I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MARILLION-Fugazi (1984).

Ah, the delights of Marillion. My best friend in high school, Al, got me into Marillion. And he started me off with this record. As such, I can’t imagine how I could realistically critique it. I must have listened to this thing hundreds of times at this point. I also got into the other Marillion albums (until the theatrical madman and lead singer, Fish, departed). I did get one post-Fish album, Season’s End, but didn’t think too much of it. Although I still regard them highly, and anyone who names an album Anoraknaphobia is still alright in my book, I haven’t heard a note of anything post-Season’s End.

Fugazi, on the other hand is still fantastic after all these years. Fish’s lyrics are often bitter, but always eloquent. It always veers towards pretention, but I think pulls away just before it sinks into it. There are some really terrific extended pieces on this record, especially the title track, which is truly amazing. And, there are some really great catchy melodies. But it’s always the lyrics I come back to; I often find some circulating in my brain at opportune moments (“I am the assassin, with tongue forged from eloquence” “On the sacrificial altar to success, my friend” “Oral contraceptives aborting pregnant conversation” “unsheathe the blade within the voice”). Marillion is definitely one of my go-to bands, especially if I’m feeling prog-rocky. And their first 4 albums are really great.

A few years ago they re-released all of the Marillion albums with a bonus disc of songs each. On the spine of each one was a letter spelling out M-A-R etc. My friend Lar noted that everyone’s collection would only every spell MARI. I did one better by getting MARIL (the L being the live album The Thieving Magpie), but otherwise he was spot on.

Curiously, I have never gotten an Fish solo records. When they first came out they were all expensive imports, and now I kind of don’t care anymore. I wonder if they’re any good?

[READ: September 26, 2007] An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England.

What a weird, strange, funny book. There was something a little unsettling for me about the tone of the book, from start to finish, because it was kind of funny and then decidedly not funny, and then sad, and overall, rather full of meaning.

The story follows Sam Pulsifer a young man arrested for (accidentally, he says) burning down the Emily Dickinson house, which is just a few blocks from his own house. The story of how and why he did this (which he definitely did) is told throughout the course of the book (parenthetical asides included).

The book is full of deceptions, from the lies that Sam tells his wife (basically everything about his past), and the lies that his parents have told him (the disappearance of his father when he was a child and their current status as working adults), to the lies that strangers tell Sam as he tries to solve the mystery of who is trying to burn down other New England writers’ homes. And there are other lies as well, lies that the bond analysts who Sam meets in prison tell him (and the lies they eventually put in their memoirs), and even the lies that Sam puts in the two books that he writes in prison, both of which are called An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, one of which is a memoir and the other a novel.

This is why I marked the book as unreliable narrator. Sam Pulsifer lied to his wife about the Emily Dickinson house (or, shall we say, failed to tell her). He then becomes something of a compulsive drunk (Knickerbocker beer should have paid for all of the advertising it gets!) And, finally, as the “meta” part kicks in and he talks about what he is going to write in his book(s) An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, some of which is in here, and some of which is maybe, going to be in here, perhaps.

But really, the book is all about loving and hating reading. Loving to read, but hating the artifice that books reveal and cover up. There is wonderful insight into how much books can reveal about you and your loved ones even if on the surface they would appear to have nothing to do with you.

And, of course, Clarke has pegged the general tenor of society so well, with wry observations about McMansion housing developments, bars that look crappy on the outside but feel homey on the inside, nostalgia for snow, the beauty of New England, the falsity of memoirs, the social settings of bookstores, going to author events, and ultimately, how we can love someone with all of our hearts and yet still not tell them the whole truth about our sordid past.

I guess I’m a little confused at the rave reviews the book is getting. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, but I’m confused about what our zeitgeist is these days that this book is pushing reviewers’ buttons so much.

Having said that, I didn’t want to put the book down, and I really consumed it quickly. The pacing was great, the main character, although rather unlikable, was still compelling, perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, his bumbling nature. I’m not sure if one feels sympathy or pity or what for Sam, and perhaps that is what I find disconcerting about the book: I couldn’t decide how I felt about Sam.

Even as the book closes–with loose ends tied up nicely–and you can see what is going to become of his life, it’s still hard to know how to feel about him. He comes off as a blank slate, in which others are reflected off of him. Maybe I was disconcerted by how I saw myself.