Automatic autobiography

I've been thinking much more often lately about the authors of the books I read, and not just the books themselves. I suppose this started consciously with The Kite Runner, because I spent most of the book preoccupied with wondering how much of it was autobiographical. Khaled Hosseini is an excellent storyteller but not really, I think, a very good writer, so you aren't completely swept up in the story--you have time to wonder if it's true. Then, in Senior Lit, we were talking about how some people wondered all the way through Bastard Out of Carolina which bits were autobiographical, and having trouble differentiating Bone from Dorothy Allison. But I didn't think of that at all. It never occurred to me to wonder what was autobiographical, and I think it's because Dorothy Allison is a better writer. She's a good writer not just in making even the most unpleasant descriptions sound poetic, but also in simple shape--she's good at putting things together.

The Pursuit of Love also comes to mind--everyone knows it's pretty heavily based on the Mitford family. I'm looking forward to reading The Mitford Girls, to see how much they relate to each other.

And anyway, all fiction has hints of autobiography. There are people I won't show my writing to, not because the story is particularly autobiographical but because I feel like the story will say who I am--and if it didn't say something about me, it wouldn't be any good.

The sort of weekend one wants to wallow in

I just applied to college. Well, that's weird.

I've finished reading Bastard Out of Carolina. I'm really not sure how I feel about it. I guess I don't really dislike it, and the writing is often excellent. But it's not something I would ever read again. It's too uncomfortable (not shocking--I'm not easily shocked) a book for that. It's worth reading but that's not why I read, really. I read to make myself think, and I can't even really think about this book so it kind of defeats the purpose. But it's a very good book, so I'm glad I read it. I guess that's the difference--I'm glad I have read it, I'm glad it's over.

And it's only Saturday! I have a whole day tomorrow left of my weekend! And three whole days before I have a new Senior Lit book I have to read. I don't know what the next one is, but in the meantime I'm going to read all the fun stuff I can. I'm still working slowly on Five Children and It (which should go fast, it's only 170 pages), and I started reading The King of Elfland's Daughter, by Lord Dunsany, which is lovely although I'm not sure it's what I really want to read right now. I'm sure I have all sorts of other things to read, too.

Sigh.

It's been an incredibly long week, but also a very satisfying one. I have no idea when, but I've been doing rather a lot of thinking. Also, a lot of getting things done. I've had a lot of homework, and I have a college application due in a week, so with one thing and another I haven't had much time to stop.

After I finished Storming Heaven last weekend I needed a book to read until I got the new Senior Lit book, so I picked up Old Books, Rare Friends, by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern. I haven't finished it yet, but I find it extremely and unfailingly pleasant, interesting, and thought-provoking. The authors are friends and partners in the rare book business, and this is their combined memoirs, both of their lives and of their adventures in books. I've decided I have to read more biographies of people in the early to mid 20th century, because it's a fascinating era to me, and it becomes even more fascinating when I have a particular person to view it through. Plus, I adore any books about books, and this definitely qualifies. Also interesting is the fact that these are the women who originally discovered Louisa May Alcott's pseudonymous penny dreadful stories. Over all it has points that make me think (in somewhere about the middle of my torso) of 84, Charing Cross road. I suppose it helps that they went to 84, Charing Cross Road on their first book-buying trip to London, but apart from that it's a bit of recognition--two more people who also love books.

I have to say it's a good book to read alongside Bastard Out of Carolina. Not that they have the least bit of common ground, but that Old Books, Rare Friends is so pleasant and Bastard Out of Carolina is so unpleasant. I have to admit I don't like Bastard Out of Carolina very much. It's not to do with the subject matter, really, or even the fact that it's not a very comfortable book to read. It's also not to do with Dorothy Allison's writing, which is really very good. It just doesn't have the same resonance for me that other books have--though it has certain elements of autobiography about it, which intrigued me in The Kite Runner and in The Things They Carried, it doesn't pull me in like those books did for that reason. It doesn't have the sense of being epic that, for example, Storming Heaven had, and which is one of my favourite qualities in books (the epic parts are the only parts of books that ever make me cry, and I can't really explain what I mean in this case by epic). Neither did it have a good sense of being completely ordinary (because it's not). Over all, though it is interesting, it has not managed to convince me that what it's saying is something I want to be reading. Anyway, I am kind of underwhelmed, while simultaneously being a little overwhelmed by what it is saying. If that makes any sense.

I'm going to start work on my Senior Lit essay, which has suddenly become very difficult because I have two different ideas I want to write about. Am I a ridiculous overachiever for really wanting to write both?