The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
Bantam Books, 1993
304 pages / $5.99 buy from Powell’s

1. I want to write about Anne Frank. I am mid-way through reading The Diary of a Young Girl and I know what is coming. The discovery of the eight inhabitants of the annex, their arrests, their being shipped to concentration camps. Their deaths. I know this is coming, but I do not want it to happen.

2. I have slowed my reading. Normally I read fast. A book every 2-3 days. But I have dragged Anne’s diary out for over a week now to forestall the ending.

3. When I first begin reading, I am conscious of wanting to have some kind of emotional reaction to The Diary of a Young Girl. I want Anne’s writing to affect me, but am worried that the desire to feel something w/r/t Anne Frank is somehow wrong.

4. Not only that, but I worry that wanting to feel something, and being conscious of that want, will actually preclude me from feeling anything.

5. In her diary, Anne makes reference to other things she has written: fairy tales and the opening of a novel. I want to read them. I google ‘anne frank fiction’. The results are confounding. On the first page of results are a number of links claiming that Anne Frank’s diary is itself fiction. I do not click on these links and I shake my head and scroll down further.

6. There is a link entitled ‘Do you know where I can read an Anne Frank fanfiction?’ and I get excited. It seems to me a wonderful idea to write fan fiction. I click on the link and read:

7. When Anne writes about her feelings for Peter van Pels, it breaks my heart. It makes me feel sick and it makes me grit my teeth that the two of them will be dead once I have finished reading.

8. Other things that make me feel sick and make me grit my teeth: that Anne was unable to do everything she wished to do. That she wanted to be a reporter and a writer and she wanted to be married and she wanted someone to love and share her true self with and that she was unable to do this.

9. I think that maybe I could write a different ending for her. I could write the life that she never got to live.

10. Is wanting to write a different ending for Anne cruel and in bad taste? Would it ‘take more away than add’ to her story? READ MORE >

Peter Tieryas Liu (and Angela Xu) made this video review adaptation of his review earlier this year of Kristine Ong Muslim’s We Bury the Landscape. Check it out:

I intended to spend today (29 Dec. 2012) staring out the window and starting a list of all the reasons why kitties were superior in every single way to humans. However, my plan was pummeled to pieces when, through Facebook, I came into contact with Nina Power’s review of Tiqqun’s (trans. Ariana Reines) Preliminary Materials For a Theory of the Young-Girl. I am a boy. I like monster trucks and Arthur Rimbaud. But, even though I’m not a young girl, I still contain an awful amount of admiration for how Tiqqun (a French collective of theorists and artists) depicts the young girl, and I did not appreciate Nina Power’s patronizing, neo-liberal evaluation of it.

So, now, I am impelled to illuminate the wrongness of her ways.

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Part 1

I recently finished Marcel Proust’s seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time. As I read the last sentence, which appropriately ends with the word “Time,” (clever Proust, very clever) I felt a range of unexpected thoughts and emotions. I knew that I deserved the biggest cookie in the world. I also wanted a sign from the universe to acknowledge this labor of love, because I could be sure as shit that no one else in the world would really care about this personal accomplishment. I just wanted to brag and walk around the city, challenging people by saying, “Hey, I just finished the longest novel ever, what, do somethin!” though I realized that most people would laugh at my pretentiousness. So, instead, embracing the dorkiness of the endeavor, I write about my experience and will wait for the countless plaudits and emails to race my way. Here we go! (Disclaimer: If I sound a bit oh-look-at-me pretentious, please forgive me, I deserve something for this effort. LET ME HAVE THIS.)

Some context/backdrop: Proust and his posthumous publishers split up his over 3,000 page novel into seven volumes. That comes out to over 1 million words, and if you’ve ever tried to read any of his volumes, you know the most prohibitive parts are the never ending sentences and paragraphs. You need to forget about that frequent reinforcement you get in reading that comes from the end of a sentence, paragraph or chapter. This in no way exists in Proust, and you need to give up any expectation of those consistent reinforcements that allow us to finish long literature. This takes time to get over, and I don’t know anyone who can say that the beginning of Proust was smooth or easy sailing. It takes time to learn how to read the book, though Proust will teach you the best way to read his writing, which is very nice of him.

I read this novel over a period of five months, from June to October, but I must mention that I attempted to read the first volume, Swann’s Way, at least twice before to little success. The first two times I made this endeavor, I actually grew to hate Proust. In my arrogance I thought that if I could not even get through one page, then the problem must lie in the author, not in me, the great reader. I soon realized that, attempting to read Proust, even at the age of 21, and then 23, I was neither mentally nor intellectually prepared. It requires some real high level discipline, patience, and even more patience. (If Proust gave me anything, and I would contend that he gave me a lot, he at least gave me a widened attention span. Now, I’ve moved on to reading all of Tolstoy and I find his large books breezy compared to Proust.)

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Autoportrait
by Edouard Levé
Dalkey Archive Press, 2012
120 pages / $12.95 buy from Dalkey

1. I didn’t intend to write about this book until I finished it just now.

2. Today I read a speech given by Jeffrey Eugenides in which he quoted Christopher Hitchens recalling the advice of Nadine Gordimer, i.e. “A serious person should try to write posthumously.” I think Edouard Levé succeeded in writing posthumously before his death.

3. When I first read the line “I find tips humiliating for the giver and the receiver,” I initially understood “advice” rather than “gratuity.”

4. I read the musings on mortality and suicide in Autoportrait differently than the musings of characters written by other authors who later killed themselves. I’m not sure why.

5. I experienced disappointment (with myself?) whenever a line caused me to think of Twitter. (“I have thought simultaneously: ‘I really should learn the trombone’ and ‘there’s a dead ant.'”)

6. “I am writing this book on a computer, there will never be a manuscript.”

7. The thought “Oh, you too?” occurred to me around 30 times after reading different lines in the book. (“On a trip, I fold my dirty laundry so it will take up less space.” “I rest only against my will.” “At a public urinal the presence of a neighbor delays my micturition.” “I have a fantasy involving female art students.”)

8. In my opinion, the number of pairs of pants Levé owned seems excessive. (60!)

9. It would have taken me longer to pick up this book if it had been called Self-Portrait by Edward Lee. In some way I think this is similar to the author’s fondness for Levi’s 501 Jeans.

10. Probably more than 30 times I would read the first clause of a sentence and think “This is going to be good.” (“Here is how I tell the story of Jesus:…”) READ MORE >