“I am reading a mass of things.” – Chekhov

What’s on my night stand this month: A big mouthed mason jar for drinking water. A framed print of The Euro in his “I have Russell Brand hair and his skinny velvet trousers” days. A blue silk eye mask. And these three books.

2666 – Roberto Bolano’s posthumous masterpiece.

I first started reading it in January. But since it’s really the type of novel you need to give your full attention to, and since I seem to be unable to concentrate on any one book from start to finish without picking up another few to read in tandem (and because the library keeps demanding it back before I’m through it) I’m still reading. It takes some warming up to in the beginning. Some settling down for the 1000 page haul. It’s not the sort of thing that I have trouble putting down (mainly because it’s so heavy and hurts my wrists) and at one point, notably the start of Book 2 – Amalfitano – I felt I’d hit a wall. Then I remembered that the beginning felt like a wall as well and plowed on and am glad I did. It’s really a sweet piece of literature.

Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout.

I picked up Olive Kitteridge, also by Strout, after hearing it had won the Pulitzer for fiction this year. It was the first thing I’d ever read by the author and I immediately fell in love with the character and her creator. I’ll save the Olive review for later. As for Amy and Isabelle, I’m only a few pages in but it promises the same joy.

The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.

The original screenplay for the movie of the same name. I dare you to suggest a more perfectly cast film. Thanks to its brevity and brilliance I had no problem reading this one in a single setting this afternoon. And, as I told My Dearest Flynn…There may be better writing out there. But I doubt it. If you can’t handle the screenplay, then go forth now and watch the film. It’s sheer blissikins. That is all.

Dearest Flynn,

So. I don’t know if you’ve heard…but I’m making the move on Steve next month.

Stage One: “Plan to Actively Pursue Steve Martin as a Romantic Backup Just in Case Actor Husband Decides to Leave Me One Day (Like Actor Husbands Do) for a Young Hollywood Starlet.”

I think you should also commence your pursuit of Billy Murray. That one may take a while as I hear he’s pretty low key and fond of wandering off to places like Turkmenistan (just an example there) and can sometimes be difficult to track down…what with no agent and all.

Stage Two: We’ll all live together in a giant shoe. Somewhere in Williamsburg. Or Fargo. Maybe Fargo.

Stage Three: There is no Stage Three. They’ll be in nursing homes by then. And our brains will be full.

Ever Yours,

Buffy

Disclaimer 1: Flynn and I are not celebrity stalkers. We’re way too lazy to put in that kind of effort.

Disclaimer 4: Please note the above blog entry: “Without Prejudice”. Just in case.

Buffy,

Here’s my dilemma: Bill or Chevy? Chevy’s all weird-looking now, but maybe if I close my eyes and think of Fletch? I don’t know.

No, I’ve just decided that at the end of the day, my love for Bill is greater than my lust for shirtless Chevy in a necktie. Let the pursuit commence.

Not Fargo…….this escapade should end like the final scene in Trading Places; you and Steve on the boat, waving to Bill and me, sunning and drinking on the beach, all “Looking good, Billy Ray!” and “Feeling good, Lewis!”

Flynn

“I shall finish my story tomorrow or the day after, but not today, for it has exhausted me fiendishly towards the end.” – Chekhov

I keep telling myself this. Going over all the famous ‘How many houses turned down J.K. Rowling’ type stories I know. They all make me feel exactly zero percent better. Chocolate hasn’t even helped today. Neither did sweating it out at the gym. I’m thinking a burrito might be nice. Comfort food. With rice. Woody makes me feel some better. Feeds my ego if not my belly.

My brain hurts.

In other news, Wes Anderson is a bloody genius.

“One who is always swimming in the sea loves dry land; one who for ever is plunged in prose passionately longs for poetry.” – Chekhov
——
On Seeing The Elgin Marbles
by John Keats

My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.

Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.

Such dim-conceived glories of the brain,
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time — with a billowy main
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

And on a lighter note…

They already know how to read. So I taught them how to make faces at their teachers instead. School starts on Thursday.

Also, my head is huge.

“And so in planning a story one is bound to think first about its framework: from a crowd of leading or subordinate characters one selects one person only – wife or husband; one puts him on the canvas and paints him alone, making him prominent, while the others one scatters over the canvas like small coin, and the result is something like the value of heaven: one big moon and a number of very small stars around it. But the moon is not a success because it can only be understood if the stars are intelligible, and the stars are not worked out.” – Chekhov

And that’s my problem. It’s not just my stars that are unformed. My moon is in a bit of flux as well. I’m sorta floundering in space at the moment. Even though mine is a character driven story – at least that’s where I feel like I am at the moment – I’m struggling to find which character to drive it. I’ve thought about separately interweaving them…like in an Olive Kitteridge type way. And wonder if Elizabeth Strout didn’t produce her Pulitzer Prize winner while suffering a similar dilemma. Of course she didn’t. But I’ve hit a wall…and am reaching.

Today’s Writing:

I’m still working on yesterday’s, thanks.

Today’s Writing

“Sheep is the gentlest things. And they can walk a fence better than any goat.”

(photo via sharon montrose prints)

“It is much better to write small things than big ones: they are unpretentious and successful.” – Chekhov

Anton tells me to keep it simple. And I feel stupid every time I read his letter to Moscow literary critique Madame M.V. Kiselyov. In it he says he has written a play (Swan Song) in one hour and five minutes – it will take fifteen to twenty minutes to act.

Today’s Writing

The only thing people noticed that summer was the beauty of the creature. The way she held her head when she spoke. Or parted her lips when she smiled. The way her eyes seemed to shine with see-through innocence, and the soft purr her voice made when she laughed. She was everything a woman ought to have been, thought the town’s pastor, once, twice, more times than he would ever let his mouth or soul admit.

A shining example. That’s what they said. More than one person called her an angel. And it made sense, because that’s what she was.

It was two in the morning when the devil came to Cunning County. Wearing a white dress and blond hair and an unholy glory that made everyone who met her want to share in that sense of something that made her who she was.

“You should take something ordinary, something from ordinary life, without a plot or an ending.” – Chekhov

I began with this photo by Anna Moller. Reminds me of the green behind the house The Euro grew up in. Ordinary enough. But I didn’t follow Anton’s directions very well, because I somehow ended up with a woman walking through the mist. I somehow ended up with a story that began like this post began…

“How to Write Like Chekhov: Advice and Inspiration. Straight from his own Letters and Work.” Edited and introduced by Piero Brunello and Lena Lencek. Translated by Lena Lencek.

I bought this last night at Borders. This morning I read it and loved it and got to thinking…

I’m not at all sure that ‘Buffy and Anton’ has quite the ring to it that ‘Julie and Julia’ has. But I’ve decided, on a whim, to follow the master of my craft every day for the next however many days it takes in hopes of creating something tolerable enough to worthy his critique.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Anton Chekhov (seated bottom right), looking not a little bit like Freddy Rodríguez, with his family and friends in front of their Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya home in 1890.