Comments on: pain of the latter day http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/ a blog about books and other texts Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:50:38 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: simsby http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/#comment-8668 simsby Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:52:09 +0000 http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/?p=87#comment-8668 Can't say fairer than that. Can’t say fairer than that.

]]> By: giovanna http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/#comment-8662 giovanna Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:52:34 +0000 http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/?p=87#comment-8662 okay, well, the cleansing apocalypse and all that was a direct expression of my feeling pretty down these days about life-in-america-and-possibly-the-world and wishing sometimes that it all just went away. it was hyperbolic. it was angry. it was furious, actually. i am seeing pain in every novel i read. every novel seems to speak to me of the impossibility of living, not at a personal level, but at an interpersonal, social, structural one. so this is where this post came from. me feeling terminally stuck in a terminally difficult world. okay, well, the cleansing apocalypse and all that was a direct expression of my feeling pretty down these days about life-in-america-and-possibly-the-world and wishing sometimes that it all just went away. it was hyperbolic. it was angry. it was furious, actually.

i am seeing pain in every novel i read. every novel seems to speak to me of the impossibility of living, not at a personal level, but at an interpersonal, social, structural one. so this is where this post came from. me feeling terminally stuck in a terminally difficult world.

]]> By: reynolds http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/#comment-8661 reynolds Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:45:52 +0000 http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/?p=87#comment-8661 Cleansing apocalypse reminds me too much of rapture, and not enough of people's revolution. (And even that latter option seems to me a wispy ideal.) So, giving up on any ex machinations, I zero in on the local, and the possibility both of the books you reviewed suggest -- the incredibly tough job of making sense of others. The moment that nailed me in Alexie's novel, YA or just A, is when he runs into his father. No spoilers, but I was startled at how a book that had seemed at first cartoonishly obvious then increasingly wise (but still slight) became suddenly for this reader one of the most moving, painful, hopeful reads I'd seen in years. Because of where it goes, what it accomplishes, I say give it to your friend's sons. I think a lot of "adult" books thrust upon me as an adolescent by well-meaning adults who saw in them important lessons (and Chaim Potok and Elie Wiesel were two key figures) tended to seem like sermons, wrapped up as novels. Alexie does what Vonnegut did for me way back when: he enacts the pain of being in the lesson, of achieving the lesson and insight, rather than standing above or outside of such knowledge. Does that make sense? I was always on the defensive against being taught shit, especially by people who seemed above the fray. But the pain is real and raw and in the moment--Alexie's narrator is so well-realized that, zits and warts and tedious sarcasm and all, he might very have gotten me to pay attention. Cleansing apocalypse reminds me too much of rapture, and not enough of people’s revolution. (And even that latter option seems to me a wispy ideal.) So, giving up on any ex machinations, I zero in on the local, and the possibility both of the books you reviewed suggest — the incredibly tough job of making sense of others. The moment that nailed me in Alexie’s novel, YA or just A, is when he runs into his father. No spoilers, but I was startled at how a book that had seemed at first cartoonishly obvious then increasingly wise (but still slight) became suddenly for this reader one of the most moving, painful, hopeful reads I’d seen in years.

Because of where it goes, what it accomplishes, I say give it to your friend’s sons. I think a lot of “adult” books thrust upon me as an adolescent by well-meaning adults who saw in them important lessons (and Chaim Potok and Elie Wiesel were two key figures) tended to seem like sermons, wrapped up as novels. Alexie does what Vonnegut did for me way back when: he enacts the pain of being in the lesson, of achieving the lesson and insight, rather than standing above or outside of such knowledge. Does that make sense? I was always on the defensive against being taught shit, especially by people who seemed above the fray. But the pain is real and raw and in the moment–Alexie’s narrator is so well-realized that, zits and warts and tedious sarcasm and all, he might very have gotten me to pay attention.

]]> By: michael http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/#comment-8660 michael Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:50:43 +0000 http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/?p=87#comment-8660 Jesus, gio. what should I say? a "cleansing apocalypse" for 300 million people? perhaps it's only an opinion that can be formed in leisure at a major university in a major city but I imagine it makes a big difference to many whether they can afford organic food, therapists and the like. Now back to my "deeply inhuman life!" Jesus, gio. what should I say? a “cleansing apocalypse” for 300 million people? perhaps it’s only an opinion that can be formed in leisure at a major university in a major city but I imagine it makes a big difference to many whether they can afford organic food, therapists and the like. Now back to my “deeply inhuman life!”

]]> By: giovanna http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/pain-of-the-latter-day/#comment-8659 giovanna Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:00:02 +0000 http://miamibooks.wordpress.com/?p=87#comment-8659 am i all mixed up? is this not a YA novel? that would make sense. i was thinking about how to give this to a dear friend's teenage sons and having to explain to her all the "language." not that aforementioned teenage sons don't use such "language" with total regularity, but you don't want to have auntie jo sanction it by giving them a book that's full of it, right? right. am i all mixed up? is this not a YA novel? that would make sense. i was thinking about how to give this to a dear friend’s teenage sons and having to explain to her all the “language.” not that aforementioned teenage sons don’t use such “language” with total regularity, but you don’t want to have auntie jo sanction it by giving them a book that’s full of it, right? right.

]]>