Reading an Indian book! Bad joke. The point being that the book I'm reading, "The Truth About Stories", is a postcolonial take at disspelling all of the documented myths about what Natives are. My planned reaction to reading the book is to assume that all Indians are great story tellers and novelists. Now that they've learned to read (thanks to which culture?) they can put out better literature! Even though it has the Native-taint, it's still better than all of that oral....
No. Actually, the book is very good. I'm trying to take something(s) out of each story told and it's good to hear the novelist's take on what has been done to his culture, how he backs up his wit with information, his information with stories, and his stories with wit. Very nice tone, and the voice is one of a kind. It's taken me a while to warm up to the self-reflexive tone in the First Nations Literature, but I finally have. Actually, it's just taken a certain tone for the style to work. My attitude is that just because a First Nations wrote it, doesn't make it good. Robert Wagamese (sorry Robert) I don't like. I understand it, but don't like. Same with some of the others (if this was an essay I'd be more specific, but nobody is giving out gold stars, so...). I haven't had the same experiences and found the tone of voice to be inclusive as long as one has experienced what the protagonist experienced. More along the lines of self-help? No. That's racist. More along the lines of, "Matt doesn't like." I don't like a lot of things.
At any rate, Thomas King the guy I'm reading now, has a good amount of distance between the tone of voice, and the stories that he's telling. I'm actually liking the book quite a lot. Plan on finishing it today.
I want to play more music. I love the new practice space. Love it. I want to play music there 5 times a week. I want to play music right now. I'll try and phone up Semi-Louise and schedule a jam -- maybe tonight. Just to play music. It makes me happy. And I hate not playing music for two weeks, because then the band has to wind back together, which means that we're losing work.
Okay. Plan for today: finish book. Begin rant assignment for W336. Rework short-story, catapult the bitch into a second-draft and save it that way on my computer (this is new for me, this kind of pre-planning). Usually I'm hammering away at the keyboard at 3 am, drunk and stoned, capitalizing on others. Not this time. Not at all.
Posted by matty-b at January 10, 2004 10:30 AM