{"id":1264,"date":"2006-12-27T18:58:11","date_gmt":"2006-12-27T23:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/eco-chamber\/"},"modified":"2006-12-28T08:57:43","modified_gmt":"2006-12-28T13:57:43","slug":"eco-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/eco-chamber","title":{"rendered":"Eco Chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finished the Berlin Noir trilogy on Christmas morning. They’re fantastic novels, and I recommend them highly. I don’t read many mystery novels, but these were amazing (and are highly recommended by Ron Rosenbaum<\/a>), and I devoured the 830 pages from Thursday to Monday. I’ll hit my local library next week to see if they have the fourth novel in the series, which came out a little while ago.<\/p>\n

Finishing the novels meant that I had to choose my next read from the Christmas gifts I would receive that day. (I’d decided against reading that copy of Ajax<\/a> I brought with me, for reasons I can’t explain to myself.)<\/p>\n

The Beckett, I thought, was out. No way was I starting that<\/em> up in New Year’s week.<\/p>\n

No Crime & Punishment<\/a>, either. (One of Amy’s cousins wanted to get me something from my wish list, but couldn’t find Demons, so he picked up C&P instead)<\/p>\n

No Chris Rose’s 1 Dead in Attic<\/a>. I was heading out of New Orleans for a while.<\/p>\n

What I decided to read was Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano<\/a>, a book that had stymied me on three separate occasions.<\/p>\n

“Here’s my big chance!” I thought. “I’ll employ The Eco Strategy and finally read this book!”<\/p>\n

See, unlike my experiences with Nightwood<\/a>, I didn’t stop reading Under the Volcano<\/em> because I didn’t enjoy the book. Rather, I stopped reading it because it is<\/em> a difficult book and because I have too many other things to read on hand.<\/p>\n

Ah, but The Eco Strategy! First employed in July 2004, when I visited Budapest for my friends’ wedding! At that time, I finished the two books that I brought along for the trip: Trainspotting<\/a> and Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung<\/a>. “Whatever will I do?” I thought. “I have another day here, plus a long trip home!”<\/p>\n

I visited a nearby bookstore and realized that this was the only possible scenario in which I would finally read Foucault’s Pendulum<\/a>! “If I can’t get through that book now, I’ll never make it through!”<\/p>\n

My attention focused on Eco’s book, I found it smooth sailing and awfully rewarding.<\/p>\n

Similarly, I passed the mysterious 40-page barrier that had stopped me in my previous attempts at reading Under the Volcano<\/em>, a novel praised so highly by William Gass that I was embarrassed not to be able to read it further. At 130 pages, it’s become quite “easier,” although it’s no page-turner a la Berlin Noir<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Still, I plan on finishing up Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare book tonight or tomorrow morning, then plunging back into Geoffrey Firmin’s last day.<\/p>\n

Then, I might start exploring this<\/a>, for That Thing I’m Trying To Write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finished the Berlin Noir trilogy on Christmas morning. They’re fantastic novels, and I recommend them highly. I don’t read many mystery novels, but these were amazing (and are highly recommended by Ron Rosenbaum), and I devoured the 830 pages from Thursday to Monday. I’ll hit my local library next week to see if they … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Eco Chamber”<\/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":[16,4,8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budapest","category-literature","category-new-orleans","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-ko","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9016,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-133-what-if-we-give-it-away","url_meta":{"origin":1264,"position":0},"title":"Episode 133 – What If We Give It Away?","author":"Gil","date":"September 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #133: Stona Fitch\/Rory Flynn - What If We Give It Away? \"One of my favorite things is to take a character, figure out what's most important to them, and then take it away and see what they do.\" Stona Fitch joins the show to talk about balancing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThirdRail_cover_277x419","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/ThirdRail_cover_277x419.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11322,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-263-jonathan-ames","url_meta":{"origin":1264,"position":1},"title":"Episode 263 – Jonathan Ames","author":"Gil","date":"April 2, 2018","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 263: Jonathan Ames \"For me, all writing -- scripts, essays, novels -- it comes down to enjoying writing a sentence.\" On the eve of the premiere of You Were Never Really Here, writer Jonathan Ames returns to his stomping grounds of northern NJ to talk about crime\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10477,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-229-matt-ruff","url_meta":{"origin":1264,"position":2},"title":"Episode 229 – Matt Ruff","author":"Gil","date":"July 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 229: Matt Ruff \"Every one of my novels has had at least a portion where I've thought, 'if I do this badly, it's going to be terribly embarrassing and I'm going to have to hang my head in shame forever, but if I pull it off, it'll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0195-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0195-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0195-620x620.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-forum","url_meta":{"origin":1264,"position":3},"title":"0-forum?","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a small press book publisher, I was put on the Comp list at Bookforum. Despite not having published a book since 2003 and closing down the company in 2004, I've remained on the freebie list. 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