Fake Bookish Neurosis: Schizobibliosis

So Many Books (by ~Minnea~)

Lately, you may have noticed, I've mostly disappeared. Where did I go? You see, I got stuck. I'm buried under ALL THE BOOKS. (And other stuff. Like work, and dogs, and cats, and running, and spouses (well, just the one), and chores, and errands, and family, and, you know, stuff.)

How did this happen? Well, I accepted too many books to review, for one, so, that needs to change, or slow down, or something. The pressure to read the small pile on the review shelf is tying some seriously painful knots under my shoulder blades. I also started a book club in which we have a set day and time to meet every month, and, gasp, actually read and discuss the book,* and we had our first meeting, and it was grand. But since I started the thing, I actually have to be prepared! What? Add to this the fact that there are just so many interesting-sounding books out there. Lying in wait. To be read. By me. At some point. Maybe. Optimistically. Tragically?

All of which has resulted in me being in the middle of about 5 books at once. That's 2-3 too many, for me, really, which leads me to suffer from the dreaded, dreadful schizobibliosis. Too much jumping back and forth between plots and characters and comedy and tragedy and add to that that one of these is Infinite Jest, which is about 170 plot lines rolled up into one complicated, verbose novel that is often awesome and sometimes boring (sorry die-hards), and sometimes both at the same time. I mean, I couldn't pass up this whole Summer of Jest thing, even though I did miss the first call in, and am already behind the proposed schedule. But that's okay. I'm not terribly worried about that. It's The Spouse's favorite book ever, so, I guess it's time. (Although, I've said that before. Ha.)

See? I can't even stay on topic. What's the topic? Oh. Wait, what?

Luckily, schizobibliosis, unlike it's phrenetic (he he, see what I did there?) cousin, has a cure: I just need to finish some of these books before I start the rest of them. That's totally doable, yes? Don't you think? Yes. I think so. Probably. Most likely. We'll see. Or will we...

*The other book club that I'm casually, occasionally still attending can't seem to meet regularly or set a reasonable time to meet, every meeting scheduling shenanigan beginning with an email thread to check schedules and trailing off until a time is suddenly decided upon often less than a week ahead of time, 2 if we're lucky. This leads to the book often not being read (even by me, with such little notice), and discussions that tend to go off subject. Add to that, the off-subject subjects of discussion more often than not are topics that disallow my participation almost completely as a childless, non-Catholic non-teacher, since said discussions tend to revolve around (you guessed it) teaching, teaching politics, birthing, parenting, child behavior generally, and the goings on in a parish of which I am not a part and of which I have no desire to be a part, not being Catholic and all. The members are all smart, lovely ladies, but sometimes the prevalence of cliquey estrogeny teachiness can be a little overwhelming. So I call that my Wine-Drinking Catholic Teaching Moms That Occasionally Read and Might Discuss a Book, a Little, Sometimes Club, of which I am only an honorary member, my only qualifications for membership being that I can read and drink wine.  

Nothing But Flowers

"Botanical Garden" by Lori Nix

Last week I mentioned my ever growing dystoparanoid tendencies  and posted a lovely picture of a dilapidated library diorama by Lori Nix. The above, from the same gallery of photographs, was another of my favorites, one that easily brings to mind the Talking Heads song "Nothing But Flowers" (embedded below for your listening pleasure).

For the record, dear totalitarian overlords of the near future, I'm mostly okay with the sort of dystopia (utopia? eye of the beholder, I'm sure) lamented in the song, though winter probably would  beg me to differ, unless I turned out to have some sort of mad tepee-iglooing skills (unlikely). And as long as there are still books and stuff. (Also sounds unlikely.) Never mind then. As you were.

Fake Bookish Neurosis: Dystoparanoia

Dystopian Dioramas by Lori Nix

I'm currently listening to Claire Danes' narration (fantastic, btw,) of Margaret Atwood's classic The Handmaid's Tale, which I've read a few times already & am re-reading in preparation for World Book Night. If you are not familiar, a) how is this possible and b) it's about a near-future society in which a right-wing religious "cult" has overthrown the US government and re-ordered society into biblically "traditional" roles, which basically means women have been re-relegated to property, on this earth solely to procreate and serve men. Independent thought police abound. It's not so great for the men, either - they're held to strict moral codes as well. Sounds fun, right?

The most terrifying thing about speculative fiction such as The Handmaid's Tale is the relative ease with which such a society could just... well, happen. Already paranoid about all this information sharing that we do, either wittingly or unwittingly, such dystopian novels - especially this one, which shows how easily the cylons/right-wing-nuts/borgs/alien invaders basically could flip a switch and take over - only heighten this dystoparanoia. I find myself thinking, with every post I make on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or the internet at large, "Oh, here's further evidence for the future religious dictator-oppressors to use against me! But it's not like I haven't given them enough already, so what the hell."

I have created quite the case against myself. That thing I just posted making fun of young anti-marriage equality people for their intolerance and lack of spelling ability? Yeah. The New Genesian Republic won't stand for such positions in a person's history. (That is, assuming I still have the status of "person.") The stuff I post speaking out against rape culture and for women's bodily autonomy? I'm sure I've violated several somethings in the Book of Leviticus, which would no doubt used against me at my "trial." I mean, maybe they wouldn't even go to such efforts, since merely being a woman will be a crime of some kind. Or women wouldn't have any rights to violate anyway. That video of the sneezing panda? Evidence of my lack of proscribed compassion, obviously. Raising money for rescue animals? Not a counter to the hilarious cat antics posts, no. Clearly I should have been focusing on human needs instead.

After that, my dystoparanoia takes a lovely turn, nightmaring about the future in which not only are we ruled by alien/cylon/borg/extremist-nut-job overlords, but, of course, the devastation we have wreaked upon the planet will be no longer deniable, except that it will be interpreted as some god's way of punishing human deviance and immorality, further supporting the authoritarian cause, instead of as what is the obvious, inevitable result of previous generations of consumerism and corporate greed.

Ironically, I slept quite well last night.

Anyone else suffer from this side-effect of dystopian fiction?

Fake Bookish Neurosis: Plotjà Vu

It would seem that Tana French brings out the lit lunacy in me.

When I was last suffering from a fake bookish ailment, I thought I was a cop tripping over the edge in In The Woods. Some flicker of unintentional method acting gone bad. This time, I can't shake the feeling that I've read a book that I'm 98% positive that I haven't read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a sort of plotjà vu. For some reason, that novel has been hugging the shadows of my books-I-should-read periphery for a while now, and I can't figure out why. And there's no movie (yet), I checked, so that's not why the synopsis is hauntingly familiar.

I had the same feeling of overfamiliarity while reading/listening to French's The Likeness. I knew those weirdo overintellectual graduate students. Somehow. Well, not really, but the story had happened across my consciousness before, in some other form. But when? How?  Maybe I sleepwalked joined a crazy clan of snobby outcasts in college?

And thus, plotjà vu, suffering from a sense that you've already seen the plot before, somewhere else. I'm not talking about derivative plots, or authors/books that have obviously influenced the author in the current novel you're reading, but more of that not-quite-identifiable sense that you've seen something very similar before. Almost as if you've dreamed the plot, and now you're reading it. But in that ever ethereal slipping away of dreams, you can't quite remember when or where or even quite what happens. Mostly, it's the atmosphere that remains, that lingers on the edges of a current read.

And now I'm reading/listening to Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, and I've just been introduced to this novel's cliquish crew of pseudo-intellectuals. Seriously? What strange set of coincidences has set this reading sequence in motion? Don't answer that.

But do help me out: Is Donna Tartt's novel the source of this weird plot framework? Group of 4-5 odd but strangely close smartypantsy philosophizing youngins somehow accepts an outsider into their fold; bad shit happens. Usually, someone dies. I can't seem to trace back to the source of origin in my own psyche/reading history/movie history.  (I'm pretty sure) this isn't some bizarre mythology seeping into our Jungian collective subconscious. It must have originated from somewhere. Maybe I read/saw something else with the same plot elements. Or perhaps you did and can solve my little mystery?

Maybe I just need to (re?)read The Secret History to figure out my own secret history. (I know, I know, I just couldn't resist. Punning is my Achilles heel.)

Fake Bookish Neurosis: Novelimmersionosis

 

This morning, I walked into work completely anxious about having to appear in court to take the stand and testify about a case I knew nothing about. This, of course, lasted for only a flash of a second, until I realized that I am not, in fact, an Irish detective named Rob Ryan, but the same self I've always been. Rob Ryan resides in Dublin, in In The Woods by Tana French. I have never been to Dublin. Not physically, anyway. But it seems that when I am deeply immersed in a story, the lines between fiction and reality blur a bit, if only for fractioned moments.

This sort of thing, this novelimmersionosis, if you will, is not entirely uncommon, especially lately, since I've been listening to more audiobooks, and as the long winter sets in. The same thing happened while listening to the eerie The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (impressions forthcoming) though I actually never had a hold on where in time much of that novel took place. (I miss little things like that, sometimes, that I might otherwise have caught, had I been reading the text, since I'm listening while driving or walking most of the time.) 

I have nothing particularly clever or insightful to remark upon this clumsy phenomenon, but I do wonder how many of the rest of you occasionally confuse your lives with the lives of the characters you're reading about. Anyone care to admit to such a thing?