Literary Languishings

Recently I've been seeking nourishment from my surroundings... books, films, theater... reading endlessly and searching between the lines for inspiration and rejuvenation... I find today's literary offerings ridiculously unsatisfying.

I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe's exploration into adolescence and loss of innocence. Charlotte is a prude who goes to college only to succumb to peer pressure. Do I care? The most engaging part of this journey was on Wolfe's behalf: his representation of slang language and vernacular are fantastic - he spells non-words just like you hear in passing. A beautiful translation from the spoken to the written. However, his woefully lame descriptions of college life and horribly trite observations on integral parts of the college scene such as music and athletes accompanied by his fragmented understanding of the culture and characters that exist in the world he is trying to create accent the massive rift between himself and his story that make the writing stifled, bland, and almost laughably bad.

Into the Wild - A journalist follows his curiosity into Alaska's wild to determine just how and why young McCandless perished in the wilderness. A true story recently picked up by Sean Penn for production. Somehow this guy turned a riveting journey into a boring over-extended magazine article. I get the feeling the film will turn out very much the same.

Shanghai Baby - Banned and burned in China. And read cover-to-cover in one evening. Simplistic language and almost painfully generic observations on life ("The joys and sorrows of any one person mean nothing, because the trains massive steel wheels never stop spinning. This is the secret that terrifies everyone in the cities in this fucking material age.") make it easy to take this novel lightly. But there were a few times when the simple "Confucius say" sentences actually hit home and you wonder if Occam's Razor can adequately be applied to literary principles. If only life were as simple and clean as Wei Hui's writing, it might be as easy to get through.

In a Dark Dark House - Neil LaBute's latest play, closing this week off-Broadway. Rave reviews and well-known actors do their best to hold together this transparent piece of theater. Frederick Weller was the lone solider in this battle to keep an obvious plot from revealing itself too early, and despite his delicious performance, the writing of this established playwright refused to allow me to engage. I wanted to be challenged, thrilled, curious. I found myself watching two guys talking around and around in circles. This seemed more like a university level dialogue-writing exercise than the work of a well-known author.

Live Free or Die Hard - I must say, one of the few encounters I've had that I actually enjoyed. Granted it's not sophisticated. But it doesn't try to be. it gives its one-liners with pizazz and its explosions with creativity. Face value fun.

That was frightening: Did I just say I preferred Die Hard over Neil LaBute or Tom Wolfe?!? Can it be true? Why?!? What suffices as literary greatness? The ungraceful exploration of worlds authors can not embrace is hardly greatness. Perhaps Greatness lies in the Truth of the matter. The Truth of the work. The Truth of the story. And the Truth to Die Hard is that it's just an action flick with a bunch of explosions. And the Truth of Wei Hui shines only when she is being true to her simplistic self. But Today requires ingenuity and umph. Literary sensuality, a teasing and exploitation of the senses... and books are starting to feel like theater in their burdensome treks through well-tread psychological landscapes.

Who are today's literary greats?
Where are we to seek refuge against reality?
What book can I pick up next to be engrossed in its characters, its language, its Truth.
Suggestions?