richard yates

i just drank coffee

i am going to blog about richard yates

here is an article about richard yates

i'm going to list the books he wrote and say some things about them

i just want to think about richard yates for a while right now

and just type what i think

revolutionary road (1961)

i liked this novel because the narrator was sarcastic, the characters were bored and self-conscious and depressed, and there were no bad people

the book is set in the suburbs

i feel confused when people blame the suburbs; when people condemn the suburbs as a place of mediocrity, banality, homogeny, etc.

i seems like everyone automatically blames the suburbs for things; i'm trying to and i feel unable to think of what people's actual arguments against the suburbs are; is it that the houses look the same, that the stores are the same?

what difference does it make if the houses look the same? and what difference does it make if all the stores are the same if you don't care (if your actions aren't changed) about publicly-traded companies' effect on the world?

in conclusion, i don't know

the book was funny, it used simple language, and had a sarcastic narrator

eleven kinds of loneliness, stories (1962)

i don't remember most of these stories

there is a kind of story that you know what it's about

it's about 'this person is a bad person' or 'this law is wrong' or 'racism is bad' or 'war is bad' and most of the stories in this book have some of that in it, which i do not like to read about usually

people call that kind of writing, where you know what it's about, 'genre' writing, i think

i think the only way to avoid giving your writing this kind of 'meaning' is to not have any rhetoric at all, or to have your rhetoric be a kind of rhetoric that first always acknowledges not knowing anything

by having it be sentences like 'i feel fucked today'

i don't know

i'm not making sense

a special providence (1969)

this book is about richard yates in world war II and richard yates growing up with his mother

during the world war II part it is like high school, it could have been set in high school, there is no rhetoric or discussion or acknowledgement of politics, nationalism, fighting 'evil,' etc.

it is mostly only the character feeling nervous and having low self-esteem and trying to avoid embarrassment and trying to have friends and keep friends and have a facade of confidence the entire time

which i liked

usually writers when they get famous they start taking an interest in politics due to peer pressure maybe

yes, peer pressure

look at the existentialists in europe

politics seems to be the opposite of meaninglessness

yet camus and sartre were political later on

richard yates never took an interest in politics, it seems

i'm not saying taking an interest in politics is bad

if your life is meaningless then really you have a philosophy whose actualization would be to stop eating and eventually die naturally

if you continue living each day you are actualizing a philosophy where there is meaning, which is to keep on living, and if you avoid pain and try to be happy then you are actually a philosophy that says 'pain is bad,' 'happiness is good,' and 'life is good'

disturbing the peace (1975)

i just read this

i liked it

i think richard yates wrote three novels that if i had read each novel first i would think 'he used his entire life and put in everything he felt into that novel and his other books are probably just him "screwing around"'

most writers i've read do that

they just 'screw around' after writing one book that has everything they want to say in it

or they have one book that i like much more than the other books

i just tried to think of examples and couldn't think of anyone

so i guess i am wrong

ignore all this

i'm just saying that richard yates has three novels where after i read them i think 'this person is not screwing around'

the easter parade (1976)

this is my favorite book by him

when i think about it i can have the entire thing be in my head and i can think about it and let it stay there

he said he wrote it very quickly, in like 8 months, i think, just to make money and so didn't trust it

i like this book

the characters are all 'fucked'

the main character is the least 'fucked,' but the least 'fucked' person is always in a different way the most 'fucked' person, because of being most aware that everyone around him or her is 'fucked'

in real life i feel like i am the least 'fucked' person i know usually because i know that everyone around me is more 'fucked' (though only from my perspective; i know that they themselves would think that i am more 'fucked' than they are, and probably believe they are not 'fucked' at all) than me

i feel like i can console myself no matter the circumstance

i feel like the main character in this novel knew she was more self-aware and just more aware and conscious generally than everyone else and so felt alone in that way

a good school (1978)

the main character in boarding school is 'jerked off' by the other students one day

i wasn't affected by this book that much

in the other books you can tell richard yates is very weary and has stared at his writing for a very long time and cut or made sarcastic anything melodramatic or sentimental

i feel like he didn't do that here to the same degree, especially in the end

i think the reason why unself-aware sentimental or melodramatic things are not affecting to me is because i know that people who feel like shit for a long time, for a very long time, become less sentimental and melodramatic over time, because they get used to it, because they think about it more and become more factual in their thinking (sentimentality and melodrama are the opposites of 'facts,' i think), or because they just feel so shitty and alone and hopeless that they no longer have desire (or confidence that things would actually change) to expend energy to not feel shitty and alone and hopeless anymore

therefore when i read something sentimental or melodramatic i feel that the author does not feel as shitty as i have felt and therefore is happier generally than i am and is just going to feel sad for 20 minutes between 2000 minutes of feeling great before and after those 20 bad minutes

liars in love, stories (1981)

i like these stories

they are all long and have no 'messages'

i remember most of them very clearly

young hearts crying (1984)

i haven't read this

cold spring harbor (1986)

i read half of this and lost interest

he takes on a lot of different perspectives here instead of just writing about one depressed person

here is an interview with richard yates