From: Brooklyn
Category: Amis's Contemporaries
Date: 6/21/99
Time: 4:05:48 PM
Remote Name: 207.238.28.10
Here we go again. A clean slate, compliments of the only remaining group in our PC society eligible for discrimination. The IT department. But hey, who's pointing fingers.
Jewels, I always thought that Paul Auster was a bore. Much the same way I thought of Tim O'Brien. Of course this was before I had ever read anything by these guys. Last week I picked up *New York Trilogy* (and actually read it) and wonder why I wrote the guy off. I sincerely think it was because of his name. Paul, I hate that name. But seriously, Auster is really a lame name for attracting readers. Very solemn and forbidding. Anyway, I'm over that now and regret that I wasn't induced to read his book a little earlier so I could have caught him in action close to home. I still haven't quite put together *City of Glass*, but it's coming. There was a dialogue last week on slate.com about *Timbuktu* & some book about elephants. Anyway, there was a reference to Martin: "Many (writers) depict the thoughts of a person markedly inferior in thinking power to the author, or use language to describe a character's thoughts and feeling that would be alien to the character in question (this complaint was made a few years back about the sublimely stupid central character, John Self, in Martin Amis' verbally elaborate Money). The question in all these cases is: Does it work? Of course, there is artifice and distortion in art--but does it penetrate to a recognizable essence?" The guy goes on to say that it, indeed, does work in the case of Auster (and the elephant book too).
Also, Jules, if you dig dogs try to check out a book by Merrill Markoe titled *What Dogs Have Taught Me*. In Markoe's words, "I pick dogs that remind me of myself--scrappy, mutt-faced, with a hint of mange. People look for a reflection of their own personalities or the person they dream of being in the eyes of an animal companion. That is the reason I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies."
The last chapter outlines the many lessons Markoe has learned from her dogs: "If you see something you want, and all your other attempts at getting it have failed, it is only right to grovel shamelessly. As a second tactic, stare intently at the object of your desire, allowing long gelatinous drools to leak like icicles from your lips."