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Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Feb. 1, 2008”
What it is: 1/28/08
What I’m reading: John Lanchester’s Mr. Phillips
What I’m listening to: Sing You Sinners
What I’m watching: almost finished with the first season of The Wire
What I’m drinking: Balgownie Estate 2004 shiraz
Where I’m going: No trips planned this week, although we’re thinking of visiting our friends in Providence next weekend
What I’m happy about: that the heavy push to get my Jan/Feb combo issue done in time for Informex has left me a little more leeway in putting together the March issue and planning out April and May
What I’m sad about: that one of my best pals just deployed for “parts unknown” with his carrier group, and the dad of another of my pals just had surgery to remove some not-so-good cells from his pancreas
What I’m pondering: how awesome it is that, when I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my old college stomping grounds on Saturday, I was able to zoom in the satellite view on Google Maps, retrace my old travels, and remember that the Amherst Cinema is where I first watched Miller’s Crossing
What it is
What I’m reading: John Crowley’s The Solitudes
What I’m listening to: Angela McCluskey’s The Things We Do
What I’m watching: the first season of The Wire
What I’m drinking: Miller’s gin
What I’m happy about: the Giants reached the Super Bowl
What I’m sad about: the Giants will likely get destroyed in the Super Bowl, similar to their 2000 experience against Baltimore, which Jay Mohr characterized as “like when a white high school team from the suburbs faces a black inner-city school”
What I’m pondering: how to finish writing a post about Charles Schulz that really doesn’t support my initial thesis (that is, how Schulz and Andy Warhol exemplify certain trends in postwar American views of celebrity and art)
Unrequired Reading: Jan. 4, 2008
I finished reading 31 books (including long stories and plays) in 2007. This week, Unrequired Reading covers the best and worst and oddest of those books! Enjoy!
Most disappointing book: Under the Volcano
I know it’s a modern classic. I know that a ton of critics think it’s one of the finest postwar novels around. However, I found myself bored silly, after the first chapter or so. I mean, I (think I) got a ton of the references, and I appreciate the depth of the universe that Lowry tried to create in his evocation of Geoffrey Firmin’s last 12 hours, but I don’t think his intent was for the reader to pray for the character to just die already.
Dishonorable mention: Flashman
* * *
Best second-chance: A Confederacy of Dunces
When I read this back in college, I really didn’t know New Orleans. And, while I had read Boethius, I didn’t know many black people. I think I also didn’t trust all the people who thought it was a great book. This time around, I found myself charmed by Ignatius Reilly’s ride on the wheel of fortune. My wife thought the conclusion was a cop-out, but I thought it was perfect.
* * *
Best lipogrammatic exercise: Ella Minnow Pea
It’s a charming, short, epistolary novel about a small town where letters of the alphabet are successively banned from use. The author cheats a little by using phonemes for some of his words, but it’s still an enjoyable read. You may notice that I didn’t use a “z” or an “x” in this writeup. Or you may not.
* * *
Best novel to inspire a Chris Connelly song: London Fields
My dislike of Martin Amis stemmed from a crappy article he wrote about the adult video business for Talk Magazine. Fortunately, a friend recently pointed out that a song I liked — Nicola 6 by Chris Connelly and the Bells — was inspired by London Fields. I have to admit, he’s a hell of a verbal craftsman. I was struck by how dated — as in, late-1980s — its apocalyptic vision was: all eco-disaster and nuclear armageddon. That doesn’t detract from how good the novel is, just as I still enjoy The Watchmen despite its very Reagan-Thatcher era mindset.
* * *
Most surprisingly good novel: Seven Types of Ambiguity
I didn’t pick this up when it came out in hardcover, because I thought the author was being pretentious by using the title of Empson’s literary criticism. Note that I never read Empson, but still thought Perlman was being a tool for using it as his title. On a whim, I picked up a remaindered paperback one evening, and found myself entranced. It’s quite an engaging novel, offering up a demented love story over years from a series of perspectives. I passed this one on to one of my not-so-literary friends, and she enjoyed the heck out of it. There’s a bit of a game in trying to figure out who each chapter’s narrator is, but it never becomes precious. Give this one a shot. I’ll try to read Empson sometime.
* * *
Worst half-assed echo of a 20-year-old Tom Wolfe novel: Mergers & Acquisitions
A crappy coming-of-age novel about Wall St. that featured virtually no observation, cardboard characters, and a simplistic view of finance. Only saving grace: just as Bonfire of the Vanities came out shortly before the 1987 stock market crash, this one came out a little while before the subprime meltdown. (I guess you could wedge in Kurt Andersen’s Turn of the Century & the dot-com crash, too.)
* * *
Best book about writing: Aspects of the Novel
When I started to think about writing fiction again, I read a couple of books on the subject. I found Forster’s book the most rewarding, in part because it laid bare the workings of a bunch of novels I’d go on to read during the year.
Honorable mention: About Writing
* * *
Most clearly derived from E.M. Forster’s model of fiction: Saturday
The domestic ballet and the painful interiority of the lead character felt like they were a deliberate exercise at making fiction from Forster’s dicta. The utter formality of it all robbed a potentially good story (a man gets into a car accident in London during an Iraq war protest).
* * *
Best airplane read: Amsterdam
Which isn’t to say that McEwan’s a bad writer. This one was twistedly entertaining. I read it in an afternoon, during a trip back from New Orleans. Still formal, but evil.
* * *
Most now-now-NOW!: Spook Country
That’s not a criticism, even if it’s named after that idiotic ESPN “Who’s More NOW?” shtick. Gibson gives up any pretense of science fiction and tries to capture a little of our uprooted present moment. He’s still writing caper thrillers, but this offered me enough perspective on (and observations of) what we’re living through for me to overlook the fact that I guessed the secret mission earlyish on.
* * *
Best Oedipal drama: Oedipus the King
Honorable mention: The Anatomy Lesson
* * *
Most egregious use of filler material to pad out a book: The Songlines
Maybe Chatwin was in the early stages of the mysterious disease that was to do him in (okay, he had AIDS) when he was working on this book, but surely there was a better way to integrate his lifetime’s thoughts on nomadism than to shoehorn them in as notebook entries after half a book of (relatively) conventional travel narrative. There are some gems among those notes, but they really feel like they’ve been shoehorned in to satisfy a book contract. Which is sad, because the Australia narrative can stand on its own.
* * *
Second-best use of music to explore the death of a loved one: Love is a Mix Tape
The author married young and his wife died of a pulmonary embolism before 30. Years later, Sheffield uses the mix tapes he and his wife gave each other (and a few mixes from outside their time together) to explore and mourn the relationship. It’s a charming and sad memoir; I only wish that their relationship didn’t span the indie-1990’s, since I don’t know some of the music that well.
* * *
Best use of music to explore the death of a loved one: The End
The “Since You’ve Been Gone I Can Do Whatever I Want, All the Time” series of panels in this comic — scratchily depicting “Me crying while doing the dishes,” “Me crying at the drawing board,” “Me trying to hold it together on the train in France” — were the most heartbreaking thing I read all year. Even if the title comes from a song by The Outfield.
* * *
Best example of “write what you know”: An American Dream
Ron Rosenbaum praised this novel when I asked him if Norman Mailer was an overrated relic of the 1950s/1960s. It’s certainly got some amazing writing in it, even if it bogs down into a police procedural in parts. It gets this honor due to the fact that it’s about a drunken wreck of a man who strangles his estranged heiress wife to death. . . written a few years after Mailer drunkenly stabbed his wife in the chest with a penknife and went on to marry and divorce an heiress!
Honorable mention: Philip Roth’s Zuckerman novels.
* * *
Best alter ego: Rock n Roll
What if Stoppard left England for his native Czechoslovakia? What if he lived through the moral choices of life in that country after the Soviet invasion in 1968? It’s a wrenching, personal play from a writer whom I tend to think of as, um, distant and impersonal. I’m hoping to see this while it’s on Broadway.
Honorable mention: Philip Roth’s Zuckerman novels.
* * *
Best book I read all goddamn year: Middlemarch
Make the time. You need to read this before you die.
* * *
Here are the other books I finished, but couldn’t come up with an award for:
The One from the Other
Snow
Taliban
Then We Came to the End
The Metamorphosis
Oedipus at Colonus
The Look of Architecture
79 Short Essays on Design
The Misanthrope
Now let me know what you read last year, and come up with some equally goofy awards!
Unrequired Reading: 2007 Year-End Edition
As promised — somewhat spur-of-the-moment-ly — here’s a collection of posts that I’ve been holding onto for a while. I wanted to write about each one in more depth, but the last few months have been so busy that I simply haven’t been able to give them the attention I think they deserve.
I think one of the reasons I didn’t write about some of these is that they would’ve led me into the familiar and boring territory of my failures as a book-publisher and as a writer. When I’m work-stressed and in need of a break, I don’t tend to think, “Maybe some public self-flagellation will make me feel better!”
In that spirit, here’s the last batch of Unrequired Reading for 2007! (If you want more, go plunder the Unrequired Reading archives!)
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: 2007 Year-End Edition”
Downtime
Sorry for the lack of new posts, dear readers! It’s sorta inconvenient to write here at my in-laws’ home. That means no year-end Unrequired Reading post till this weekend, and probably no pix from our today’s (overnight) New Orleans trip till then. But I bet they’ll both be worth it.
This week’s answers to “What on EARTH is Gil reading?” are The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin (re-read) and An American Dream by Norman Mailer. I’ll try to write about those this weekend, too.
Bookseller, bookmaker: whatever!
The most amazing thing to me about this news item isn’t that Michael Jackson’s face is covered with bandages, nor even that he has custody of three children. No, what amazes me is that there’s a Barnes & Noble in Las Vegas.
Seriously, I’ve been to Vegas 4-5 times now, and I haven’t come across a single bookstore yet.
Happy Birthday!
Official VM bestest pal Tom Spurgeon turns 39 today! Go celebrate by reading his great interview with Joe Sacco!
Now that he’s opened his birthday package that I sent last week, I can finally reveal the single greatest gag gift I have ever stumbled across. Before you flip out over this, please note that
a) I found it on the used DVD shelf at GameStop, and
b) it cost $1.99
(Click on the pic for a larger version of the image)
I can’t tell you how difficult it was to keep a straight face when I brought the case up to the stereotypically pimply-faced cashier.
This present doesn’t come anywhere close to the magic of the one that Tom sent me for Hanukkah earlier this month: The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen
Here’s an incredibly out-of-context panel:
Thanks for being a great friend, Tom.
Reader Request
A few weeks ago, one of my pals asked me for advice on picking a translation of the Divine Comedy
Early this year, I reread the Iliad
The problem is, the Fagles translation seems a little too “poetic” to me, as though it’s been sweetened for the reader. So I may have to go back to Lattimore, tiny print and all. Or maybe the Fitzgerald
Anyway, this reminded me of my buddy’s request: Got any suggestions for a good Dante translation?
I recall that Sayers
So help a brother out!
The Sidewalk Suplex, and other lessons learned
Another Wednesday, another evening in the city! I’m happy to report that the St. John’s College alumni NYC chapter seminar featured far less formalwear than last week’s JoB gala. The trip was a bit more harrowing than my previous one, since it involved getting to 38th St. during rush hour. I wish I had the patience for mass transit. And the people on it.
Which, in a sense, gets me to the subject of the alumni seminar! Those of you who’ve had to put up with my crap all these years know that St. John’s College (my graduate school, a.k.a. SJC) is based on study of the “Great Books,” and that our seminars consisted of the conversation that spins out of a leading question. Rather than professors, we had “tutors,” and everyone gets referred to as “Mr.” or “Ms.” There was also ritual scarification, but I heard that was only for the undergrads.
Anyway, a month or so ago, I received a card about the upcoming alumni seminar. I hadn’t attended one in five years, for whatever reasons I can muster. But I noticed that this one was
a) on a quickly readable work (Moliere’s comedy The Misanthrope
b) being led by one of my favorite tutors (Chester Burke).
Again, if you’ve had dealings with me over the years, you’ve probably heard me ramble about how my two years in Annapolis (1993-1995) were my most formative. Sure, I’ve gained plenty more experience over the years, and a lot of my views have changed as a result, but the foundation of who I am and how I read the world was laid during that span. [Obligatory joke about what else got laid back then, followed by a Dice-like”OH!”.]
The funny thing is, while I consider Mr. Burke to be a strong influence on my life and learning, I never actually had a class with him at St. John’s. No, our relationship consisted of countless hours on the basketball court, plus locker-room shooting of the breeze, and conversation on the way to and from the fieldhouse. In fact, I’m hard pressed to recall an encounter with him that wasn’t somehow related to basketball. I believe the only time we met off campus, it was to attend a Washington Bullets game at the Cap Center. In other words, I viewed much of our relationship through Worthy-esque Rec Specs.
The opportunity to catch up with Mr. Burke — whom I’d last seen in 1995 when he handed me my master’s degree and uttered, “Knicks in 7,” under his breath (unprophetically, since they wound up losing to the Pacers in 6) — was one I couldn’t pass up, even if I was a little disappointed that the seminar was being held at the boardroom of the Theatre Communications Group, rather than Basketball City over at Chelsea Piers.
A bunch of alums met up beforehand at a sushi restaurant, so I got to catch up with Mr. Burke for a bit. The 12-year hiatus in our conversation made it necessary for us to use broad strokes, but that’s one of the ways in which we start to figure out what’s important to us. When you only have a little time to talk, you have to figure out the essentials. Or you have to talk faster than a tweaker with logorrhea, and hope the other person can keep up. But I really did TRY to talk only about the big changes. And so did Mr. Burke, who told me about his new marriage and how he played in a pair of intramural hoops games the day before. He’s in his early 50s, which left me embarrassed that I’ve only picked up a basketball once in the past two years.
For a while, I was the youngest person in our pre-seminar group by at least 10 years. Some of the early arrivals were from early 1980s classes, and one was from the class of 1949. Mr. Burke, in fact, graduated from St. John’s in 1974, which provides more evidence for my thesis that the best career a St. John’s education prepares you for is . . . being a tutor at St. John’s! (According to SJC’s Wikipedia page, it looks like the best-known alumni from the Great Books era are Ahmet Ertegun, Charles “Quiz Show” Van Doren, and the guy who created MacGyver.)
As more alums arrived, I found myself in conversation with someone from the class of 1982, who explained to me how and why George Bush, Sr. may have ordered the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986. At one point, he said he was having trouble remembering a name; I suggested that the CIA may be shooting a pink laser beam of information into his brain. I think he found that funny. Here’s his website.
Later, one of my oldest friends joined the group. John attended SJC as an undergrad. We haven’t really talked in more than 4 years — a subject I’ve written about before — so we pretty much just acted as though we knew each other, even if we still managed to complete each others’ sentences a couple of times during the seminar.
Eventually, we made our way upstairs. John & I lagged behind, helping guide a stone-deaf member of our group out of the restaurant and up to the seminar. By the time we reached the boardroom, two dozen alumni were already gathered, spanning 60 years of SJC classes. I noticed that we were all white, and there was only one woman among us, but this was St. John’s, not Hampshire College, so hey.
The seminar was a pretty intense two-hour take on the play: the nuances of its characters, its word-choices (among our various translations and Mr. Burke’s French edition) and, of course, its plot. It was a great seminar, and I’m sorry that I can’t really provide a ton of details it. Like all good conversations, it was organic, covering a million topics and perspectives. We explored the nature of the Alceste’s misanthropy, the self-centeredness of his love for Celimene, the redemptive vision of love offered up by Eliante, and the utter strangeness of 17th century French court, among other things.
I thought I made a pretty good point about the structure of comedy and how Moliere either missed a great payoff or was trying to make a point about the delusional self-importance of Alceste. It got derailed by the next person who spoke up, and I felt it would’ve been, um, self-important of me to push back to that point. But deep down, I know I was right.
My old pal John had a much better time of things, making excellent points about the play and the growth of two characters, nudging the conversation when it began to go awry, and getting some of the alums to re-ask their questions, in a bid to get them to better grasp what they were trying to say. We hadn’t shared an academic setting since our junior year of high school, so it was nice to see how he explored both the play and the dynamic of the seminar group.
(John also got the biggest laugh of the night when one of the “elder statesmen” talked about how flattery was the key job requirement for the French court in Moliere’s time. John remarked, “God, you are so perceptive! That is the best thing I’ve heard tonight!” It beat out my rendition of Alceste’s pal Philinte defending him, as channeled by Mink La Rouie of Miller’s Crossing: “He’s a right guy! He’s a straight shooter! I know he’s got a mixed reputation, but for a misanthrope he’s got a lot a good qualities!”
(Those goddam eggheads don’t know comedy when they hear it . . .)
That dynamic reminded me of how much I miss those Annapolis days. Living and working where I do, there aren’t many opportunities to talk about books the way we did Wednesday night. I still read an awful lot, but conversation helps bring books — and life — into their fullness.
After the seminar ended, we were to re-gather at a nearby café for a late dinner. Amy was waiting for me at the café, having stayed in the city for dinner with a friend. I wanted to introduce her to Mr. Burke and get a little more time to chat with him, but unfortunately, it was almost 9:30 at that point, and the lot where I was parked was closing at 10:00. So I gathered her up and we headed back to my car, meeting up with a bunch of the alumni who were on the way (I had used my mutant superpower of walking very fast to get out to the café and back before the rest of the crowd had gotten its act together).
I got to introduce Amy & Mr. Burke briefly out on the sidewalk, and John asked us to head back to the café. I explained that the lot was closing, but he wouldn’t take that for an answer. I then said, “We have to get up pretty early tomorrow,” which people never take seriously, even when I add “. . . seriously”. But you try getting up at 5:15am every weekday and see how ready you are for the nightlife, okay?
John wanted to shake hands, but I gave him a hug instead, which led to my near-suplexing, since John’s as big as a bear. Now I know how my wife feels, since I tend to hug her off her feet at least twice a day.
I didn’t take any pictures from the evening, which I’m sure is bumming you out, since you made it this far. Also, there was no tearful reconciliation or anything with my pal John. I wrote him a day after the seminar, but haven’t heard back from him. French comedy beats NYC drama.
I haven’t written to Mr. Burke yet, because I’ve been trying to get this post finished first. Now that I’m at the end, I feel that I’ve failed pretty heinously at describing just what I feel gained by knowing him during my time at SJC. I know I haven’t conveyed that sensation I had that he always heard music in his head, that some of his words were an attempt at translating that divine harmony. I certainly haven’t mentioned his deceptive first-step and the quick release of his jumper. Fortunately, there’s a new generation of students who are getting burned by that very shot.