For the Love of Books
I have never had any respect for Kanye West. Were it not for the incessant celebrity news reports that are incorporated into what should be real news, I would not know who he was. Now, instead of being indifferent to Kanye, I loathe him. And it’s all thanks to his honesty.
According to this article on Reuters, Kanye has written a book and is out promoting it. Had I known Kanye wrote a book (probably with a lot of help from a ghostwriter), I would’ve been sure to ignore it. I’m fairly certain that I will never read it. I may use it as a door stop should someone give me a copy.
Kanye was quoted as saying, “I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life.” And he still expects you to go out and buy his book (and possibly read it instead of using it to level that uneven sofa in your living room).
Now I’ll let you all get back to reading books that are worthwhile. If you have any suggestions for books that would be better than Kanye West’s book, please leave it the comments section (I’m sure I can think of a few hundred).
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Bring on the comments
Thursday, November 12 12:09 am
How about:
“This Is Not A Book Anymore”, by Anonymous
and its sequel:
“Anymous”, by Anonymous
Or any of yesterday’s unlamented newpapers, recycled endlessly, unregenerately stale, forever unread, then discarded and forgotten…
Ah well, people who are against books are my enemies. People who are for books might read books like:
Roberto Bolano’s “The Savage Detectives”
Jorge Luis Borges’, “The Book Of Sand”
Orhan Pamuk’s “The Museum Of Innocence”
Nick Laird’s “Glover’s Mistake”
Paul Auster’s “Invisible”
Still, there’s as little accounting for taste as there is accounting for having no taste.
Sunday, December 13 11:00 pm
Dear All,
I’ve been thinking some about a question I was asked many times this year: a person asks me what a poem (mine or anyone’s) means. How is it to be interpreted? I usually draw a shallow breath and I…I give various answers depending on who I’m addressing. (The question of why anyone would ever read a poem is up in another department of the world.)
Anyway. The door metaphor, that the poem is only a door that the poet leaves open, I’ve used alot. The reader peeks in, thinks about whether or not to go in and take a closer look. Of course then, there are many different directions one may take: sitting down inside the door, getting up and wandering around an alien world, having an adventure and winding up getting pleasantly (or not so pleasantly) lost for a while. You can find your way back easily enough.
Of interpretation, organizing your reponses, these are not mechanical either. A = B? This shuts out C to Z. As a subjective experience, it’s like telling someone what a downhill ski run should feel like to them. Do it, sure, and if you want to talk about it later, that’s fine. Unless you’re playing the lit crit game, you don’t need to confirm your reading or show off your credentials — or to sell disgust or gush. Sometimes I preface a poem with an indication of the mood I was in when I was writing it. Or my own surprised reaction to it afterwards. I guess that’s all the reader response a writer wants to hear too.
Of the physiological, I’d like to hear that something I wrote made your hairs stand up, or that your toes involuntarily curled. But of the psychological, hell, none of that is really my business. As far as changing the way you see things, that’s my metier, but how that’s done is my secret, and how far and how lasting the after-effects are, is yours.
(Or I’ll quote Jim Harrison: “I’m a poet and we tend to err on the side that life is more than it appears rather than less.”)
Please take up your own pen now, draw 20 lines between your good self and the world, ask your heart and mind to tell your hand where they want to go, look back and see how far you travelled. Then give it to someone to read…and just walk away.
Merry Christmas to all the readers of this worthy site and of my site The Tao That Can Be Named…
Best wishes for a brand new plan,
Boris K
http://www.blognow.com.au/borisknack
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