Ben Lerner, 10:04

Some reflections/notes on Ben Lerner's novel 10:04, which is—as his other books are—incredibly smart and poignant, academic and relatable. 

• EPIGRAPH: "... Everything will be as it is now, just a little different"
• life vs art and mutual influence
• falsifying reality to write fiction
• meta and self-referential writing
• stories within stories
• characters with multiple and mutable (slightly) names and forms / split selves and the boundaries or spilling out of one's self within bodies/realms/environments
• taking from life to make art
• privacy of the lives of those around the writer, and drawing boundaries around what can and cannot be inserted in writing
• the real and the more real
• true and untrue
• detail or narrative that makes something true/fiction/autobiographical
• interrupting life to write and interrupting writing to insert (or experience) life
• addresses the reader directly at the end, claiming she's reading a book "on the very edge of fiction"

I also really enjoyed the comments on art especially with reference to the "Institute for Totalled Art" as well as the part of the book that takes place while the narrator is on a residency in Marfa, Texas.