Time to Get Back into (Mental) Shape Again
My family is starting another fitness challenge. This is good. I’ve been cruising.
Meanwhile, I’m reading The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs.
It’s a post-modern memoir-ish thingy predicated on the idea that he is reading the entire encyclopedia. It’s not a plot-driven novel; each chapter is devoted to a letter of the alphabet and covers facts he discovers and his reactions to them. Along the way you get some plot, but mostly it’s a post-modern collection of observations.
It’s exactly the kind of book I would write if I were ever going to write a book, in fact.
Which is odd, because I’ve never actually finished reading it. I get about to P and grow bored. Every couple of years I pick it up and try again. I’m at G right now, and growing bored. I shouldn’t be, but I am.
On the other hand, I can devour This is not a novel by David Markson in a single sitting. Markson’s book is comprised almost entirely of one-liner facts organized in a free associative manner, with periodic interjections from the narrator, who is confused about what he is writing.
It has even less plot than Jacobs’ book, and it inspired me to go out and buy all his other books. None of which I have read, by the way.
Actually, now I remember what happens—I start reading Jacobs, remember Markson, and abandon Jacobs for Markson.
There is a lesson in here somewhere, but I don’t want to think too hard about it. It probably involves comparing my brain to a shriveled peanut incapable of reading anything more substantial than a one-liner.
So I think that with this family challenge, I’m going to have to work on some sort of mental health challenge. I need to get back into reading something serious. Important. Informative. That focuses on a single topic for longer than one line. Or even two paragraphs.
While I try to figure out exactly how to do that (start with “See Spot Run”?), here are snippets from both Jacobs and Markson, just to make this horse related (or at least equine related):
The more I progress in the alphabet, the more successful I am at stifling that eleven-year-old boy inside of me, the one that still thinks a good Beavis-and-Butt-head-style scatological pun is cause for great joy.
It’s not easy. Just the number of asses alone will tempt even the most evolved mind. I’ve learned about The Golden Ass (a book by a Platonic philosopher), and the Wild Ass’ Skin (a novel by Balzac). I’ve read about the half-ass (a type of mule in Asia) and Buridan’s ass (an animal in a philosophical parable). But it goes way beyond asses. Asses are just the start. You can also take a trip in the river Suck (in Ireland), where you could fish for crappies (a freshwater bass) while you drink some Brest milk (the town in Belarus is known for its dairies). If you’re bored, you can have a stroke-off (while playing bandy, a version of ice hockey) and fondle a bushtit (a small bird). If you’re feeling smart, you might want to argue the impact of Isaac Butt (an Irish leader), or debate the merits of the Four Wangs (Chinese landscape painters), who might have been collected by the Fuggers (an art-loving family). Or else, just take a flying Fokker (a German airplane).
The Know-It-All
Or this from This is not a novel:
Realizing idly that every artist in history—until the Writer’s own century—rode horseback.
For instance Keats doing so beside the Tiber each morning until not long before his death.
George Sand, disdaining sidesaddle on a favorite mare she by chance called Colette.
Or twenty-three centuries earlier Pindar even reassuring readers that there would be horses in heaven.
Or later on (still Markson):
The Reader.
Being Aristotle’s nickname at Plato’s Academy.A colt that kicks its mother.
Being what Plato personally called him after an early disagreement.
You see? This is the sort of reading I am reduced to. Short, to the point, totally and utterly random.
But not a healthy diet for a brain. Must go find something substantial. I’m definitely thinking “See Spot Run” will be a good starting point.