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Old 09-08-2006, 07:39 PM
grady
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Portland, OR
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Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
A copy of this showed up earlier this week in the post.

I'm in the midst of the new Murakami collection of short stories and essays by William Gass, but I think I might divert some more attention to this novel.

If you go to the two links below you'll find image grabs of the page layouts for the book that give you a sense of what reading it is like.

Hailey

Sam

Not terribly startling to most if you've seen some graphic/design books, but I imagine it will throw some for a loop. Flipping throughout the book I've been reminded more than a few times of Mr. Hyde and Mr. Warwicker's recent tomato project, In the Belly of St. Paul. This comes from the use of type and layout on the page of words and space.

Alas, I've never completed House of [COLOR=Blue]Leaves[/COLOR][COLOR=Blue] [COLOR=Black]but have started it and stopped it many times. After finishing Only Revolutions I'm gonna revisit House and see if I can make it through the maze.

Another note of contention/annoyance for some will be the alternating story. Hailey's story is one side of the book. You flip it over and read Sam's story. They alternate and meet in the middle, sort of.

Should be an interesting read or just annoying gimic.
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  #2  
Old 09-16-2006, 04:01 PM
winjer
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Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
Just picked this up and it's an absoultley stunning book. Definatley not an easy or accesible read, but authors and publishing houses who take chances like this automatically deserve my support.

Great stuff.

Oh... and I, completley surprising myself, read every damn word of House of Leaves, that novel really drew me in.
  #3  
Old 09-16-2006, 06:02 PM
grady
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Portland, OR
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Re: Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
Quote:
Originally Posted by winjer
Just picked this up and it's an absoultley stunning book. Definatley not an easy or accesible read, but authors and publishing houses who take chances like this automatically deserve my support.

Great stuff.

Oh... and I, completley surprising myself, read every damn word of House of Leaves, that novel really drew me in.
Did you flip the book every eight pages or so?

I was reading a review of the novel in the Times Literary Supplement that had mentioned readers were instructed by the publisher to do so in the review copy.
  #4  
Old 09-17-2006, 12:04 AM
winjer
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 69
Re: Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
Yep.... says to do so on the jacket, actually...

Reading his website, though, it seems that such a method is the publisher's reccomendation, and not his... wanting to leave it completley open to individual approach/interpretation... though from the layout it's pretty obvious that the 8-page flip style was at least somewhat intended...
  #5  
Old 09-17-2006, 04:15 AM
grady
fac321
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 1,160
Re: Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
Quote:
Originally Posted by winjer
Yep.... says to do so on the jacket, actually...

Reading his website, though, it seems that such a method is the publisher's reccomendation, and not his... wanting to leave it completley open to individual approach/interpretation... though from the layout it's pretty obvious that the 8-page flip style was at least somewhat intended...
I saw that note on the jacket but didn't exactly follow it. I was going a bit further page wise and then flipping for each section. I don't know why, but eight pages seemed like a bit too short.
  #6  
Old 09-19-2006, 10:45 PM
grady
fac321
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 1,160
Re: Only Revolutions - a novel - by Mark Z. Danielewski
This evening Mark Danielewski was in Portland at Powells books to give a reading and do a Q & A for Only Revolutions.

It was an enjoyable and entertaining evening, as far as performance art for author's go.

If you've ever gone to see a writer at a reading it can be either incredibly disappointing or incredibly enjoyable or mildly amusing. The level of enjoyment can be contigent on the level of intelligence of the audience and the audacity of audience members questions they ask said author.

Whenever I attend readings now, I usually take my notebook with me to scribble down notes. If anyone is interested I can scan them and throw them up on some webspace.

Some of the highlights from the evening included:

-He spent about six years or so working on the novel.

-Spent lots of time researching the slang for each time period the story moves through.

-Lots of work with slang and OED in creating words and following words use and word roots.

-Took some convincing of the publisher to get the bar code on the side.

-Part of the time he spent on the book was the design and layout in addition to the writing. He did most of/all of it himself.

-AN inane question was asked regarding font/typeface and the use of colors throught the text of his novels and if it was done intentionally, and what it 'meant.' To answer this Danielewski kind of smirked, unsure if the person was serious adding that, "Yes, of course it is. I take it all very seriously, than I play around with it."

-Are these characters part of yourself? "I'm aware I'm involved. But the way I approach things is like a film director would. I'm the author of the work and I'm involved in shaping the story and characters, but I also let them do what they want to do, kind of like letting the actor's inhabit the characters. I don't want to make my prescence that obvious and apparent to the reader/viewer."

Last edited by grady; 09-19-2006 at 11:08 PM.
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