Remembrance

Last year on this date I visited the question of the 9/11 novel. I respectfully re-open that discussion as seems appropriate.

I still think (as I wrote last year) that capital-L Literature is far ahead of other art forms in reckoning, yet I read more and more reviews which flippantly confer status as a "9/11 novel" onto books that aren't up to the task. To pick on one -- not nearly the worst -- Claire Messud's THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN was the most recent novel where I felt labeling it as such added undue weight to the plot. Given that I wanted to shake the characters most of the time, I felt that their reactions to 9/11 and the catharsis they got out of it was somehow unearned. After fervently wishing they would change for two-thirds of the book, though, any Big Historic Event that actually affected them would probably have annoyed me in the same way.

I suspect when the great 9/11 novel arrives it won't be set in New York City in the early Noughties. How will we know it when it gets here? We will know, regardless.

"I used to write in a local coffee shop, but there was another guy, another writer, who kept sitting in my favorite seat. I would show up, and he would be there, and I would get exiled to a couch or something, and it would throw me off my game. Then I figured out that he was Jonathan Safran Foer. True story. You don’t get over a thing like that."

--Lev Grossman: First-time novelist, TIME book critic, obvious bookworm hipster douchebag. (And I an even bigger one for thinking "Figured out!? All you need is one good look.")

Clearly, JSF's game was not thrown off by working in the vicinity of someone who has written about him; his new book EATING ANIMALS hits stores November 2.

"I see my political rise with the help of my father-in-law as having elements of 'Henry IV, Part Two' and 'Henry V' and culminating with my own personal battle of Agincourt: winning the gubernatorial election. What happened after I became governor is a story filled with elements from 'Othello,' 'King Lear,' and 'Julius Caesar'; a story of intrigue, of jealousy, of manipulation, of unnatural familial behavior, and of betrayal. And while you're at it, you might as well throw in a little 'Richard the Third.' Because when the story of my years as governor ends, I was left with neither a kingdom nor a horse. Or for that matter, even a car."

-- From Slate: When in doubt about how particularly Shakespearean his story was, disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich decided to go big in his memoir. Unnatural familial behavior, yet no mention of "Titus Andronicus"?

Man Booker Shortlist Announced

Pick the winner if you dare:

A.S. Byatt, THE CHILDREN'S BOOK
J.M. Coetzee, SUMMERTIME
Adam Foulds, THE QUICKENING MAZE
Hilary Mantel, WOLF HALL
Simon Mawer, THE GLASS ROOM
Sarah Waters, THE LITTLE STRANGER

I'm one for six (the Waters; liked it, didn't love it). Coetzee has already won it twice, Byatt once; Adam Foulds is the youngest nominee at 34. According to the Guardian, bets placed on the list heavily favor Mantel; I know it's illegal, but I really wish America had more of a cultural-gambling culture.

Via Throwing Things: I'm bookmarking Sam Kashner's article on the writing of DEATH OF A PRESIDENT, the semi-family-authorized account of JFK's final days, to tear into later. I had no idea the book came out so soon after his death, given the exhaustive research involved and the limitations of the available technology.

Once more unto the beach, dear friends, once more

It is the end of summer as we commonly recognize it in this part of the world, so also the end of this year's summer reading. I did much better than last year, but I still didn't finish the list. (EDGAR SAWTELLE, I am so sorry.) But I did a lot of reading overall, and then there's INFINITE JEST, which is not finished yet.

The last book I read was Richard Yates' COLD SPRING HARBOR, and I've been struggling with what to write about it. I loved REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and expected to flip similarly over this book, but Internet, I did not. Yates' last novel, concerning two families united by marriage on Long Island, felt unfinished in that it set up several conflicts and did nothing with them; the most vivid character is a divorcée who is practically a grotesque and described as "dying for love," but even her storyline does not get any kind of resolution. It was a slice of life, but not a flavorful one. I'll still give more Yates a chance, though; I would like to eventually have read all of his books (including the collection of short stories I bought earlier this year).

Got any great reading memories to share from this summer? I remember a particularly cloudless day along Lake Michigan, watching my sisters nosing through their Chabon and Sittenfeld paperbacks and imprinting galley ink onto the whitest strip of my sunscreen-covered arm.

You always look so cool.

So this happened in my inbox:


The e-mail (from the J. Peterman Company, WHERE ELSE) was also titled "Gatsby would be furious," but really, shouldn't it be "Carraway would be furious"? The man himself would probably nod solemnly and admire the business acumen of such a move.

"All that matters is that you have one, just one," goes the copy. "A piece of how things were." That's great, but on the wrong man (really, most men) this shirt would not look cool at all, but rather stuffy and a bit Puritan, like a stray historical re-enactor who just sat on a freshly painted picnic bench. Still, I'll make sure to order that a cupboard full of these shirts is conspicuously displayed on the set of my rap video.

Dubs Sunday: On commercial fiction.

[Norah] was separated from her husband and earned her living and her child's by writing penny novelettes. There were one or two publishers who made a specialty of that sort of thing, and she had as much work as she could do. It was ill-paid, she received fifteen pounds for a story of thirty thousand words; but she was satisfied.

"After all, it only costs the reader twopence," she said, "and they like the same thing over and over again. I just change the names and that's all. When I'm bored I think of the washing and the rent and clothes for baby, and I go on again."

--OF HUMAN BONDAGE. This isn't the first time these novelettes have come up in the book; Philip's tearoom love Mildred was also a big fan of what Maugham describes as "a regular supply of inexpensive fiction written to order by poor hacks for the consumption of the illiterate," and he later describes her as "having read too many novelettes" not to do something.

This week in Maugham being everywhere, Bookslut linked to a Daily Mail article questioning whether he was "the most debauched man of the 20th century." (Reached into the Acme Box of Big Claims for that one, they did.) The evidence includes teenage boys in Capri, an affair with a married woman while spying for the Crown and a penchant for towel-whipping -- oops, that last one was James Bond creator Ian Fleming, heh. I'm not convinced, nor do I think it's an important question, but it's funny to see him get the TMZ treatment.

Brooklyn Book Festival '09 Line-Up

Lethem! Crosley! New Russian fiction and an "interactive literary game"! It's September 13 and it's going to be awesome -- even the part when I am apparently sleepwalking to Brooklyn for the 10AM Updike/DFW panel. (If I see a girl in a P.G.O.A.T. T-shirt, I might accidentally spill coffee all over her.)

Crowd control for bookstore readings? Conceivable!

Blogger MKP reports from the field on "priority seating" at a Wallace Shawn reading at a New York Barnes & Noble:

Anyone who shows up and buys a book by the author can go right in and have a seat. Everyone else has to wait in a line which, for this particular event, they never let inside the room. They proffered "overflow viewing," aka 15 square feet of standing room in front of a TV under the escalators as a placation.

Naturally, people in line went crazy, and there were still empty seats in the end. Oops. (Helpful side note, here's her explanation of what a 3Q is.)

I'm with MKP on seeing why B&N or another bookstore would do this, but since I rarely buy the book when I'm there, I would be stuck in the line -- which is a shame, because readings like this are (normally) great free entertainment.

***

On that note, it's Labor Day Weekend! Hooray! I'm not actually going anywhere, unless you count the Slough of Despond, but I'll have some time to read, and I hope you will too.

Your Assistance Please: All high school students should read this book.

If high schools around the country aren't already back in session, they'll be in by Tuesday. At some of them, a computer will suggest what students should read. At others, the students will get to pick.

Readers, we can do better, being neither computers nor still in high school. Even if you are still in high school, you probably have some strong opinions about what should be read. Say, in a sitcom-worthy twist, you have found yourself working at a high school (doesn't have to be yours) and you get one pick to assign the kids. What do you choose?

Unlike a normal teacher, assume you are not constrained by time period, nationality or conflicts with other courses. It can be something you read in high school or something you only wish you had read in high school.

I'll put my pick in a comment, but first, here are the picks of two newly minted high school graduates with whom I am well acquainted! Since their Google searches are relatively unbesmirched, I will refer to them as I met them, as "Twin A" and "Twin B." Keep in mind, I virtually cornered them to help me with no preparation:

• Twin A picks THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO because it was "exciting, well written and had the best plot ever." Also thinks more nonfiction should be assigned in general, because it isn't represented in either history or English curricula.
• Twin B picks THE GREAT GATSBY because "not only is it an amazing book, but it also teaches you a lot about symbolism. Everything in that book represents some greater idea which ties into what Fitzgerald is trying to say. It's also beautifully written, and the imagery is striking."

(Thanks, guys.)

But where are the hideous men?

I inadvertently left this David Foster Wallace-related project off my list of adaptations; it opens September 25, which does not give me enough time to read the book first. Hmm. (Via lapsesinlogic)

How Times Have (Not) Changed

While digging around in my e-mail the other day I found a list of 10 favorite books which I'd written about three years ago. I only vaguely remember having written the descriptions that came with them, mostly that I didn't find the list that hard to pull together -- ah, callow youth! I ought to do this every year, such was my surprise and delight at finding it.

I like to think that my list of favorite books is ever shifting; at the same time, seven of the 10 books on that 2006 list I would still defend as being favorites, and I'm not sure when that would change. Here are my thoughts on the other three:

Bookmarked: Reinaldo Arenas, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
What I wrote at the time: "An astonishing and heartbreaking memoir about nationality and freedom, from a gay dissident writer persecuted by Cuba's Communist government."
What I'm thinking now: As a comparative lit concentrator in college*, I took a lot of Spanish lit courses, and this was a salute to one of my favorites. I was really moved by it at the time, but I would have to go back to it to allow it back into the category of greats. (Read it first, but there is a great adaptation as well starring a pre-Anton Chigurh Javier Bardem.) Perhaps I don't trust my tastes in Spanish because I feel this way about a lot of books I read in the language, though the ones I have made the time to re-read have largely stood up. Of the ones in translation**, I recommend Carmen Laforet's NOTHING, if you have to read it in English (she says, assholically).

Bookmarked: Judith Kogan, NOTHING BUT THE BEST
What I wrote at the time: "What better way to write about passion and desperation than, as in this work of creative nonfiction, profile several students and student groups at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music?"
What I'm thinking now: I still really like it, but I think it was more of a right-place-right-time read. The book made its mark on me in high school when I was deeply involved in performing music (although let's be clear, I was never on the conservatory track let alone Juilliard-bound). Its reporting is great but not ground-breaking; it has some very awkward scenes where you get the feeling the author is pressing the subjects or situations for a particular point she's trying to make. Still, if you love music or studies of the 10,000 hour rule, you will probably enjoy it.

Bookmarked: Bill Bryson, THE LOST CONTINENT
What I wrote at the time: "It's the rare travel book that takes place in the U.S. and can look at it unsentimentally***; perhaps it took this long-time expat's meandering road trip to reveal the explosively funny and the painfully true about America."
What I'm thinking now: This is a placeholder because I couldn't make all 10 books Bill Bryson books. Not really, but seriously, I love this book, I love all Bryson, and at the same time don't know how I would decide among them if pressed today. It would probably make the top 3 along with NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND and A WALK IN THE WOODS, and be my most often re-read of those three, but beyond that it's just how I'm feeling that day. (Incidentally, Bill, your last travel book was published in 2002; time to get back on the road.)

What are some books that used to be your favorites?

---
* Brush your shoulders off.
** If you really want to hear me carp on, buy me a drink and ask me about the state of Spanish literature in English translation. It's my personal grassy knoll.
** Dear Firefox spell check: Justify to me why this is not a word.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

-W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"

August Unbookening hopes that someday, I'll see without these frames

Bought 7 books
Got 8 to review
Checked out 9 from the library
24 in

Gave away 3 books
Lent 3
Donated 22
Returned 7 to library
35 out

Fourth straight month in the negative!

Along with unbookening I did a little uncloseting this month to get rid of stuff I never wear that doesn't need to be replaced. Overall, this task was about 800 times easier than editing my library; that's the upside, I guess, of having had a dress code for 9 years in school.