommendation before reading the book.

She said the story wasn’t bad, but there were so many glitches. At one point a man stood up three different times without ever sitting down. And the clue was the unusual name of the villain, written by the victim in her own blood, but it turned out the killer was someone the victim did not know, and the villain’s name was unusual, but even while dying, the victim spelled it correctly. Etc.

Will Schwalbe, in The End of Your Life Book Club, tells how he and his dying mother recommended books to each other. Sometimes the recommended book was not enjoyed, but they read each other’s books out of love.

I suppose that sometimes we should read a recommended book, even if we don’t like it, because it’s a good way to learn about the person who recommended it. But, please, don’t tell me I’ll love it.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

BIRTHDAY BOOKS

Today is my birthday. In our family, that means new books. So far, I have received:

Daniel Silva, THE HEIST

Kristen Lamb, RISE OF THE MACHINES

Jane Smiley, SOME LUCK

Adam Johnson, THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON

Diane Capri, DON’T KNOW JACK

Stephen Hunter, THE THIRD BULLET

Anthony Doeer, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Karen Fossum, EVA’S EYE

Birthdays are great!

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

A PLUG FOR ONE OF MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

THE LUMINARIES-a review

In The Luminaries, [Little, Brown, & Co, 2013] Eleanor Catton is a very young author [born 1985] who writes in a very old way. The combination is illuminating.

Catton is the totally omniscient narrator, as total as it gets. She not only tells us the actions of each character, but why they are acting that way, from childhood on. It’s sort of like reading Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

The Luminaries was published in 2013, when she was 28. She probably started writing The Luminaries when she was about 23. Considering the amount of research that must have gone into it, and the work to get the voices just right, it’s a remarkable tour de force for such a young author. It certainly deserved the Man Booker Prize it nabbed in 2013.

Her first novel, The Rehearsal, was her 2008 master’s thesis at Victoria U in Wellington. She also received a fellowship to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

The Luminaries is set in the 1866 New Zealand gold rush. It is a combination historical, mystery, astrological, psychological… something. I don’t mean that in a bad way; I just can’t think of the proper word. It’s not mish-mash or confetti. Catton is a good string-of-beads story teller.

The conclusion is a bit disappointing, ragged and unfinished feeling, but most novel endings are a bit of a letdown. Maybe that’s why the book feels about a hundred pages too long. [Take out a hundred and it would still be a very long book for its type.]

Catton, in the old fashioned way, tells us at the start of each chapter what will occur in it. Toward the end the “contents” for each chapter are longer than the chapter.

I seem always to read the second book of a bright new author before the first, which in the case of Catton was The Rehearsal. This is because my daughters don’t give me an author’s first book. This 2^nd book was a gift of Mary Beth. But Catton is a gifted author. I look forward to reading her first book second.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat:

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

MANY BOOKS-ONE BRAIN

My reading method drives some people, many of them in my family, crazy. I read 20 to 30 books at the same time. Many are literally “page a day” books. When I have a read a page from each of my books each day, I choose the one that I need to think about some more on that particular day as my “rest of the day” book.

I would probably do this just as a reader, because it’s the way my brain works, but it’s fruitful for me as a writer to keep a conversation going in my brain among not just many writers but many areas of thinking.

At the moment I am reading:

FICTION:

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova

The Four Stages of Cruelty, Keith Hollihan  

The Husband, Dean Koontz

The Lincoln Myth, Steve Berry

Death in Nostalgia City, Mark S. Bacon

Fear Nothing, Lisa Gardner

NON-FICTION

The Opening Kickoff, Dave Revsine

Pastrix, Nadia Bolz-Weber

The Journal of John Wesley

Stories that Have Shaped My Life & Ministry, John Killinger

Outsider Baseball, Scott Simkus

The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond

A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren

The Future of the Mind, Michio Kaku

The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Richard Rhodes

POETRY

Aimless Love, Billy Collins

The Pocket Book of American Poems, Louis Untermeyer, Editor

RECENTLY COMPLETED

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton

Seven for a Secret, Lindsay Faye

The Boson at the End of the Universe, Sean Carroll

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Burbery

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

Dubliners, James Joyce

Hummers, Knucklers, & Slow Curves edited by Don Johnson 

Run, Andrew Grant

My replacement method, when I have finished a book, is simple. I choose another of the same genre, or whatever my wife and daughters gave me most recently for Christmas or birthday or Father’s Day.

Try it; you’ll like it. Or maybe not.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in early 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml