Reading update

I finished No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July. I liked it very, very much. Unfortunately, I had already read six of the stories in other publications. I also attended a reading where she read two more that I hadn't read before: "This Person" and "The Sister." I loved hearing "That Person" read aloud, especially by July herself with the sort of even, non-inflection that perfectly characterizes the voice of that story. That brought the total of previously read/heard stories up to eight, leaving me an equal eight completely new stories to cherish. And cherish them I did. I read seven in spurts and then for some reason left "Mon Plaisir" unread until last night. All of the stories were great. Out of the new ones I read, "It Was Romance" and "Ten True Things" stick out. "Birthmark" is an older one that I really love.

Suffice it to say, I am a very big fan of all of July's varied work in multiple mediums, her writing included. I guess my biggest compliment to her is to say that she is one of the most inspiring artists to me that is working today. Inspiring sounds like a lofty, oft-used word, but in this context is means simply her work makes me want to do stuff. Stuff like writing, making films, videos, and drawings. It's rare that a work of writing or art can entertain, connect with you emotionally, prompt introspection, make you laugh, surprise you, and get you excited about creating something yourself; July's work often reaches these heights.

The stories in No one belongs here more than you are deceptively simplistic. I don't want to get all analytical and/or descriptive here, it just seems kind of inappropriate for her work, and I don't feel like it, but I do want to recognize that her work contains these layers: layers of self-recognition, self-deception, self-loathing. So much is said by what is left unsaid in these stories, and how they're told. I'm not making much sense, and this is why I didn't want to go here in the first place. Trying to talk about them almost unravels the stories themselves...not in a way where they don't stand up upon closer inspection, but in a way that...I don't know takes away their magical quality. I suppose magical is a word that is sometimes used to describe July's work and while I think it is fitting in ways, it also carries the connotation of being thin or flighty...whimsical...like unicorns and rainbows. I don't think this describes her work at all. I think what is so striking about her work (writing especially) is that it is grounded in a very real, often dark and sad world. The fact that she can find the unique, the wonderful, the uplifting, the magical in the mundane, often depressing world is joyful, but if she is a writer of fairy tale like wonder, she more closely resembles the Brothers Grimm than Hans Christian Andersen.