I suddenly find myself wrapped up in a project that could very well become a book. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it’s an exploration the spot where I think we’re stuck as a civilization. The basic idea came to me on July 2, and since then I’ve been working like a mad man, researching and taking notes.

It’s exciting, to say the least! I never thought I would get to this point. Apparently self-publishing the collection of early works, Seeking the Upward Spiral, helped me move to the next level. It must have provided adequate closure to a very dark four-year period in my life.

So now, onward and upward! You may see an occasional post from me, if I have some news to share. And who knows, maybe I’ll post updates on my progress. In the interim, please keep an eye on Supraterranean. We really need submissions! Also, did you see the new Thumpme blog? If not, have a lookie!

I did enjoy learning about the Zeitoun family though. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American man who settled in New Orleans after about a decade of living and working at sea. A friend introduced him to his wife Kathy, a Louisiana native who was raised Southern Baptist but had converted to Islam on her own. Kathy has a son from a previous marriage, and she and Zeitoun (as everyone calls Abdulrahman) have three daughters together. In my opinion, Eggers’s focus on this quintessential “American” family is the strongest aspect of the book. The result was that I learned more about Islam than I had ever known before.

It was especially interesting to see why Kathy converted. Her best friend Yuko (a Japanese American) first made the switch from Christianity to Islam, and eventually it began to make sense to Kathy as well.

“[Kathy] had no idea, for instance, that the Qur’an was filled with the same people as the Bible – Moses, Mary, Abraham, Pharaoh, even Jesus. She hadn’t known that Muslims consider the Qur’an the fourth book of God to His messengers, after the Old Testament…the Psalms…and the New Testament. The fact that Islam acknowledged these books was revelatory for her. The fact that the Qur’an repeatedly reaches out to the other, related faiths, knocked her flat” (p. 71).

“She was frustrated that she hadn’t known any of this, that she’d been blind to the faith of a billion or so people. How could she not know these things?” (p. 76)

I felt just as frustrated! That part about the Qur’an being the fourth book of God was news to me, and I’m sure it would be to most Americans practicing (or raised under) some denomination of Christianity. It’s even more odd when I recall that I went to high school with Muslim students, and at one point they even gave a short presentation to classes to encourage mutual understanding and tolerance (not that there were many outward displays of bigotry at the suburban Detroit school).

Kathy learned that Mohammad wasn’t the Islamic god (he was just a messenger), Qur’an simply means “Recitation,” and Muslims are just as different as the various types of people who identify as Christians. Meanwhile her Southern Baptist preacher scolded the congregation for not giving more money at collection time. And when Kathy spoke to him about how she was considering a conversion to Islam, the preacher said she was being tempted by the devil. Later at church, he brought her on stage and publicly humiliated her over the issue. That was Kathy’s breaking point.

“This man, preaching to a thousand impressionable and trusting parishioners, didn’t know, or didn’t care, that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were not-so-distantly related branches of the same monotheistic, Abrahamic faith. And to dismiss all of Islam with a playground sound? Kathy could not be part of what that man was preaching” (p. 76).

Kathy was also tiring of the Southern Baptist claim to ultimate knowledge. She sought something more humble and noble.

“The various doubts of the imams* were comforting, and drew her closer. [...] She liked Islam’s sense of personal responsibility, its bent toward social justice. Most of all, though, she liked the sense of dignity and purity embodied by the Muslim women she knew” (pp. 76-77). (*An imam is an Islamic religious leader)

All of this sounded refreshing amid the recent flashes of fundamentalist Islam and Christianity — the former in the Middle East and the latter in the U.S. But I soon saw that, like the other monotheistic religions, even liberal Islam is susceptible to irrationality and blatantly reliant on a personified God.

Consistently throughout the book, Zeitoun and Kathy thank God, pray to God, and abandon their reason to the wisdom of God. Zeitoun stays in New Orleans during and after Katrina in part because he feels that God wants him to be there to help the people (and dogs) in need. But in a way, it was a justification for his own stubbornness, not wanting to leave his property, not wanting to be stuck with four displaced females, not wanting to miss an opportunity to live up to his famous older brother (the brother was a decorated ocean swimmer in Syria, who later died in a car accident).

Never do they admit the chaos, randomness and coincidence that dominate every aspect of the story. The individual has no control whatsoever, but at the same time no one is in charge. Yes, Zeitoun did good things, but he almost ended up dead (or close to it — I won’t give away that part!).

There are a few other points from the book I’d like to discuss, but those will have to wait until a future post.

The second reason is more complex, but it relates to my skepticism over the value of contemporary publishing. I’m sure there’s a long catalog of works that try to explain the reasons for the degraded efficacy of modern literature: people watch too much TV and movies, play too many video games, aren’t educated enough, or are tasteless, unrefined cretins. That’s without even mentioning the publishing industry’s concerns over lagging profits. Of course, the assumption there is that the publishers deserved whatever success they had enjoyed up until recent times.

My opinion is quite different. Media is media; corporations are corporations; profit is profit; greed is greed. From a top-down perspective, book publishers are no different than the people who sell movies, shows, or albums. That publishing model undermines the very mission behind literature: to teach, to open minds, to ask important questions, to unveil fears and insecurities — all in all, to push mankind forward.

Now I’m approaching one of the founding concepts behind Supraterranean: to reinvent the way publishing is done. I don’t expect the site to accomplish that goal on its own, just to state it “for the record,” and to contribute to the evolution that is far overdue. And as e-readers begin to proliferate the market, we all have a duty to try and stop the content industry from controlling what people can access on those devices. If it all ends up being subscription-based stuff filtered through a semblance of the Internet, we might as well throw those tablets in the trash.

At the very least, I want Supraterranean to be a resource to ensure that anyone who wants to present their creative work to the public can do so. My biggest issue with the industry (by which I’m referring mostly to companies who publish books and literary journals for for money) is that it’s founded on the concept of authoritarian control. And, at least with the biggest publishers, the goal is not to identify and support the best writers or books; it’s to find and mold the books that can produce the biggest dividends, that book clubs and academics alike will gush over, that can skyrocket to a bestsellers list after being displayed (courtesy of massive payola) at the front of every mega-bookstore in America.

This is really no different than the way I feel about the major labels of the music industry, and (to a lesser exdegree, in terms of anger) about the big film studios. (I’ve ranted about the music industry many times on my MusicEdge Blog, most notably in this comment reply from April ’08. For more thoughts on the book industry, have a look at this Refractor Blog post about literary agents from about a year ago.)

* * *

Now that I’ve vented, re-read what I wrote so far, and had two glasses of wine, I realize that I haven’t even begun to discuss what I had originally planned. Here’s the story. In August 2009 I read the New York Times Sunday Book Review of Zeitoun, a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers about a single family’s tribulations as Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in late August 2005. I had never read anything by Dave Eggers, but I quickly gathered that he is one of the most well-known writers working today. I was more intrigued after learning that his own company, McSweeny’s, published the book. Perhaps, I thought, an independent publishing venture would allow a much more vivid, more experimental, more truthful account of what actually happened down there. Back when it happened, I was admittedly oblivious to the news reports, and I felt it was time that I learned more about it.

However, if I were to rate the book, I’d probably give it about a 3 out of 5. I’ve come to hate ratings, but here’s it appropriate — since I agree with those who gave it that rating on Amazon.com. Follow this link to see a three-star review by “exBFF,” who calls it a “great first draft.” I think that’s dead on. The comment author also points out the heavy, recurring use of foreshadowing — another keen observation.

I can’t think of a more appropriate word for the book than “mainstream.” And clearly the book is selling well, since it’s it’s been sold out everywhere since Christmas, until mid-February at the soonest. There were some redeeming qualities to the book, despite the fact that I didn’t learn all that much about Katrina, and the story itself wasn’t very captivating. But I’ve crossed my 600-word limit, so I’ll have to get to that tomorrow.

I think the take-home point of this post is that I am trying to expose myself to new literature, partly because I want to be more involved in the “literary scene.” It’s just a long, hard process, and I haven’t had any sort of writing or lit/comp class since 12th grade, so I have no guide here. I’m skeptical about whether the Editors can find and support all the talented writers, and I’m convinced that a good amount of worthwhile writing goes totally unpublished. I think one way the Internet will help is to find the right audience for a certain book or writer, instead of forcing every author to aspire to the tastes of the literary status quo. That’s not so unreasonable a hope, is it?

Anyways, NPR makes it really easy to embed the voting screen, so you can do it right here! It’s probably not a huge mystery what I voted for: The Rum Diary, Big Sur, Lord of the Flies, and Heart of Darkness. I didn’t feel like voting for 10, and I’m not much for reading on the beach…

UPDATE 7/29/09: The winners were announced today. What do I have to say about it? As Mr. Horse often stated on Ren & Stimpy, “Hmmmmm…no sir, I don’t like it.” This list has almost zero connection to beaches except Jaws and (barely squeezed in at the 100th spot) Treasure Island. Nor are they short books — as in, convenient to take to the beach. Who the flip would pack Anna Karenina, a 1,000-page book, in their beach tote? The unsurprising top ten includes the Harry Pooper series and Bridget Jones. Whoopee. I guess even NPR’s book-reading audience isn’t too far removed from the general book-reading population. You won’t find me on their beach though…