What historical event fascinates me the most?
Huh. This is a fun question…I know what the answer is for Stephen King: the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He wrote a whole book about it, which I’m reading right now (and thoroughly enjoying). For me? Hmmmmmm…
That’s how I’m going to take that question, I think: if I could travel back in time, where and when would I go to? When I was a kid, it’d be to go back and see the dinosaurs. For sure. Without question. See what they actually looked like and whatnot. It’d be cool to go back and see the moon landing. That would be amazing. I’d go back to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and figure out a way to be a PA or something on that show. I’d go back and see a Shakespeare play back when ol’ Willy was actually doing them himself. I’d go back and watch Mount St. Helens explode.
But I don’t know if there’s a moment in history that absolutely, singularly fascinates me. I think it’s all pretty interesting, and all pretty much worse than life is right now, lol. Like, I’m sure there’s a lot about the past that would be better—like some food probably tastes a lot better back in the day than it does now…but then again, food is fucking CRUSHING it right now with all these amazing chefs and what a revolution there’s been with fine dining. So, you know, things are pretty good right now. Really good. And I’m happy where I am.
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Happy Halloween! I didn’t get any writing done today, but I did finish Exhalation by Ted Chiang, I did get all my Netflix work done, I did take a nap, and I did hand out candy to kids on our porch followed by dinner and watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks with Liz. Delightful!
Exhalation is really good. It’s not perfect—Ted struggles with writing three-dimensional, real-life characters that act and sound like real people and otherwise exist inside scenes that feel like real life. He doesn’t do that kind of writing. It’s not immersive and dramatic like that. There’s an affectation to all of his writings, even when he’s writing a true “scene” between two or more people that’s unfolding in real time. It’s a narrative voice that sounds always a bit like we’re watching a presentation, and the characters are stock stand-ins, or reenactments to illustrate a point. And the points he makes, the themes and ideas he explores in the book are truly genius. Ted is a genius. Of this I have absolutely no doubt. But I get the sense that people are just a little bit of a mystery to him. It’s doubly interesting because his stories are far, far from cold. Each of them has a very well-considered beating human heart at its center, and his writing is emotionally quite moving at times…just not quite in that immersive, dramatic way that well-crafted, skilled scene work will give you.
In the end, I thought the book was marvelous. Spectacular in spurts. And did its job in that it gave me insight into who Ted Chiang is as a person, even with its shortcomings.
Night night.