{"id":146792848,"date":"2024-08-02T12:30:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T12:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=146792848"},"modified":"2024-08-02T12:30:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T12:30:39","slug":"friday-links-why-do-we-read-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=146792848","title":{"rendered":"Friday Links: Why Do We Read Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Sometimes I am angry at people everywhere for their stupidity, for their buying into the American way…” – Barry Lopez, “Emory Bear Hands’ Birds”<\/h2>

What a great summer week, dudes. I went kayaking, took my kid to the beach a different day, whole family went to the movie theater another day. Grilling some chicken wings tonight, eating a Caesar salad, you know. Life! It\u2019s meant to be lived!<\/p>

What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p>

Another book plucked from some Evanston resident\u2019s \u201cget rid of\u201d box at my old bookstore job. Honestly, a book picked solely based on title. I\u2019m unfamiliar with Barry Lopez. I don\u2019t know what I was expecting, looking at the parrot slightly off-cover\u2014some sort of latter period Hemingway\/Graham Green-esque thriller? But postmodern? That\u2019s not what this book is. It\u2019s more surprising than that. Still heavily influenced by travel, but also the library stacks. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Light Action In The Caribbean <\/em>by Barry Lopez. <\/p>

\"book<\/figure>

This collection of stories (published in 2000, late in Lopez\u2019s career) does have all manner of interesting settings. We\u2019re in Peru, then we\u2019re in the western United States, then we\u2019re in the Middle East, then we\u2019re in Asia. Lopez was a traveler and nature writer, and that aspect gives me shades of Shell Collector<\/em>-era Anthony Doerr. His focus on monks, divorcees becoming shipbuilders, and hidden letters gives me shades of Jorge Luis Borges. A couple of the early stories in the collection give me Denis Johnson vibes (one of the characters even name-checked Jesus\u2019 Son<\/em>, like, right as I was having that thought). This collection made me think about how big the world is, and also made me have warm thoughts about postmodernist writing. Typically I abhor footnotes, but there\u2019s a story in here made almost entirely out of them, and it\u2019s awesome<\/em>. I\u2019m not going to say \u201cdrop everything you\u2019re doing and go read Light Action In the Caribbean<\/em>.\u201d If you\u2019ve got a Borges itch that needs scratching, though\u2014get at my guy Barry. <\/p>

I am going to drop a trigger warning for violence\/sexual violence on the title story. It is part of a really, really clever twist, though. And we\u2019re not talking Girl With The Dragon Tattoo<\/em> or anything\u2014just, take care of yourselves. <\/p>

LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>

Something to listen to while you browse? I\u2019ve really, really gotten into that AOUI band I linked a while back<\/a>. Here\u2019s my current favorite song of theirs, \u201cFor Now.\u201d Epilepsy TW on this video:<\/p>

\n