I’m not going to finish reading it, at all

“However, I haven’t finished the piece yet.
And I’m just saying. Because I’m not going to finish reading it, at all.”
– note to M.F. by a “critic” circa 2011

“Whenever you’re right, strive for originality.
But if you have to steal, steal from the best.”
– Woody Allen, Anything Else

A few words of explanation, before anything else. My name is Jerry David, and some days ago, I’ve published, on this blog, a reflection about J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye. It was entitled “This book will, from now on, remind me of you.” The essay prompted my good friend Ace Mallari to send me a long—and I would say rather abusive—email about my essay and some other things. Ace and I maintains a weekly email correspondence and although we occasionally talk about the things that I write, she never had written an email that is solely about something I’ve written. I mean, sometimes, she mentions this new essay that I’ve written, but only in passing. But she sent me this email that is primarily about my essay and I find it rather good so I asked her if I could publish it here, on my blog. My writing had been so sloppy lately that I wasn’t able to write anything decent, as you might have now noticed, and I begged Ace to allow me to publish her email, just for the hell of it. She was reluctant at first, saying she doesn’t like the idea of other people reading her email. But she agreed, eventually, after I assured her that no one visits my blog anyway, meaning no one would read her email anyway. And we also changed the names of the persons that were mentioned in this email, in case, by some divine reason, of all the places in the World Wide Web they’d find themselves here.

Please, also, forgive Ace for her amateurish prose. That came from her, though, and she insisted that I write that particular line here in this introduction, word per word, comma per comma—she made it a condition as a matter of fact—because she has this notion that her prose is amateurish. Which is not true, if you ask me, but, anyway, she also would like it to be known that she is not in any way a “writer,” nor does she want to be one. The only thing she writes, she says, are term papers and emails, but that’s it. It’s all a load of bull, you know, because Ace in my opinion is a good writer and a better writer than I am. She’s so swell a writer that I am considering on sharing this blog with her, because I find her opinions on literature and film interesting. Well, you might or you might not see her again here, but for the meantime, without further ado, here’s Ace’s email to me, copied straight from my Mozilla Thunderbird.

*

23 July 2014

Buddy,

Jesus Christ, you really are crazy about The Catcher in the Rye, aren’t you? You’ve always told me that you are crazy about it—and I know that you are crazy about it—but I never had known that you are this fucking crazy about that silly book. No, buddy, I wouldn’t castigate you for it, relax. Jesus I could already hear you groaning, I could already see you clenching your fist. And last time I checked, between you and me buddy, you are more prone to castigating people for their taste. But what I would do here I’d just write what I think about your essay and about your writing in general. I mean, I’ve noticed that your blog is filled with long monologues and there’s no interaction from your few readers—what was your estimate, five including me?—so to stop you from Franny Glass-ing every single fucking week, let me give you what I think, as a reader, as your reader, and, I hope that I could Zooey Glass some sense into you. God I love that book, Franny and Zooey—it’s the best thing you’ve recommended to me so far. I mean, I also loved Strong Motion, but my god Jonathan Franzen thinks he’s Jesus, you know, and I hate writers like that. Writers who think they could save the world. Writers who think they’re Jesus. It’s blasphemy.

But anyway, yes, your suspicion is correct. I just read Franny and Zooey last night—thanks to the typhoon, our classes were suspended and twelve hours of my day was put into good use—so that explains my frequent italicisation of words and my use of “buddy” every now and then. But please, please please please, I beg you to not do a rebuttal thrice as long as what I’d be writing to you. My god you’re the most pikon person I’ve ever known in my entire life. You’re still the old cry baby who cried on his seventh birthday. And remember that time when I said Wild Strawberries was boring? You sent me a 3,000 word email and a 1,000 word “postscript”—but don’t do that here. Just hear me out, you know. Besides, I’m not in the mood to read anything hostile against me and my preferences. Probably after my midterm in Earthquake Engineering. But for now, I want to keep my brain cells intact because there’s just so many things at school and let’s not write anything hostile against each other, please—because this email, buddy, is not in any way hostile. You, you Schopenhauerian intention-finder, must know the difference between hostile and not-hostile. And, please, no resentments, too. You’ve told me on your previous email that you’d love to hear what I think about your writing—and here it is.

But I have to warn you. I’d be writing this email in separate occasions. Well, you know, here’s my favourite day of the week again, Wednesday, when I have a seven to nine class (Principles of Reinforced Concrete), a twelve to three (Logic, ugh), and a six to nine (Sewerage, Irrigation, and Sanitary Engineering). It’s really grand you know, and I figured out I’d just spend my breaks on the library writing you this email. I don’t think I’d be free this night to write it, so I must write it now, because Patty asked me to accompany her. Which is really grand­—the second grand thing about this day—because I had been asking
Patty to accompany me for weeks already and yet she’s so god damned busy that she wouldn’t even answer my calls. You know her, she’s too busy with her boys. And yet here she is, because she met some new chap, she wants me to accompany her. I mean, what does she think I am, her fucking chaperone? Grand, isn’t it? So, anyway, I’m writing this email not at night til dawn—as I normally write my emails to you—but at differing intervals throughout the day, so forgive my change of tone or topic. I’d nonetheless edit the whole email, but I just don’t want you to, you know, criticise me to death about my “rambling” and “digressing” email which is “incoherent par excellence.”

Okay I understand that Salinger’s voice is really tempting to imitate. Particularly his voice on The Catcher. But now that I’ve read Franny and Zooey, ha-ha-ha, I could see that every single fucking sentence in your essays has something from Franny and Zooey in it. You may have removed the goddams and helluvas and sonouvabitches, but you’ve retained both Zooey’s sarcasm and Franny’s obsession with ego. E-fucking-go. Particularly on your letters, Jesus. And Christ, I thought all that talk about ego and egoism in your writing is because of Schopenhauer, but now I know who you got it from. And I am offended—appalled, as a matter of fact—that you once said that I was “like Franny Glass.” Really? Fucking Really? Like Frances Fucking Glass? Knowing you and your way of saying things, you probably don’t mean that as a compliment and there is probab-fucking-ly more to it. A subtle way of saying that something’s wrong with me, perhaps? Because there is something wrong with Franny Glass. And it’s her—oh god, there’s another thing, more than the ego-hatred, that I think you’ve got from Franny Glass. And it’s your misanthropy.

I mean, really, when was the last time that you’ve had a lousy professor? And yet here you are telling to me all about how you wouldn’t take an M.A. and definitely not a Ph.D. because you think the academe is “stupid”—or, to use a word that I know you had been aching to use, but you didn’t, phony. The academe is phony. That was what your last email is about, isn’t it? How the academe is phony, how you think all Ph.D. students are phony, how anything with a footnote in it is phony. And it’s not about Taoism, buddy. Please don’t hide yourself in Taoism—and don’t recite to me that “Give up your learning and be free from your trouble” from the Tao Te Ching—and don’t hide yourself in Buddhism, either. You don’t hate your ego and the academe because of those eastern philosophies—you hate them because of Franny Glass. And, I think, that you are more Franny Glass than I am. Jesus, just because I’m a girl and I read and I chain-smoke doesn’t mean I’m a Franny Glass. But because you fucking hate yourself and everyone who has a Ph.D. in Something That Should Not be Studied (but only enjoyed, according to you)—that makes you a Franny Glass. Franny Glass. And, one last thing before I drop the whole Franny Glass topic. When you were telling me about this character that you were writing on a short story, is it just me or were you trying to do a third-rate Franny Glass? Buddy, your male protagonist is already a third-rate Holden Caulfield, so don’t. Please. Do. Not. Fucking. Do. It. I know you’d hate me for saying this but it wouldn’t do anyone any good. You could get away with a third-rate Holden Caulfield—every YA writer has done it—but not with a third-rate Franny Glass. It’s like doing a third rate-Phoebe Caulfield. It’s just impossible—but impossible (ha-ha! I love Bessie, as a matter of fact. I mean, you know, she was the one who said “I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy,” and I believe that applies to a certain someone.).

Gosh. I told you I’d be writing about your essay. But I just couldn’t move on from Franny and Zooey. Why don’t you read it again to see what I mean? I mean, you told me you last read it two years ago, but read it again and you’d see how Franny Glass you are right now. Franny Glass minus the cigarettes and the premenstrual syndrome—incidentally, at least Franny has an excuse for bitching about everything.

Anyway, I’ve also noticed how you made allusions about S. on your recent essay. And S. is not Seymour, of course, but it’s You Know Who. Anyway, what I wanted to say is, S., like The Catcher, might have been this big influence in your life, but if any woman made you the man that you are right now, it’s not S., it’s Franny Glass. I mean, god—you distrust people, you hate everyone, you avoid strangers as a matter of principle—you didn’t get that from S. You got that from Franny. And I have this impression that you are imitating Franny Glass, that you’re trying to be like her. Tell me, had you been mumbling the Jesus Prayer in secret? Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a fucking sinner—Pfft. Because it seems to me that you are patterning your life with Franny Glass, asking yourself in times of uncertainty What Would Franny Glass Do. I don’t know, perhaps you’re doing this unconsciously? But, really, buddy, I think more than Holden Caulfield and S.—more than S., really—it’s Franny Glass who made such a huge impact on your life. I mean, okay, let’s put it this way. Franny Glass is practically the touchiest person in the world. She gets offended by anything egoistic and she loves disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Mention something that she hates and the cocksucker insults you and your principles and she’ll faint incidentally. Sounds fucking familiar? Well, you know, Patty still remembers you and the little dinner we had some months ago and those nice things you told her. Actually she asked me how you were, when she called me yesterday, you know, because she said she never had met a boy who disagreed with her as passionately as you did. I mean, it’s swell that you made her taste her own manure—because I myself hate it when she makes everything about herself—but I also think that you’ve done a little too much. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of people call Patty “annoying” on her back, but you’re the first one who told her in her face that she’s “fucking annoying.” And I bet it’s the first time—and probably the last time—she heard anyone call her a “stupid fucking cunt.” And, you know, that’s so Franny Glass.

But let’s go back to your writing. I mean, I find it extremely difficult to focus on anything lately. My mind is always wandering somewhere else, always thinking about something else—I don’t know. The other day, I watched this film that you were really nuts about on your last email, you know, Linklater’s subUrbia, but halfway through the film I found myself finding for my nail cutter and clipping my nails. Relax, buddy. I’m not saying Your New Pet Filmmaker is boring. I love Richard Linklater, I love the whole Before series. In fact, I think Linklater is a better filmmaker than Woody Allen. (Alright, let’s have enough of my opinions about filmmaking because you probably hate me so much right now for saying someone is better than Woody Allen.) It’s just, I don’t know, I couldn’t focus. God, I’d been chain-smoking like a bastard and I still couldn’t focus on anything. I mean, I have our thesis, for one, then our midterms on Earthquake Engineering, then a while ago, our professor on Logic (ugh) gave us an easy but rather tedious—that is, 1 to fucking 100—assignment. Our Logic professor needs to be lobotomized, you know. He actually thinks if people would become logical, society would be better. Yup, they should apply some modus ponens on their life and end all their non fucking sequiturs and we’d all live in a utopia. Yehey! Gosh. I mean, really. Just Jesus Fucking Shit Cunt Piss Cocksucking Motherfuckering Tits Christ gosh, you know.

Where were we? On your writing, of course. Now, as I was saying, I think you could apply some Schopenhauer into your writing. But I’m not saying that you should be more pessimistic than you are already. The Schopenhauer that you should apply, I mean, is the moral theorist, the compassionate thinker. If anything’s making your essays unreadable—I mean if I hate anything about your writing—it’s your awkward references from God Knows Where about God Knows What. Writing, buddy, is the act of transferring what your ego thinks to other people’s egos. But your writing, it seems to me, is so egoistic that you insert references that only you—and probably those who knows your soul as well as you do, if such people does exist (and probably S., incidentally, since everything you write is half about S.)—knows and understands. I wouldn’t cite examples here. You must be very angry right now and if I’d be academic about it I know that’ll make you angrier. But, you know, your writing is filled with awkward and vague and at best Hard To Understand references. References, buddy, should help your writing become easier to understand—not make it more difficult. I mean, not all people have already read The Catcher, and not everyone who read The Catcher had caught that carousel imagery of Salinger. But you used it as if everyone knows about Phoebe’s stupid fucking carousel. I mean, I don’t know, perhaps other people would disagree with me, but I think references like that in your writing are so fucking out of place and a simpler, direct-to-the point sentence would suffice, you know.

If you would be Schopenhauerian about your writing, you wouldn’t consider your ego’s wellbeing, but you would consider only the wellbeing of other people’s ego. What I’m saying is, you should make your writing pleasurable not for yourself but for your reader Only. That’s compassion par exce-fucking-lence, buddy. And stop all these tirades against the people you hate. I mean, sure, they wouldn’t read the things you write because, well, they hate you, but what if they did? I mean, what if your punches actually land where you want them to land? Then what? Gonna feel happy that again, with your words, you’ve offended someone? Jesus, buddy, that’s so malicious. Not only is your writing egoistic, it’s also fucking malicious. And that, perhaps, explains all this dissatisfaction that you’re feeling about your writing, you know. It’s because of this hatred that is consuming your soul. I mean, it’ll be swell to read something from you that does not—covertly or overtly—criticise anyone. Anyone in particular, I mean. Because you could criticise to death people in general. But the thing about your writing is you pretend to be criticising people in general when in fact you are criticising someone in particular.

My head aches so fucking terribly right now and I don’t fucking know. Worse is, when I ask who and what this new guy of Patty is, she told me he was a law student. For fuck’s sake a law student. Jesus Fucking Christ save me from that character. Just the sort of person me and my migraine would love to be with. I mean, I don’t know why Patty is so crazy about him, even, because she’d probably jilt him a week or two from now. But the thing is, I’m not in the mood right now to be with someone who has a two digit IQ. And if someone mentions “good faith” or “bad faith” to me ever again this day, I Swear To God I’ll Scream. I’m sick and tired of all this pseudo-political talk about good faith and bad faith. Christ. I mean, yes, those politicians stole a couple of billion pesos, what’s the fucking news about that? Corruption is as old as the Philippine Republic itself. Why does it shock people? I mean, the problem with our country is it has so many laws and lawyers. Fucking get rid of half of them—those who work for crooks, you know, laws and lawyers that work for crooks, get rid of them—and we would have a better country I Swear To God. But if you keep on having all these stupid laws and lawyers, our country would surely spiral into legal destruction. I mean, let’s not talk about it. Let’s just don’t.

I’m really glad that you’ve already watched Pulp Fiction. You should watch more Quentin Tarantino, you know. You are stuck in this romantic-comedic universe of Woody Allen that you tend to ignore the fact that the universe is violent, extremely violent. And since I mentioned Quentin “I Don’t Need You To Tell Me How Good My Fucking Coffee Is” Tarantino, let me also tell you that I’ve already picked up your coffee funnel. It took me forever to find that café, though. (And I found it alone because Patty was such a nice friend that she wouldn’t even spare an hour of her promiscuous life to accompany me.) I mean, I’ve been living here in Baguio for five years already and I never knew that that café existed. How the fuck did you know about that café? But if you want my honest opinion about this, coffee funnels are pathetic. It’s the kind of apparatus that Bonnie would use. Fucking why? Because it has a filter in it. And any brewing method that involves a filter takes away the oil from the beans—it takes away That Which Makes The Coffee Good. I mean, I’m like Quentin Tarantino with my Coffee. When I drink it, I want to fucking taste it. And that’s why the only brewing method I’d recommend to you is the French Press, which involves metal meshes only. But go on, try brewing with coffee funnel and taste how flavourless your coffee would end up being. Anyway, whatever its taste will become, you owe me a thousand pesos and one big and sweet Thank You, with lotsa cream and lotsa sugar. (I love Quentin Tarantino, you know. And allow me to indulge here, buddy. Every week I read your neurotic emails that have all those allusions about death and sickness as if it were written by a hypochondriac Jewish New Yorker and I swear to fucking god I know you’re so close to making a reference about the Holocaust. You Love Woody Allen, I love Quentin Tarantino, let’s just respect each other, you know, and not criticise anyone about their taste.)

One last thing. You mentioned on your last email that you are currently reading Anna Karenina. Read what you want, but don’t get me started with Anna. I mean, just don’t. We could talk about Raskolnikov or Stephen Daedalus or even Bathsheba Ever-fucking-dene. But not Anna. Let’s not talk about Anna, you know. Actually, the only reason why I haven’t yet read War and Peace is because Anna Karenina discouraged me about reading more from Tolstoy. My reason for hating Anna, let us leave hanging, because Patty is already asking me where I am, and I don’t think I have any more energy to write. Let’s just list it down in our To-Talk-About-List, because it’s rather long, you know. I mean, if Franny Glass is crazy, then Anna is Crazy with the capital-C. But Crazy, you know. Gosh, let’s not talk about her, I mean. Let’s. Just. Don’t. Talk. About. Anna.

Although, if you want to know the truth, just write what you want. I mean, don’t obsesses yourself trying to be as good as Salinger and aspiring to be Better Than Hemingway. I mean, alright, someone said that you should “surpass them great writers.” If you’re really serious about doing that, then you should to it unconsciously, not consciously. It’s like the Jesus Prayer, you know. You begin it consciously, yes, but eventually it becomes unconscious, you internalize saying “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me,” your lips move by themselves without you—and your ego—making it to. Applied to writing, you begin to consciously want to surpass them great writers—and that you have done already—but the actual surpassing of great writers happens unconsciously. And trust me on this, buddy, you wouldn’t be great or anywhere near great if you’d keep on being neurotic about the beautifulness or ugliness of the things you write. Just write what you want, you know, but don’t pontificate or be preachy as hell. You’re not Jesus, after all, or Siddhartha, or Lao Tzu. You’re just a human, you know, a human all too fucking human.

I’d love to see you As Please Soon As Possible. I wanna hear about your eight new insights, which, for some perfectionist reason you couldn’t write yet because you don’t want to ruin them. And I also have a few things to tell you, and, you know, I’d appreciate it if you’d start reading Finnegans Wake, so I can start making references about it already. But whatever happens, watch Reservoir Dogs tonight. Tarantino, I have to tell you, is a million times better than Martin Scorsese. Okay I love Martin Scorsese (damn, Mean Streets was fucking good) but Quentin Tarantino is better. (And I didn’t say anything bad about Sofia Coppola throughout this email right? See, I told you I could respect your opinions.) I’d be watching Waking Life tonight, after I go home and before I sleep, and I hope it’s as good as you say it is, because I’d definitely need something to compensate the surely boring night that I will have courtesy of Patty and her new boy. I mean, it amazes me that I still hang out with Patty. It amazes me, really, considering how grand a person she is. But what the hell. I mean, you know.

I really really really would love to see you, buddy. Hope all’s swell on your end.

Most sincerely,
Ace