All that is left here is the truth; everything else is gone.
Have you heard James Frey has a novel out? No, not a memoir, an actual novel this time. Most of the criticism has been negative, but he did get a positive review from the New York Times -- positive enough that I added the book to my public library request list, even though I haven't read his since-debunked memoir or its follow-up. (I'm 19th of 113 requesters -- it looks like the NYPL ordered 87 copies but none, or few, of them are in yet.)
Too bad he is apparently doomed to repeat the mistakes of his past. Francis of Ghost Word did some checking on the facts with which the novel in question, BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, is peppered, and found that, whoops, his version of L.A. history is rather inaccurate.
James, buddy, why didn't you take advantage of the book's genre to make up some fake factoids? After all, studies have shown 72 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.
The title for this post comes from the Barenaked Ladies song "Serendipity," which seemed eerily appropriate. Naturally, serendipity is one of my favorite words.
An eagle-eyed New York Times photographer caught Senator Obama in Bozeman, Montana carrying a copy (with placeholder) of Fareed Zakaria's THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD. Good choice, sir! I have a copy of it to review although I haven't had the chance to read it yet; it looks like a very interesting tome.
I'm too tired at the moment to find similar photos of Senators Clinton and McCain, so consider yourself challenged to find them. I'm sure all politicians on the road have a lot of down time in transit and, if disciplined, can get a fair amount of reading done if they're not preoccupied with, you know, running for high office. Reading calms me down, so I would make sure my campaign bus had a lot of books on it. But you already knew that about me.
Even though I said I wouldn't, I mooched a book. Sigh. I know. But how could you resist a title like FRUGAL INDULGENTS: HOW TO CULTIVATE DECADENCE WHEN YOUR AGE AND SALARY ARE UNDER 30? I hope the life of decadence I will soon be leading will make me forget all about my slight indiscretion.
I had a busy weekend and my thoughts are sadly far from my beloved books, but I wanted to direct your attention to the essay "An Island Scorned" in this week's New York Times Book Review, about the writer V. S. Naipaul and his relationship to the island of Trinidad where he grew up. I knew that Naipaul was Caribbean but I never knew his books inspired such enmity.
I'll be reading A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS and A BEND IN THE RIVER as part of my Modern Library project, and that shard of biographical detail has piqued my interest. Has anyone read this book?
Books and the Stars: Tila Tequila And Who Should Eat, Pray, Love?
Unnecessary Celebrity Author of the Week: I never saw "A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila," but I gather the MTV show was a dating competition that pitted girls against guys for the affection of a bisexual MySpace celebrity. Well, she sold her book this week -- a memoir, of course -- so now we will all find out how to achieve this particular American Dream.
The Elizabeth Gilbert Hype Train Rolls On: Powell's Books.BLOG mentioned the EAT, PRAY, LOVE adaptation, which was officially picked up by Brad Pitt's Plan B production company. But Julia Roberts is already attached to star, which... well, it's a plum role, but I wish it could be a careermaker for a total unknown instead of a J.R. joint. Or a real showcase for someone we've never really seen in a major role like that. My totally out there pick? Emily Mortimer doing an American accent (a reverse "Bridget Jones" if you will!)
I'm off to our nation's capital to see my brother compete in a high school tournament, and I couldn't be prouder. Good luck, Max! (He thinks blogs are silly, but that's okay.)
By the time you read this I will already be on the train and probably deep into a chapter. This is where the Goodreads system of having a rankable to-do list breaks down a bit, because I don't want to lug any library books or hardcovers, and maybe a 96-pager is not the best use of my book-space. But here's what I'm bringing:
Candace Bushnell, 4 BLONDES -- for the forthcoming Candace Bushnell week. Elizabeth Noble, THINGS I WANT MY DAUGHTERS TO KNOW -- One of my book party finds (in advance review copy form). I have two sisters and I'm meeting my mom in D.C., so it may be a bittersweet read. Jonathan Coe, THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS (also an ARC) -- Marjorie lent this to me! Hey, Marjorie! I haven't forgotten. Review book for EDGE New York: Lewis DeSimone's CHEMISTRY.
I'm also bringing my mom's belated Mother's Day gift of two books, so I'm just 2 volumes away from being a Tom Stoppard. And I'll only be gone Saturday and Sunday... sheesh.
Last night at book club we discussed Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. The group consensus was that if it should take Junot Diaz another 10 years to write a book, then we will stay upon his leisure.
Very briefly, it's not often that I finish a book and immediately want to read it again. When I shut OSCAR WAO I felt like, while the story was over, my acquaintance with Oscar, the nerdy and frustrated title character growing up Dominican in Paterson, New Jersey, was just beginning. The book is written in a style which lends itself to re-reading because it's so dense with cultural allusions, some of which I'm sure I missed in the first pass. If I could compare its style to any other books, I would say it's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE meets MICROSERFS -- without particularly resembling either one of those.
Anyway, I threw out at the meeting that we should try to cast the forthcoming Miramax adaptation, before realizing how little I knew about Dominican-American actors. Since the author and most of the characters in the book are Dominican it would be neat to cast with that in mind, although Hollywood is not always very sensitive to this. (Remember the controversy over "Memoirs of a Geisha" and its pan-Asian cast?) Well, I did my homework and here's what I've got:
Victor Rasuk as Oscar -- I saw Rasuk in a little indie flick called "Raising Victor Vargas" and he really delivered in it. I believe he was in "Stop-Loss" as well although I didn't see it. He'll have to gain weight for the part, though, because a comedic fat suit won't do the trick. Judy Reyes (Carla on "Scrubs") stepping out of her comedic bubble to play Oscar's sister Lola. Wilson Jermaine Heredia, from the original cast of "Rent," as Yunior. He's played a transvestite, now let's see if he can play macho. Zoe Saldana as young Beli Cam'ron the rapper as The Gangster Cameo: Oscar de la Renta as Abelard 'cause why not? and Michelle Rodriguez playing way, way outside type as Ybón (whose role in the book is kind of a spoiler, so I will leave it there).
There are some major holes in this cast, so if you have any ideas for minor characters, let me know.
As a postscript to yesterday's rant about author marketing and social networking, here's a funny video made by author Dennis Cass about how he's promoting his book HEAD CASE: HOW I ALMOST LOST MY MIND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND MY BRAIN. I'll say this, I had never heard of his book before but I added it to my Goodreads list right after I finished the video. (Via Gawker)
A bit of a Goodreads rant today, but first, a confession! Yesterday morning's post was not really written yesterday morning! In an act of devious timestampery, I used Blogger's new "scheduled" option to reflect a little on WINESBURG, OHIO when I had time to do so, so while I was dashing off to wherever it is I go when I'm not on the Internet, the blog auto-updated. Oh, the magic! I feel the need to protest, however, that usually I write, if not all of each post, then at least the bulk of it on the morning it goes up. Sometimes I'll scrap out a couple paragraphs right before bed if I get a good idea in the shower. (Too much info? OK.)
So I use Goodreads, and I love Goodreads, but I've been noticing a disturbing trend on it that I will call, with apologies to the site, its Myspaceization. By that I don't mean that the site has been taken over by unstoppable music players and blinky things (we all know how I feel about Flash, and I have never been a MySpace user for many reasons), but as Goodreads has gotten more and more popular authors are starting to use the site to connect with readers who may be adding their books.
In terms of book marketing, these social networking sites are a great way to cut out the middleman (or -woman). Jennifer Weiner made her own group where she has been doing a Q&A this month, where readers have been posting questions which she (or her minions) respond to when they can. That's the ultra-involved route; some authors are fine with putting up a profile, maybe a wee bio. and letting the readers add them. One of my first Goodreads friends was author Tao Lin, whose books I have not read yet (sorry, sir!) but who updates at least semi-regularly. Author Scott Douglas added me as a friend when he saw I put his library memoir QUIET, PLEASE! on my want-to-read list. Now I can see that when he comes across a positive review of his book on the site he checks that he likes it. (I find this bizarrely charming.)
A few times, though, I've been added by authors whose works have nothing to do with me or what I like. When I check their pages, they haven't updated except to connect with hundreds of friends, who they're hoping (I would assume) will go to that author's page and add, or even buy, all her or his books, presumably without bothering to find out what they're about. I'm not going to single any authors out because for all I know, this work is being done on their behalf by well-meaning PR teams or personal assistants.
But it tweaks me a little when someone who exclusively writes, say, romance novels about undead football players, will go out of his or her way to say "Hey, read this book!" to someone who cares not for romance nor football players. (Love the undead, though!) To do this is to undermine what I use Goodreads for, as a fount of recommendations and a way that friends who have read the same books as I have can compare notes. I don't need Charles Dickens* updating my page with, "Hey, you know what a great book to read after THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO would be? THE PICKWICK PAPERS! Why? I'm not going to tell you!"
They are the hot girls on MySpace who just want as many friends as possible so they can get their MTV shows. They're not adding anything; they want me for a statistic. And as much as I respect them for trying out new angles to reach readers, I wish I could tell them that what they're doing is just Spam 2.0.
*Charles Dickens does not update his Goodreads page, for he is dead.
If the residents of this small Midwestern town were alive 60 years later, we would know them from the work of B. Springsteen instead of S. Anderson. A man with a passion for teaching gets his dream job ripped away from him with one misinterpreted gesture; a minister loses his faith when he catches sight of a beautiful congregant through a window; a hired hand decides to give his friend real advice for once, only to chicken out at the point of speech. These are the residents of Winesburg and with one exception they are a sad, defeated lot. That one is George Willard, an 18-year-old who works for the Winesburg Eagle and who often hears or witnesses moments in the lives of these unhappy people, old and young, as told through Sherwood Anderson's short stories.
I had a hell of a time getting into this book. Maybe it's because I was reading it on Dailylit and thus getting its fragmented stories in further fragments, but I searched in vain for someone I knew to "explain" it to me -- to give me a reason (other than this Modern Library project) to continue with the book when I felt so confused by it.
Eventually, though, I hit upon my own method of appreciating Anderson's pitiable people: My seventh-grade geography teacher used to read us a Zen quote of the day (off one of those page-a-day calendars) and afterwards encourage us to let out a meditational, "Ahhh." Once I got the rhythm and the tone of Anderson's stories down, I felt like that after finishing each episode -- taking a moment to reflect, and then going on. Some of them I found tremendously poignant, while others just puzzled me, but the last five or six stories were extremely powerful.
Those, more than others, dealt with George's own romantic interest in the town and with the life of his mother, who in herself is a tragic figure. The third-to-last story is called "Death," but even without that parallel it would have reminded me of the ultimate story in James Joyce's DUBLINERS. Here's an example of the elegiac quality which captivated me so much in those last few pages, from a passage about George walking with a girl from the town near the fairgrounds:
There is something memorable in the experience to be had by going into a fair ground that stands at the edge of a Middle Western town on a night after the annual fair has been held. The sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people. Here, during the day just passed, have come the people pouring in from the town and the country around. Farmers with their wives and children and all the people from the hundreds of little frame houses have gathered within these board walls. Young girls have laughed and men with beards have talked of the affairs of their lives. The place has been filled to overflowing with life. It has itched and squirmed with life and now it is night and the life has all gone away. The silence is almost terrifying. One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified.
One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes.
From author Tom Perrotta: "Winesburg, Ohio feels like a village full of eccentric strangers desperate for a moment of connection... It made me remember what it felt like to be a high-school sophomore, wandering the quiet night-time streets of my hometown, slowly coming to realize that the people I knew were more complicated and interesting than they appeared." Read more at NPR.org.
When I was little, I knew I was a bookworm but not what order to say it in. I originally created this reading Weblog in order to read the Modern Library list of the best 20th century novels, but then I got a little off track. Here's what I'm reading off the Modern Library list, and what I'm reading when I'm avoiding the Modern Library list, and what I'm not reading but ought to be...
