Fiction Writers Review » lit and art

Books in the… tub?

Celeste Ng — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:00:40 +0000

Image: Who Cares About That?

Here at the FWR blog, we have a thing for books: as furniture, as clothing, even in the bathroom. But this might just take the proverbial cake: a bathtub made of books.

Neatorama pointed me to the above amazing art project/feat of book-engineering by artist Vanessa Mancini, at Who Cares About That?:

This bath is made entirely out of books which Vanessa cut and fitted together over a metal frame to form a bath of books, which is suspended by four antique bath tub, lion-shaped feet. She intends to later cover it in layers of resin and has already applied proper taps and drain, so that it will be a utilizable, functional bath at all effects.

The idea is of immersing oneself in knowledge, books, truths, and ‘cleaning’ or ‘purifying’ one’s mind with from external, every day life bombarding from media, by reading ad reflecting on books,- ‘pure sources’, which is of course, metaphorical, implying we can become polluted by ideas of truths and knowledge, which we can only ‘clean’ by reading our way through to our own ideas and reflections.

On a metaphorical level, a bath made of books makes total sense, doesn’t it? For more photos and explanation of the project, read the full post at Who Cares About That?.

Further Reading:
Way too many cool things people have done with books:

Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw

Jennifer Taylor — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:00:55 +0000

How do you remember the 80s? Depending on your age (and I’m not asking), it might have been a rite of passage filled with brooding music and unfortunate clothing choices. Or maybe it was a time of perceived invincibility fueled by drug experimentation, as it is for the characters in Carol Anshaw’s latest, Carry the One (Simon & Schuster). The novel provides a compelling psychological examination of lives altered by a tragic accident.

The story begins in 1983, at an unpretentious Wisconsin farmhouse wedding. Carmen Kenney, the pregnant bride, waits impatiently for her guests to leave, sobered by the disconcerting realization she doesn’t really know her husband, Matt. She wearily says goodbye to a car filled with passengers: her sister Alice; her new sister-in-law Maude; Tom, an acquaintance; her brother Nick and his girlfriend, Olivia, the driver.

Carmen asks Olivia if she’s all right to drive. Olivia, who has spent the day ingesting various drugs says yes. And maybe she means it. In the backseat, Alice pays more attention to Maude’s advances than to Olivia’s capabilities as a driver. So Alice doesn’t notice what’s happened and sees the child only when their eyes briefly meet as the girl flies over the car’s hood.

She looked to be about nine or ten, although she had the adult features of kids from rougher places. She was quite beautiful, with a mop of hair bleached white by half a summer, green eyes staring at absolutely nothing.

The death of the child, Casey Redman, and what it means to those left behind forms the foundation of Anshaw’s perceptive novel. The protagonists struggle with personal dilemmas, both of their own making and driven by their environment as they grapple with guilt and residual damage. Anshaw shows the reader occasional glimpses before the accident, but the majority of the novel focuses on its aftermath: this trauma proves to be the defining moment of their lives.

While Alice and Maude’s relationship flickers on and off—testing the sustainability of romance borne of tragedy—Alice seeks to add another element to Casey’s short life. Through art, she creates tangible proof that Casey existed in a series of paintings about the child. Alice’s struggle with the accident feels at times enviable and brave, and at others like a painful loop she cannot escape.

Alice was beginning to see the terms of these paintings. She would wait for them to arrive and then paint them, like the clicking of a shutter, making snapshots out of oil and canvas. This was the central point of her art now, to record the girl’s unlived life.

In this regard, Alice submerges her own life in that liminal moment when Casey’s ended.

Before the accident, Nick had thought he would only casually date Olivia, yet the tragedy forges a defining link. They mark time together, united in a painful shared past. Carmen hides her remorse, but wonders if the child’s death cast a pall over her entire marriage, “played out under a long stretch of shadow it couldn’t outrun.” Even her son, Gabriel, born after Casey’s death, reminds the reader that fate denied the Redmans the pleasure of watching their daughter grow up.

The novel also casts the siblings as children, living in the pall of parental dysfunction. Even in adulthood, Alice, Carmen, and Nick must remain united against their parents—Horace the bully and Loretta the accomplice. Anshaw adroitly explores the relationship between the Kenneys’ familial background and who they become in the wake of trauma. Their ingrained roles, likely formed before they reached Casey’s age, remain a strong force in the novel, even though the moment that defines them—the accident—occurs during adulthood. Among the three siblings, one craves parental affection, one shuns it, and one has created a hell so complete that Mom and Dad don’t factor into the equation.

Anshaw dips into the minds of Alice, Carmen, and Nick as they attempt to make sense of what happened and comprehend their roles. In a novel so concerned with the internal fault lines of guilt and grief, this omniscience feels perfect. The relatively long expanse of time covered by Carry the One gives Anshaw space to fully explore her characters’ lives and their complex adaptations to enduring pain. The story unfolds over twenty-five years, including societal touchstones from the tenth anniversary of John Lennon’s death to the horrors of 9/11. The world carries on, even if the Kenneys remain shackled to the past.

Throughout the book, Alice and Carmen keep a wary watch over Nick, who lapses into the shadowy world of addiction. His penance of choice might be different from theirs, but he pays all the same. The sisters continue to reach out to their brother as he medicates his demons with an unwavering dedication. Scenes where Alice and Carmen try to pull Nick out of himself will resonate for anyone with an addict in the family.

Carol Anshaw’s Carry the One renders lives forever altered in the aftermath of one fateful day. The past declares itself, but the Kenney siblings prove time and again that a single event may be refracted in ways as diverse and unaccountable as the individuals it touches. Against the changing landscape of time and memory, they may falter under the weight of Casey Redman, but carry on they must.

Further Links and Resources

At Simon & Schuster’s author page, watch a video interview with Carol Anshaw and read an excerpt from Carry the One.
Follow Anshaw on Twitter: @carolanshaw
This NPR story about dog books features Anshaw’s Lucky in the Corner. Learn more about her other previous novels, Seven Moves and Aquamarine, on her website.
The author is also a painter; here are samples of Anshaw’s artwork, together with information about her Vita Sackville-West project.

Police Composite sketches for literary characters

Celeste Ng — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:00:30 +0000

Like most readers, you probably have your own mental image of Humbert Humbert, or Emma Bovary, or the Misfit. But if you’re the kind of person who likes a visual, check out The Composites, a Tumblr site that plugs literary descriptions of characters into police composite sketch software. The results are… well, take a look below and decide for yourself.

Here’s how the police sketch program portrayed the three characters I mentioned above, along with the passages that generated them. (All images via The Composites.)

Humbert Humbert, from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov:

Gloomy good looks…Clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice…broad shoulder…I was, and still am, despite mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor. Exceptional virility often reflects in the subject’s displayable features a sullen and congested something that pertains to what he has to conceal. And this was my case…But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows…A cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile…aging ape eyes…Humbert’s face might twitch with neuralgia.

Emma Bovary, from Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert:

She was pale all over, white as a sheet; the skin of her nose was drawn at the nostrils, her eyes looked at you vaguely. After discovering three grey hairs on her temples, she talked much of her old age…Her eyelids seemed chiseled expressly for her long amorous looks in which the pupil disappeared, while a strong inspiration expanded her delicate nostrils and raised the fleshy corner of her lips, shaded in the light by a little black down.

The Misfit, from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” by Flannery O’Connor

He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just beginning to gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long creased face and didn’t have on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun…“You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!”… When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth…Hunching his shoulders slightly…The Misfit’s eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking.

What do you think? Do these sketches match up with how you’d visualized these characters?

By the way, the site is accepting suggestions for characters. Who would you like to see sketched up?

Further reading:
Computers and literature: they are not always a match made in heaven.

Fiction from the Spam box
Can an online tool calculate how “fit” or “flabby” your prose is?
Could robots ever write novels?

What is the… What?

Celeste Ng — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:00:40 +0000

Okay, let me walk you through this one.

The Thing Quarterly is a “periodical in the form of an object.” Says its site:

Each year, four artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers are invited by the editors (Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan) to create a useful object that somehow incorporates text. This object will be reproduced and hand wrapped at a wrapping party and then mailed to the homes of the subscribers with the help of the United States Postal Service.

The most recent issue (Issue 16) is a work by Dave Eggers in the form of a shower curtain.

Image: The Thing Quarterly

The text on the shower curtain is a monologue told to Dave Eggers by his shower curtain:

Image: The Thing Quarterly

Editorial note: While actually in the shower, you will not be able to read the monologue that Dave Eggers’ shower curtain is telling to Dave Eggers.

As with all things Dave Eggers, I can’t quite tell if this is incredibly awesome or if he’s just screwing with the rest of us. (Most likely, both.)

(This mindbend brought to you via GalleyCat.)

A real page-turner

Celeste Ng — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:00:44 +0000

Joseph Herscher reads—but his Rube-Goldberg-esque machine does all the heavy lifting. The New York Times has a schematic–but the video is much more fun:

Further ~~Reading~~ Watching:

Books cavort in a bookshop in “The Joy of Books“
Busby Berkeley meets bookshelf
Book dominoes!

“Masturbate frequently.”

Celeste Ng — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:41 +0000

We hear a lot about how writers find their inspiration. But how about other creative artists? The Guardian surveyed contemporary musicians, dancers, directors, and architects to find out where they got their creative inspiration. Much of their advice is unexpected, yet would be useful to writers as well.

Here’s a sampler:

Guy Garvey, musician: Spending time in your own head is important. When I was a boy, I had to go to church every Sunday; the priest had an incomprehensible Irish accent, so I’d tune out for the whole hour, just spending time in my own thoughts. I still do that now; I’m often scribbling down fragments that later act like trigger-points for lyrics.

Tamara Rojo, ballet dancer: To be truly inspired, you must learn to trust your instinct, and your creative empathy. Don’t over-rehearse a part, or you’ll find you get bored with it. Hard work is important, but that comes before inspiration: in your years of training, in your ballet class, in the Pilates classes. That work is there just to support your instinct and your ability to empathise.

Rupert Goold, director: I always try to reshape my ideas in other forms: dance, soap opera, Olympic competition, children’s games, pornography – anything that will keep turning them for possibilities.

Sunand Prasas, architect: Ask off-piste questions. What if this library were a garden? If this facade could speak, would it be cooing, swearing, silent, erudite?

Polly Morgan, artist: Leave the house. Or better still, go to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and rescue a staffie. I did so partly to get out more, as I was spending too much time surrounded by the same objects, within the same walls. The sense of guilt I feel when my dogs are indoors forces me out at regular intervals. One of my favourite new ideas came about when I stopped to examine a weed growing in the forest I walk in.

Kate Royal, opera singer: Remember that art is everywhere. It’s amazing what you can find inspiring on the No 464 bus from Peckham.

And then there’s playwright Anthony Neilson’s advice, which I’ll let you decide whether to follow or not:

Masturbate frequently. You’ll probably do that anyway, but you may as well make it a rule.

Read the full list here, and tell us which parts you find helpful in the comments!

Further Reading:

Writing lessons from another unexpected source: the police
Also secretly creative? Supreme court justices.
Tips on stealing like an artist

Bookish Gift Idea #8: Hardcover Picture Frame (DIY)

Celeste Ng — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:00:58 +0000

Image: papernstitch

Today we have a simple but striking DIY gift idea: a picture frame made from a hardcover book. Maybe you’ve got an old book with unreadable pages but an intact cover, or maybe you found a gorgeous old hardcover at a used bookstore that could use a new lease on life (hello, Illustrated Cheeses of the World). Craft blog Papernstitch offers this tutorial on making that hardcover into a picture frame for a one-of-a-kind gift.

The full tutorial is here (via)—you’re on your own for the book, though.

Bookish Gift Idea #7: Retro reading posters

Celeste Ng — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:00:55 +0000

Image: Art.com

We’ve already looked at some posters to encourage kids to read, but what about adults? Take a peek at these amazing vintage-y reading posters. There’s the “Be Kind to Books Club” poster above, as well as several reminding you to read each month, like this one for March:

Image: Art.com

How great would these look over your desk–or in your library, should you be so lucky? Available—along with other historical reading posters—at Art.com. And check back every day in December for another bookish gift idea from FWR!

Whittle a spoon, write more?

Celeste Ng — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:08 +0000

If you’re not a geek (and I use that term as a positive term), you may not know who Mark Frauenfelder is. But you need not be a geek to learn from his recent post on LifeHacker. Frauenfelder is editor of DIY-geek-tech MAKE Magazine, and two of his tips on accomplishing more in the day are useful to creative writers, too.

The first is a time-honored writing trick—he talks about going into “Robot Mode” when running down his to-do list:

I don’t think about how many items are on the list or how many I have left to accomplish. I just focus on the current task at hand. [...] Robot Mode helps me from feeling overwhelmed, which can happen if I am looking at a list of things that aren’t in any particular order. If I have to deal with an interruption (as we all do) I take care of it, and get back to my list.

You may not have a to-do list for your current work-in-progress, but focusing on one small segment of your piece helps you from feeling overwhelmed by what’s going to happen at the end of the story (or the book). Anne Lamott gives similar advice when she talks about looking at your story through a one-inch picture frame.

But most intriguing to me is Frauenfelder’s second tip:

There’s one item I add to my list every day that helps me get things done and keeps me happy: “15 minutes of non-digital creativity” [...] I find that taking 15 minutes to do something non-digital, like whittling a spoon, playing with clay, or sketching, is a great way to improve my mood and to make all my work-related stuff seem less urgent. I usually schedule it about halfway through the list, so that I have a treat to work towards in the early afternoon, when I’m starting to burn out.

A short break of non-verbal creativity might be a great way to break the three o’clock doldums that hit me in the middle of writing days: a chance to switch metaphorical gears and get new perspective on whatever scene I’m struggling with. Do you find that non-verbal creativity helps your writing? If so, what’s your favorite way to recharge?

Further Reading:

Author Caroline Preston is a great example of how non-verbal creativity can inspire your writing, as this reviewlet of her novel The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt shows. As part of her writing process,

Preston put together hundreds of pages of hand-cut photos and captions to create the story of her 18-year-old heroine, who receives her father’s Corona typewriter and a blank scrapbook from her mother as a high-school graduation present. To assemble the materials that would make up Frankie’s life, Preston trolled antique stores and eBay for Bakelite bracelets and ticket stubs, a war medal and a flapper purse, a cigarette holder and a pair of driving glasses, bobby pins and fortune-telling cards. She put these items into a scrapbook: ‘over 600 pieces of 1920s vintage ephemera, and that’s a lot of stuff,’ she says.

Bookish Gift Idea #3: Posters to encourage reading (for kids)

Celeste Ng — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:00:06 +0000

Image: etsy.com

Here’s a gift for a young reader in your life—or any reader who is young at heart and has a little wall space to fill. Remember those “Give a hoot–read a book” posters at the public library when you were a kid? Here’s a roundup of newer, cooler versions to spruce up a book nook or bedroom. Above, the Edgar Allen Poe “READ” print is available from MonsterGallery.

Or how about this lovely hand-drawn fox with a Faulkner quote, from Gayana?

Image: etsy.com

This cheerful giraffe from Bunch of Bees offers some reading-related wisdom:

Image: etsy.com

And this typographic poster from See Mommy Make is so elegant, you might not have noticed the quote is from Dr. Seuss!

Image: etsy.com

Check back every day in December for another bookish gift idea—including a roundup of prints for adults, too.