First off, we just want to say that we are looking to go a little Lovelace today with what looks to be a multi-sectional and multi-photoed riff on Stories II by Scott McClanahan. This has happened once before when were in the immediate throes of the quite excellent Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball and it felt good, real good, and if it didn't actually change anyone's life, well it certainly changed ours.
And so here we are again. But here's the thing, writing about Scott's writing suddenly seems like a trickier thing to do then when we wrote about Scott's last collection Stories. We say this, because lately the stuff we've seen on Scott sometimes feels like it is wrapped-up in Scott himself and what he represents to whoever may be writing about him. We think he is as awesome as everyone else does, but our concern, is that what might get lost is discussing the quality of the work, and even the quality of his reading of that work, because of this potentially Dylan-like love of Scott and his Scottness. Now please note, we get it, we do, really, because we're there too, and we have probably abetted it, but we still want to fight it.
Whichbrings us back to the fantastic Stories II, which is fantastic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is in comparing it to Stories. As we read Stories II, we were reminded of when we read the quite rocking When I Moved to Nevada by Jamie Iredell. We were clearly in Iredell territory, bars and chicks and the like, but as compared to the also impressive Atlanta, Jamie had found a way to expand this universe, making it less claustrophobic by embracing nature and the natural world. It was quite a feat and it should be celebrated as such.
Which brings us back to Stories II, a collection that exists firmly in McClanahan territory, a world where some guy named Scott seeks to not just make sense of the world around him, but embrace it for all it has to offer. Its a world filled with death and illness, dog's goiters, iconic kidney stones and adulterers being beaten to a pulp even as the narrator eats said adulterer's pizza and watches the aforementioned beating. And yet, here's the thing, Stories II is more than that as well, because in this collection Scott bends his stories further in terms of religion and ghosts, adding a layer of mysticism and spirituality that both enriches the stories and takes them from the near fables of Stories to actual fables, fables about a guy named Scott just trying to make sense of the weirdness, humor and sadness that permeates the world around us.
Okay, first off big thanks to Jamie Iredell for hosting TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer at this past week's Solar Anus reading, much fun, and second, please do take a look at Jamie's new joint When I Moved to Nevada which we blurbed on earlier this week here at the blog. It's quite good. Also, very nice to have met co-reader and poet Collin Kelley and hear him read from his new book Conquering Venus which we promise we will read and report on right here some time soon. And, if all that wasn't enough, we had the chance to record a new podcast with none other than the always cool Tim Frederick of Baby Got Books and suffice to say we did much literary name dropping. Wow, that sounds dorkier than we thought it would. Still, Tim rocked it so please do take a look, because we fairly certain that it just might change your life.
Update: The good people at Baby Got Books not only gave the podcast a nice shout-out today, but included all sort of wonderful annotations, something our interns were way too lazy to do for our post.
In preparation for the Solar Anus reading tomorrow night in the Atlanta we consumed When I Moved to Nevada by Atlanta-based author, Solar Anus co-host and This Podcast Will Change Your Life participant Jamie Iredell. We are quite happy to report that while it mirrors a variety of similar themes in Iredell's quite impressive Atlanta - bars, fights, drugs and chicks - it is simultaneously more expansive and less claustrophobic which can be at least somewhat attributed to its keen focus on the natural world and its endless permutations. It may go without saying then that we hope you will take a look, but please do, Iredell is doing some unique stuff and who knows, consuming his work as we have just might change your life.
First off, we just want to say that we are looking to go a little Lovelace today with what looks to be a multi-sectional and multi-photoed riff on Stories II by Scott McClanahan. This has happened once before when were in the immediate throes of the quite excellent Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball and it felt good, real good, and if it didn't actually change anyone's life, well it certainly changed ours.
And so here we are again. But here's the thing, writing about Scott's writing suddenly seems like a trickier thing to do then when we wrote about Scott's last collection Stories. We say this, because lately the stuff we've seen on Scott sometimes feels like it is wrapped-up in Scott himself and what he represents to whoever may be writing about him. We think he is as awesome as everyone else does, but our concern, is that what might get lost is discussing the quality of the work, and even the quality of his reading of that work, because of this potentially Dylan-like love of Scott and his Scottness. Now please note, we get it, we do, really, because we're there too, and we have probably abetted it, but we still want to fight it.
Which brings us back to the fantastic Stories II, which is fantastic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is in comparing it to Stories. As we read Stories II, we were reminded of when we read the quite rocking When I Moved to Nevada by Jamie Iredell. We were clearly in Iredell territory, bars and chicks and the like, but as compared to the also impressive Atlanta, Jamie had found a way to expand this universe, making it less claustrophobic by embracing nature and the natural world. It was quite a feat and it should be celebrated as such.
Which brings us back to Stories II, a collection that exists firmly in McClanahan territory, a world where some guy named Scott seeks to not just make sense of the world around him, but embrace it for all it has to offer. Its a world filled with death and illness, dog's goiters, iconic kidney stones and adulterers being beaten to a pulp even as the narrator eats said adulterer's pizza and watches the aforementioned beating. And yet, here's the thing, Stories II is more than that as well, because in this collection Scott bends his stories further in terms of religion and ghosts, adding a layer of mysticism and spirituality that both enriches the stories and takes them from the near fables of Stories to actual fables, fables about a guy named Scott just trying to make sense of the weirdness, humor and sadness that permeates the world around us.
