{"id":1018,"date":"2006-07-04T10:14:38","date_gmt":"2006-07-04T15:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/question-of-the-week-3\/"},"modified":"2006-07-04T10:16:40","modified_gmt":"2006-07-04T15:16:40","slug":"question-of-the-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/question-of-the-week-3","title":{"rendered":"Question of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since finishing that Robert Moses book last week, it’s been kinda tough for me to start another book. It’s as if I’m caught in its wake. I spent the last few days catching up on some long-form comics, like Eddie Campbell’s The Fate of the Artist<\/a>, which I’m afraid left me flat. Compared to his most recent collection, After the Snooter<\/a>, it was a distinct let-down.<\/p>\n

I’ve also been catching up on magazines. Amy & I went on a subscription binge a few months ago, and now I’ve got the Virginia Quarterly Review<\/a> and Foreign Affairs<\/a> to beat me into submission.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, unable to settle on a new book to read, I decided to go back and reread one of my favorites, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia<\/a>. (If you’re interested, there’s a neat piece in the Guardian about Stoppard’s new play, Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/a>. It sounds pretty neat to me.)<\/em><\/p>\n

What brought me back to Arcadia was the weird realization that, if you asked me what my favorite novel is, I would have no answer for you. Arcadia was a fave of mine upon a time, and it still resonates for me. In fact, if I had been immensely talented, it’s probably the piece I would have tried to write, given my interest in its subjects (chaos mathematics, the mistakes of history, English letters).<\/p>\n

I can tell you what my favorite movie, my favorite comic, and my favorite record are (Miller’s Crossing<\/a>, Little Italy<\/a> and Stop Making Sense<\/a>), but I’d have a devil of a time deciding on a favorite novel.<\/p>\n

It’s not for lack of trying (here’s that list<\/a> of all the books I’ve finished since 1989, when I started college). But there’ve been so many phases, and so many directions I’ve taken, that it’s really difficult for me to settle on a single novel. When I think of what I might have answered in years past (Gravity’s Rainbow<\/a>, Tropic of Cancer<\/a>, The Recognitions<\/a>, Pale Fire<\/a>, Invisible Cities<\/a>, Going Native<\/a>, Anna<\/a>, Portnoy<\/a>, Gatsby<\/a>, Lolita<\/a>, “Marcel”<\/a>) I wonder what each answer tells me, and what changed that struck them from the top rank. (Fortunately, the “novel” requirement knocks out the Athenians, Homer, and Shakespeare, and that Arcadia. And if I have to pick a non-fiction book, it’d either be Ron Rosenbaum’s essays<\/a> or that book on Robert Moses<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For a moment, I tried to convince myself that it was somehow a universal problem afflicting our age, but I’m pretty sure it’s just me. Maybe I’ve oversatured myself with these books. Maybe I’ve simply become too fluid, or disconnected from the influences I thought I had. Maybe I need to — or already have — circumscribed my life in ways that keep some books from mattering so much to me.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, I’m wondering if All the King’s Men<\/a> is the book that speaks to me the most, or if it’s Gould’s Book of Fish<\/a>. I’d better keep looking.<\/p>\n

You<\/em>, meanwhile, need to tell me what your favorite novel is, and what it means to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since finishing that Robert Moses book last week, it’s been kinda tough for me to start another book. It’s as if I’m caught in its wake. I spent the last few days catching up on some long-form comics, like Eddie Campbell’s The Fate of the Artist, which I’m afraid left me flat. Compared to his … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Question of the Week”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-gq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1377,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/look-to-the-skies","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":0},"title":"Look to the skies","author":"Gil","date":"March 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If I had the patience, I'd fix up this pic in Lightroom. So you're stuck with my attempt at catching a little bit of glory from the vantage of the Home Depot parking lot in Paramus, NJ.","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1499,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/konichiwa-beyotch","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":1},"title":"Konichiwa, beyotch!","author":"Gil","date":"May 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm busy catching up on office-stuff, so the Boston writeup will have to wait till this evening. Meanwhile, here's a slideshow of Japan pix from the only woman who ever got me to order half-priced sushi! Enjoy!","rel":"","context":"In "travel"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/catching-up","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":2},"title":"Catching Up","author":"Gil","date":"June 10, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry to have been away so long. I've been too busy making excuses. The stack under the hall table is long gone. All the books are downstairs in the old rec room, which I'm planning on turning into a library\/study. Spent yesterday evening tearing away about a third of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2365,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-sept-5-2008","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Sept. 5, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"September 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"No more Friday summer hours at my office! I'm almost too sad to post a passel of links! (for more, just click more!) NYTimes illustrator Christoph Niemann came up with a great idea for bathroom decor. * * * Of course, his decor is nowhere near as gorgeous as 1903\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1382,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/not-just-tan-spartan","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":4},"title":"Not just tan: Spartan","author":"Gil","date":"March 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In keeping with my inner classics-geek of that previous post, here's Victor Davis Hanson on 300, the movie adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book about the battle of Thermopylae: [T]he impressionism of 300 is Hellenic in spirit: its buff bare chests are reminiscent of the heroic nudity of warriors on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1569714029","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3135,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-122908","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 12\/29\/08","author":"Gil","date":"December 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Re-read The Great Gatsby on the flight down to New Orleans, then started Kurt Andersen's second novel, Heyday. It's a fun novel, rolling across America in 1848-9, but it makes the exact same idiotic decision as Michael Clayton (and a bazillion other books and movies): Part 1\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001EBGJN6","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}