what I'm doing now #9
Biking around East Vancouver, reading The Ginger Man, finding Z a new apartment, and trying to become a planner.
biking around East Vancouver
Biking is a great way to achieve my daily goal of exercising. Seattle is prohibitively hilly but Vancouver has a great network of bike routes allocated on streets with sparse car traffic. They have a detailed PDF file available online that maps their location and marks them with useful information like incline and degree of separation from car traffic. I came up with a great acronym to remember the street names of the main bike routes in the area: W.A.L.K.
reading The Ginger Man
I bought a copy last summer and finally started it last week. I can see why Cormac McCarthy liked it. It also reminds me a lot of Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas. After finishing the seventh chapter I sat down and wrote an
initial reviewThe Ginger Man (1955)
by J. P. Donleavy
I’ve read seven chapters so far. Here are some thoughts and some excerpts.
Describing Kenneth O’Keefe’s arrival in a coastal Irish village to visit his friend Sebastian Bullion Dangerfield at his home, who greets O’Keefe at the door:
It was a steep hill up to Balscaddoon. Winding close to the houses and the neighbor’s eyes having a look. Fog over the flat water. And the figure hunched up the road. On top it leveled and set in a concrete wall was a green door.
Within the doorway, smiles, wearing white golfing shoes and tan trousers suspended with bits of wire.
O’Keefe the visitor takes in the scenery:
Standing on the shaggy grass he gave a shrill whistle as he looked down precipitous rocks to the swells of sea many feet below.
Delightfully written.
Later in the book, describing Dangerfield’s tiny new home:
[You] didn’t want to walk too fast in the front door or you’d find yourself going out the back.
I purposefully went into the book blind and I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that its writing style is quite experimental. Stream of consciousness, unquoted dialogue mashed in. It reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson for its style and subject matter. Lecherous, base protagonists hurtling through life incurring all manner of debts with no regard for consequence and no semblance of restraint. But in this one we catch more glimpses of the desperation and self-loathing that plauge rabid gluttons following their excesses and that trigger further indulgence. Here the aftermath of one of Dangerfield’s odious bursts of verbal abuse towards his wife regarding her family:
A very red face. Guilt. Grinding the teeth. Soul trying to get out of the mouth, swallowing it back into the body. Shut out the sobs.
In the first sentence of the very next paragraph Dangerfield is no longer at his house but at the bar:
He ordered a bottle of stout and a Gold Label, telling the boy to bring him another stout and Gold Label.
This is one of the objects of the author’s experimentation, time. Even on the lower gear of dialogue the speed is set high with snappy back-and-forth, each speaker on a new line, speech bare but the quotation marks. And when the author doesn’t want to dwell on certain scenes, he accelerates through them by compounding dialogue and action into dense morsels:
They had one more round of stout and she turned and smiled and said that she must be going home. And may I take you? That’s all right. I insist. It’s really not necessary. For the joy that’s in it then. O.K.
They set off along Suffolk Street, into the Wicklow Street and up the Great George’s. And over there Thomas Moore was born. Come in and see it, a nice public house indeed. But I must go home and wash my hair. But just a quick one.
In they went. The embarrassed figures looking at them and bird whispering. The man showed them to a booth, but Mr. Dangerfield said that they were just in for a fast one.
O surely, sir and it’s a grand evening. ‘Tis that.
The author slows the pace the most when he puts us inside Dangerfield’s head amongst his thoughts. Him regarding his wife:
Long limbed Marion settled in the chair. What makes you so tall and slender. You raise your eyelids and cross your legs with something I like and wear sexless shoes with sexiness. And Marion I’ll say this for you, you’re not blatant. And when we get our house in the West with Kerry cattle out on the hills sucking up the grass and I’m Dangerfield K.C., things will be fine again.
Like moments of contemplation imply pause. We linger with the protagonist’s thoughts.
It continues:
A tram pounding by the window, grinding, swaying and rattling on its tracks to Dalkey. A comforting sound. Maps shaking on the wall. Ireland a country of toys. And maybe I ought to go over to Marion on the couch.
Soon and without warning the author teleports us into the next scene:
In the bedroom, Dangerfield rubbing stockinged feet on the cold linoleum.
I see many similarities to Cormac McCarthy’s writing. Most obvious is dialogue, written without attribution, qualification, or descriptive supplement. Deft and witty, stripped of boilerplate and stilts. McCarthy took it a step further by dropping the quotation marks.
Another obvious similarity to McCarthy’s writing is the grammatically irreverant use of nonsentences. Declarative phrases stating what there is. Subject only. McCarthy’s use of these is ample yet perhaps more restrained and refined. Donleavy showers us with them. Another choice that quickens the pace of his writing.
A third and more subtle similitude is in the varying order that clauses appear between periods. Sentences structured shrewdly for effect and interest. For example, to withhold predominant details and reveal them at the end to simulate their discovery. From the first excerpt I shared:
On top it leveled and set in a concrete wall was a green door.
Two structural inversions in one sentence but most important is the second. The green door’s position at the end of the sentence grants it importance, intrigue even. We anticipate crossing the threshold.
Donleavy’s sentence structures are most pleasing when they eliminate commas and let his words come into direct contact. Reproducing an excerpt I shared at the beginning:
Standing on the shaggy grass he gave a shrill whistle as he looked down precipitous rocks to the swells of sea many feet below.
It’s vivid in part because each detail blends into the next. Instead of being given parts one at a time, we experience the image fluidly as one. McCarthy uses this technique as well. In his magnum opus Blood Meridian he conjures striking images from masterfully engineered sentences. Here is the fourth sentence of the novel:
Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.
Sentences like these are carefully configured to eliminate cruft like “there are” and even suffixes like “–ing” that weaken verbs. McCarthy opts for a touch of ambiguity by placing “darker woods” first instead of putting it after “beyond that” and consequently doubling “that”:
rags of snow and beyond that darker woods that harbor yet a few last wolves.
He also rejects the “–ing” solution to the problem:
rags of snow and beyond that darker woods harboring yet a few last wolves.
It is up to the writer and their sense of style to evaluate their options. But they have to know how to generate them in the first place.
A fourth technique that Donleavy and McCarthy (and Hemingway) employ is generous use of “and” to string together images. A snippet of an excerpt from The Ginger Man shared earlier:
They had one more round of stout and she turned and smiled and said that she must be going home.
Blood Meridian contains extreme examples. Here is a single sentence near the end of chapter thirteen:
They trampled the spot with their horses until it looked much like the road again and the smoking gunlocks and sabreblades and girthrings were dragged from the ashes of the fire and carried away and buried in a separate place and the riderless horses hazed off into the desert and in the evening the wind carried the ashes and the wind blew in the night and fanned the last smoldering billets and drove forth the last fragile race of sparks fugitive as flintstrikings in the unanimous dark of the world.
That last bit is brilliant. Again:
[the wind] drove forth the last fragile race of sparks fugitive as flintstrikings in the unanimous dark of the world
of it.
finding Z a new apartment
Z’s apartment in Vancouver is a spacious one bedroom with a generous balcony. It is recently renovated with tons of integrated storage but it lacks a crucial feature: a second bedroom. I spend a lot of time at Z’s place and when I do we often both work from home. We have comfortable workstations at opposite corners of the living room but the distance does little when one of us actively participates in a virtual meeting. Noisecancelling headphones help but they also encourage us to speak loudly. And even when we both work silently it’s too easy to call out across the room to ask a question, share a thought, or make a comment. Both of us have a habit of voicing things soon after they occur to us. It makes for interesting conversation and for a disruptive remote work environment.
We’ve been keeping an eye out and finally we found a good two bedroom apartment in a lively, artsy part of East Vancouver. It costs almost the same as Z’s current place and it offers great physical separation between the two bedrooms. We will be sad to leave Z’s current place and the neighborhood it’s in, but we’re excited for the new chapter.
trying to become a planner
I don’t mean a city planner. Although I do fantasize about getting involved with municipal politics later in my life.
I mean I am trying to get better at making and adhering to plans in general. I get a lot of stuff done in my life through what I call
coherent impulseshow to progress without planning
The other day I picked a bunch of books from my library and tried to start each of them. I had
energy and free time. None stuck. Until one did. That’s the one I read.
Instead of forcing order, I let impulse lead. I have dozens and dozens of unread books sitting on my shelves, but for my next book I often buy a new one. If I’m currently interested in a particular topic or author, I follow that. Curiosity and appetite, though they may take you in new directions, make for great fuel. Working by willpower, on the other hand, drains you.
Unsupervised impulses can lead us down paths not worth pursuing. I try to guide myself gently onto one of various directions I’ve consciously chosen. I move in unpredictable bursts but I move freely. I make progress in uneven quantities but I make progress.
, which have proved effective but lack certain special powers particular to planning. I’ve been ruminating on it and noticing when people make reference to it in their way of working.
Kiefer mentioned in his Approachable Music podcast that he keeps a to-do list and his daily routine centers on attending to it. I assume many people follow this approach but I don’t. I keep to-do lists but my adherance to them is erratic. I suppose part of the problem is that many items have no inherent deadline and even those that do don’t threaten much consequence. If I for example neglect to plan an itinerary for a trip, I can still show up and improvise as long as my flights and hotel are booked. Without a doubt I miss out on things that require research or scheduling, but I still enjoy the fruits of spontaneity and just-in-time internet searches. I want to reduce the losses and reduce the stress of having flying by the seat of my pants all the time. I want to change my habit. So I’m trying to consciously draw my attention to the benefits and override the anxious avoidance that thwarts my planning impulses.
Jared Henderson, a former professor and literary YouTuber, mentioned that he keeps a list of books he will read. I do too but I rarely reference it when deciding which book to read next. My methods are spontaneous and informally organized. I try out audiobooks on Spotify and Libby and continue only if they stick. I buy books impulsively and add them to my growing library of unreads.
So I’m experimenting with writing a list of books I intend to read this year. In a way, my dabbling with planning in this way is a sort of coherent impulse. The coherence comes from the deliberate intention to exploit the benefits of forethought and the impulse is the list of fifteen or so books I slashed out based on my current appetite and the current contents of my shelves.
what’s next?
Keep biking. Continue striving to do every day each of the following: work, read, exercise, write, enjoy, grow, discuss, plan, and socialize
Finalize Z’s moving plans.
Go snowboarding with Z multiple times.
Read the rest of The Ginger Man to keep up a good reading pace for the year. After I finish it I will start Malone Dies unless it doesn’t
suit my appetitehow to progress without planning
The other day I picked a bunch of books from my library and tried to start each of them. I had
energy and free time. None stuck. Until one did. That’s the one I read.
Instead of forcing order, I let impulse lead. I have dozens and dozens of unread books sitting on my shelves, but for my next book I often buy a new one. If I’m currently interested in a particular topic or author, I follow that. Curiosity and appetite, though they may take you in new directions, make for great fuel. Working by willpower, on the other hand, drains you.
Unsupervised impulses can lead us down paths not worth pursuing. I try to guide myself gently onto one of various directions I’ve consciously chosen. I move in unpredictable bursts but I move freely. I make progress in uneven quantities but I make progress.
, in which case I will pick up one of the other books on my list for 2025.