Fantasist’s Scroll

Well, I finished Airtight Willie & Me this weekend. It was actually a fairly good book. Though, as I got further into it, I was a little surprised to see that it was actually a series of not really related stories. The book takes its title from the first story, which is about a scam artist getting out of jail and being scammed himself by his partner. The O. Henry-like irony is actually quite sophisticated. Well, considering the source. Seriously, it’s a little strange considering my normal reading, but that’s why I chose that book. It’s a look at life from a perspective that I will, hopefully, never see or truly understand. It’s different. It’s a change. And, obviously, based on the length of time it took me to read it, not a very long book, either. I got interested in this book thanks to IceT and an interview he did on MTV. He talked about Iceberg Slim, the author, and how reading his books had inspired Ice to rap. It sounded cool, so… Anyway, it was an interesting change of pace and one I can reccomend, as long as you keep in mind what it is you’re reading.
Currently, I’m reading Plot for about the third or fourth time. I go back to this book, and others in this series, when I have trouble writing. So, I read it every few years when I try to start writing again after a long hiatus. That’s where I’m at right now, ergo, I’m re-reading selected writing books to try and get jump-started back into a writer’s mind. We’ll see how we do in the coming months. Writing books are actually one of the few things that I’m likely to read more than once. I have so much to read that it’s very unusual for me to go back and re-read anything at all these days.
After that, though, I’ll be reading Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. The description interests me because a fictional language is at the heart of the story and I’ve long had a fascination for invented languages. The story centers on a man who has written an “epic poem” about a kingdom that doesn’t seem to exist, but that he’s created in such detail that he has a language for it. It’s a little strange, and not at all how I think of Nabokov, so, I’m looking forward to it.