Orhan Pamuk Sums It Up

I wanted to post Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize acceptance speech because I need to keep it with me. I don't want to have to wonder where I found it or try to remember parts of it. Anyone who wants to produce a genuinely good novel should read this and fairly memorize it. Pamuk's My Name is Red is on my stack of books for next year, and I may promote it after finding this.

The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write?

I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can't do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life's beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—just as in a dream—I can't quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy.

I write to be happy.

Thanks to The Elegant Variation for bringing it to my attention.

How Stressed Are You?

This article over at MSN has me asking a simple question: how fucking stupid can we be?

I'm sure I've been caught up in this... I haven't wanted to give the impression that I'm less stressed out than people around me because that would result in a net increase in my workload. But really... my career has been job after job of 8-hour nights' sleep, ~8-hour work days, and lunch breaks that afford me a nice outing. Sure, when I worked in the game industry I was putting in mandatory 12-hour days and never getting a chance to go home, but c'mon! I was 23 years old! No family! I do remember, though, that my boss at the time seemed rather proud that his team was putting in 60- and 80-hour weeks. Always seemed like a fucked-up thing to do.

I'm nearing the end of a year-long rewrite of our complete software product, a complex web application with hundreds of pages and thousands of different inputs. People around me are screaming and freaking out because we'll never make it out on time and the quality will be lower than it should be. I agree with all of that. But I'm still getting my sleep and taking the time that I need to take in order to recharge, because I would be a worthless employee if I didn't. I have way more to do than I could possibly do before the deadline, but what would I do if I stayed here all those hours? I'll tell you: I would get the same amount of work done as if I didn't, and so would you. There's a well-established body of literature that says it's all bullshit, this notion that working more equals more work.

So why do we get caught up in all of it? I'm certain that my co-workers, at every job I've had, have considered me a slacker. I'm certain that's true at my current job. I'm even certain that I've been laid off as a result of it. But I'm also certain that my quality of work is consistent, and that I get my job done the best I possibly can. More hours would change nothing. A Blackberry would change nothing. Skipping lunch would make things considerably worse.

We must stop this nonsense, and allow me to be the first: I generally get 8 hours of sleep at night. I arrive at work at 7am, I leave at 4pm. Some people have a problem with this because they work until 8 and 9 every night. It is they who should stop, not me. I want to work with people who have lives on the outside, who remain fresh and ready every day. Your stress is bringing down the quality of work we produce, and you've got to stop!

How's that for the beginning of a revolution! Shut up and relax!! We should be one-upping each other on how much time we get to spend with our families, and how many books we read last year, and how little vacation time we have left, and how much sleep we get!

Who's with me?!

Overlooked Fiction (from Slate)

Check this out if you're looking for some good winter-time reading. I intend to add most of these to my wish list :) I especially love that they included my fave lit blogger, Moorishgirl.

Just one more reason to love Slate...
MM

The second proves the first, I guess....

I checked the IMDB news today, like I normally do, and saw these two headlines

• Box Office Flunks Intelligence Test
• 'Da Vinci Code' Year's Most Profitable Movie

The stories are here.

An Excellent Take on Oliver Stone

This is exactly the kind of article I'm trying to write about Ron Howard. Something to convince people who accept Howard as a good storyteller. I've hated Stone's films for years and wasn't quite able to voice it clearly. Now I don't need to, because Jim Emerson nails it.

Kudos!

Da Vinci Dawilderment

Here's a roundup of reviews, all punching the same theme: it's not very good, so how did Ron Howard make such a big mistake, and how could so well-sold a book not make a great film? My question: how could anyone who's ever watched a movie or read a book ask those kinds of questions?

First

"But why did [Ron Howard] allow such a solid, attractive cast to turn in such stiff, unappealing performances?"

Okay, Mr. Honeycutt. I don't know anything about you or your reviews, but let me say that's one of the stupidest rhetoricals ever spewed by a film critic. Have you ever seen a Ron Howard film? Have you ever read a Dan Brown book? From any point of view of Film Quality (other than box office), this project was stillborn the moment Ron Howard agreed to take the job. Tom and Audrey and Ian and Stephen and Jean were signing up for a horrible screenplay, and I'm certain they all knew it. It's that other Film Quality in parentheses they were signing up for.

Todd McCarthy, Variety
"The irony in the film's inadequacy is that the novel was widely found to be so cinematic. Although pretty dismal as prose, the tome fairly rips along, courtesy of a strong story hook, very short chapters that seem like movie scenes, constant movement by the principal characters in a series of conveyances, periodic eruptions of violent action and a compressed 24-hour time frame."

"Howard, normally a generous director of actors, makes them both look stiff, pasty and inexpressive..."

Again, WHAT?? Someone out there name a film he has done where the actors were ANYTHING but boilerplate archetype. Don't say Apollo 13. Don't say Cocoon. Those were great actors phoning in centuries' worth of saccharin, whose dialog was so reprehensible that only the special effects kept you from noticing it. That settled, let's have a conversation about a little film called Backdraft.

"It's a film so overloaded with plot that there's no room for anything else, from emotion to stylistic grace notes."

Well, consider the source material.

So, in summation, most capital W writers already know that Dan Brown is crap at his craft, even though he is good at pacing and building suspence. What I want to demystify is the notion that Ron Howard is a good filmmaker. There are a few of his films I haven't seen, but jeez, you can only give people so many changes, and that Opie good will only lasts so long. I liked Ransom, and I liked Parenthood, but neither was without its flaws. I'd love to hear other opinions, but keep in mind that I hated A Beautiful Mind, so in truth there may just be no convincing me on this one.

This whole thing leads me to wonder how in the heck somebody who couldn't write/direct/act 1/4 of a human being for a screenplay could do so unbelievably well in television: From the Earth to the Moon? Sportsline? Arrested Development? Those are 3 of the best television series I've ever seen. Something tells me he needs to stick to the medium he spent his childhood reinventing.

Ok, that's enough. Just wanted to put this up since I prepared it so long ago...