Tournament of Books '13: HHhH

In an alternate history, Nazi commandant Reinhard Heydrich would have stood trial at Nurenberg along with Goring, Hess, von Ribbentrop and all their friends. Hey, since he was one of Hitler's favorites because of his work domesticating the protectorate of Czechoslovakia, directing the SS to give them practically unrestricted powers and organizing the famous 1936 Olympics, he might even have been in the bunker with him and never have had to face trial.

But all of that never happened because Heydrich, the "Blond Beast," was assassinated in 1942 in Prague by a conspiracy backed by the Czech government in exile.

These types of historical switchbacks boggle the mind of the unnamed narrator of HHhH, who is researching an account of the two parachutists, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, who were charged with killing Heydrich. The author wants to write a nonfiction account but seems baffled by how to do it when so much must either be left out or invented. His accounts are riddled with his doubts about how much license to take to fill in the gaps left by his research; in some instances he composes dialogue or entire scenes between some of the players in this saga, including the Czechs who sheltered Gabčík and Kubiš on their way to their destinies, and then writes "I think I should take that out." Because we don't know how the two assassins met, he ponders reconstructing it: "How and when did they meet? In Poland? In France? During the journey between the two? Or later, in England? That's what I would love to know. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to 'visualize' (that is, invent!) this meeting or not. If I do, it will be the clinching proof that fiction does not respect anything."

There are a number of references to other accounts of the Heydrich assassination as well as some knocks at Jonathan Littell's THE KINDLY ONES, a famous recent World War II-era book I sadly have not read, but of which this author holds a very low opinion. Even the title is a coded reference to what the SS (supposedly?) used to say about Heydrich, "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich" -- "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich," which definitely amplifies the space left by his death (although we do not verge that far into alternate history here). Not much is revealed about our narrator, aside from the fact that he was born in Paris but considers Prague his true home, but he clearly feels caught in the gap between the freedom to fictionalize and the duty, or burden, of being true to this story no matter how fragmented the resulting account.

I thought this book was terrific and, when I was reading it, I was completely sucked in. Between sessions I found it difficult to re-enter the story because its choppy mini-chapters interrupted the flow -- purposefully, and I think with good cause. (Also, my life is insanity right now so it's possible I did not have my usual laser focus of attention to devote to reading this book. My inbox is fuller than Hilary Mantel's hatemail filter right now. [Don't forget, only the tabloids are allowed to say anything negative about Princess Catherine! If anyone else does it, it's treason!]) I love a good postmodern game, and beyond that I was really fascinated by the inner workings of the Nazi party and the way Heydrich schemed into view after the inauspicious start of being fired from the Navy. (There were ladies involved.)

I was reminded in reading it of some of the controversies of this year's Best Picture Oscar race, in which a number of films have run into trouble for playing fast and loose with the facts. "Zero Dark Thirty" has been accused of this, its fact-checking made doubly difficult by the amount of classified information at play. Both "Lincoln" and "Argo" altered climactic scenes in the service of, well, Hollywood or something (without spoilers, one makes a few men look worse than they were, the other makes one man look better). Maybe it's true as Binet's narrator says that fiction does not respect any of the real-life players in these amazing true stories, and it's not right to excuse people for telling tales. But it's something we all do, and know that we do, and may not be able to escape. I don't know whether this narrator even did Heydrich justice in the end; perhaps I'll have to do some more reading.

Hey all -- I am doing some shuffling and won't get to writing here today until later. However, I'm reviving my old Tumblr account for the new year, so won't you amble over and read about Alan Hollinghurst, "Downton Abbey"'s Matthew Crawley and me? (No spoilers in that post, I solemnly swear.)

Seems like everybody's got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night

But you can't afford my sisters, because they are priceless. See more book valentines here.

If I told you I had a dream about a "Bunnicula" musical written by campmaster Charles Busch, you would never believe me.
Good thing reality is still stranger than fiction!

Lighter than a memory, anyway

I love this even though it is slightly ruined by knowing how DFW treated some of the women in his life (in short: terribly) and some of his comments in re. his fans on book tour (in short: piggish). Biographies ruin everything.

Via Peter W. Knox

Bookish: It's a start-ish.

Due to a series of unfortunate events I barely blinked when Bookish launched this week. The site's three publisher parents (Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster) hope that it will become your new go-to for reviews and recommendations. At some point the site will also have its own app where you can buy e-books (as I'm checking on Friday afternoon, not yet though).

Here are the main challenges Bookish faces as I see it:

• As a social-media space for book lovers, it is already running behind Goodreads and LibraryThing as gathering places for the literary like-minded. (Oh, remember Shelfari? Good times.)
• Unlike the aforementioned three sites, you can't "friend" anyone on it, so its social dimensions are limited.
• Because it's run by 3 publishers, one might suspect -- without any evidence in this case -- that negative reviews will be somehow demoted and positive reviews will be raised...
• ...That is, where there are any reviews to begin with, and there aren't many on the site right now.

The idea that Bookish will tread the line between organic and paid content doesn't bother me as much (though you have to dig for its parentage) as the lack of interaction, especially that which popped out at me as I tested the recommendation engine. 251,000 titles and counting? Sign me up! I input the first book that popped into my head -- THE BELL JAR (probably because of that atrocious cover design that has been all over the blogosphere) -- and this is what came out:

I would not call this an optimal result. In tone and subject the closest of these is PROZAC NATION, but to read the latter after the former would be to see how much it imitates. As to the suggestion of VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE, dark joke or accident?

Goodreads' first four results for THE BELL JAR in its "Readers also enjoyed similar books" section are Donald Kagan's THE ARCHIDAMIAN WAR, the complete poems of Anne Sexton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's THE YELLOW WALLPAPER and THE PORTABLE DOROTHY PARKER. I'd give that a 75% hit rate.

Let's try another book I read more recently and liked a lot, Jami Attenberg's THE MIDDLESTEINS:

Just two suggestions? The easy get would have been FREEDOM since Franzen blurbed the book (you can kind of see it if you get really close to your screen). I've never heard of LOSING BATTLES and that looks like it has a lot of overlap, but what do the good people of suburban Illinois have to say to Cormac McCarthy?

I haven't signed in to Bookish yet; I want to see if they offer more features I would like and I struggle to keep up with Goodreads already. Have you tried it? Is it worth diving into?

"Carrots."

Let's hope it was just a failure in reading comprehension that led the publishers of a new edition of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES to sign off on a cover featuring a blonde teenager. In Canada, no less. Of course they knew Anne Shirley was a redhead, right?!

Currently reading: How the hay are you supposed to pronounce this? Right now I'm going with "Aitch aitch aitch aitch." This is the worst thing to happen since the popularity of that indie rock band "!!!" I'm still arguing about that one.

As to its real title, this Spanish-language cover would provide a hint if I could read a few particular words of German:

I got some bad news yesterday so my dad loaned me some Kindle books he thought would help, with pithy comments attached to each. This was a bit of parenting I sorely needed at the time.

It's a shame about Mary

A recent study in Pediatrics finds Mary Ingalls of the LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE series likely did not lose her sight due to scarlet fever, as chronicled in BY THE SHORES OF SILVER LAKE, but rather had a viral brain infection. Next question: Was medicine just not far enough along to complete a differential diagnosis at the time, or did Wilder use scarlet fever as "a literary device," as claims a LITTLE HOUSE scholar?

January Unbookening: The opposite of diet

Checked 12 books out from the library
Received 7 to review
Bought 1 (FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, for book club, from my local community bookstore)
20 in

Gave away 2
Donated 3
Returned 7 to the library
12 out

Well, once I cleaned out my shelves in December, there just wasn't much left to give away! But I was running empty on review books and have been stockpiling library books for book clubs and Tournament posts of the future, so I don't feel that I went overboard. (Clearly I did, but I don't feel like it.) 

I'd say February is going better but I just splurged on another book club book at McNally Jackson with an old Google Offer, so maybe I don't want to change.

One-Star Revue: Kurt Vonnegut, THE SIRENS OF TITAN

In my experience most people tend to go to extremes on Vonnegut: Either they love him and everything he wrote, or they just don't care for him at all, which is why I was surprised that Amazon had so many glowing reviews of THE SIRENS OF TITAN and so few negative ones. Does no one share the middle ground with me?

I loved SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FIVE, liked BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS and found THE SIRENS OF TITAN challenging, in some ways timeless, but overly long and frustrating. The ending of this book is one of the most depressing endings in literature (possible future list fodder?); when it was over I just wanted to lie down for a little bit and avoid all my loved ones, because what is the point of anything? I respected it a little more in the end for being able to elicit such a strong reaction from me, but I can't endorse it for the same reason. Some of the one-star reviews reflected the existential crisis I had.

Anyway, there wasn't a lot to choose from but so it goes:

• "You will laugh occasionally. However, your hit ratio will be worse than your average 'Saturday Night Live.'" Recent or early?
• "Vonnegut has a very vivid imagination. This work is way too science fiction! It is so far out there, that it is almost impossible to read." Always start with a compliment.
• "This book put me off this great author for a while."
• "I hated every page of it and read it only as I was looking for something I never found. I do not recommend buying it ever for any price. I'll send you mine free."
• "Imagine if you will that the charmingly witty, earthy characters from Irving's A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY were overrun by a pack of ugly rabid dogs in the first chapter, and then you had to listen to *why* rabid dogs were rabid dogs, and *why* it's bad to be bitten, ad nauseum. And then watch the characters run around independently, biting other random characters..." Must we bring John Irving into this?
• "It's much easier and less scary to just fawn all over Kurt and pretend to be a smart person who understands a special insight that just isn't there." Ah yes, the old emperor-has-no-clothes argument.

My kingdom for a hashtag

It's not every day Richard III trends on Twitter, and this time it's not for his controversial performance at the Super Bowl: Researchers in Leicester, England announced that a skeleton found under a parking lot last fall can be positively identified as his. Good thing he doesn't seem like the type to have a vengeful ghost or anything...

"I'm not a big fan of the TWILIGHT series. I can't get past the premise, which is that a group of wealthy, sophisticated, educated, highly intelligent, centuries-old vampires, who can do pretty much whatever they want, have chosen to be . . . high school students. I simply cannot picture such beings sitting in a classroom listening to a geometry teacher drone on about the cosine. I have more respect for vampires than that."
--Dave Barry. Why has no one ever pointed this out? Looking back, it seems obvious!

Originally known as "The Mistake"

Last night I went to a reading to celebrate the newest issue of Granta, "Betrayal." Associate Editor Patrick Ryan hosted the event, a slight disappointment to those of us in the John Freeman Fan Club, although Ryan did a great job in his stead. Among his revelations about the inner workings of the magazine: the cover for this issues is a photograph of blood and milk swirled, which wasn't what I would have guessed. And yes, the theme of this issue started off as "The Mistake."

Ryan kicked off by bringing Karen Russell to the front of the room, noting that Granta had named her a promising young novelist before her debut had been published and that "we're pretty proud of foreseeing her career." (By the way, is it ever going to be okay to refer to authors by their major works in the style of a Mafia nickname, like this: Karen "SWAMPLANDIA" Russell? Let me know.) She read a bit from a story set in "shitty drab Wisconsin" (check yourself) about an Iraq war veteran with an incredible tattoo. Last time I saw Russell read, she was capturing the voice of a child protagonist and her voice was very high and thin and wispy. I had taken this to be her normal reading voice, but she lowered her timbre for the veteran and the other, 19-year-old protagonist of her story.

Trumpted as a "debut author" for this issue was Lauren Wilkinson, the second MD/MFA I have heard of (the first being Chris Adrian of the McSweeney's crew). Wilkinson is tall and candidly admitted to being so nervous she wrote out all her opening remarks, but she didn't seem nervous at all. She spoke a little about the former president of Burkina Faso, who did not come up at all in the excerpt of her story "Safety Catch" but has now made me very curious to learn about. Something clever all these readers did was to read openings or excerpts only from their stories, in order to prompt us to buy the issue in question. (I fully plan on it tonight; I didn't want to brave the crush last night.)

Also reading were Colin Robinson of OR Books, who brought the opening of an essay on playing paddleball with his brother at the 14th street YMCA, and Ben Marcus who said his story was intended to evoke "the feeling of being very scared."

The authors read to a packed crowd in the McNally Jackson basement; I was so close to the woman behind me I could feel when she was clapping. Just like every time I go to these things I get the feeling there are authors in the crowd I should recognize, but don't. I scan faces to imagine them on flyleaves; nothing. When I moved here I imagined by now I'd know everyone at parties like this, down to the woman with the dark bob serving wine in the corner. There's still a little time, I guess.