Back From the Dead

Hello? Helloooo? Is this thing working? Spence turn down the volume some, I'm getting a bit of static here. Okay, better, yeah right there. Hello? Ah, that's coming in really nice. What? No, I forgot to buy coffee. Well, because they sell everything in tiny little packets here that's why. Ask that Korean fellow over there, I'm sure he's dying to tell us where to buy coffee and soju at the same time.

Faithful bloggers! And when I say faithful, boy do I mean it. If you are still reading this blog two months after we went dark then you are truly a god among men. We will inform the Yeongdong office of Education here of your valiant devotion and have your statue of pure gold erected within the next couple of weeks. You'll just have to come to Korea to see it. Bring deodorant.

As for those of you who have wandered far off the path of brave book blogging and are now lost in the woods of sardonic literature and disconcerting women's magazines then I have this to say: there is a light, and it has once again been turned on. We here at Whiskey Before Breakfast apologize for the brief delay in editorial gold. We were having a tough time figuring out the Korean servers in this part of the world. That and we couldn't figure out how to switch the language from Korean to English on our computers. But, the crisis has been temporarily adverted and Spence and I have started to make this place look a little more homely. Of course, we are still struggling to find more necessary equipment such as light bulbs, printers and a heating unit to name a few (Koreans swear by their winters and we will not take them lightly). But, all in all, we see that the bills will be cheaper here and the books just as bountiful.

I won't extend this post for much longer because I don't know how long our jerry-rigged set can last on a couple of AAA batteries. In essence, I wanted to let you lovely fans know that Whiskey Before Breakfast will be back in full swing in the coming month with the same mind-incinerating, face-melting book reviews and all things literature as it did before. Of course, there will be a more "foreign" element sprinkled throughout as we are currently living in beautiful South Korea. Take this part as a sort of seasoning to everything else we've been offering you. If anything, it makes it a more well balanced meal.

Until next time our faithful and ever enduring fans.

-- Zach

Angels in America

Faithful readers, 

I'm incredibly eager to talk about this particular book, so I'm getting straight to the point.  Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a two-part Pulitzer prize-winning play by Tony Kushner.  It was published in 1993, and it takes place in New York City in 1985.  In 2003, Angels in America was adapted into an HBO miniseries, which turned out to be a critically acclaimed masterpiece.  I'm pretty sure you can find it on YouTube, but I really think you should read the book first.  

Angels in America examines the lives of two troubled couples, one homosexual and the other heterosexual.  The first couple, Louis and his lover Prior, end their relationship when Louis finds out that Prior has contracted AIDS.  The second couple, Joe and his wife Harper, are separated when Joe leaves Harper because he admits to being gay and he cannot deal with her painkiller addiction, which prevents them from moving to Washington D.C. where Joe has been offered a prestigious job.  The most pivotal scene in the first act depicts the collapse of the two relationships.  The writing is extraordinary, and the scene is powerfully portrayed in the miniseries, and you can watch it here (explicit language).  

The two couples' tumultuous lives collide when Joe and Louis begin a clandestine relationship.  At this point, the reader is introduced to several different characters, each of whom carries a terrible burden of his own.  Roy Cohn, Joe's bigoted mentor, is in the hospital dying of AIDS.  He refuses to acknowledge that he has AIDS; instead, he refers to his disease as "liver cancer," in an effort to conceal that he is a closeted homosexual (being openly gay was scandalous for anyone in 1985; for Roy Cohn, a prominent right-wing Republican, it was unthinkable).  The reader encounters the nurse Belize, a black ex-drag queen who befriends Prior in the hospital.  Belize also works with Roy Cohn, who he finds repulsive because of his cruel, prejudiced attitude. 

Angels in America is a deeply spiritual story, filled with biblical symbols and allusions.  The play has multiple instances of prophecies, dreams, and visions, mostly occurring to ordinary, broken people (in a way, this connects the biblical world with modern America).  Many of the characters converse and interact with angels.  A major premise of the story is that God abandoned the world in 1906 (evidenced by the San Francisco earthquake), and his angels have struggled to cope with his absence.  In a climactic scene towards the end of the play, Joe demands that the angels take divine legal action and sue God for abandonment: "If he ever dared come back... if after all this destruction, after all the terrible days of this terrible century, he returned to see how much suffering his abandonment had created, if all he has to offer is death, then you should sue the bastard.  Sue him for walking out.  How dare he."  (5.4.47)

Stylistically, this play has a distinct American flavor.  I think that's what makes it so brilliant.  The language is grandiose and magnificent.  The characters are constantly longing for innocence and new life.  Basically, the entire story is facing to The West, towards the beautiful unknown, and desperately hoping for a new beginning.  The play's central conflict is found within the characters' inability to be completely free of the past.  Kushner reveals that the American community is horribly afflicted by the disease of individuality (to a greater extent than AIDS, even), and that only through communal bonds are Americans able to find the hope that they so desperately long for.

The play ends on a hopeful note.  Harper gets on a plane headed West, and her monologue is one of the most beautiful passages ever written: 

"Night flight to San Francisco.  Chase the moon across America... The ozone was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening.  But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning.  And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired.  Nothing's lost forever.  In this world, there's a kind of painful progress.  Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.  At least I think that's so."

Tony Kushner presents to us a potent, distinctly American-yet-completely-universal challenge in Angels in America.  I was hesitant to write about this play because I still don't feel that I've completely grasped it.  This work is raw and real to the point of being harsh and terrifying.  This is one of the few books I've ever encountered that attempts to tell the uncensored story of mankind and actually succeeds.   

I've been talking for a while, and I still feel like I haven't said enough.  I really hope you read Angels in America.  It's bold and truthful and magnificent.  You will never be the same.  

~Spence 

Stardust

I love fantasy literature; I'll be the first to admit it (I also used a semicolon in the first line of this post, so you know I'm on my game today). If you have a book that involves a dragon terrorizing a clan of pygmy Giants or a prolonged quest to find the Soul of Excalibur, I will most likely be reading it in the near future if I haven't already read it. It doesn't matter if the story line couldn't hold up against an ant sneeze (if anyone can prove that ants do in fact sneeze, I'll let you run this blog), I love fantasy enough that I'll engross myself in whatever straw the author grasped at for a story. So, when I was handed the book Stardust by a friend of mine I figured I would love it no matter what the so called "critics" said, which, were actually a lot of positive things. Upon finishing the work, I was content, but not the overwhelmed, grab my plastic shield and sword, let's-save-the-troll-princess nerd I usually turn in to.

The story of Stardust is actually quite fascinating and written by Neil Gaiman, who's British as hell, so this story obviously takes place in England. We enter the tale in a town called Wall, due in part to the small farming village being located at the base of a massive wall that separates our world from Faerie, the mystical land that reminded me mostly of Narnia (except without Peter and his teenage angst to annoy everyone. I see you Peter, and you don't know angst until you've listened to My Chemical Romance.). When our main character, Tristran Thorn (don't forget the second "r" in Tristran, it makes it more fantasy-like), sees a shooting star land somewhere in Faerie, he tells his hauntingly beautiful female crush, Victoria Forester, that if he goes and retrieves the star for her, she must promise to give him anything he desires. Adventure and a witch that is very similar to the one in Narnia ensue.

I speak lightheartedly about the novel because it's very playful in presentation. The world in which Tristran enters is full of wonder and magic and his adventure is cleverly woven in with two other story lines. One of these stories revolves around the lineage of the next king of Stormhold, and which of the three remaining sons of the dying Lord will sit upon the throne next. The third story is that of the witch-queen, who essentially wants to rip out the heart of the fallen star (who, by a stroke of fantasy literature, turns out to be a girl) and consume it in order to be young again. Playful stuff like that.

The story itself reads easily and is well thought out. Gaiman is technically sound in his telling of Stardust and it felt more like he was reading it to me (British accent not included) than writing it. All I had to do was merely sit back and enjoy a Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of tale of a boy who wore his heart on his sleeve. And I think that's what I enjoyed most about the work, that the main character was so similar to a lot of young men, like myself, who want to prove to their Beatrices that they would catch a star right out of the sky if it meant they could capture her heart. Tristran is a true lover, so we welcome him into the ranks here at Whiskey Before Breakfast as one of our own. Men, you would be surprised at how much you see yourselves in Tristran Thorn.

Where the story failed for me was how little of Faerie you actually discovered or saw. I thought being in a whole new realm would incite a few chapters devoted to the landscape, or the creatures, or at least a bullet point on the history, but Gaiman chooses to leave much of this out and only describe the immediate surroundings to his readers. This is all good and well, but being a fantasy junky at heart, I longed for the history of why the Goblins wanted to take Stormhold, or have a little light shed on how the trees in the forest came about growing acid leaves that would melt their prey's skin away. This could be a technique in order to preserve the magic in the story, but the world, as wondrous as is was, was only a smokey image of what it could have been. Also, the story is somewhat predictable and won't be blowing anyone's tunic off their chest.

All in all, if you enjoy technically sound fantasy I would say go get this book. Neil Gaiman is also a man you should have on your bookshelf if nothing more than to tell your non-literary friends, "Yeah, I read Gaiman. He's British."

Till next time friends!

-- Zach

On Writing Well

Faithful readers,

New Content Monday is upon us once again! In order to ensure that you are celebrating this weekly holiday with gusto, we have opted to share several pieces of advice from our favorite authors about the craft of writing. Enjoy these words of gold.

Also, Zach and I are hard at work preparing our collection of short stories, which is due to be released this fall! If you've ever had reason to be excited about anything in your life, this is it.

"Read, read, read. Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window."
-William Faulkner

“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
-Stephen King

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
-Ray Bradbury

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
-Ernest Hemingway

"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and your writing will be just as it should be."
-Mark Twain

As always, bring us your questions, comments, and opinions. We'd love to hear from you!

-Spence

The Dharma Bums

Lovers, haters, and everyone else,

We're back, and we have all kinds of things to discuss.  Not to be Negative Nancy, but it's officially been summer for a whole month already, so I hope you're making progress on your summer reading lists.  Carpe diem!

Jack Kerouac is one of our favorite authors here at Whiskey Before Breakfast.  You may have read On the Road--Kerouac's most famous book as well as the defining novel of the Beat generation (post-WWII).  Kerouac writes with a furious, chaotic style.  I've heard his writing described as "literary jazz"--distinctively rhythmic and lively.  His stories and characters are so tremendously American, too: crazed with excitement and adventure, free of the past, and vibrantly innocent.  

The Dharma Bums centers around Kerouac and his adventures with his friend, Japhy.  Like many of their fellow Beat generation writers, Kerouac and Japhy became disillusioned with the buttoned-up middle-class life of the 1950s.  They reacted against the repressed, materialistic culture by practicing Buddhism and declaring themselves "Dharma Bums": seekers who rejected the pursuit of wealth and possessions, and instead chose to live a minimalist lifestyle, devoid of all but the most essential things.  Kerouac and Japhy hitchhiked throughout North America, practicing meditation, reading Buddhist texts, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, dropping "benny" tablets (amphetamines) then writing poetry, and looking for truth in unexpected places.  

Kerouac's journey culminates with his summer spent in solitude as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, Washington.  He writes a beautiful account of his time spent meditating and finding himself in the powerful tranquility of nature (you may be reminded of Krakauer's Into the Wild; for a WBB review, click here).  At this point, Japhy has gone over to Japan to pursue Buddhism further, and Kerouac writes a powerful tribute to his friend and expresses his joy at experiencing transcendence in the wilderness.  

The Dharma Bums is not a book for everyone.  It doesn't claim to be.  Kerouac's journey can be a paradox; he seems to find himself in wild parties as well as peaceful journeys through the wilderness.  I've found his writing to be refreshing, if only because he didn't spend his time repressing his dreams and wishful longings; he went out and experienced the world as furiously as he possibly could.  When you view his work in the context of 1950's America, it makes a lot of sense.  Especially if you're a twenty-something liberal arts student.   

If you're interested in reading more works from the Beat generation, I recommend On the Road by Kerouac as well as Howl by Allen Ginsberg.  

If you'd like to read more about Buddhism and/or Eastern monism, I recommend Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.  I've come to find Eastern patterns of thought and philosophy to be fascinating, and it can be rewarding to grapple with these ideas, particularly when told through a fictional or semi-fictional story.  

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback!  Have you read The Dharma Bums or anything else by Kerouac?  What are your thoughts?  

Love,

~Spence

New Content Mondays

Welcome back everyone! We've missed you and are wishing many blessings upon your literary endeavors. As you can probably guess, it's that time of the week for us to fill you with all those lovely contents that are fresh from the basement of Whiskey Before Breakfast. I thought it might be appropriate this week to discuss writing since we've been on a pretty hard tear of book reviews.

Let me open up by saying something very important: You are all writers! Whether you scribble some words of poetry down on a napkin for that cute redhead that works at Starbucks or burn the midnight oil in order to crank out the next novel that will change the way the world sees corn soufflé, you are all writers. Now, the Muses may speak a little louder to some of you than others, but that's all right because we all have the ability to say something creative and worthwhile. There are too many variables to count when determining who's a serious writer and who just does it because they have to, but in my years of studying the craft, reading books and winning my fair share of contests, I've noticed one thing: those who call themselves writers live breathe and revel in the craft. This isn't to say that you need to cram your skulls with everything that's literature, but it should give you an idea of what it takes to be a writer.

Now, I want to break down this discussion in to two categories so I'm reaching all of you people out there. Yes, I'm talking to you, oh most timid reader who laughs and cries at our reviews, but cripples at the thought of actually asking us a question or two in our comments section. I'm calling you out, son! This post will be broken down into tips for both the serious writers and those who just don't want to look stupid on their next term paper. I've wavered in both camps and so I feel like I have some good authority to say something about them. Also, it's my blog. This could be a longer post than usual so sit back, pour yourself a cup of that bold Colombian coffee (the good stuff, none of that processed crap that's usually on sale) and let me caress your minds with some wisdom on writing.

For the Real Writers

I'm somewhat hesitant to dedicate this section to "real writers" because anyone who puts that ink to the pasty white paper is a writer (technically). But, for the sake of space and time I'll define these "real writers" as those who one day hope to make something of themselves off of words and wish to buy that nifty Raider's hat they've always wanted (just kidding, no one likes the Raiders). To begin this section let me take you back into the life of Zach Butler when I was just a wee lad of fifteen and had not a care in the world other than when Hey Arnold would be on television. I was introduced to the world of writing and stories by a close friend of mine at the time who currently works for a small video game review site last I heard. What I got out of a five hour hang out session with him, which consisted mostly of a conversation on writing and why he liked books when he was in high school, was that in order to be a decent writer I needed to start writing and do it damn near every day.

This sparked my interest and so I began writing. It didn't matter what I wrote either and that's what you need to understand. Write anything! Write a poem, a haiku, a sermon, a page, a song, an epic, a word, it doesn't matter, just write. When people ask me what I do for writing (yes, people actually ask me from time to time) I tell them I try to write 2,500 words a day. This is a tip I picked up from reading Stephen King's memoir/writing book, On Writing, which I recommend you all read at some point in your careers. Like working out or playing Call of Duty, in order to see any improvement in your craft you need to keep practicing and training so you can take it to those high school punks who say really inappropriate things about your mothers. Because that’s what writing is all about, telling high schoolers that they can’t do that. A really neat thing will begin to happen over time as you write and that is this: you'll start to see that 2,500 words is really nothing at all and you'll start writing 3,000 or 4,000 or even 7,000 words a day! Like with any habit, good or bad, the process becomes easier as you do it more.

There are hundreds of thousands of books out there that will tell you hundreds of thousands of ways to improve yourself as a writer or how to be published or how to drink coffee properly, but it really all boils down to one thing: write! It's in your title for goodness sake. Start small (you don't need to rewrite the Odyssey in Creole after all) and slowly progress towards bigger and better endeavors.

For the Everyday Writers

I think it's safe to say that most of our readers probably fall in to this category. These are the writers who only call themselves such when it's about two in the morning and they just remembered they have a research paper due at eight. Or, if you're like me, you realize this during your nine o' clock class and skip the rest of the day in order to turn that paper in under your teacher's door all incognito. For those of you who ride this struggle bus let it be known that you are in good company. Now, let's change that.

This section of the post shouldn't be taken as a "How To Improve Your Writing Skills" because every college/high school has a writing center where people get paid to tell you how to write (not necessarily better I might add). Since we don't get paid, I'm going to take a different approach and talk to you as one who loves literature and has seen the benefits of devoting one's self to the craft. I'm also not here to tell you that you need to become a bestselling novelist in order to pass your next Humanities Course paper (although, if you attended a certain school in Western Pennsylvania you might think otherwise).

For the everyday writer, literature and the actual process of writing is usually not the first thing on their mind. This is perfectly fine because there are far more important things to think about other than how you're going to kill your main character at the end of your novel with a pair of demon cursed chopsticks. Please, for the sake of your sanity and social life, go on thinking about whatever you think about! But, for those seeking to improve their writing, even in the slightest, take heed of my next sentence. A book, and I mean any book, is a monumental way to start improving your writing and vocabulary. Since we are no longer chained to our chairs in junior high and forced to take "Vocab Quizzes" we begin to take words and the scope of words we know for granted. When that begins to happen, our literary prowess begins to dampen and so we sit, wracking our brains for synonyms for the words "good" or "strong". I've found that the best way to expand your vocabulary and be able to throw down words like "clairvoyance" or "apotheosis" is to simply read.

I'm going to assume for a moment here that most of you reading this have a soft spot for literature, no matter how small or cramped that spot is. Why else would you be reading a blog on book reviews unless you just love reading our writing (which, we know, is pretty life-altering)? So, since I've caught you with your proverbial pants down I'm going to say this: read people! Read until your eyes wither from your sockets and fall to the ground like little plastic bags. Read till your brain misfires and you actual do think Tupac is alive and well in Mexico. Read until there is nothing left to read. And when you read, don't just read the words; see how the author constructs sentences, notice the pace and the rhythm at which they write, hear the voice they are writing in and begin to understand how to write. When you start reading like this you'll notice two things. One, you’ll actually enjoy and appreciate the work more than if you were just to process a story in your mind. Two, you'll start to see these techniques and concepts reflected in your own writing. I only see a win-win here.

Of course, you could go out and buy books and subscribe to websites and sit in conferences in order to hear and see thousands of other ways to become a better writer, but I think you'll start to see that it really comes down to the two things I had mentioned earlier: reading and writing. This post is really only laying the foundation for effective writing I understand, but we need to start somewhere right? Also, as writers, you've got to make time to do both reading and writing, especially if you ever want to take yourself seriously. Challenge yourself this week and try to write and read every day, even if it's only for a fleeting moment.

Okay, I'll step off the soapbox now. We needed to dust it off anyways, it's been sitting in the closet a while. Till next Monday/Tuesday!

-- Zach 

Catch-22

Beloved readers,

I hope this post finds you well.  If it does not, then I am exceedingly grateful that you decided to read Whiskey Before Breakfast despite your apparent un-wellness.  You is smart, you is kind, you is important.  (Name that movie/novel in the Comments section and we'll make a big deal out of your brilliance in our next post).

In 1953, Joseph Heller began writing Catch-22.  In 1961, it was published.  In 2013, Spence finally got around to reading it.

Catch-22 centers around Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. bomber pilot during World War II.  Yossarian has completed the mandatory number of missions required for each pilot, so he is allowed to return home.  However, every time that he meets the quota of flight missions, the authorities raise the requirement, forcing him to remain in combat.  As he becomes overwhelmed by the stress and horrors of war, he finds himself a victim of Catch-22, a bureaucratic nightmare: A man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.  (The phrase Catch-22 originates with this novel, i.e. a no-win situation).

The narrative itself is a chaotic patchwork of seemingly random anecdotes and stories.  The reader is introduced to a number of Yossarian's fellow pilots and comrades, and each of them deals with Catch-22 and other conflicts in humorous, ridiculous ways.

I need to make it clear that Catch-22 is absolutely hilarious.  I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times.  The dialogue is quick and witty in a sort of nonsensical way (you'll know exactly what I mean when you read it, or if you've already read it).

My favorite part of the novel occurs towards the end.  Yossarian flies another dangerous mission, and his plane is shot with anti-aircraft cannons.  When he lands, he goes back to discover that his gunner has been mortally wounded.  He tries to help him, but the gunner dies in his arms, splattering Yossarian's uniform with blood and gore.  Yossarian refuses to wear his uniform again, and he stands in line to receive a medal for bravery--completely naked.  It's a strange combination of laugh-out-loud hilarious and morbidly depressing.  You're free to draw your own conclusions.

Critics of the novel would say that it becomes extremely repetitive, Heller is a one-trick pony, the story doesn't make logical sense, etc.  I think that's missing the point.  20th century warfare was essentially the systematic destruction of human life, directed by a faceless bureaucracy that never saw the damage it caused.  The emotional and psychological consequences for the individuals at the front lines were tremendous.  The suffering was so great that Yossarian cannot decide who the "bad guys" are--himself, his authorities, or the enemy whom he is attacking.  So even though this book doesn't always make sense, that's the only reason it makes any sense at all.  The horrors of war cannot be condensed into a neat and tidy treatise.  War is moral chaos.  Catch-22 is an attempt to make sense of this chaos through humor and satire.

Also, Stephen King named Catch-22 as one of the two greatest American novels.  I probably don't need to remind you that we hold Stephen King in extremely high regard here at Whiskey Before Breakfast.  (The second great American novel is Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.  We're working on that one.  All 1300+ pages of it.)

Writing a review about Catch-22 is like telling one of those "you had to be there" stories.  I can't really do justice to this book without actually handing it to you and making you read it.  Catch-22 is a literary experience, and a rewarding one, at that.

I love you all.  Class dismissed.

~Spence