Stuff From Last Week #02

Cheever, Lispector, Proust, blossoms and blooms.

Here are some thoughts and experiences with art and life from the previous week.

First, a picture of a tree.

I decided to reread John Cheever’s stories again. I first read them between undergrad and graduate school, when I was curious enough to appreciate his sentences, but too young to understand the emotional depths and honesty, beautiful heartache, and the like. After reading Lena Dunham’s Famesick last week, I continue to find myself obsessed with perspective changes, how life events can shift our reactions to the world around us, yes, that, but also our own art. I’m currently undergoing a massive fatherhood-inspired perspective shift. For the first two years of having kids, I’ve struggled to balance my artistic responsibilities with parenthood. I imagined myself working in two different worlds. The page, my novels, plays, screenplays, whatever; my kids, classes, doctor appointments, family walks. Now, these two worlds are blending together in productive ways. I’m working on a cleaning articulation of that blending. An essay, maybe. Who knows.

Here is the first paragraph from Cheever’s introduction to his seminal Stories.

“A selected display of one’s early work will be a naked history of one’s struggled to receive an education in economics and love.” A perfect way to the describe the young artist’s trouble. My first three novels are mostly about this naked history. I have talked with my wife, then my agent, and then my editor about this struggle with my fourth novel. What do I write about now? Now that I have a steady job, am happily married, spend most of time, sober, running after my adorable and exhausting child. Even my mental health is great—how boring! Maybe part of this Great Perspective Shift is accepting my comforts and realizing, well, the world is still on fire, accepting the role of the artist is to always find the art. I have settled into grand schemes. My fourth novel is turning into a big family history about colonialism, Academia, warmongering, and America’s Decline. On substack, I’m working on a never-ending novel that will, intentionally, never get traditionally published because, well, most novels need to end and, well, I want to do something artistically weird and ambitious. With my comforts, I have also extended my energy to help promote younger writers and weirdos whenever and wherever I can. Pay it forward, give back, as it were. Maybe this is why I love teaching in my MFA program. Spending time with these brilliant young folks, helping them fully realize their brilliance. Maybe another result of this Parenthood Stuff.

Before we move on, here is the final paragraph from Lispector’s “The Egg and The Chicken”. If you haven't recently, please read as much Lispector as you can. “If the egg becomes impossible.”

Proust Update

I’m working through Volume II, stumbled on these two sentences and kept coming back to them. May you find a “new starting-point for further desires” and “fresh ground for anxiety”.

I took my daughter and Proust to the Botanic Garden last week. By chance, I have done most of my Proust reading with her, as she sleeps, babbles, and kicks. I do most of my Lispector reading with my son, as he runs around and plays with his cars and jumps off stuff. I’ll report back with what these combinations have done to my brain.

White Sox Update

I saw this blue sky and baseball field on a run last week. Munetake Murakami is leading the league in home runs! Well, he’s tied, but come on! That’s great!

Grapes of Wrath Update

I read almost of all of John Steinbeck in college. Like my forthcoming Cheever journey, I decided to try the one major book of his that I have bypassed for no particular reason. I’m about two hundred pages into it and, well, I am not as in love as I was before, or, maybe, there is a reason I have picked it up several times and not finished it. Let’s see. Maybe I am too many perspective shifts removed from the years of hero worship. I will try East of Eden next. And Tortilla Flat. And Cannery Row. And In Dubious Battle. Maybe I’ll do all of it. Probably not. There is not enough time and too many books.

See you next week.

Pre-order Don’t Stop Snowing here.