This is the fourth consecutive year I’ve written a “year in books” blog post, and 2020 is the weirdest of them all. This year (ugh, this year) has been wild, devastating, excruciating, depressing, anxiety-inducing, heartbreaking…
We’ve all lost so much.
Where I live, the library was closed–CLOSED–for a long period of time. So if I wanted to read something (and I always do) I had to turn to my own bookshelf. This was fine: I am comforted by books I’ve already read. There was a very crucial sense of stability there, too: in a world that had ceased to be predictable in any sense of the word, I knew how the plots of my favorite books would go. I knew what would happen next.
But my minimalist tendencies had kept the number of books I own relatively low. During those days when a trip to the library was an impossible luxury, I sorely regretted that decision to keep few books. I don’t have the resources to buy every book I want to read. So, for emotional, logistical, and financial reasons, I re-read a record number of books this year.
I have no regrets.
Apart from not having enough books.
Thanks, 2020, for showing me the importance of owning books, and giving me permission to invest in something so important to me.
As a general caveat, I am not totally sure this reading list is complete. I have the sneaking suspicion that there are books I read that I totally forgot about in the brain fog of global trauma. There are also several books toward the end of the list that are in progress, and will have to be finished in 2021. Something else I have gotten better at in 2020 is: knowing when to concede that I am at the end of my mental, physical, and emotional resources. I didn’t meet the reading goals I set at the beginning of the year. And that’s fine.
F = fiction, SFF = sci-fi/fantasy, YA = young adult, MG = children’s, NF = nonfiction, P = poetry
Italicized books are re-reads.
Salvation Day, Kali Wallace (SFF)
Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami (F)
Severance, Ling Ma (SFF)
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1), Philip Pullman (SFF)
Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino (SFF)
City of Hate, Timothy S. Miller (F)
The Spinning Place, Chelsea Wagenaar (P)
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (F)
Anthem, Ayn Rand (SFF)
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (SFF)
Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (SFF)
Exhalation, Ted Chiang (SFF)
Recursion, Blake Crouch (SFF)
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (SFF)
Alpha Bots, Ava Lock (SFF)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami (F)
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodges Burnett (MG)
Refusal: Poems, Jenny Molberg (P)
Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate #1), Megan E. O’Keefe (SFF)
The Big Book of Exit Strategies, Jamaal May (P)
Hum, Jamaal May (P)
Mossflower, Brian Jacques (MG/SFF)
Pearls of Lutra, Brian Jacques (MG/SFF)
When Darkness Falls, A. E. Faulkner (SFF)
Circe, Madeline Miller (SFF)
The Queens of Innis Lear, Tessa Gratton (SFF)
Empire of Sand (The Books of Ambha #1), Tasha Suri (SFF)
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel #1), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales, Jón Árnason, May Hallmundsson, Hallberg Hallmundsson (SFF)
What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler (F)
Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Japan, edited by Virginia Haviland (SFF/MG)
Basho: The Complete Haiku (P)
The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo (SFF)
Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (SFF)
Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch off the East in Russian Fairy Tales, translated by Sibelan E.S. Forrester (SFF)
The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen Murdock (NF)
Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill (SFF/P)
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (SFF)
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You, Jenara Nerenberg (NF)
The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, #2), Philip Pullman (SFF)
The Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel #2), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung (NF)
The Hod King (The Books of Babel #3), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel (F)
Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (SFF)
Tales from the Perilous Realm, J. R. R. Tolkien (SFF/P)
Books in Progress:
A Room Called Earth, Madeleine Ryan (F)
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, Steve Silberman (NF)
The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life, John Daido Loori (NF)
As always, I have strong opinions about all of these titles, so feel free to drop me a comment about any of them. 🙂
Here’s to 2021, and all we hope to gain, and all the reading we’ll do.
My recent autism and ADHD diagnoses have prompted some intense reprocessing of my own memories and lived experiences. It’s like sitting in the chair at the eye doctor, and a new lens is flipped down. Suddenly, everything is clearer. Through the lens of neurodiversity, many things about me and my life make a lot more sense. Understanding myself as neurodiverse is by no means a magical key that’s unlocked all self-knowledge, but my self-knowledge is deepening.
Writing is integral to my life. Which is the same thing as saying I am a writer. It is part of my identity, it is a title I strive to deserve, and it is how I want to spend my time. But what on earth possesses me to sit alone in a room, thinking deep and involved thoughts, and spending hours and hours writing them down? Why do I do that? And why do I feel like I have to?
Writers tend to think about this a lot. They compose Artist’s Statements that deal with their motivations and intentions, if for no other reason than to explain themselves to people who just can’t understand why someone would want to be a writer. I’ve done the same thing. But now, I am looking at this question again, through the lens of my neurodiversity.
This is all new territory. In 2018, I self-identified as an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), which means my central nervous system processes stimuli more deeply than 80% of the population. In November 2020, I also found out I am Autistic (Asperger’s) and also have Inattentive ADHD. (I wrote a blog post about my journey to assessment and meeting the DSM-5 criteria for these neurodiversities; you can read it here.)
I grew up without this self-knowledge. When I was a kid, I really struggled with school. I did fine as far as grades went. I taught myself to read before kindergarten, and the work itself was easy… But everything related to the logistics of the school day and social interaction was overwhelming. Making friends was confusing, the school day was exhausting, and the thought of going to school often left me with anxiety. I found participating in the world to be very difficult, if not impossible. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know how to express this. And–worst of all–no one else seemed to feel the same way.
The greatest conflicts and unhappinesses in my childhood revolved around school and social situations. The greatest happinesses came from reading. In books, and fiction in particular, I found a safe way to explore and experience a sense of belonging. A way that didn’t overwhelm or exhaust me. A way that allowed me to dissolve into strange new worlds and forget about the stresses of the day.
I read immensely and voraciously. I took home stacks of books from the library too tall to carry. I read for hours alone in my bedroom after school, coming out in a daze for dinner, and rushing right back to my book to read all night. I always had a book with me at school, too, and when I inevitably finished my desk work before my classmates, out it came.
I realize now that I was likely learning about people. In books, I could learn about the way people interact, how they live their lives, people’s motivations, how wanting certain things made them act, what the “rules” of given situations were, how friends acted together, and so forth. Then, if I found myself in a similar situation, I had an idea of what might happen, a sort of pre-uploaded guidebook to the situation. I was gathering and cataloging human social scenarios.
It’s funny. I have a vivid and active imagination. I can create entire worlds on the page. But in my own life, it’s very difficult for me to imagine an outcome or an option that I haven’t seen or experienced before. Books likely helped me expand my understanding of the world around me and its possibilities.
Books spoke to me. I wanted to speak back. So, writing followed naturally as a way I could express myself within and contribute to the literary worlds from which I gained so much.
Story is the structure through which I understand the experience of living. The creative discipline of writing is the action through which I process my own experiences and gain understanding. I can try out scenarios, watch what happens if my characters want certain things, and deal with the frustrations and joys of living in the laboratory of the paragraph.
Writing also fits the kind of life I want to live: a quiet one, maybe even a solitary one, or at least, one with space to sit alone and think.
I think all forms of art have to do with finding connection. Art begins with a person creating, using their experience and paint or ink or the lines of their own body. When they put that piece of art out there, they’re declaring their experience, but they’re also asking a question: “Does anyone else think this too? Do you connect with me?” Every piece of art is message in a bottle cast out into the infinite sea of humanity, a question, an invitation, a potential point of connection.
Being autistic has impacted me most in social interaction and participation. So maybe in the end, I’m writing as a means to connect with people. I’m throwing out my little bottles, hoping I’m not alone up here on my bottle-throwing rock, and hoping I can help someone else feel less alone.
Even after hitting “Publish” on this post, I still don’t know how I feel about the title statement. How it’s worded, I mean. The ideas it represents are absolutely true.
On November 9, 2020, I was assessed as having met criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In other words (and maybe words that I prefer), I’m neurodivergent.
I know this may feel out of the blue to some people. It is to me too, in a way, but in another way, it’s an “of course” lightbulb moment, a flashpoint, where all the experiences of my life have come together to make sense.
So I wanted to have a record of what led to this point in my life to share with you all. I am far more articulate in writing than I am in person, and with the ongoing COVID-19 risk to social gatherings (and my own inclination to spend most of my time alone), I thought this would be the most efficient way to let you all know what’s been going on in my life related to my own neurodivergence.
The Highly Sensitive Person / Sensory Processing Sensitivity
Back in the winter of 2018, I stumbled across a term I hadn’t heard before, but that explained a great deal about the way I experience life: Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). This is a term coined by Dr. Elain Aron, a psychologist, scientist, and researcher, who noticed in herself and subsequently in her studies a natural inclination for about 20% of the population to exhibit heightened sensitivities to sensory stimulation. HSPs have more sensitive central nervous systems, are more easily overwhelmed by sensory input, and tend to take longer to process new information. They have a tell-tale tendency to “stop and check” before entering new situations. Another term for HSP is Sensory-Processing Sensitivity.
Here’s a screenshot from Dr. Aron’s HSP website’s homepage.
I read her book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, and marveled about how all of the areas I struggled with as a child, and continued to struggle with as an adult, could be fit under this one umbrella term. (I could go into a great deal of detail here about what in particular about my life experience matches an HSP one, but for now, I’m going to stick to chronicling the general timeline leading up to the official recognition of my neurodivergence.)
I began examining my behavior, my experiences of the world, and my past through an HSP lens. A lot of things were making more sense to me, and to an extent, I was able to modify my interactions with the world and other people to be more in line with my comfort zone, which I had been blatantly ignoring or feeling guilty about not ignoring my whole life.
But after a while, I realized something didn’t feel…right. Dr. Aron talked about HSPs as having great gifts and the HSP trait as an advantage. On paper, I agreed, but being an HSP didn’t feel like an advantage to me. It felt like, well, a disability.
This isn’t a word I use lightly. I wrestled with it mentally for a long time, but the more I wrestled the more I felt that, yes, I feel dis-abled (see this fabulous TEDTalk by Autist Jac den Houting in which she says, “I am not disabled by my Autism; I’m disabled by my environment.”) by these traits that (according to Dr. Aron) are supposed to be strengths.
I strongly believe I never would have gotten to this point of understanding if I hadn’t deconstructed the conservative, fundamentalist religious influence, mindset, and worldview I grew up practicing. Some people I know might not like this, might feel off-put, might shut me out because of it, but it’s true, and it’s important. Since about 2016, I’ve been engaged in a long, arduous process of re-examining things I took for granted as truths for my entire life. Part of that has involved learning how to trust my instincts and my lived and inhabited body knowledge. That they aren’t sinful urges to be ignored or temptations to be gutted through. After spending over 20 years ignoring intuition, pushing past my own limitations daily, it’s daunting, trying to reclaim boundaries, self-knowledge, and self-trust. But I was trying. And my lived experience was telling me that HSP wasn’t it. Not all of it. I wasn’t through learning about myself. There was more work to do.
In March 2020, I reached out to a couple of local therapists who claimed specialization in–or at least knowledge of–HSP. I figured maybe I just wasn’t understanding how to work with my HSP traits, that maybe this feeling of dis-ablement could be mitigated by picking up some tips and tricks. Then the pandemic shutdown happened, and I never reconnected with them. There were more important and distracting things going on the in world.
In the summer months, I started to pick up where I had left off. I hadn’t felt comfortable with either of the therapists I’d talked to in March, so I did more googling. I stumbled across this article, which posited that HSP traits in females could really be female Autism. Following that rabbit trail, I found other sources like this YouTube channel run by a British woman who is Autistic. Like me, Sam was diagnosed with Celiac disease, identified as HSP, and finally, sought an assessment for Autism, and found she met the DSM standards to be considered on the spectrum. I found videos like this one in which Autism expert Tony Attwood talks about the characteristics of females with “high-functioning” Autism (commonly known as Asperger’s Syndrome before the update to the DSM-5 removed this label, confusing many and robbing many of an identity they’d come to claim with pride) and of the crises unidentified female Autists go through, including anxiety and depression.
I found this unofficial list of female Autistic traits. I was shocked. I identified with something like 98% of the traits compiled.
I took online quizzes (here and here). With the consistent result: high possibility of neurodivergence and/or Autism.
“You don’t seem Autistic.”
Until August 2020, I would have wholeheartedly agreed. Turns out, the reason I don’t “seem Autistic” has less to do with Autism and my own neurodivergence and more to do with false stereotypes of Autism that are deeply rooted in decades (if not centuries) of sexism and gender discrimination that have affected the very development of the fields of medical science, psychology, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) itself, the bible of psychological “disorders” used to “diagnose” the mental “disorders” we see in the Western world.
There are fundamental differences in how individuals on the Autism spectrum may behave, but until very recently, they have not been recognized. This is due in part to the fact that, when conducting trial studies and tests, psychologists have consistently chosen cis-male subjects. For more on the history of this, and info on neurodivergence in women, I highly recommend Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World that Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg. This book literally was published in 2020, and would not have been available to me if I had started this research ONE YEAR AGO.
After an intake appointment in which my assessor agreed there was sufficient evidence to proceed, waiting four weeks for my appointment, four hours of testing, two weeks of waiting for my assessor to analyze the data, I learned in a video call that I met criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1 (the lowest level of assistance needed; the DSM-5 goes through Level 3), what would previously have been known as Asperger’s Syndrome, and in a surprise 2-for-1, I also learned I met criteria for ADHD, inattentive type.
Here’s a distinction that’s important: I was not identified as Autistic, ADHD, or neurodivergent by the experts. At age 30, I identified myself, and then sought an expert to officially reinforce what I already knew to be true.
The medical, psychological, and social systems in my life failed me.
This is especially depressing, because as a female, the world had already failed me in so many ways. I was socialized to fly under the radar. I was socialized to “get by” without accommodation, to put others’ needs before my own, and I was smart enough that I could manage. Barely. But the resulting depression and anxiety for constantly struggling to fit into a world where everyone else seemed to fit in easily made life miserable.
I would like to note that my assessor was a lovely person. She was knowledgeable about ASD in women, and delivered the results in a kind, considerate way. At one point, she told me, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” I believe this is true. But I also believe that I am not in the category of what is considered “normal.” She expressed her desire for the day when neurodivergences are understood as a spectrum, rather than disabilities, and I wholeheartedly agree.
ADHD?
I still don’t fully understand the implications of this piece. I haven’t done nearly as much research here. But I do think ASD and ADHD together may explain things that look contradictory, like why I thrive on a schedule, but also have trouble sticking to schedules.
What Now?
As I once again reframe my life experiences through these new lenses, I am heartbroken for the little girl I was, and for the ways my life might have been easier, better, happier. I am also viciously proud of myself for accomplishing things that were desperately hard for me. Singing the lead in a musical. Singing the lead in an opera. Traveling internationally. Graduating with my master’s degree. I didn’t know other people didn’t struggle this much or in the ways I struggled.
My hope is, with this new understanding of how I perceive and interact with the world, I can build a life that allows me to thrive, that makes me happy more often than sad, and that enables me to reach my highest potential.
I also hope I can bring empathy and understanding around the issue of neurodiversity and dis-ability. The experts and Autists I found online were overwhelmingly not-American, and I believe my country is behind on this issue. If you want to talk more with me about this, please reach out. The world is a big, scary, and unsure place. Caring for each other is what makes it beautiful.
*Minutes before publishing this post, I wonder if I’m making the right decision, sharing this information so soon after receiving it myself. I am convinced, though, that staying hidden, masked, and under the radar–the way I’ve been living for my whole life as a neurodivergent person–will not help me or anyone else, and that if I don’t act on the information I’ve received, I might as well not have sought clinical affirmation at all. And, I remind myself, if this makes me feel socially awkward or uncomfortable, that is nothing new. 😉
* This post was edited on January 3, 2021 to remove and reword language including the word and variations of the word “diagnose.” I no longer use the word “diagnose” in relation to my neurodiversity, as it implies an illness or medical condition. Neurodiversity is not an illness. I am not sick.
We are halfway through the year, and nothing has gone the way we thought it would. In an effort to process all that has happened in the past months, I collected and recorded what I’m calling Mantras for 2020. These are sayings that reflect the times as well as provide encouragement. I am more aware than ever how my perception of reality and my internal monologues affect my wellbeing, and wellbeing is hard to come by in 2020.
Some of these I wrote, some I picked up from current events, and some I collected from my colleagues and friends on Twitter. If a mantra is credited, you can find that contributor by clicking the hyperlink or searching the given handle on Twitter.
“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Dune, by Frank Herbert @ItsJohnDulak
Something is better than nothing. Make the best of what’s available and do the best we can while we’re able. @DOMoore9
“Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.” Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. @SciFiSherwood
I love a good artist’s statement. Hearing from others about why they pursue their craft is inspirational and thought-provoking. It also helps me clarify and understand my own motivation. I feel a connection with the artist in question, and usually hit the keyboard with a great deal more energy.
I’m currently reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, which is a collection of Japanese haiku master Matsuo Bashō’s travel journals. In them, Bashō writes in haibun style, which means prose reflections and poetry stand side by side. At the beginning of “The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel,” Bashō includes what seems to be his own artist’s statement.
In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly.
Matsuo Bashō, from The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel (translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)
I love Bashō’s romantic, and perhaps somewhat humorous, description of his own soul, and his view of it as something with its own agency. In another poem, he writes:
On to a bridge Suspended over a precipice Clings an ivy vine, Body and soul together.
Matsuo Bashō, from A Visit to Sarashina Village (translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)
His description of his own journey as an artist dedicating himself to his craft is very valuable. The fact that one of Japan’s most accomplished haiku poets struggled with the same push and pull I and many other artists describe is encouraging: there is nothing wrong with me/us; we simply need to forge ahead.
These words of Matsuo Bashō are fascinating in themselves, but also totally fascinating is the fact that they were written down in 1687, almost four hundred years ago. Yet the connection I feel when reading Bashō is immediate. There is no time lag, no misunderstanding. Words written down and preserved are extremely powerful.
Bashō’s soul clings to the letters of a language he never spoke, never heard, and now, to this screen, to this technology he would never have imagined, like ivy to a bridge.
I love dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. Sure, they might be based on pretty awful events (nuclear war, absolute dictatorships, inhuman scientific advancements, etc.) played out to an extreme, but for me, that’s where the interest lies. We’re 99.999% sure we’ll never have to try to survive a zombie apocalypse, so it’s fascinating as hell to watch other humans try.
Dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction is a kind of nihilist, negative escapism in which the reader gets to imagine how the world works at its worst.
But where do these genres stand when the external world starts to look more dystopian and post-apocalyptic than the stories themselves?
This question has been whirring around in my head since early March, when COVID-19 hit my country. Schools shut down. People lost their jobs. Isolation became the new “normal.” The internet (which we already relied on heavily) became many people’s source of income, socialization, and entertainment–their world.
I love reading dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. I don’t love living in them. None of us do. So it’s not a huge leap to imagine that we’d turn away from these genres.
However, I firmly believe that a real-life apocalypse, a real-life dystopia, will have no negative effect on the need readers have for this literature. If anything, their need will become greater.
Here’s why.
1. Catharsis
Trying to survive day to day, to find work, to stretch a dollar, homeschool, or cook with the five-odd ingredients left in the pantry… We don’t have time to truly process the collective trauma we’re experiencing. But the themes of loss that show up over and over in dystopia and post-apocalyptica allow us to access our grief, and give us space to process our own emotions.
2. Hope
I’d argue that, despite the dark clothes these stories wear, that they’re actually some of the most hopeful stories in genre fiction. The entire premise of them is that there IS life after apocalypse, and that life CAN flourish in a world where everything seems wrong. In the worst circumstances imaginable, characters fight to survive, to protect those they love, and they succeed. Modern society ends–but human life goes on. As we contemplate the apparent fragility of the lifestyles and structures we took for granted and mourn an old way of living, these stories can give us hope for a future.
3. History
As a writer of post-apocalyptic fiction, I admit, I might be a little biased. But I’m not making this up. History’s got my back. The world that lived through the real-life apocalypse and dystopia of World War II wrote about it and read about it. In fact, we’re still writing and reading about it, and that time period makes up a massive portion of the historical fiction genre.
4. Meaning-making
Writing and reading–creating and participating in art–are attempts at understanding the human experience. So now, as we attempt to understand this new apocalyptic, dystopian reality, these genres are going to be more crucial than ever.
If you aren’t ready for them in this exact moment, that’s fine. They and their creators will be there, waiting, when you are.
Happy shut-in coronavirus days to you, internet traveler. I’m dropping a little shred of good news fluttering your way on the winds of uncertainty, isolation, and a shocking scarcity of toilet paper…
This week, Pikes Peak Writers announced their winners for the 2020 Zebulon Fiction Contest. My entry, HALF-LIFE (the SF post-apocalyptic novel I’m currently seeking agent representation for), took second place in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category! Here’s a link to the contest announcement.
This is an encouraging event in an otherwise pretty discouraging week. It’s easy to let global events, a cancelled international vacation, and the ongoing rough experience of cold-querying agents wipe away the excitement of this award. But I’m focusing on the positive, at least for a little while…
I wasn’t going to write about this movie. I watch a lot of movies and I don’t write critically about most of them, partly because I know any film is a labor of love for someone involved and I don’t want to hurt anybody, partly because none of the films I’ve really had problems with are Oscar nominees for Best Picture.
But the Irishman is up for so many Oscars. So many Oscars.
Here are all the awards Netflix’s The Irishman is up for tomorrow:
Best Picture
Best Director (Martin Scorsese)
Best Supporting Actor (Al Pacino)
Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Visual Effects
Best Costume Design
Best Production Design
Best Film Editing
When I realized how many awards The Irishman was up for, I was like, screw it. Here we go. I mean, it’s not like The Irishman is going to be damaged by my bad review.
Because, friends, this movie is bad.
[SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW]
There are two major reasons The Irishman is bad.
Reason 1: Pacing
The first sign I was in for a bad time was when I realized how long The Irishman is–three hours and twenty-nine minutes. 3:29.
I know, I know; the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings were just as long, and I sat through those gladly (though not lightly). I don’t have a problem watching something for three-and-a-half hours as long as I’m interested. Part of grabbing and maintaining viewer interest is hitting high and low points of energy at certain times, having certain questions the viewer is trying to answer, mysteries that need to be solved, or characters that we just really like to watch, or care about very much. Essentially, pacing. This is Martin Scorsese’s problem. A film over 200 minutes long cannot follow traditional 90-minute or even 120-minute pacing structures. For me, the experience of this bloated watch time was an excruciatingly slog to grasp the film’s story structure, the stakes, anything, and me checking my watch at the end of every scene.
3:29 is a problem if I’m aware of every minute dragging by. I couldn’t get through it in one sitting.
Here’s the deal. Martin Scorsese has done some great films. Taxi Driver. The Departed. The Aviator. Were there some good shots? Sure. Were there good performances? Yeah. But just because your name is Martin Scorsese doesn’t mean you can chuck craft and self-editing for arrogant self-indulgence.
Al Pacino’s character is introduced far too late.
The climax is disproportionately short. There is little to no emotional payoff for time invested.
The framing device (De Niro’s character telling the story) falls apart under scrutiny (who the heck is he supposed to be spilling his guts to?).
So to me, one of the most ridiculous award nominations is Best Adapted Screenplay. I haven’t read the book this is based on, but I would almost guarantee it to be better if only in terms of pacing. And in that category, The Irishman is up against Little Women, which is the best adapted screenplay I’ve ever seen. (Highly recommend!)
Reason 2: Prioritizing Nostalgia over Believability
I did learn something from watching The Irishman. Aging young actors has its pitfalls, but so does “youthing” older ones. The mastery of craft exhibited in particular by Robert De Niro is overshadowed by issues of mobility in scenes when he is supposed to be a young version of himself. Among the issues of “youthing” was the bizarre experience of knowing what De Niro looked like at that age, and realizing that the “youthing” treatment made him look like an entirely different, third person. It was distracting as hell.
I am definitely not against seeing older actors on screen; Pacino was actually one of the reasons I decided to watch The Irishman. He’s one of my favorite actors, and I was excited that he was doing new work. I just wish Martin Scorsese had utilized De Niro and Pacino according to their current strengths rather than trying to recapture some nostalgic feeling and in the process demanding an almost-impossible suspension of belief from his audience.
Pairing De Niro and Pacino for a film that involves crime politics is a favorite Hollywood move. They were billed together first in The Godfather Part II in 1974 (though they were not on screen at the same time) and then acted together in the classic cop movie Heat in 1995. Here, their chemistry is overshadowed by incongruously stiff necks and slurred dialogue.
I would love to see De Niro and Pacino together in a different kind of movie that would demand something from them that’s new and exciting, rather than trying to recapture something we’ve already seen them do really well in the past that just doesn’t feel the same in 2020.
Which Adds Up To: Just Not Engaging
Academy politics aside (because let’s be real here, with names like Scorsese, De Niro, and Pacino attached, that’s all these nominations are), in order for a movie to be “good” or even “best,” it’s got to, got to engage its viewers. We have to care. And friends, I’ve viewed a heck of a lot of movies. I’d even venture that I’m a good viewer of movies. The only level on which I was engaged with The Irishman was in analyzing why I wasn’t engaged.
(Oh, and I was super engaged in my imaginary subplot in which De Niro and Pacino’s characters were actually lovers. Let me tell you, the stakes of male lovers in the 60s-70s mob/union/prison scene would have electrified that entire 3:29-minute movie…)
The Irishman is up against hyper-engaging, fascinating movies like Joker, Little Women, and Marriage Story. I guess a landslide of wins for The Irishman will show just how out of touch the Academy is–though hasn’t that already been proven? Oh, well. At the very least, if The Irishman wins big, just know I’ll be rolling my eyes over here on the other end of the internet.
On January 30, 2020, I participated in my very first Twitter pitching event. And girl, do I have some THOUGHTS.
But first, maybe some definition of terms. I know not all of the people who read this blog are writers, and y’all might be thinking, what the heck is pitching?
When writers write a story, and want to turn that story into an actual, physical book via traditional publishing, they first have to convince someone it’s worth taking a risk on to edit, print, market, and distribute. This is sometimes done by a thing called “pitching.”
No sports involved, thank goodness. But the reality is much darker, and maybe even more difficult.
A pitch is a super-condensed version of a manuscript. Here’s an example Tomi Adeyemi gave on her own blog about pitching:
My book is a 77,000-word Middle Grade novel titled THE LION KING.
Simba is a rambunctious lion cub living in the animal kingdom of Tanzania. As heir to the throne, Simba can’t wait to surpass his father and become king. But when Scar, Simba’s evil uncle, uses Simba to lure the king into a death trap, Simba is overcome with guilt. Unable to deal with his role in the death of his father, Simba runs away and abandons his kingdom when they need him the most.
While Simba is away, Scar seizes the throne and drives the animal kingdom into the ground. When Simba finds out, he has to make a choice: continue his life in exile or overcome his guilt and battle Scar for control of the crown.
A writer will pitch their manuscript concept to an industry professional, usually a literary agent who is looking for new work to represent to publishers.
Pitching can happen in person, generally at a conference in a scheduled meeting. Pitch meetings at conferences are usually 5-10 minutes. Writers have to be able to articulate their novel-length stories in a way that entices the agent enough that they make a request: an ask for a certain number of pages from the manuscript. That’s the end game of the pitch. Not publication or even representation, but an agent’s attention and interest.
Pitching can also happen via the internet. Specifically, Twitter.
#SFFpit is a science-fiction-and-fantasy-focused Twitter pitching event. It runs two times a year. You have to pitch your book with the proper hashtags all in 280 characters. It USED to be the old 140 characters, and I am SO GLAD I didn’t try this back then.
In #SFFpit, you get 10 pitches over 10 hours. No more than one tweet for a single pitch. No more than one tweet per hour. The goal is to get a “like” from an agent or editor. This is a request for pages, according to each professional’s individual requirements, which are usually posted on their own Twitter accounts.
You can read more details about the rules and how things work on Dan Koboldt’s website; he started and maintains #SFFpit.
I wrote my pitches in advance, testing character counts and getting feedback from other Twitter users (yay! making friends!), and I used an app called Buffer to schedule my tweets, so I wouldn’t have to get on Twitter to tweet every hour.
But, of course, I ended up on Twitter all day anyway.
There’s lots to do on Twitter on a pitch day! Tweeting, asking for retweets, and retweeting others to boost algorithms…and wildly checking notifications every five minutes.
Some general takeaways.
Ten hours is too long to spend glued to the Twitter notification icon.
So many cool books! So many cool writers!
I wish I understood more about how Twitter works, or how to interpret analytics, or how to boost my own tweets.
This was EXHAUSTING.
My tweets did the best at 7am, 12pm, and 3pm.
Agent likes were few and far between.
But…
I did get an agent like! And even better, they work at an agency I had previously researched, and they seem like a really great fit for me and my work. So the day was worth it. Mission accomplished.
Of course, an agent like is no guarantee of representation or publication. But it’s encouraging, and a step in the right direction. Because it seemed like a good fit, my manuscript is on submission to the agent as we speak. I will be sure to update here if there is movement on that front.
There’s a bigger pitching event on the horizon! #PitMad is March 5, 2020. I’m planning on pitching then, and cold-querying agents after that.
Anybody else out there do Twitter pitching events? Thoughts? Advice? Hit me up with a follow, and we can support each other through this crazy search for representation.
Allison Wall