The Great American Novel: Life and the Art of Novel Writing

There is no doubt a preoccupation, a fantasy, if you will, among certain of us to write, for once and for eternity, "the great American novel."

What would it say? This has been a great and remarkable country, with a vast array of attractions - throughout Its history. The great American novel need not be a historical document. History is loosely assembled around facts, yes there is inherent ideology - history is written by the victor. However, I think we do have a sense, in the US, that our history is written relatively truthfully. There is at least an implicit idea of progress that we nurture in our republic, however distorted this concept of "progress" has become. I will not take the time here to delve into the convoluted concepts that qualify under the heading "progress" at this time and date - in the two-thousandth and tenth year of our Lord.

The great American novel is really more about the lyrical, the poetical, the personal viewpoint, taking into consideration, in due measure, the external realities of the time. Who is our character and how does he/she relate to the "blooming, buzzing" confusion of the streets? The streets that so typify their times? Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Even, on another level, Catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger. The narrator deeply within the psyche of the main character.

Rather, back to the point of this post, and that is - perhaps the preoccupation, the interest that the idea of writing the great American novel holds for us, is in simply wanting to be heard, to be understood, to be remembered, to be valued. (Perhaps with all this progress thus far we've lost something).

To be seen under and within the light (of truth), one could say being seen as God sees us, one could further water this down and plead, at last, to be seen as the unique species that is human being (Humanistic). To be seen, to be heard, to have you listen to us air our major grievances, our greatest outrages, our most outlandish dreams, to join us in our most cherished reveries - the story of falling in love, the specific individual vision of heartbreak, the specific revelation of the universal.

And so we want to show you these things, have you walk a mile in our shoes, the great lesson of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

We will not all write the great American novel. This simply is not a feasible possibility. Some of us must merely live our lives. Perhaps we become scholars in the art of living. The more honorable among us will take on philosophy - "The love of wisdom," and the rest, those who worship at the feet of mammon, will take on persuasion, the art of rhetoric. They will be Machiavellian, and they will be good candidates, most of them, for middle management, with a 5:1 shot at upward mobility.

We journey through this life, as busy assembling meaning (the philosophers among us) as life is in refining our natures. The great wash-board of life. Refined by fire. Born out of suffering is strength, yes, but also weariness and weakness, rust. In the end, the years wear down the best among us. And for the best among us, those who tower over us in the bright shining strength of their characters, in the radiant glory of their God-given true natures, those who seek to walk with God, to be known, indeed as the friend of God, in the splendor'd countenance of Moses descending the mountain, these Abrahams amongst us also to will perish.

And whether they perish and are gathered to their peoples with crying in the streets, or in relative obscurity, alone in some candle-lit room, I feel that heaven cries out for them, the skies open in a deluge upon us mere mortals, pelting our heads to chastise us for our weakness.

But again, back to the point. The desire to write the great American novel. Is it not a desire to be heard, to be known, to be remembered in our innermost detail, and to convey this knowledge to others? To be known in the matrix of our times - our culture, our friends and family, those who loved us and those we loved? To let the world know the things we hated and the things we loved?

We spend most of our lives these days running through a "Rube Goldberg" machine of the Monday-Friday workweek, only to get to the weekend to try to once again ignite our passion, to jumpstart the flatlined dream that we once knew and clung to so tightly, so dearly, in our youth. To assemble once again, the crew, to "get the band back together."

But if we must lie somnolent, supine, and let the sweat grow beads on our brows, toss and turn in an empty room, in our four-walled worlds, trapped in a prison of our own device, then I suppose, we can hold out the last hope of writing the great American novel. Forgive me the sarcasm, but even if we pass away into obscurity, or should I say through obscurity, grow older, and lose our "matrix" of friends and associates, we still are known to God.

Even if I forget where I was going, become distracted from who I once was, as I pass through possibility to actuality, from actuality to obscurity. When the sun sets on our role models, on those we look up to, these things, these memories, these intentions of mine must not fade away and pass into the void.

Under the starry skies tonight I looked up and wondered if there might yet be hope for all of us sinners with the silver sprouting signs of wisdom on our crowns and songs still left in our hearts...

"The Mad Bomber"

I bought this book, Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist, by James A Brussel, M.D. after reading an article a friend passed to me from the New York Times.

The article in the NYTimes, by Malcolmb Gladwell, viewable here speaks about the origins of criminal profiling, and questions it's reliability. Of course, this cold-reading can get out of hand. Comments can be ambiguous, "You are typically introverted but can rise to the occasion when necessary." I wouldn't expect any profile worth a damn to give into that cheap television psychic mumbo-jumbo, however.

The first story in the book, and the story that the NYtimes article speaks of is about a man named George Metesky who was the "Mad Bomber." Over a period of some 16 years he planted pipe bombs around New York City, many of them exploding in places like phone booths and inside the bottom of movie seats. A frustrated police investigator reaches out to Psychiatrist James Brussel for help. He stunningly comes up with what would appear to be several succinct and amazing predictions/profile of the criminal. Including that when he is caught he will be wearing a double breasted suit...buttoned.

The book mentions Metesky's address as "17 4th Street, Waterbury, CT." It's amazing what you can pull up these days with map sites like Bing and Google. While there is no street view available of the Mad Bombers house, there are satellite views (click on bird's eye view on the bing search), and a mouse over on Zillow likely confirms this is the place, as it states "built in 1924."

So, for roughly $184,000 you could technically buy the house and give tours to tourists, assuming of course, it was for sale.

Zillow link

Bing map of 17 4th St, Waterbury,CT

Wikepdia entry for George Metesky

There also seems to be quite a bit of information on this case obtained by a google search, FYI.

Hunter S. Thompson

"It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die... all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix--a clean well-lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except for the ones who know in their hearts what is missing...And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con Dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get..."

Thompson, Hunter S. Author's Note. Generation of Swine,Gonzo Papers
Volume 2, Tales of Shame and Degredation in the '80's.
By Thompson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. 11. Print.

No words needed

Obama's healthcare address

I am watching the President's address on healthcare reform. As usual, the President gives a good speech, and the first half hour or so contains little to complain about. Anecdotes about insurance companies who (and they do) cut people's coverage off when they get diagnosed with cancer, deny people because of pre-existing conditions etc.. These stories speak for themselves, and the President does have a point when he says that there is no place for behavior like this in the USA. When you think of the kind of money that gets thrown around in this country, the size of executive bonuses, it's hard to dispute this point. It's hard to rationalize a woman with breast cancer being cut off insurance and having to haggle to get it back while the cancer spreads. It's hard to rationalize an insurance companies motive to "cherry-pick" it's customers, to actuarialize people like figures on a table, to better their bottom line, to show wall street that they were more profitable than the previous quarter. It's hard to rationalize the kids that die because they did not have access to medical care for dental problems (this also happens).

At any rate, I'm a good bit through the speech and my only major CONCERNS about this are as follows:

1. Will this whet the appetite for a socialistic minded administration to decide to make other things 'mandatory?' Healthcare coverage becoming mandatory like car insurance? Well if you don't want car insurance then don't buy a car, but if you don't want health insurance...then what? What's next? Will the administration come out and say that guns are bad and kill people and we all have to pay so let's suspend your constitutional right to bear arms? In other words, don't tread on our freedoms!

2. On a related note, what gives the government the right to dictate to insurance companies what they will do? They must cover people with pre-existing conditions, no annual or lifetime caps, must cover preventative care (makes sense though) etc.. I know the insurance industry is highly regulated anyway, and there is obviously a place for government to regulate, as I don't believe unbridled capitalism usually generates proper ethics (look at how globalization has caused a race for the bottom in wages and living standards, jobs go to China where working conditions for the employees are wretched)...but what effect will this have on business? How do we know that this won't reduce insurance companies, and limit the options? How do we know if a non-profit insurance company can run well? If it can, why don't we have any number of them?

One thing is for sure: We tend to get the best results when people act in their own best interest. As shocking as this seems, think about how likely you are to get what is true, what is fair, from a haystack of bureaucrats, some of them peeking their heads out of someones pocket? If you doubt this, look at how our government let the financial industry rape the taxpayer, and how the CEOs of so many companies collect million dollar payouts while their companies lose money (not to mention ruin this country, cause unemployment, general misery, suicides, abuse etc).