Summer Reading 2012 wrap-up

I finished 7 of the 10 books I assigned myself for summer reading this year, 4 of them in August, and 3 of those in the last week. (To be fair, I had started THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CITY much earlier; the last week was just when I got around to finishing it.) On the bright side, I am pretty good at making deadlines! But what should I have done to make it 10?

I should have picked one longer book, not 3. The three books I didn't even touch all weighed in over 600 pages. My original thinking was "I'll take each of these longer books on a trip with me," but in the moment I wanted to take a bunch of shorter books instead. I still really want to read the Caro biography and the Yates short stories; less sure about Katharine Graham (but I'm open to argument if you think I'm wrong to demote it).

I should think about ranking the books on the list. I got a lot more done once I put the remaining books in an order from "I need to read this right now!!!!11!!!!" to "Nice to knock off, but not as urgent." Cold-hearted, but maybe necessary.

I should have finished more earlier, to allow myself that sense of accomplishment. Everyone loves that.

Summer Reading: Reading (and still reading) like a writer

There have been (and I have written about) a ton of blog-to-book adaptations, but Francine Prose's READING LIKE A WRITER is a book that should beget a blog.

This is an outsize request for an author who doesn't even have a website (as it seems), but hear me out: READING LIKE A WRITER is a useful but not that revolutionary guide to close reading for fun and profit technique, clearly compiled from Prose's years teaching writing here, there and everywhere. (If anyone out there is a professor, the scene of Prose cramming Chekhov in a Greyhound bus terminal might be inspirational... hopefully not too dispiriting. I loved it.) I don't mean to downgrade her advice, which overall is excellent. I didn't find it too earth-shattering, but only because I majored in it.

The real treat for me in this book was hearing about the authors Prose loves and looks up to, the ones she uses as models for her students and holds up as exemplary. It would be hard to come away from this book not wanting to read the aforementioned collections of Chekhov short stories, along with A SHIP MADE OF PAPER, Henry Green's LOVING, even treat A MOVEABLE FEAST to a second look. Her habit of using block quotes to illustrate especially good use of detail or dialogue or character serve as textbook examples without the textbook feeling. It wouldn't be too hard to extrapolate writing exercises from them should someone be so inclined; in almost all cases you see what she's getting at.

(This just in: Having written it several times, I am just now realizing how well suited Prose's last name is to her profession. She didn't marry into it either. Ah, should we all be so lucky.)

These passages are why I think Prose should have her own blog -- to call out exemplary parts of prose that she comes across in her reading, that can offer Teachable Moments. A SHIP MADE OF PAPER is one of the most recent books quoted (2003) and surely Prose has come across exemplars since READING LIKE A WRITER came out that could be similarly didactic. For concerns of time, the blog could only publish twice a week: The excerpt (maybe on a Tuesday), and then the professorial gloss (on a Thursday), and in between readers could speculate on what the device of the week is, and whether it's working, and how it fits into the overall work if they're familiar. Dear Professor Prose, if you need help with online strategy, just let me know! I would love to see what she's reading now, not just what she has read.

That's why I liked this book and will take several of its recommendations, but I probably won't go back to it. I'll stick to my personal pantheon of WRITING DOWN THE BONES, ON WRITING and LETTERS TO A FICTION WRITER.

Summer Reading: Looking at Winston Churchill in all the wrong places

FORTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT WINSTON CHURCHILL is a meta-biography making the point that there is no such thing as objectivity in the genre. If you've got that point, you can probably skip this book.

I was very much looking forward to Gretchen Rubin's Churchill project; a self-described fan, she compares popular ideas about Churchill (that he was depressed, for example) as they have been depicted in different accounts of his life, sometimes making the case for both of them in the same chapter. (For example, one chapter argues that Churchill was a great politician, adept at working with people to achieve his ends; the other argues that he was not very well liked and points out all the times he was ousted and/or lost elections.)

This book made me want to rush to the defense of the biographies Rubin suggests are faulty (none of which I have read, to be fair), but also to point the finger back toward Rubin. If all biographers are fallible, then Rubin's account also lacks perspective in some critical moments, even as she admits that she personally tends toward lionizing Churchill. One of FORTY WAYS' forty chapters (get it?) is just a list of some of Churchill's bon mots, proving that he did know how to turn a phrase, but not much about the quality of his work overall. One is just a factual timeline, another a list of important people Churchill knew, which is great if you want to view him as self-aggrandizing, I guess, but it's not exactly a primary source. More troubling is the chapter titled "Churchill's Imperialism," making the case that he was very invested in Britain as Empire and that that philosophy helped shape his politics. This chapter would be better titled, "Not That He Was Alone At The Time, But Churchill Was Pretty Racist."
It's not a worthless project by a long shot, but if you want to read a biography about biographies I recommend Rick Moody's THE BLACK VEIL. (Note: Rubin is best known for the book she wrote after FORTY WAYS and one I liked more, a little cult hit called THE HAPPINESS PROJECT.) I did get a good laugh out of the chapter on Churchill and sex (summary: he didn't seem that interested, which everyone found or finds weird and tries to find the root cause) and on the tidbit that to keep his estate paid between government positions, one of England's finest historical figures was reduced to writing freelance articles with titles like "Iced Water" and "Is There Life on the Moon?" Profligate hack Churchill -- now there's a biography I want to read.

Summer Reading: JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS the old Hollywood, same as the new Hollywood

Joseph P. Kennedy had a running start in life with a plum position at his father's bank and an alliance with the mayor of Boston's daughter. But that wasn't enough, he wanted to be bigger: he wanted Hollywood! And the more that the mini-mogul denied that he was in it for the renown, or anything above making money, the less convinced a figure he cut.  

As an outsider Kennedy was aided by the fact that the movie industry was going through huge changes at the time, from vaudeville and nickelodeons to "talkies," from the studio system of keeping directors, actors and writers on salary to job-to-job employment detached from particular studios. (Helpful note: Don't mention this last part to anyone working in the entertainment industry now because it will make him VERY angry.) Convinced that any studio could be fixed to turn a profit if it were put under his aegis, Kennedy outmaneuvered careerlong studio executives to get as full control as possible and moved through a series of troubled studios -- either streamlining or gutting, depending on your perspective. But in attempting to eliminate "unnecessary" spending and waste in his Hollywood, Kennedy met his match in two figures, director Erich von Stroheim -- infamous for his lavish productions and months-behind shooting schedules -- and actress Gloria Swanson, with whom Kennedy had an expensive affair for years.

This book illuminated for me a side of the Kennedy patriarch I had never seen, though his businessman's approach to the task at hand will seem familiar from any playbook of mergers or takeovers. He made his ascent with banking money, some of which was made under less than savory circumstances such as moving funds to shell corporations (Delaware!) and buying and selling among his holdings to profit, and largely got away with it. Author Cari Beauchamp gently suggests that Kennedy enjoyed his Hollywood exploits because he was, intellectually, right at the waterline -- it was his version of the stock market, and the stakes were satisfying. (Kennedy did fine on the real stock market, too -- too easy for him?) 

Kennedy, largely seen today as the thwarted politician pushing for his sons' success at all cost, is a fascinating character, but Beauchamp surrounds him with equally fascinating characters. Von Stroheim could be lined up against any number of "problem directors" today and give them a run for their money, and the saga of Frances Marion, one of the early successful female screenwriters who formed a power couple with Westerns actor Fred Thomson, illustrates how Kennedy used people whose expertise was valuable to him to move up in the film industry and then discarded their friendship as a tactic. In the end, it's hard to know whether Kennedy left satisfied by his Hollywood endeavors, because he did such an excellent job of pretending to be interested in his projects, not just the profits.

Summer Reading: Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum Make Me WANT MY MTV

I started watching MTV in secret when I was 11 or 12. I was just old enough to be allowed to stay home by myself while my parents were out running errands, and when I heard the garage door close I would creep up to my parents' room to watch their TV. I remember the texture of the purple corduroy pillow I would sit on to watch so I wouldn't leave a tell-tale crease in my parents' bed. I don't think I ever asked permission; I just knew it wasn't allowed.


Whatever was on, I would watch, but back then mostly I watched videos. This was the era of Prodigy and No Doubt, of Missy Elliott wearing a coat like a garbage bag and Fiona Apple rolling around on the floor. Biggie and Tupac had just died, but I wouldn't understand the significance beyond the tribute videos for a long time. I loved "Daria" and thought it might be fun to be on "The Real World" (this was back when they made them all get jobs and weren't full-time drunk hot messes).

I wasn't around to see the first golden age of MTV when the channel flipped on with "Video Killed the Radio Star," but nor do I feel insta-nostalgic for whatever JWOWW did last week. As a creation myth, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum's oral history of MTV was an eye-opener for me, and even when I got to the aspects of its history I was familiar with, the detail they dug up over what must have been thousands of interviews made the retelling new.

Before delving into the videos we know and loved (or hated), Marks and Tannenbaum spend a fair amount of time explaining the way that the channel was shaped by its shoestring budget and casual operation. MTV began as a small pet project of a giant corporation with the budget of a rounding error, and couldn't afford to pay record labels for their videos (most of which were promotional pieces aimed at Australian or European audiences) -- so they convinced labels to air them for free, and played whatever they had. Cable owners didn't want to pick the channel up, so one executive begged Mick Jagger to record a commercial that would appeal to viewers to demand it -- the legendary "I Want My MTV" spot. They couldn't afford famous on-air talent, so they did a talent search and picked 5 unknowns to be the first "VJs," who look back on their time at MTV with fondness but feel a little cheated by their old contracts.

Some of the more salacious details about past misdeeds on sets and catering money going to less legal pleasures go unchecked, but Marks and Tannenbaum probably have at least one tidbit that will shock you even if you've heard it all. Mine concerned Rod Stewart, some lovely ladies and the River Cafe, a respectable upscale restaurant here in Brooklyn... and that's all I'll say about that. I'd recommend this book for trivia obsessives, people who like to wax nostalgic about the "good old days" of music videos and anyone who, like me, wishes to have been present at the creation.

A place I took this book in 100 words or less: Long Island City, Queens for work. Warehouses scrolling by on every block interspersed with views of the UN. A parking lot containing small planes instead of cars. Stained-glass windows on the platform of the elevated train, representing shops on the street and a train itself. I took a picture of the platform's Art Deco detail and accidentally captured a man in the foreground who was sitting in the trunk of his hatchback. Winds chased each other down to the river as if pulled by gravity. Sandals over cobblestones. Sunshine and no one.