Yes I know, not books, but fun anyway.

You Are Japanese Food

Strange yet delicious. Contrary to popular belief, you're not always eaten raw.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Well, during the 14 hour bus trip to Ktown, I did read this Christmas, but unfortunately I forgot the books in Ktown. Now that I think about it, they both had dealt with the life of academics, which probably should be making me think about my MA and maybe want to get back into the thesis that I've been putting off for over 6 months. But most books that comment on academics generally tend to make me want to run full speed away from any campus.

The first book is called The Bronte Project: A novel of passion, desire, and good PR and I thought I had found a nice little academic chick lit novel that portrayed a real girl. For the most part, this book captures nicely the life of girl doing her PhD in literature, finding out about the commercialism and general foibles of academic life, and finding out that reading literature was perhaps not the best way to learn about love and relationships. I won't be quoting specifically from the book as I don't have it on me, but the character mentions something about being insane for basing her ideas on life and love on three celibate consumptives (the Brontes).

She also mentions that critical theory might not provide all that many answers to questions asked outside of a literary text. After being dumped by her boyfriend she comments: What was it Lacan said about love? That it was giving something you didn't have to someone who never existed. Fucking post-structuralists were never helpful at times like these.

Up until the end of the book, I was finding this to be an intelligent novel with some humourous commentary on love and academia, but then it did the same thing that pissed me off about Bridget Jones - it took a totally realistic premise and tacked on a larger than life tv sitcom ending. In Bridget Jones, her mom goes off with this criminal and the guy breaks into their living room and there's this big police show-down thing. Like that ever happens. And in this novel, she goes off to Paris to do this TV show thing and then gets into a car accident in the same tunnel as Princess Diana and all these boys are trying to get her and well, I'm sorry but I of all people am fully aware that real life gets pretty melodramatic and over-the-top but I totally don't buy these endings and for me, they ruin the "slice of life" quality that I enjoyed about the books in the beginning. Still, The Bronte Project was some of the best chicklit I've read, just don't read the last 20 pages or so. Make up your own ending.

The other book I read this Xmas was The Sex Lives of Cannibals which so far is fantastic, but I think I'm going to leave off as I haven't finished it quite yet and what if the ending ruins this one too? Plus it fits in better with a blog on another travel book I'm reading. But if you're an academic who has just finished their degree, or if you're just at one of those stages in life were working in a 9-5 job seems like a committing yourself to a slow death and you're looking for a meaninful adventure, this book might convince you that maybe North America ain't so bad. It's been pretty damn funny thus far.

"Come on Wil, let's gay!"

-Xander Harris. Probably the funniest line of season 7 of BtVS. (Though the Whedon concept of using "gay" as a verb comes up in season 6 where Buffy says "She's gay, but we don't gay." referring to her and Willow.)

I'm not sure exactly when ass fucking creeped into every aspect of my life, but I'm pretty sure it was Pickle's fault.

It's starting to get sorta weird, reading-wise that is, (no worries, I'm not going into my usual guide to anal sex), as I read all this slash and then the books I've been enjoying most lately have been written by gay male authors.

They are all quite different books, but there's a similarity...let's explore what it is might be to "gay" in writing! I'm going to make some pretty huge generalizations as I'm only really commenting on 4 gay male authors, so obviously my saying that the qualities common to these four are those that are found in all gay male writing is just dumb, but perhaps it's worth taking a look at. And I keep re-writing this damn blog because what I want to say just isn't coming out.

Brutal honesty, melodramatic comedy these things jump out at me. And these things seem to mix to create a certain talent for portraying the moments in life that somehow manage to be the funniest and saddest at the same time.

In the beginning of this book that will be coming out in February called I am Not Myself These Days (by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, an autobiography), Josh is a drag queen whose claim to fame is having his breasts be these plastic see-through balloons filled with water and live goldfish swimming around in them. He spends his nights drinking himself into oblivion (not because he's a drag queen, but because of other issues) and trying to pick up men. There is such funny dialogue, but you continually get the sense of how sad this man is, sitting there making jokes in return for someone buying him drinks and taking him home for a night. And even that is sort of amusing as you see it as the condition of human loneliness, and you smile because it's true I guess.

Another quality of the writing is that the brutal honesty about life and who the characters are makes it so that when beautiful moments occur, they seem all that much more beautiful. Their honesty about the ugliness makes their honesty about the beauty more poignant as well as more real.

David Sedaris (and if you haven't read him yet, at least Me Talk Pretty One Day, shame on you!) is very adept at this type of writing as well. He has a new holiday book out, Holidays on Ice, that actually had me laughing my head off about a baby being killed in a washing machine (but obviously I saw some sadness in this moment too). The first story is one where he describes his own experiences as an elf at Macy's when he first moved to New York. The lady in charge of costumes has to do some training and he writes:

"She held up a calendar and said, "Ladies, you know what this is. Use it. I have scraped enough blood out from the crotches of elf knickers to last me the rest of my life. And don't tell me, " I don't wear underpants, I'm a dancer." You're not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf."

Funny speech, but his whole description of the training and the other elves and the people with their children wanting to see the white santa or the black santa, you're just constantly stuck between wanting to laugh at the human condition and wanting to cry for it. But now and again, someone acts in a way that is truly beautiful and you really get the significance of someone being beautiful, even just for few seconds, in a world such as ours.

The other author I wanted to mention is David Rakoff, who wrote Don't Get too Comfortable which is an examination of the luxury of the leisure class (that means us and him) in North America. The luxury of complaining that we don't have fulfilling jobs, the luxury of complaining that we can't find the perfect pair of jeans - he points out the general hipocrisy of our culture and he rips us a new one for it. It's lovely. It's non-fic by the way and very funny.

I just starting reading Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (won the Booker last year) so I'll let you know how that goes, but so far my patterns for gay male authors are applying nicely. They also seem to apply to Oscar Wilde...I might be onto something here.

But what is it that I appreciate about this? I guess it's the honesty and the willingness to really portray the flawed human character with love, humour, anger, sincerity, and hopefulness.

Apparently, the new female is a pretty superficial beast. I was talking with Squirrel Boy about books that encompass a guy's journey through life - journeys into maturity, or just passing through certain stages of existence. The Magus seems to have been doing that job for ages, but so have a million other books. The bildungsroman is basically the story of a man's life and if a guy is looking to read a book where he can relate to the life changes of the main character, he doesn't have to search for very long.

I find what I'm trying to describe...well... hard to describe. It's like those novels that speak to you because the main character is going through something that you can totally relate to. And of course, there are novels with male protagonists that female readers can relate to (and vice versa), but like in children's novels, there are certain parts of life that are a little bit gender specific. Boys can read books about girls getting boobs and bleeding through their genitals, but it's not really something that specifically relates to the physical and emotional changes they are going through.

Hopefully, you all get the type of books I'm talking about. It got me thinking about how many bildungsromans there are for women these days and I can't come up with many. Yes, there are many that exist in genre fiction like mystery or fantasy, but just a regular fiction book is hard to find. Unless I think of my journey through life as being the quest to make enough money for a pair of ridiculously expensive shoes (I was going to put Manolos in there, but I don't know how to spell it and I decided I didn't want to know).

There are a million Shopaholic type books out where apparently if my life was only about finding money to go to swanky places, buy swanky clothes, find a swanky guy and generally surround myself in swankiness, I could relate to the female character's journey.

But I am not this girl and I'm getting kinda pissed about the fact that I can't seem to find many general fiction books where I relate to the female protagonist and she help me through what is happening in my life. The Time Traveler's Wife does a great job of this and is just the most amazing book ever (it really is people) but again, a bit of a fantasy novel. It's the story of a man who is able to travel through time, but he has no control over it and the story is told from both his perspective and that of his true love. It's really a story about the journey of a couple and it's a beautiful and not too twee account of Big Love.

Female Canadian authors are really the only ones I can think of at this point that fit into the general fiction category and do what I want them to do. Margaret Laurence's The Diviners is my book, it's the one I read over and over again and each time I relate to different parts of Morag's journey through her life. It grows with me. And for younger days, A Complicated Kindness and Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews are such humorous and true adult accounts of what it's like to be an intelligent teenage girl that it astounds me (though I find A Boy of Good Breeding to be her best work).

But what about the girls my age - I'm not saying the characters have to be hippie, patchouli wearing, careerless students like me - but I want something for the intelligent, not entirely superficial, girl in her 30's (okay so I'm not quite there yet, close e-fuckin'-nuff). Does such a character exist? I found she existed in Bridget Jones the movie (I found the book to be pretty abysmal, the story and the characters were far more real in the movie). Obviously, Buffy counts. But I'm talking books here people, you know those things I used to read before slash came along and took over my life?

I freely admit that I haven't read that many books and I know I'm forgetting stuff I've read, but why am I having such a hard time thinking of books like this? If anyone can give me some examples, I would be very appreciate...not "I'll give you head" appreciative, but perhaps, "I'll buy you a coffee" appreciative. Or I guess, once I read the book you've suggested, I'll see how appreciative I am.

Well after couple of beers, a cigarette (of all things) and having sent a really odd email to Pickle (one of those cryptic things that I'm sure I won't be pleased to have sent because it's odd and also because of the naked honesty often involved in truly spontaneous writing) I've decided to start my blog again.

I've been wanting to start a reading journal type of blog for a few weeks now, having given quite a bit of though as to what to do with this goddamn webspace. So here goes. This is not my attempt to review books, it's merely to share my thoughts on what I've read. It's not just going to be novels, but newspaper stuff, milk cartons, and of course slash fiction. Hopefully it will also provide some insight into how I'm doing, which is important to those of dear to me who are far away.

Thought I'd do my first one on some slash stories as slash happens to be my addiction du jour. Actually, not just du jour, but du nuit as well. And for the last year and a half. It's an obsession and I'm still not entirely sure what it is that I find so addictive about it. Perhaps part of it is finding the truly wonderful stories that are beautifully/creatively written and the beauty of knowing that this talented artist is one who is doing something purely for love of the craft - no money can or will ever be received for their work (copyright laws being what they are) and not all that much fame is afforded these creatures either. And of course, they make me hot.

I'll do Buffy tonight. For those of you who can't imagine reading slash but are Buffy fans, go read Behind the Scenes - you have to use the waybackmachine to get at it, but it's a damn funny read with Giles and Spike talking about how sick they are of being paired up in all these crazy scenarios by slash writers.

The first story I have to mention is Esmeralda's Stranger Things series. This series is more than novel length and is a work in progress. I'm not sure exactly when it started (probably at least a couple of years ago) and she's still writing it to this day (last update was in November). It's a Spander fic (Spike and Xander) and very rarely does it tie in to the real show - her storylines are almost entirely original. She captures the characters well, gives them new depth and it's just an entertaining read. It's the best Buffy fic out there.

The premise is that Spike and Xander get together after Spike has to save Xander from these demon sorts by having sex with him. Now, I'm usually not too impressed with the premise for getting the two male characters in slash together, and this story is no exception (though still a great read - there is one story called Truth or Dare that does the "yes Spike and Xander might actually have sex" done reasonably well but again, waybackmachine is needed). But the continuing development of their relationship is just fantastic and I think she sticks to Whedon's initial incarnation of evil Spike much better than the show ended up doing. And if you want someone who will go to dark places, Esmeralda is your girl. There is angst (as with most really good slash) but not so much as to just make you sick of it.

She comes up with some great vampire lore, ideas of consorts and blood play and blood relations in vampires that makes sense given the Buffyverse Whedon created. She comes up with demons, and languages for these demons - her thoroughness is almost (though obviously not quite) Tolkien-esque.

There is also the creation of a relationship between Doyle and Angel. Funnily enough, I started reading this fic way before I ever really watched Angel and when I finally saw the first season I could totally see why slash writers would put these two together - the erotic tension between the two of them is insane. I buy pretty much any premise that gets these two into naughty positions, but since I'm primarily a Spike slut, I just don't get into the storyline as much.

Other recs for the Buffyverse are Jackson's Sweet Revenge. Another Spander fic, this one is pretty good writing, and good storytelling, but I recommend it primarily as a naughty story. This should be in every "best of" erotica collection out there. The girl just knows how to describe sex in such a way as to make all bad days melt away into yumminess.

I don't just read slash, I also read het stuff (hetero fan fiction for you cool people) so if you're not into the guy on guy, I would recommend Mary's Journeys series. This link is to the Journeys Part 2. I've only read this bit as I only read that which is rated NC-17 (the naughtiest rating). The other parts of the story are probably pretty good as I think this Mary girl is the best writer of my Buffy recs. It's a Spike/Buffy fic and she's got Whedon dialogue down and her story ideas for season six are excellent. Though I think season six was the best season of Buffy, now and then I wish I had been able to see something a little happier and this story provides the chance for me have that and makes it believable too. Sadly this is a never-to-be finished story.

I'm off to bed now to dream of lovely things. Maybe with this break through, I'll finally start blogging again.