A NOVEL DISCOURSE...

Thought I'd take a photo of NOVEL CHATELAINE on moi hand, because its Tiny-ness is part of its charm, courtesy of Amanda Laughtland's book design--to wit, in Ron Silliman's words: "Seven chapter, 8-page novel with great color graphics ingeniously printed on a single piece of 20-lb weight copy paper":



More joy! Here's John Olson -- who, by the way, brilliantly used one of the Oulipo N + 7 techniques to respond to Steven Fama's fun reworking of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem HERE -- as regards my first novel (grin):

Your novel arrived in the mail yesterday. I hope to have the first chapter read by mid-February, maybe March.

Just kidding, of course. I read it as soon as it emerged from the envelope. What a delight. It has a certain tragi-comical zest. A shovel breaking earth and a neglected garden and a plot in which tendons bend and bones bend and antlers bear the gold of narration. It is rather amazing how much gestalt and atmosphere can be condensed into a few small paragraphs.

Are you familiar with Yasunari Kawabata's "palm stories"? Or Ernest Hemingway's six word novel? "For sale: baby shoes. Never used."

Oddly, your novel reminded me of the Rolling Stone's "Jumping Jack Flash." The song was inspired by Keith Richards' gardener. He jumped over a mud puddle or something and Keith shouted "jumping jack flash"!" He and Mick decided that was such a cool phrase they had to make a song out of it...

Gardening?!--guess that's where the fiction arises for Moi. Speaking of novels, John Olson's SOULS OF WIND arrived in today's mail -- here's how it begins:

He stood with his hands resting on the taffrail gazing at the water boiling up from the stern of the S.S. Egypt, a steamer with one funnel and six masts rigged fore and aft with nearly two thousand square yards of canvas. The ship was doing eighteen knots and leaving a long trail of foam, diffuse and mesmerizing in its quiet undulations. A girl sneezed, and he turned around instinctively to see who was behind him. The hard, chiseled lines of his face frightened the girl and she ran to hide behind her mother's skirt. He gestured with apology, but neither the woman or her husband--an immigrant couple from Bucharest--revealed acknowledgement. They feared this man.

From that excerpt, you can glean why I almost cried at John's comments over my novel (grin -- I'm sorry, whenever I think of that phrase my novel, I just put on a major sh*t-eating grin) for he knows of what he speaks. He also improves my reading habits -- after his novel, I'm off to read Yasunari Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories....

I haven't read Yasunari Kawabata in over a decade, but still remember how his House of the Sleeping Beauties was one of those evocative reading experiences that tips one into a dream where Poetry held sway... Another poet had recommended this book to me....how logical of course that poets recommend Yasunari Kawabata....as I also do...