Proximal Eye – Page 20 – Mark W Tiedemann

On Tactics

January 16, 2013 1 Comment

I’ve redone my office. This was a much more arduous task than I originally thought (although I sort of had a premonition, I suppose, because I kept putting it off), but is now in the main done. While the geography doesn’t look that different, the feng shui is markedly changed. I have more pacing room, a necessary component to my writing ability. (I also pace when I’m on the phone, a habit that required first very long cords and then, later, portable handsets.) Part of any convulsion like this is the uncovering of Old Stuff. In this case, papers of various arcane and now-meaningless import. Some of it, though, has been a delight to rediscover. Like an archaeologist with a new potsherd or a bone, I’ve found layers of past interest embedded in corners unexplored since my last major make-over. Cartoons, scribbled notes, lists, fragments of stories, and far too many scraps with phone numbers and no names. Hmm. One

Lincoln

January 10, 2013 2 Comments

Hagiography is destructive to truth. The worshipful retelling of past lives by advocates who wish to see their subjects purely in terms of what they mean to the writer personally, eliding that which is problematic, troublesome, or simply unpleasant, while occasionally producing fun books for the uncritical, puts up barriers to the most essential element of honest biography, namely the recognition of what is human in all of us. While that may seem a bit over-the-top to some, consider what happens to certain authors who dare to write candidly about “heroes” with many followers. Often, they themselves become the focus of intense controversy, much of it negative. How dare they, detractors claim, paint a portrait of Exemplary Figure that goes into the foibles, obsessions, character flaws, bad judgments, prejudices, and petty attributes when the significance of Exemplary Figure ought to exempt him (and sometimes her) from any criticism other than the most theoretical or abstract? (This cuts both ways—many people

Comfort

January 7, 2013 3 Comments

In another thread, the question came up “what is ‘comfort reading’?” It didn’t occur to me that the idea might not be universal, that some reading is done purely for the pleasure and affirmation of a pleasant visit. I recently finished Margaret Maron’s new novel, The Buzzard Table, which is the 18th entry in her Deborah Knott series of mysteries. For those unfamiliar with Maron’s work, she writes a solid murder mystery, in the vein commonly referred to as “Cozies.” Which, I suppose, differentiates them from the harder edged thriller idiom employed by writers like Dennis Lehane or Tess Gerritsen, in which plenty of the details and arcana of death and mayhem are on display along with a much darker examination of the sociopathic or psychopathic criminal mind. Not that the murders in Maron’s work are less gruesome, just that much of the gore is left off-stage or examined with a lighter touch. I scratch my head sometimes at the

Rules of the Road

January 5, 2013 8 Comments

Books have speed limits. Some you can breeze through, a quick run along a sunny straightaway, windows open and wind in your ears. Others demand that you slow down, pay attention, move with care. For the slow-but-dedicated reader, if there is a special plea or prayer upon picking up a new, dense book, it should be “Please don’t waste my time.” I’m one of those readers who feels a compulsion to finish what I start. I seem constitutionally incapable of just putting a book aside part way through and never coming back to it. Oh, I’ve done it! Years later, though, if I stumble across that book, ignored in a box or on the shelf of someone to whom I’ve loaned it, I experience a moment of guilt, a regret that I somehow betrayed it, and that it may take umbrage for having been dallied with and left for another. “So…a restless spirit haunts over every book, till dust or

A Bit of Comfort and Caution

January 4, 2013 1 Comment

This is my new blog. I’ve attached a link to my old one, the Distal Muse, so you can get over here. Why a second blog? Simple. I’d like to put my reviews and literary opinions here, apart from the Muse, which has become more of a hodge podge of commentary over the years. A site dedicated just to my readings and my thoughts on literature might find a welcome audience among those who could care less what my politics are or my opinions on music or film or people in general or things as they are. For now, this is a placemarker. I have work to do in my office and it might be a week or two before I start posting. In the meantime, you can still check out the Distal Muse. I will be back. Try to do this up proper, a real honest-to-goodness lit’rary stopover. So…welcome.

Mark W. Tiedemann

Author. Blogger. Photographer.

The Proximal Eye

On Tactics

Lincoln

Comfort

Rules of the Road

A Bit of Comfort and Caution