The Sequestered Nook

Sunday Morning

2010-09-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

"We still take pleasure in make-believe and in the telling of tales, even tall ones, if only because they tell us something true about ourselves, a truth that perhaps we can grasp through no other medium."

- Eric Ormsby, in today's WSJ review of Gabriel Josipovici's What Ever Happened to Modernism?

I've always loved the Wall Street Journal's coverage of books (and the New York Times too, of course!), so when it first broke a few weeks ago that the WSJ would be launching a book section, I was very excited. When book sections of newspapers are folding all over the country - leaving the NYT Book Review as the only pull-out book section left - it is very surprising, and encouraging, to see a paper as powerful as the WSJ bucking the trend. Today's paper was the section's debut (as part of a larger Weekend section) and, so far, I really like the direction it is going in. It may not be as extensive as the NYTBR, but its variety of articles makes for good, wide-ranging coverage. There are shorter, straight book reviews alongside long book-inspired essays, like the one quoted above. Though a review of Josipovici's book, Ormsby's article becomes a longer look at Modernism and what it means in literature today. There is nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning to a late breakfast and coffee, with a long paper to read and, now, even more great book coverage.

Summer In The City

2010-08-19T23:09:00.008-04:00

"I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

True. I love New York in August, despite the heat and gross smells. So many people are away - and yet no matter how many people are away, Midtown, as always, is so crowded you can barely push your way down the sidewalk. It is exactly what I love and hate most about New York.

I recently started a job at a big publishing company - a job I've been hoping for, and working towards, for so long that I never thought this day would come. So far, it has been wonderful (and busy); I am loving everything about it. The feeling that my dedication to finding a job in this industry has finally paid off - after all the times I doubted and cursed myself - is so great that I feel I'm going to burst with relief. Best immediate prize for getting this job: the Take shelves scattered around my office, which are exactly what they sound like - shelves where you can just take any and all the books that you like. Hundreds of books. For the taking. It is magical.

Recently read (and soon to be written about, I swear): Rachel Shukert's Everything Is Going To Be Great, Tana French's Faithful Place, Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants, Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, plus the bunch of books I read over the past few months that I never got to. They're a-comin'.

Currently reading: Joshua Ferris's Then We Came To The End. Phenomenal.

(Image via)

Happy Birthday, Harry!

2010-07-31T21:35:00.007-04:00

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
- Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It seems almost pointless to talk about how much I love Harry Potter, because everyone loves Harry Potter, and all the books are indisputably amazing. But I do love Harry Potter. I couldn’t even count all the times I have read them; they are like my comfort food in book form. As do so many of my generation, I feel like I grew up with Harry (and thus always remember on July 31 that it is Harry’s birthday!). I remember reading the first two books in 7th grade, then anxiously awaiting every one since - had our family vacations abroad not always fallen on every new book's release day, I would have been at those midnight parties too. It was a very sad day when I finished Deathly Hallows for the first time (after waiting outside a Munich bookstore at 7 am on its release day); having to accept that I was an adult, and that this huge part of my adolescence was over with, was not easy. I now try to limit my rereading of the books (usually 5 through 7 now, its been a while since I read the first 4) to once a year. I can only handle the vicious cycle of the excitement of reading them followed by the depressing letdown of finishing them (and reentering real life) so often. Well, at least I have the final two movies to look forward to (so excited – this trailer gives me CHILLS).

DON'T PANIC

2010-07-28T23:49:00.007-04:00

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't know what I'm looking for."

"Why not?"

"Because ... because ... I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn't be able to look for them."

"What, are you crazy?"

"It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet,"

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

ONE DAY by David Nicholls

2010-07-27T17:10:00.004-04:00

I really love Twitter. I respect the way publishers have really taken to it, using it to create buzz about their books, actively engage with readers, and create an actual relatable persona behind a huge brand. I particularly love the contests and giveaways that are conducted through Twitter – especially when I win (if only it would happen more often). Through one of these Twitter giveaways, I won a copy of David Nicholls’ One Day, a book I had been excited to read for a long time. When my hip friend in London told me how much she loved the book a few months back, I went to a bookstore in search of it, only to discover its release date in the US hadn’t yet come. Apparently it was already a huge success in the UK – I believe I remember posters for it in Tube stations when I visited London; the book’s publisher (Hachette in the UK, Random House in the US) obviously had a lot of confidence in it and put a lot behind the book. Long story short, after hearing so many good things, loving Nicholls’ other book, and winning a free ARC, I was very excited to read it.

One Day is the story of Emma and Dexter, who first truly connect on July 15, 1988, the day of their graduation. The book consists of all the following July 15ths (incidentally, the day I received One Day in the mail and started reading it) for the next twenty years; snapshots of where they are in their lives and what their relationship to each other is at that moment. Emma, the idealistic working class girl, is the absolute opposite of the rich, entitled Dexter. But from that first July 15th, the enduring importance of their relationship – as best friends, lovers and/or everything in between – is clear. As they try to navigate their twenties and thirties through all kinds of failures and successes, they become more and more vital to each other’s existence. Dexter especially – selfish, self-destructive Dexter – is only worthwhile when he is with Emma. And yet, their timing is so often very off, and their successes so often directly mirror the other one’s failures. You get a sense each year of a continuing cycle in which Dexter’s happiness is correlated to Emma’s misery, and vice versa; like their lives are two lines weaving, with the two of them (and us) waiting to meet in the middle.

Like Starter for Ten, One Day is often laugh-out-loud funny, but also impossibly heartbreaking. The kind of book that you finish and you need to just sit with for a while and catch your breath (and sob, if you’re me). Also like Starter for Ten, I became so completely invested in the characters that my moods were contingent on the state of their lives. Like only the best fiction does, it is the kind of book that’s biggest effect is in what it makes you think about your own life. Apart from being purely relatable (like in Starter for Ten, I was amazed by Nicholls’ ability to write exactly how it feels to be in your early twenties), it makes you (aka made me) think about all kinds of past relationships, and how you never know how things can and will end up, or what direction your life will go in. At the risk of overstating how good a book it is (though I think I passed that point a while back), all I can say is that I loved loved loved One Day.

(Image via)

No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.

2010-07-26T23:33:00.003-04:00

I got a postcard of this Samuel Beckett lithograph at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It hangs above my bed in my room at home and I love it.

Happy Birthday, Ernest Hemingway!

2010-07-21T23:22:00.007-04:00

"All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened."

Thanks to Overlook Press’s Twitter feed, I learned this morning that today was Ernest Hemingway’s birthday. It kind of bizarrely put me in a better mood following a discouraging morning; I really love Hemingway. I think its partly because I’m Cuban (and he did love Cuba/ writing about and in Cuba), partly because I love Fitzgerald (and the friendship/ hatred between them), partly because I’m fascinated by Modernist literature and writers (American Modernism in particular), and partly because I just love (most of) his writing.

I’ve recently been rereading a bunch of his short stories in an old copy of The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories from my Dad’s bookshelf. The title story is really incredible in a uniquely Hemingway-way; as the narrator, a writer, quickly approaches death while on an African safari, he looks back on his life with anger and bitterness over what he has neglected to accomplish. As with so much of his writing, Hemingway himself is always only just beneath the surface of his fiction in this story.

It is another story of his, however, that I always find so powerful in its simplicity (like a lot of his writing). “A Day’s Wait” is only two pages long, but I remember first reading it years ago and it always sticking with me. Rather than listen to me summarize it, I say take the two extra minutes to read the story here. It is prime example of how Hemingway has a way of taking simple, mundane things (whether it is the thorn that ultimately kills the narrator of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” or the confusion over temperature measurements in “A Days Wait”) and turning them into meditations on life and death (but mostly death). I’m glad you were born today, Ernest! (And that you wrote so much before you killed yourself.)

(Image via)

NYU Summer Publishing Institute

2010-07-20T22:46:00.002-04:00

NYU's Summer Publishing Institute – the six-week intensive course I just completed last week – was an incredible experience that has very quickly changed the way I read magazines and books. It began with three weeks of learning about magazine publishing followed by three weeks of book publishing, with the days (and sometimes weekends) filled with group projects and lectures and panels from some of the top people within the industry. (Bragging aside: my book group’s YA fantasy imprint, Figment Books, won second place! Booyakasha.)

Though I was fascinated by the magazine section (especially the lectures from the Editor-in Chief of Esquire, Art Director of Rolling Stone, and the EIC of New York Magazine, to name very few), it was, naturally, the book section I really loved. Our lectures and panels were filled with stars from the publishing world; John Sargent, Amy Einhorn, Jonathan Karp, Julie Grau, Jamie Raab, and scores of others were among those who took the time to come speak to us. Of course they all had fascinating things to say about their own roles within the industry, but what I was surprisingly excited by was their generosity in being there and speaking with us. They offered advice, were friendly, took the time to speak with us one on one, and were so encouraging to all of us trying to break into the industry. It seemed they were happy to see the (hopefully) next generation of the industry, and eager to help us on our way. This was something I was not expecting that renewed my sense of purpose in trying to find a job in publishing; it really is an industry of people who are passionate about what they do.

One of the panels at SPI was one I was able to write about on the NYU Publishing blog, titled Creative Alternatives to Corporate Life. Take a look at my blog post if you’re interested in reading about entrepreneurs within the industry, and how they approach book publishing in a different way – it was a fascinating panel with some really interesting people. I was very excited to see today that David Nudo, former publisher of Publishers Weekly and one of the panelists, tweeted a link to the blog post. (I am slowly making my way around the Internet!) Fun bonus: in the post below mine on the NYU blog, you can see a wonderfully unflattering photo of me speaking with Macmillan CEO John Sargent.

All in all, SPI is an incredible program that I was lucky to attend. I’ll soon be writing about some of the books I read thanks to it (one of the best perks: piles of magazines and books every day), and I’m sure it will continue to sneak into some of my entries to come. Now, lets hope it gets me a job, and soon.

Quote of the Day

2010-07-18T23:22:00.004-04:00

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.

- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861

I haven't read Great Expectations since I was a freshman in high school. I believe it is about time to read it again.

Bookshelf Porn

2010-07-14T00:50:00.012-04:00

As I have said before, I cannot wait to have my own grown-up place to live in and decorate. Mostly so I can fill it with cool bookshelves filled with all my books. It is for this reason I have already wasted far too much time on the tumblr Bookshelf Porn. Porn, indeed. There are so many great pictures of great bookshelves, I can't stop looking. It makes me want to completely revamp my own book collection; ie., get actual bookshelves to hold my books that are currently stacked on radiators and tables around my room.

Which brings me to my organization of the bookshelves I do have. To an outsider, I'm sure my system of organization makes little sense. I divide mostly by country of origin, then within that category, alphabetically. I have separate sections, however, for sub-genres. Mythology/fantasy and history, for example, have their own places, irregardless of country of origin. Like I said, it probably makes little sense. But I know where to go to find what I need. And until I get some new shelves and an actual place to put them, my stacks of books by American writers will remain on the large table at the foot of my bed. Though, to be honest, all this organization only lasts as long as I continue to put the books back in their rightful spots (aka, not that long). How do you organize your books?

(Images from here and here, via Bookshelf Porn)

Shakespeare in the Park

2010-07-06T23:28:00.006-04:00

One of the Summer in New York things I have always wanted to do, but have never been able to, is to see a performance of the Shakespeare in the Park series. Last year’s headliner was Anne Hathaway in Twelfth Night, a performance my friends and I unsuccessfully attempted to see. Our attempt was well-planned, too; we knew we would have to camp out early for the free tickets to the evening show, so we arrived at the Central Park ticket booth around 8am on a weekday. As we approached the shuttered booth and didn’t see anyone nearby, we laughed at ourselves for our excessive punctuality – oh, what fools we were. Upon further exploration we found the actual start of the line, which was littered with people in sleeping bags and tents. 10+ snaking Park blocks later, we found the end of the line and waited an hour or so, only to be turned away for lack of tickets. All was not lost that day last summer, however; my friends and I spent a lovely day exploring the Cloisters and getting pizza in Brooklyn (was that a year ago already?!).

Moral of the story: get there even earlier than 8am if you want to see a Shakespeare in the Park show. And, in New York, celebs + culture + free = impossible to get into. The tradition of Shakespeare in the Park is, of course, a double edged sword: the fact that the shows are free is great in that it opens the conversation (in theory) to anyone and everyone; in practice, however, only the most committed and die-hard fans/ people who have whole days to spend waiting in line can actually participate.

Point being: I do not want this to happen again this summer. The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice (starring Al Pacino!) are onstage until the end of July, so I only have a few weeks left to right the wrongs of summers past. In the WSJ this past weekend, a review appeared entitled “Knocking Shakespeare Out of the Park.” If I (and millions of other New Yorkers) hadn’t already been interested in the performance, this review certainly would have wooed me. The reviewer writes, “Not only is this the best Merchant of Venice I've ever reviewed, but it's one of the finest Shakespeare productions I've ever seen, period.” Wow.

Stay tuned to find out if I actually get to see Pacino as Shylock.

Happy Birthday, America!

2010-07-05T17:26:00.008-04:00

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be

blithe and strong.

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves

off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the

deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter

singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the

morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at

work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day – at night the party of young

fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

- Walt Whitman, 1860

Though I’m a day late (lateness is a bit of a trademark with me, as you can probably tell), what better way to celebrate the 4^th of July than with Walt Whitman? I always whip out my Norton anthology of Whitman works on the Fourth – I think it goes nicely with beer, barbecue, and fireworks. And the recitation of the Declaration of Independence, which my family usually does, pre-hotdogs. Happy Birthday America!

This post hopefully marks my return to semi-regular blogging. May, June and the start of July have been jam-packed with wedding planning, campaign hullabaloo, job-applying madness, and an intensive summer course (more on that one later), so my just-for-fun ventures have sadly fallen by the wayside. But because I have a sneaking suspicion the book publishing job market will continue to be brutal and I will soon have way too much time on my hands, I can soon return to regular reading and writing (silver lining, folks). Good thing too; I have a quickly growing pile of ARCs and free books from the NYU Summer Publishing Institute, as well as growing piles of just-read and to-be-read books. So many good things.

(Image via The Walt Whitman Archive)

In Conversation: Roddy Doyle & Colum McCann

2010-05-02T23:59:00.005-04:00

Today was another of those perfect New York days. It was the final day of the PEN World Voices Festival, which hosted a conversation between Roddy Doyle and Colum McCann at the French Institute Alliance Francaise. I bought tickets months ago – this was not something I was going to risk missing. And, as expected, they were both brilliant. After picnicking in Central Park, my friend (a fellow lover of all things Irish) and I sat starry-eyed in the audience, trying to soak up everything they said. A lot of ground was covered; the conversation flowed from what it means to be a contemporary Irish writer, to The Quiet Man, to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, to Japanese translations, to Don DeLillo, to talking dogs, to Wife Swap. I only wish I took detailed notes.

Because McCann and Doyle are friends (reinforcing my belief that all the best contemporary Irish writers are part of a close-knit circle), the event truly was a conversation. Though it was really all about Roddy Doyle, with McCann asking him the questions, the dialogue that emerged from these questions meant that we learnt much about both writers. McCann mentioned that the first time he came across Doyle years ago, he was trying to sell copies of The Commitments outside of a Northside Dublin concert venue. And I was amazed to learn that The Commitments was first self-published. In this age, where the number of writers that are self-publishing books is skyrocketing and the stigma attached to them is decreasing, that is encouraging for writers to hear – the truly great stuff can be recognized, even if its not through the regular publishing avenues.

Doyle also talked a bit about the business of writing, from what it means to go on tour to how long it takes to write a work to what his favorite medium is (fyi, out of the many forms he writes in – short stories, novels, children’s books, plays, Young Adult books, and screenplays – it is the novel that is most important to him). As I often hear from authors, Doyle approaches his characters like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, seeing the figure inside that needs to be released; rather than creating them, he is giving them their voice on the page. He spoke of how he was interested to see how Henry Smart had aged when he began writing his most recent book (The Dead Republic is the third in his trilogy of Henry Smart books, preceded by A Star Called Henry and Oh, Play That Thing!). I was also amazed/ impressed to learn that he never reacts physically emotionally when writing his books (other than his sense of relief upon finishing a book) – I can’t imagine reading, let alone writing The Commitments without lots of laughter.

Following the discussion, both writers came out for a chat and book signing. I approached Roddy Doyle like a giddy 12-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert, mumbling something about loving his work and studying at UCD thanks in part to him, for which he graciously thanked me and signed (personalized!) my tattered copy of The Barrytown Trilogy. Colum McCann was no disappointment either; he was so friendly and personable, signing my copy of Let the Great World Spin (which I will write about soon – amazing book) with my name and a ‘Slainte.’ I will be sleeping with both these signed books very close to me for a long time.

So, at the end of a wonderful day, here is a short excerpt from The Commitments, which I reread frequently because it is just so much fun (and it can literally be read in under 2 hours, so if you haven’t read it and have 2 hours to spare, DO IT). And, of course, a musical bit from the film adaptation, the screenplay of which was also written by Doyle and is no less amazing.

"Where are yis from? (He answered the question himself.) Dublin. (He asked another one.) – Wha’ part of Dublin? Barrytown. Wha’ class are yis? Workin’ class. Are yis proud of it? Yeah, yis are. (Then a practical question.) – Who buys the most records? The workin’ class. Are yis with me? (Not really.) – Your music should be abou’ where you’re from an’ the sort o’ people yeh come from. – Say it once, say it loud, I’m black an’ I’m proud."

- The Commitments, 1987

THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud

2010-04-30T01:13:00.004-04:00

Lately, I’ve been exploring my overwhelming love for New York through the books I’ve been reading. First up – Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children – a great contemporary New York novel, set in the months leading up to September 11 and immediately after. With a bit of satire and a whole lot of insight, the novel follows three friends, and the many people in their lives, as they approach their thirties with little to show for themselves. With this many characters and such big themes and events, the book may sound overarching. It certainly is ambitious, and is a work that, in other hands, could have easily failed miserably. But Messud writes it so well, never making it overtly satiric or sentimental. She manages to create completely recognizable characters (right up to how infuriating people can be) and situations, while still making grand statements about American privilege, entitlement, and how New York/ the country was at that particular moment.

Danielle, Marina, and Julius are the three near-thirty friends – graduates of Brown University – trying to make their way in New York. They all fancy themselves as some sort of intellectual artist; excluding Danielle (the most sensible of the three and the only one who kind of works), they are writers who don’t actually write and consider themselves above the plebian duty of holding down a ‘job’ in an ‘office.’ As we see how they see their lives – their disappointments over what went wrong, what the world owes them, why they are basically failures – we also see how other people in their lives see them and themselves. There is Murray Thwaite, Marina’s renowned journalist/ talking head father, whose shadow covers everyone else in the book. There’s Ludovic Seeley, the Australian journalist/ entrepreneur who comes to New York to (successfully, though not necessarily as he intended) turn everything on its head. Then there is Bootie, Murray’s young and unfamiliar nephew who comes to New York to follow in his esteemed uncle’s footsteps, only to quickly become disillusioned and throw a wrench into the machine.

The New York of most of the novel is its own world, and one which Messud gently but deftly satirizes and exposes. As such a successful and well-known personality, Murray Thwaite and his family (complete with Marina, even as she approaches 30) live in a ritzy penthouse on the Upper West Side; it is here, and through this family, that most of the characters’ lives intersect. Murray is the typical liberal intellectual superstar: a man of the 60’s whose hypocritical head has been blown up by fame, considers himself above even his own affirmations, and who won’t lift a finger to clean their home (that, naturally, is left to his working wife – the only truly admirable character in the book and, incidentally, the only one whose thoughts we never hear). The entitlement that accompanies this life defines Marina and (despite their downtown, non-ritzy addresses), spills over onto Danielle and Julius. When Ludovic, as someone who is sort of diametrically opposed to all that Murray stands for, enters the picture and Bootie, Emerson-devotee that he is, begins to see through Murray, things get interesting (and uncomfortable). Not until towards the end of the book does September 11 hit; because no dates are used throughout the book and no hint of what was to come was ever apparent, in reading it I was, as the characters were and as it was in reality, blindsided by that day.

More than the intertwining stories of all the characters, or the satirizing of New York high society, or the reflections on the lost generation of entitled but disillusioned young people, The Emperor’s Children is about a specific and unique moment in time, right before everything changed. Covering that day in books or movies or anything is a very delicate business – how can it be represented successfully in any kind of artistic or fictional medium without reducing it or risking people’s personal experience with it? Honestly, if I had known before I began the book (and started loving it) that it would reach September 11, I don’t know that I would have read it (so I guess, if anyone is reading this and was considering reading the book, you can now make an informed decision). But I am glad I did; Messud handles it so well, perfectly illustrating the complete shift everything took right after. With that, and with her amazingly perceptive insights on her characters and the archetypes they represent, Messud wrote an incredibly compelling novel, one in which I (interestingly), became more invested in as the characters became less and less likable. Plus, for all their pretension and hypocrisy, who wouldn’t want to be a part of the Thwaite’s New York?

New York

2010-04-28T00:02:00.004-04:00

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?"

- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, 1943

(Image via)

FIELD WORK by Seamus Heaney

2010-04-21T23:22:00.006-04:00

Earlier today, if the forces of the working world (a term I use loosely in my situation) hadn't conspired against me, I should have been at a reading by one of my favorite living poets, Seamus Heaney. He spoke at Hunter College, as part of their MFA program's Distinguished Writers Series, and I was invited to the free (!) event by way of my awesome boss (can't wait to hear about it tomorrow!). Though in the end I didn't get to see him, I did get to spend my commute reading from my newly purchased (and, alas, unsigned) copy of his collection of poems, Field Work.

Also, I didn't feel too horribly - I have seen him speak once before. This was at University College Dublin, when one morning a friend informed me that he would be speaking in her class that afternoon. Naturally, we dropped everything and went, and he was wonderful. In fact, I distinctly remember his reading of a poem from Field Work, "A Drink of Water." It is a beautiful, simple poem that he spoke of fondly, as a representation of his time in a sort of seclusion in the mountains of Wicklow (during which all of Field Work was written). Heaney really is an amazing poet (Nobel Prize-winning!) and I hope I get to see him again someday soon. Here is a short poem from Field Work, that seems somehow fitting in the Springtime:

Song

A rowan like a lipsticked girl
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.

-Seamus Heaney, 1979

On another note, I promise (mostly just to myself) that this space will soon be filled with more book discussions. I have a quickly-growing pile of books that have been read and are waiting to be written about, amongst them The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, The Year of Magical Thinking, The Emperor's Children, and Let the Great World Spin. Sometimes it is tough to get the motivation to write when I'd rather be reading my really good book - a problem (albeit a good one) that I seem to be encountering often these days.

(Cover via)

Cheers to National Poetry Month

2010-04-05T20:43:00.003-04:00

It seems April is National Poetry Month and, as the New York Times book blog Paper Cuts points out, what better way to celebrate than the way most great poets would - by drinking? I love the Book Bench's assemblage of literary-inspired drinks (I especially want to try the somewhat surprising Winnie the Pooh-inspired Honeysuckle Rouge). And the American Academy of Poets has a few drink recipes inspired by specific poems, as well as a list of New York bars participating this month in this literary drink-fest (many of which I hope to visit before the month is out). Personally, my favorite thing to do when I feel like channeling favorite writers through alcohol in New York (aside from visiting Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern) is to have a gin and tonic (I'm not brave enough for Highballs) at a swanky bar uptown while pretending I'm in a F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. Of course, this doesn't happen nearly as often as I'd like (read: hardly ever), but it makes me happy to pretend.

POINT OMEGA by Don DeLillo

2010-04-04T23:18:00.002-04:00

Don DeLillo is probably one of our most important contemporary authors – certainly one of America’s best writers writing today. That said, his books are not always easy to get through, or enjoyable. I haven’t tackled some of his most intimidating works, like Underworld or Libra, but I loved White Noise. His last two books – the recently released Point Omega and, before that, Falling Man – I found to be a bit disappointing. Even now, writing about Point Omega a week after I finished it, I’m having a difficult time recalling its details and my immediate reaction to it. Unlike with White Noise, the characters and ideas behind Point Omega left me as soon as I closed the book. Though, this isn’t to say it is a bad book – I don’t think DeLillo is capable of that. It was still a worthwhile read.

Point Omega follows Richard Elster, an aging academic just coming off a stint working in the government as a sort of war strategist; a “defense intellectual,” kept around to intellectually justify and explain war. Following this, he has retreated to the desert as an escape from the busyness of reality and his thoughts. He is joined in his desert isolation by a young filmmaker interested in making a sort of avant-garde documentary about the man, and whose eyes we see Elster through. As their days meld together and they silently watch the colorful desert sunsets, we learn their philosophies of self, time, and death, and who they feel they are when stripped of all reality in this strange isolation. This is mostly what the book is – what they think and feel when there is nothing else to think about, and all focus has turned inward. When Elster’s daughter arrives, their routine shifts and they attempt to adjust their lives of the mind to include her, until something strange happens and they have to figure out how to adapt to this new reality that they cannot escape. (Vague, I know, but so was the book.)

DeLillo has a wonderful way with places. When it comes to descriptions, he has no use for flowery language (which, when misused, can undermine its very point). In portraying the isolation of the desert and the glory of the sunsets, he avoids overt descriptions while still capturing the power the place holds over his characters and conveying the sunset’s beauty. Similarly, the first and last scene of the book are all about setting, though a very different one. In a story that is seemingly incongruous with the rest of the book but ultimately comes together, these scenes take place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in an exhibit entitled “24 Hour Psycho.” In a number of articles I read about the book when it first came out, DeLillo cited this installation exhibit – one that actually took place, in the summer of 2006 – as the main inspiration for writing the book. In writing about it, he makes the exhibit (a screening of Psycho, slowed down so that it plays once over 24 hours) somehow transcendent; a breaking down of the film and, consequentially, real life. It made me wish I had seen the exhibit when it was on display.

Clearly, I didn’t actively dislike DeLillo’s Point Omega. He is a fantastic writer who makes powerful stuff out of no plot. And yet, though there were parts and aspects I admired, the book didn’t stay with me. For all its life philosophies, none of the ideas struck me. Perhaps I’m still holding DeLillo up to his own White Noise standard, but I continue to return his recent books to the library let down. Maybe its time for me to visit his older, more daunting works – Underworld, here I come?

(Image via)

MOTHERS AND SONS by Colm Toibin (St. Patrick's Day Part 5)

2010-03-30T23:50:00.006-04:00

My apologies for not continuing my St. Patrick’s week as intended; March has been a busy month. But we still have one day left of it, so here is my final bit of March Irishness: a book I finished (fittingly) on Saint Patrick’s Day itself, Mothers and Sons.

Colm Toibin’s Mothers and Sons is a collection of short stories centered around the infinite kinds of relationships that exist between mothers and sons. In his stories, these relationships range from an art thief trying to both provide for and escape his loose-lipped mother, to a widow trying to make a new life for her children, to a son seeking to escape his mother’s recent death through vice, to a son who seeks to understand his estranged mother through music (and beyond). All Toibin’s stories are delicately crafted, and in some way heartbreaking (and all, save for one, take place in Toibin’s Ireland). Even more so than many writers of short fiction that I have encountered, Toibin leaves his reader unsatisfied. So many of the stories finish at the cusp of something, whether it be action or decision or any kind of resolution. While I often find this frustrating (particularly because I get so quickly invested in Toibin’s characters), it largely makes the stories more powerful; what kind of concrete resolution could these characters find in their lives, anyway?

One of Toibin’s stories that struck me most was “A Priest in the Family,” the title of which is a reference to the old Irish phrase laying out what defined success. In it, a mother tries to cope with the shame of her son, a formerly well-respected priest and the holiest of her children, having been accused of and confessed to the child abuse that continues to plague the Catholic Church. The story doesn’t meditate on the actual horror of the event or its effect on the priest or the victim, but on the repercussions on the priest’s family and mother. It is his mother, his sisters, his nieces and nephews, who have to live with the shame of knowing what their neighbors think when they pass their homes, or how their picture of this formerly wholesome family has skewed. More and more this is a reality for many families; it is easy to forget that it is not only the victim whose life is changed.

So, though short, Toibin’s stories are some heavy and affecting stuff. He is a wonderful writer; I first appreciated him as the editor of my first Irish Literature anthology, then moved onto some of his fiction (I highly recommend The Blackwater Lightship – also, interestingly, about the relationship between a mother and son). He was recently awarded the Costa Award (formerly called the Whitbread Award) for his novel Brooklyn, which I hope to read soon. A great writer.

And so there goes March, and with it all St. Patrick’s celebrations. Worry not – there will still be plenty of Irishness in the future, irrespective of holiday or month.

(Cover via)

St. Patrick's Day Part 4: W.B. Yeats

2010-03-18T22:55:00.006-04:00

It is very hard for me to choose one Yeats poem to include, so I'll probably put up a few more in the coming days (by my count, the end of St. Patrick's week is this Sunday when our town's parade happens). Of the many Yeats poems I often come back to, this is probably the foremost. Back for one of the many Irish Lit classes I took in college, I wrote a paper on Yeats and his interest in mysticism and the occult, and focused largely on this poem. For such a short poem, he packs much in. It was first published in 1921 (a turbulent time for Ireland), and is all at once a comment on the current state of society (both in Ireland and the larger world), a warning of things to come, a reference to an ancient past, and an invocation of mystical elements. Every word in it counts; the language of it builds and ebbs and creates a beautiful rhythm that reinforces these many levels of the poem. It is such an important poem, and so beautiful.

"The Second Coming"

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-William Butler Yeats, 1921

(Image via)

St. Patrick's Day Part 3: Thomas Cahill

2010-03-17T17:16:00.005-04:00

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Over at the New York Times, Thomas Cahill (writer of How the Irish Saved Civilization) has a great op-ed today titled "Turning Green with Literacy." He writes about why we should really be celebrating Ireland and St. Patrick, something that is easy to forget here today as people are flooding the streets of New York drunk on Guinness in green sweaters and 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' hats. I am in no way against these forms of celebration, but I heartily agree with Cahill's closing advice: "So on this St. Patrick’s Day, remember [St. Patrick and his compatrioys] as they would wish to be remembered. Read a book."

Here is an excerpt from the article, in which Cahill is discussing the way the early Irish, by embracing the spread of Christianity, made the creation and saving of books an art form. As he states, some of these early copies serve as forerunners to the illuminated manuscripts that would come centuries later and be a major part of the literary tradition. And as the early doodles prove, even the Irish of the early centuries were still wholly Irish.

"But they did more than this: they managed to infuse the emerging medieval world with a playfulness previously unknown. In the margins of the books they copied, the Irish scribes drew little pictures, thickets of plants, flowers, birds and animals. Human faces occasionally peek through the tangle, faces of childlike delight and awe. If you were a scribe copying out some especially ponderous philosophical Greek, the margin in which you could reflect on your own world served as a source of “refreshment, light and peace,” to quote the ancient Latin liturgy. These scribal doodles eventually became elaborate design elements, leading the way to Irish masterpieces like the Book of Kells."

Now I'm going to go celebrate twofold: by drinking Guinness and reading a book. Slainte!

St. Patrick's Day Part 2: Brian Friel's TRANSLATIONS

2010-03-17T00:24:00.005-04:00

Plays, like the poems and stories often told through song, are part of the communal performance tradition that has long been an important part of Irish literature. The past century especially brought a resurgence in Irish theatre, beginning with the establishment of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin by Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats. With this theatre, its founders sought to create a national space for Irish writers and playwrights to gather and perform their works, thus sparking the Irish Literary Revival of the early 1900s.

One of the leading contemporary Irish playwrights to carry on this torch is Brian Friel, who has had a long and prolific career in theatre. He and Stephen Rea (the Irish stage and film actor, perhaps most memorable in The Crying Game, that great movie that is somewhat overshadowed by its shocker of an ending) collaborated often and went on to found the Field Day Production Company in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. The company would put out a number of plays dealing with Irish politics and the Troubles – a very apt subject matter in 1980s Ireland. The first play that Field Day performed, and arguably Friel’s most well-known play, is Translations.

Translations is set in a small rural village of County Donegal in the 1830s. As the title suggests, the play is about language and the problems that arise – linguistically, culturally, and otherwise – when people try to overcome language barriers. The Ireland of the play is very much old Ireland; the many of the town inhabitants speak only Irish and know nothing outside of Donegal. British officers arrive as part of the Ordnance Survey, and begin the process of translating maps and town and county names from the original Irish to English. Confusion ensues – sometimes humorously, sometimes tragically – but always to highlight the cultural divide between the English and Irish. It is a wonderful play, especially in its historical context. The problems between the English and Irish have been around for a very long time, so to see them portrayed in the early stages of the modern troubles (the 1830s was only a generation or so after the Famine, and a few decades before things would get really crazy in Ireland over the question of Independence) is to see the later progression of the problems with a better understanding. As thus far I have only read it, Translations is a play that I would love to see done on stage.

Plays don’t lend themselves very well to being quoted at length, so with that brief introduction I’ll just include an excerpt from near the end of the play that I particularly like – I won’t give too much context so as to avoid giving the play away, so just try to appreciate it on its own.

"Hugh [the old Irish teacher]: To remember everything is a form of madness. The road to Sligo. A spring morning. 1798. Going into battle. Do you remember, James? Two young gallants with pikes across their shoulders and the Aeneid in their pockets. Everything seemed to find definition that spring – a congruence, a miraculous matching of hope and past and present and possibility. Striding across the fresh, green land. The rhythms of perception heightened. The whole enterprise of consciousness accelerated. We were gods that morning, James; and I had recently married my goddess, Caitlin Dubh Nic Reactainn, may she rest in peace. And to leave her and my infant son in his cradle – that was heroic, too. By God, sir, we were magnificent. We marched as far as – where was it? – Glenties! All of twenty-three miles in one day. And it was there, in Phelan’s pub, that we got homesick for Athens, just like Ulysses. The desiderium nostrorum – the need for our own. Our pietas, James, was for older, quieter things. And that was the longest twenty-three miles back I ever made. My friend, confusion is not an ignoble condition."
-Brian Friel, 1980
(Image via Julliard)

St. Patrick's Day Part 1: Patrick Kavanagh & Luke Kelly

2010-03-15T22:25:00.006-04:00

In celebration of of St. Patrick's Day, I will use this opportunity to make it Irish week here on The Sequestered Nook, and do my best to bring you a bit of Irishness every day. It would be an understatement to say that I love Irish Literature. For those few of my readers who don't know me personally, I'll briefly share the progression of my love for Ireland and its writers. My sophomore year of college I had a wonderfully inspiring Irish Lit professor (specifically, the class was called 'Conflict & Identity in Irish Literature'). So inspiring, in fact, that I realized that it was Ireland (not Rome as I had previously thought) where I wanted to study abroad. So, I spent a wonderful semester taking amazing courses (including Irish Folk Tales, Irish Music, and a class just on Ulysses) at University College Dublin and traveling around Ireland. I miss it a lot, and still love no genre or origin of books more than those of Ireland. The Irish really know how to harness tragedy, humor, love, and loss to make them into great literature and poetry.

To kick off Irish week, here is Patrick Kavanagh's beautiful poem "On Raglan Road." I especially love this poem because of the song that it became. The story is that Patrick Kavanagh ran into Luke Kelly (of The Dubliners) in a pub, and told Kelly that he would like him to set his poem to music. Music is such an inherent part of Irish culture, and especially its poetry that is so often told primarily through song, that this pairing is so naturally perfect. The poem is gorgeous on its own, but Luke Kelly's musicalization of it brings it to another beautiful level. Here is the poem:

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

-Patrick Kavanagh, 1946

Here is Luke Kelly's song "Raglan Road." Honesty, sometimes I just listen to it on loop. So beautiful.

And, for reference's sake, here is another version of "Raglan Road" that I enjoy. It is by Glen Hansard of the the bands The Frames and The Swell Season and, more importantly, of the wonderful Irish film Once. It doesn't quite contain the emotion or transcendence of Luke Kelly's version, but it is still beautiful.

Stay tuned for more Irish greatness tomorrow!

(Image via UCC)

CHURCHILL by Paul Johnson

2010-03-15T01:13:00.004-04:00

“Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

There is no figure of the 20^th century – of any century, really – that fascinates me as much as Winston Churchill. During Britain’s finest hour (also his finest hour), Churchill famously said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” Indeed, the same should be said of him; I don’t think it is overstatement to say that he is largely responsible for saving Western civilization as we know it. So much about him – his energy, his endurance, his personality, his talent for so many things – make him a great man, and the perfect subject for biographies. It seems there are always new books coming out on the man to add to the shelves devoted to him at libraries and bookstores. I’ve read a number of the less intimidating ones (I have yet to muster the courage for Martin Gilbert’s definitive and massive biography, let alone Winston’s own many-volumed autobiographies). Of the ones I have read, this slight work by Paul Johnson, one of the most eminent (and amazingly prolific) modern historians, offers a nice overview of Churchill’s life while still managing to look deeper into what made him so powerful. In its brevity, Churchill brings to light aspects of Winston that may sometimes get bogged down in the density of the massive tomes. By looking at the big picture of Winston’s life, Churchill offers a nice introduction to the masses of information and biography available on the great man.

One thing about Churchill that has always struck me, and that Johnson touches on often, is his sheer energy for life. How did he accomplish so many things, in so many arenas, to such a great extent, and through so late in life? It wasn’t until he was 66 that he became wartime Prime Minister and reached his full potential, and by that time he had already accomplished an incredible amount. Politically, Winston had lived many lives: in the early 1900s he worked his way up to Home Secretary and then First Lord of the Admiralty, only to be shamed and cast out of government following the disaster of the Dardanelles. He rose again, however, in the 1920s to become Chancellor of the Exchequer and eventually First Lord of the Admiralty (again) before entering 10 Downing. That’s not to mention his second go at Prime minister in the 1950s, a role he took up when he was 77.

Politics aside, his life was filled with adventure and accomplishment. He learned to master the English language, and used it to make his living. Following his time at Sandhurst, he aligned this talent for writing with his position in the cavalry to act as both a soldier and war correspondent. He both fought in and wrote about Cuba, India, Egypt, and South Africa (where he was captured by the enemy and magnificently escaped on foot – an incredible story for another time). He continued to write throughout his life; indeed, it was his many articles and books that earned him the majority of his money throughout his life. For the wealth of important books he published, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. In between all this fighting, writing, and politicking, Churchill also became an accomplished and prolific painter.

So how did he have all the energy for this? In an attempt to answer this, Johnson points to an encounter he himself had with Churchill when he was young and was able to ask the man to what he owed all his success. Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” These are words I can happily live by. And, looking at what we know of Winston, they certainly fit. Throughout his life, even during the war when possible, Churchill started his days early but remained in bed until early afternoon, giving dictation and orders with his documents and maps spread around him. Also along these lines, he considered his comforts and personal pleasures important parts of his day, and vital to keeping him sane and successful. Thus why he was often seen in his comfortable (and amusing-looking) leisure suits, with his cigar in mouth and glass of scotch or champagne at the ready. This is also where his talent for painting comes in; he first took up the hobby as a distraction from his ‘Black Dog’ of depression, then found it so soothing that he could scarcely do without it. The same went for Chartwell, the country home he came to love so much. He took to bricklaying and gardening, and saw the home and his personal upkeep of it as his oasis from London and all that it accompanied. So then, Winston’s offhand remarks to Johnson carry much weight, and represent a philosophy that I can stand behind: the key to success in life is the art of relaxation.

As my Dad (who read the book before me and is a far bigger authority on Churchill than I am) pointed out to me, there is one major point in which I think Johnson has it wrong. In discussing Winston’s early life, Johnson brushes aside the effect of Winston’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, on the development of Winston’s psyche. Lord Randolph was by no means a kind or encouraging father; reading his letters to his son while Winston was away at schools that he hated and did poorly at make your heart break for this young, boy who ardently sought the love of his parents. Winston was always a poor student – eager to please, and passionate about what interested him – but a poor student nonetheless. Lord Randolph thus had little hope for his future, and constantly made this known to Winston. He, of course, died before Winston could prove his worth to his father, but Winston spent the rest of his life proving himself and is known to have lamented (particularly during his Black Dog days) the fact that he never did get to show his father what he was capable of. Even when looking back at his father late in life, he sometimes chose to remember him in the best of lights – a reminiscence that is very much at odds with what we know of Lord Randolph’s role as a father. In short, I think that Lord Randolph’s disappointment of Winston as a child played a major part in his successes later in life – and that Johnson’s dismissal of this effect neglects a major part of the development of Winston’s life.

I, as I think many people do, feel some sort of strange personal connection to Winston. The tendency for many, myself included, to comfortably refer to him as Winston speaks to that. I don’t fully know what it is about him that causes that sense of closeness, especially considering that he probably wasn’t actually a very pleasant man to be around most of the time. It seems that people peripherally around him felt the same way, however. Accounts of servants or secretaries or those working in close proximity with him are often very similar: he was a gruff man who yelled often, didn’t tolerate much (especially whistling!), was supremely demanding, thought very highly of himself, forgot people’s names, and was often mean. And yet, these same people talk about how much they admired him and how proud they are to have worked with him. He inspires something, through his personality and perseverance and, of course, what he did for the world. I could go on much longer about Winston, but I’ve gone on far long enough, so I’ll leave you with some of his own words about himself that are pretty indisputable:

“We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow worm.”

Literary Drunks

2010-03-12T15:45:00.011-05:00

Here is a fun photo gallery from Life magazine (who knew it was still around?) highlighting 'Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts.' Well, maybe fun is the wrong word - interesting. It's no seceret a vast amount of great writers and artists struggle with addiction. Among the writers featured in this gallery are some of the best (and my favorites): Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Brendan Behan, Ayn Rand, Kerouac, Edna St. Vincent Millais, Poe. The list goes on (there are 47 photos, after all!).

Here is a photo and the Life blurb to go with Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. It mentions his love for the West Village bar the White Horse Tavern, which, coincidentally, has been my own favorite bar of late. Part of the reason I love it so (aside from its proximity to my office, good pints, and cool crowd) is the wealth of paintings and photographs of Thomas and other poets that decorate the walls. Appropriate, then that he loved it also.

"The legend that Thomas once returned to the Chelsea Hotel in New York after a drinking bout at his favorite watering hole, The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, and proclaimed, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record," might be based in fact. That is, Thomas might well have made that claim. But whether Thomas actually downed anything like 18 whiskies on that November day in 1953 is another matter entirely. Some say he did; others say he didn't; others seem to wish it were true, but have no proof. Regardless, Thomas was an avid drinker, and one of the 20th century's most deservedly beloved poets. "Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

(Text via Life, Photo via)

The British Library

2010-03-03T22:22:00.005-05:00

One of the many places I visited while in London was the British Library. It was one of those great fortuitous discoveries: I went out to take a short walk to recover from a 24 hour bug (long story) and happened upon the library. Of course, it wasn't really a discovery - it's on a main road next to King's Cross station - I just had no idea where it was and was surprised to come across it. Anyway, its an amazing library that has some great public (and free!) exhibits.

The library's permanent exhibit collection includes a number of illuminated manuscripts, original Shakespeare folios, original letters and manuscripts from the likes of Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson, gorgeous bound and jeweled books, and a Magna Carta. My spontaneous visit also happened to coincide with the final days of an exhibit on the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the 11th century Persian poem. It was a wonderful exhibit; I've never read the whole of the poem, so I learned much from what was there. What I loved most about the exhibit, and the poem itself, was the artwork it showed that the poem has inspired throughout the centuries. The poem lends itself beautifully to being depicted through visual arts, as each of the many publications of it have done. It's a gorgeous progression of artistic styles, from the early illustrations that accompanied it, to the hold the poem took on the art deco movement, to the succession of ornately bejeweled bindings and covers. It continues to be beautifully republished today (look at the Folio Society's gorgeous recent publication of it! Alas, it is super expensive, only 1,000 were made, and it is long sold out). Here is an illustration by an artist often associated with the Rubaiyat (and many other fairy tales and stories): Edmund Dulac. I love his artwork and I think it perfectly complements the beautiful language of FitzGerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light

(Artwork via Artpassions)

STARTER FOR TEN by David Nicholls

2010-02-28T22:34:00.007-05:00

Naturally, I have yet to finish any of the books I brought/ started on my trip to London (which was wonderful, thanks Hay!). But, of course, as I passed the time in a bookstore in Heathrow waiting for my flight to depart for home, I decided to add another book to my heavy backpack – Starter for Ten. I saw the movie when it first came out, though I remember almost nothing of it, and I have friends who loved the book (which is also, oddly, sometimes called A Question of Attraction). Because of all this, and because I had vaguely been meaning to read it for a while and had recently been talking about it, I gave it a try.

I read the majority of this book in public places – the plane from London and on the subway coming to and from work each day this past week. Not a good idea. I got so invested in the main character, the supremely awkward Kate Bush-fanatic Brian Jackson, that I would catch myself scowling at what he was about to do or, more often than not, laughing out loud at his awkwardness (often to the curious looks of my fellow commuters). It is a hilarious book. Brian, a young man from a working class English town in the mid 1980s, enters college with dreams of finding a great girl, becoming cool and aloof, and starring on his college’s University Challenge (a TV quiz show) team. As an avid collector of useless facts and general knowledge, Brian has always believed that being on a University Challenge team would somehow bring everything together: he would find the beautiful smart girl, make his mother proud, honor his dead father, and succeed beyond his humble upbringing. Of course, all does not go according to plan. As he becomes distracted by his blind love for the beautiful but selfish and mean Alice, he neglects his studies and slowly isolates himself from everything and everyone that is important to him. It becomes a story that would be sad if it weren’t so funny.

As a recent college student and English major to boot, I have encountered very few characters in books that have been as recognizable as Brian Jackson. Time period, class warfare, and general ridiculousness aside, his thoughts and insecurities are the kind that most kids in their late teens and early twenties are plagued by. Brian desperately tries to fit in and find his place at his university, but continually fails at his attempts to be cool and aloof while overanalyzing every conversation he has with people he is trying to impress. It is the perfect picture of freshman year of college: insecurities about new friends, academic qualifications, leaving home, and the opposite sex. So often when reading Brian’s thoughts I wanted to yell, Yes! That’s exactly how I felt! So much of what Brian does, from the way he makes up conversations and encounters in his head, to the way he applies literature and song lyrics to his life, to the way that no matter how hard he tries he is unable to avoid superb awkwardness, are things that I (and many of my friends) have definitely been known to do. It’s amazing how Nicholls so often knew what was going on in my head as a young and impressionable college student. But Nicholls knows how to make Brian not too recognizable – some of his situations are just so absurd and painfully awkward that he always remains a comfortably safe work of fiction. The recognizability that remains, however, is what makes the book so funny and still so poignant.

Each chapter of Starter for Ten is preceded by a University Challenge-esque question that shows itself to be pertinent to the chapter. Likewise, each of the four parts of the book (or ‘Rounds’) begins with a quote that becomes relevant. The epilogue begins with this quote from a Kate Bush song I love, ‘Cloudbusting’:

I know that something good is going to happen.
And I don’t know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen.

And so, in honor of Brian and his love for Kate Bush, here is the wonderful (/ridiculous) video for Kate Bush’s wonderful song 'Cloudbusting.' Enjoy!

(Cover via)

England!

2010-02-11T13:55:00.003-05:00

Tonight I leave to visit my wonderful friend Hayley and see her fabulous life as a graduate student in London! We will, of course, be doing many literary things (like watching Persuasion, yet again), and I am at the moment assembling books for my journey. In my bag: a London tour guide (of course), Mrs. Dalloway, yet another Churchill biography, a short history of London, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Probably more books than I need and will actually read, but I like to be over-prepared when it comes to books (who cares how much my carry-on weighs!). Any other suggestions, to my dozens of readers? What are some other good London-based, or generally British, books?

(Image from my visit to Hayley in Oxford two years ago)

POSSESSION by A.S. Byatt

2010-02-11T03:27:00.003-05:00

Possession is a gorgeous book. It is many things: a literary mystery, a two-fold love story, a commentary on Victorian and modern society, and a student of literature’s dream (in more ways than one). From reading some of A.S. Byatt’s short fiction I knew that her writing is beautiful and rich, but this novel is on another level; she successfully writes in a myriad of styles and mediums while crafting a detailed and enthralling story. Accordingly, it won the Booker Prize in 1990 and is included on Time’s list of 100 best novels since 1923. I’m telling you – a gorgeous book.

Possession begins with Roland Michell, a scholar of the famed (fictional) Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. As he sifts through olds books and papers of the poet’s in the London Library, he discovers some intriguingly personal drafts of previously unknown letters from Ash to a mystery woman. With some sleuthing, and with the help of feminist scholar Maud Bailey, he discovers the letters to be for Christabel LaMotte, a poet of Ash’s era loved by modern feminists but largely ignored in her own time. With the discovery of a whole cache of letters between the two poets, Maud and Roland embark on an intensely secretive quest around England and Northern France to discover the love between the poets that will completely change the literary worlds they both work in. Byatt shifts between times in unique ways; as we see the relationship between Ash and LaMotte develop through their letters, we also see Roland and Maud become slowly but irrevocably linked. For the two of them, the discoveries they make are purely about their personal relationships with the poets and their poetry – that indefinable closeness one feels to someone never known personally, but only through the power of their writing.

This private quest between the two of them, however, slowly spreads to involve a whole cast of academics. The world of Ash and LaMotte scholars is very insular, it seems, and word and suspicions spread quickly. For people who devote their lives to studying a finite number of poems and writings of long-dead poets, a discovery as monumental as this (or any discovery of new material, really) is groundbreaking. So, their quest for the sake of the love of literature becomes a chase to get the letters, a legal battle, and a question of ownership. Academia can get ugly, especially when a big discovery comes along that can mean so much for the careers of so many people. Byatt’s exploration of this strange academic world made me think about academia as a life choice. How would it be to live your life completely consumed by and devoted to the lives of dead poets, as these academics do? Byatt (a former professor at University College London) shows us the thoughts of all these different kinds of scholars and how they try to reconcile their life’s work. Studying only the poems of a long dead Victorian poet, or an obscure female poet, or the wife of a famous poet (as the case may be, according to the character) requires much justification in the minds of Byatt’s characters, as I imagine it would. You have to really love the writings of a poet to make your living by reading and writing about them.

More than any other book I can think of, the title of Possession grows to fit the book perfectly. I didn’t think this would be the case to begin with; ‘possession,’ while an evocative and romantic word (fitting, as the book’s subtitle is “A Romance”), struck me as a generic and forgettable title. By the book’s end, however, I realized how it truly encompasses the many levels of the book. Are these scholars, stuck in the bowels of libraries and academic facilities, possessed by the deceased poets to whom they devote their lives? Who possesses whom when it comes to love? This is especially apparent as the story of Ash and LaMotte unfolds amidst the rigid era Victorian, and they must decide where their hearts lie. Who possesses, legally and for all intents and purposes, the thoughts and ideas of these dead writers – or, as it is, the writings and letters? And, perhaps most deeply felt throughout the book, how much does one truly possess oneself, especially when in love? As Roland and Maud fall slowly but strangely in love, they both struggle with their own self-possession and how they can define themselves in terms of each other and their work. As it turns out, there can be no title better than Possession.

This is all probably more than I should have written about Possession, and yet there is so much more that could be said. It is a dense book, and as much as I loved it, it took me a long time to read and digest. One of the beauties of the novel, but also one of the things that contributes to its density, is the variety of forms it is told through. Byatt proves herself as a poet as well as a novelist by including many of the major works of Ash and LaMotte, from short verses to epic poems. Hundreds of pages go by in letter form, as the romance between the poets is told. Diaries of contemporaries and family members of the poets contribute to their story, as do excerpts of the critical analyses written by the modern scholars in the book. All these different narrative voices and forms shape both eras and all characters, and somehow Byatt makes them all perfectly convincing and informed. And now, onward to The Children’s Book and beyond – I can’t wait to continue on my Byatt-quest.

(Cover via Wikipedia)

'Points of Stars in the Dark'

2010-02-07T11:32:00.002-05:00

Here is an excerpt from A.S. Byatt’s Possession, which I recently read, and loved, and will be writing about shortly:

Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark – readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing differently or better or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to say what we know, or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we the readers, knew it was always there, and have always known it was as it was, though we have now for the first time recognized, become fully cognizant of, our knowledge.

- from Possession, 1990

Happy (Belated) Birthday, James Joyce!

2010-02-03T22:43:00.008-05:00

For Christmas, I got a wonderful literary desk calendar that I am obsessed with. It includes quotes, short bios, and birthdays of many famous and not-so-famous writers. Unfortunately, I didn't look at it yesterday and only realized today that February 2 was the great James Joyce's birthday. My love of Irish literature, and literature in general, naturally leads to a love of Joyce - undoubtedly one of the most important (if not the most important) writers of the last century. Here is the last paragraph of "The Dead," the final short story in Dubliners. It is one of my favorite Joyce pieces, and especially appropriate with all the snow that fell last night. Beautiful.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

-from "The Dead" 1914

(Image via Wikipedia)

My Hypothetical Future

2010-02-02T00:03:00.007-05:00

Just as an fyi, this is what my future apartment and/ or home will look like (the one that, in my mind, is the coolest place ever):

Or this:

Basically, just books filling every cranny, and a ladder to reach them all. This imagined future is how I justify leaving used book stores with more books than I could read in a year (and spending more money than should be spent in a used book store).

(Images via)

Happy Birthday, Lewis Carroll!

2010-01-28T00:03:00.005-05:00

In honor of Lewis Carroll's birthday (a bit belatedly, as it is after midnight), here is the second half of his poem "The Walrus and The Carpenter." I love this poem for the poem itself, but also because of its presence in the Nickelodeon film version of Harriet the Spy. I watched that movie near daily for much of my childhood, and have it to thank for my meticulous journal-keeping (and, I suspect, talent for observation/ being nosy) since then. I always wanted my own Golly to recite this with. Which is a roundabout way of wishing Lewis Carroll a happy birthday as thanks for Alice and all the wonderful things he wrote. "The time has come, the walrus said..."

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

-from "The Walrus and the Carpenter," 1872

(Artwork via)

THE BOOKSHOP by Penelope Fitzgerald

2010-01-27T00:26:00.003-05:00

For a long time, Penelope Fitzgerald, to me, was only the writer whose books appeared next to those of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s in the shelves of bookstores or libraries. I never thought to seek her out or think anything more of her, until I was browsing a list of Booker Prize winning authors on which – spoiler alert – she appears. So, I figured it was about time to give her a real chance, and I took out the only available book of hers in my local library at the time – The Bookshop.

The Bookshop, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (Offshore is her work that won the prize), is a little, seemingly simple book that leaves a big impact. Set in a small English town in the late 1950s, the novel wraps proof of the inherent cruelty of human nature in a deceptively light and often amusing veneer. Florence Green, a widowed resident of Hardborough for a decade, has decided that the time has come for her little town to have a bookshop, and that she is the one to bring it to them. Hardborough is not one for change, however, as Florence learns through her attempts to fix up an old house to contain the shop and introduce her community to the wonder of books. Even when the fledgling bookshop shows promising signs of life, its customers show interest only in books on the history of the British monarchy and military, not so much in works of literature like the newly-released Lolita, by that foreigner with the funny name. It is not the predictable literary interests of the town’s residents that mean trouble, however; Florence meets problematic opposition from other ends. The ‘elite’ of the town with, of course, some political pull and knowledge of obscure laws, rally against Florence for personal gain. From the time the bookshop is only an idea throughout its short lifetime, Mrs. Gamart, a society woman with her own designs for the old house, manipulates and schemes against Florence for her own ends. By the end, you are (or, I was) left screaming at the injustice of it all.

Throughout the book, Fitzgerald gently satirizes provincial life and the strict social striations of a town as small and enclosed as this. The many characters of the town, from the farmers and fishmongers to the eager children, selfish shop owners and old esteemed hermits, add their eccentricities to the unique, and often obstinate, identity of Hardborough. She excellently crafts all these characters, so that in reading them you become part of this tightly bound community and fully accept its strangeness. Even the absurdities, from the sneakily cruel behaviors of the townspeople to their unquestioned belief is the ghost (or ‘rapper’) of the old house, are quietly believable. It is a strange place, this Hardborough, that apparently has no use for a bookshop. And yet, Florence’s attempt at bringing them one remains hopeful even in spite the cruelty of her neighbors. For such a small book, The Bookshop offers some big insights into morality and human nature and provokes strong reactions. F. Scott is no longer the only Fitzgerald I’ll be searching out at bookstores.

(Cover via)

The Passing of the Year

2010-01-11T22:11:00.007-05:00

I know I'm a week or so late, but Happy New Year! My immediate New Years resolution is step up my blog game - starting with catching up on the books I've read over the past few weeks, then making sure to write about each book I read right after I finish it. Thanks for hanging in there!

Here's to hoping 2010 brings wonderful things.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;

My fire is almost ashes too;

But once again, before you go,

And I prepare to meet the New:

Old Year! a parting word that's true,

For we've been comrades, you and I --

I thank God for each day of you;

There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

- from Robert W. Service's "The Passing of the Year"

"Books You Can Live Without"

2009-12-29T23:46:00.003-05:00

Here is a fun article from the New York Times that I identify with a lot these days. Because I'm kind of in between homes at the moment (my home home and the apartment I'm staying for who knows how long), and probably will be for the next few years, my book collection is constantly divided. Inevitably, whenever I'm in one place I miss the books in the other. So, I find myself identifying most with the comments of author Joshua Ferris, especially what he says here:

Books are notes from the field, bound and domesticated, life brought into narrow focus. Get rid of a book? No way. Every one is a brick keeping the building standing. Books are my life. I leave and come back, and the books I find there tell me I’m home.

Get rid of my books? Me? Never.

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN By Garth Stein

2009-12-28T01:32:00.004-05:00

As I imagine most dog owners do, I constantly stare at my dog and wonder what she is thinking. There are times I can tell by her facial expressions and gestures: when she wants some food, when she wants me to move over on the couch, when she is about to pee on the floor because she is angry at me. But, sadly, most of the time I don’t know what she thinks, because she is a dog and cannot talk. But in the lovely The Art of Racing in the Rain, we are privy to the thoughts of Enzo, the dog and narrator of the story, as he looks back and recounts the story of his life with his family. And with Enzo (as I often suspect with my own Remy), there is a lot going on in the mind of a dog.

We meet Enzo as an old and sickly dog as he and his owner try to accept his coming death. For me, this meant the waterworks began at the start of the book and continued to the end (at which point they came in at full force). As he prepares for his hoped-for reincarnation as a human, Enzo reflects on what it is to be a dog and part of a human family. Enzo, as so many dogs are, is a vital part of his family and has been there for so many of the defining points of their lives. Enzo’s journey with Denny, an aspiring race car driver and his master, began with just the two of them. Over the years their family number increases, and is marked by much happiness followed by even more tragedy. Enzo’s loyalty to Denny is often what keeps him going, and Enzo knows this. It is his duty, as he sees it, to love and protect his family inasmuch as he can, and he fulfills this responsibility up to the very end. He proves that all that stuff about dogs and unconditional love and loyalty is true. But now, through Enzo’s thoughts, we see where it comes from and why dogs are such wonderful creatures.

Dogs have a lot of time to think. Enzo has used this time for the better, using his own observances and his wide-ranging knowledge (thanks to lots of television) to shape his philosophies on life. For such a quick and enjoyable read, the book tackles lots of big ideas – namely because Enzo is a smart dog and has some deep thoughts. What stuck with me most were his ideas on death and what comes next. Of course everyone has their own ideas on the Afterlife, whether it is shaped by culture or religion or just convenience. Enzo’s hope and faith in his coming reincarnation as a human with opposable thumbs (thanks to a National Geographic special on the Mongolians) is comforting in light of the life he has led and the tragedies Denny and the family have endured.

It goes without saying, but should still be said, that having a dog as a narrator makes for a unique read. If at first the idea seems at all strange, however, it quickly becomes natural and Enzo proves a reliable narrator. It never falls into gimmick or becomes trite; Enzo is a consistent narrative voice, with a personality and opinions and convictions. We get to know him well, and his family through his eyes. We feel his frustrations at not being able to express himself, and hope along with him that some Stephen Hawking-like machine existed for him to speak all that he knows. I learned a lot about car racing thanks to Enzo (I know its really thanks to Garth Stein, but I like to think it is directly from Enzo), and identified with his picks for favorite actors (number one on his list is Steve McQueen, naturally). Just as dogs themselves are, Enzo’s voice was honest and heartwarming, and gave me a renewed appreciation (and curiosity) for my own dog.

Because it is so many things – funny, heartbreaking, life affirming – The Art of Racing in the Rain is the type of book that travels quickly by word of mouth. (It doesn’t hurt that there are so many dog people out there). My own experience with it is an example of that; my boss lent it to me, only for me sister to read it first. After she read it, she not only made sure I read it, she bought three copies as Christmas gifts – and now I fully intend to recommend it to many. It is nice to think that in this day of the e-book and precarious position of the publishing industry, the reading public and word of mouth still holds so much power. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go spend some quality time with my dog.

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor E. Frankl

2009-12-21T00:33:00.003-05:00

"To live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering"

Recently I watched the film Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (good movie, and the book is in my to be read pile), in which Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is a significant plot point. I made a mental note to search for it at the library, and then went downstairs only to find it staring at me from my Dad’s bookcase. If that is not a sign to read the book, especially a book about the meaning of life, I don’t know what is.

Frankl’s book is many things in one: it is a historical account, philosophy book, theory of psychology, and memoir. He writes about his time in various concentration camps over three years during WWII, and how his experiences shaped and solidified his work as a psychologist and the theories he developed both before and after his imprisonment. As all works concerning the Holocaust do, Man’s Search for Meaning brings up many difficult questions. How can man be responsible for such horrible actions? How can what happened be explained or justified? How does one go through so much suffering and still survive? What is the purpose of all that suffering? Frankl provides a philosophical answer to these questions (at least, as much as they can be answered) by exploring how his and others’ experiences in concentration camps are proof that the human spirit can overcome anything.

Frankl’s existentialist philosophies unfold in the two parts of his book. In Part One, “Experiences in a Concentration Camp,” he reflects on his own imprisonment and the development of the psychologies of his fellow prisoners. As with any kind of life, humans adapt to their surroundings, no matter how horrible they might be. Thus, there is a psychology and set of stages that accompany camp life, which he identifies through stories of his friends and fellow prisoners. Though they are often told as case studies and in an academic light, these stories are, of course, heartbreaking, – but also life affirming. It is the conclusion he comes to regarding the human spirit and its ability to endure and survive that shapes his philosophy, and subsequently his school of psychological thought. In looking at his own survival and that of those around him, he theorizes that the ability to endure and surpass great suffering is in the mind of the man, as long as he has decided that he has something to survive for. As a sort of summation of his theory, Frankl often quotes Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

In the second part of his book, “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,” Frankl takes the theories he has put forth in Part One and uses them to shape an introduction to logotherapy, the school of psychological thought he founded. I’m no student of psychology and knew little of logotherapy before I read the book, but Frankl clearly and accessibly outlines his theories in his short introduction. Logotherapy exists on this premise that the most powerful and motivational force in human beings is the desire to find meaning to their lives. In terms of theories of psychology (especially Viennese ones), logotherapy differs from, say, psychoanalysis in that it looks towards the future rather than towards the past. In logotherapy, there is no examining of the effects of childhood traumas on the unconscious while lying on a couch; rather, neuroses are cured by putting the patient’s desires in context and righting them on the path towards finding their own meaning of life. It is clear why this sort of psychological theory developed in Frankl’s surroundings of great suffering. When horrifically stripped of literally everything – belongings, loved ones, basic human rights, often even hope – Frankl and many of his contemporaries still endured. All they had to live for was the idea of their future, and their desire to ascribe meaning to all their suffering; and yet, it was this that kept them alive.

I’m sure you’re thinking through all this (as I was), What is the meaning of life? Well, Frankl contends that this question in its abstract and general terms cannot be answered. Rather, the meaning of life is constantly changing for each unique person in every unique situation he is in. It is life that asks us for meaning, not the other way around. We must rise to what life brings us, and justify our existence by succeeding with what we are given. (I suspect whoever first said the phrase ‘when life gives you lemons…’ was a logotherapist.) I absolutely understand why Frankl’s book is not only one of the most important works of psychiatric literature, but why it is still consistently read and loved by so many people. Man’s Search for Meaning is the sort of book that you always want to have nearby as a reminder of why and how to keep going, particularly when going through hard times. I am very grateful to Brief Interviews..., and my Dad's library, for bringing it to me.

'Politics'

2009-12-20T00:51:00.003-05:00

'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms' - Thomas Mann

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

-W.B. Yeats

THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt

2009-12-09T00:11:00.003-05:00

I’ve been terribly neglectful lately in writing about the books I’ve read right after I finish them, so sadly this discussion of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History may suffer a bit. I finished the book weeks ago and, while I loved it, it is no longer fresh in my mind and so I may be a bit lacking in my remembering of it. Alas, I will do my best.

I came upon The Secret History when a friend and I were talking about The Likeness. She said that as she was reading Tana French’s book, she was reminded of Donna Tartt’s novel. As I read reviews of The Likeness, I noticed many of them mentioned The Secret History, almost always in a favorable way (for both books). And then, when said friend gave me a copy of the book, I figured it was about time to read it. It is true that there are many (many) similarities between The Likeness and The Secret History; both are set at secluded academic locations, both feature a bizarrely close circle of friends, both involve a the murder of a student, et cetera et cetera. And yet, I did not find The Likeness to be a rehashing or copy of The Secret History (which came first – it was published, and apparently was very popular, in 1992).

The book opens with Richard Papen, our trusty protagonist, reflecting on his tumultuous time at Hampden College. As a sophomore transfer student, Richard was quickly accepted into an exclusive group of five friends. His need to belong, particularly to this elite group by which he is fascinated, moves him to make sure to fit in at any cost. Though he must work hard and often to put himself through school, he pretends to be of the same wealthy class of his new friends (though in some of these friends’ cases, it is more like used-to-be-wealthy class). Their collective wealth, with the leisure and freedom (especially academic) it brings, makes their self-inflicted seclusion all the more influential on the developments of their philosophies. Hampden, the small liberal arts school at the foot of a mountain in Vermont, keeps its students isolated in a bubble of academics, drugs, and general college-revelry. These six students, however, are in their own tiny bubble within Hampden. They take only Classics course with each other, with only one professor. Entrenched in the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, mythologies, epic poems, and dead languages, their worldview and mindset is entirely disconnected from modern reality. This disconnect – with its accompanying amorality and intellectual and social isolation – inevitably leads them towards irrevocable evil.

As these students are consumed by the Ancients in their mountainous Vermont isolation, their imagined world clashes with the real one. The bizarre recreation of an Ancient tradition leads them to an accidental (but no less horrific) murder. And yet, this is only the beginning; Richard’s story is really the story of he and his friends’ murder of Bunny, one of their own (worry not, no spoiler here – this murder is revealed on the first page). The horror of it is that as the book progresses, their actions begin to make sense. Bunny (who acts like a character from out of a Fitzgerald short story, both intentionally and not) has become a threat, not to mention a nuisance to his friends, and so he must be gotten rid of. In the warped minds of these students, this makes sense. As we become part of this mindset and their world – a world that is set more in Ancient Greece than in reality – the thought of murder seems less inhumane and more as an ordinary part of life. Bizarre events and elements of the book somehow seem reasonable, as Tartt has slowly eased us into this strange world where the natural and philosophical reign over the logical and corporeal. And yet, the students find that their otherworldly actions and beliefs have very real consequences.

As a sort of intellectual murder mystery that unfolds backwards, The Secret History kept me reading like crazy (into very late hours) to finish it. I loved so much about it: the quiet college setting, the complex and slowly unfolding relationships between characters, the structure of the story, the juxtaposition of the high intellectualism of Latin poetry and Greek philosophy with the basic animalistic act of murder. It is certainly one of those consuming books, one that you cannot put down and that appears in your dreams. At least, it was for me.

JANE AUSTEN RUINED MY LIFE by Beth Pattillo

2009-11-29T23:29:00.005-05:00

Recently, my boss and I were talking about our mutual and undying love for Persuasion when she mentioned Jane Austen Ruined My Life. Because I was intrigued by the title, she was kind enough to lend me her copy. I know that Austen-inspired fiction is a strangely huge genre; every time I enter a bookstore I seem to come across a new book with some play on ‘Mr. Darcy’ in the title. As an Austen fan myself, I certainly understand the appeal of such a genre and respect that it reaches so many readers, but I’ve never had much interest in any of these types of books. While I did mostly enjoy reading the breezy Jane Austen Ruined My Life, it certainly didn’t change my mind on its genre.

The book follows Emma (what else?) Grant, an Austen scholar from an unnamed prestigious American university who has been betrayed and abandoned by her cad of celebrity-scholar husband and subsequently fired from her teaching position. Falsely accused of plagiarism and shamed in the academic community, she escapes to England to meet with a bizarre hermit who sets her on a trail throughout the country that will, she says, lead to hundreds of Austen’s lost letters. As Emma attempts to complete the tasks she is set, she visits Austen’s own England, runs into an old near-flame (of course), and reflects on how Austen indirectly contributed to the failure of her marriage.

Though far-fetched, Pattillo’s imagined fate of the letters is interesting and entertaining, especially in light of my recent visit to the Morgan Library. Though many of Austen’s letters survive (and are currently on display at the Morgan), far many more do not. She was a prolific letter writer, and apparently upon her death had her sister Cassandra destroy or edit the majority of her correspondence. The book proposes that she did not actually do such a thing, and that these lost letters have been protected by a secret society of ‘Formidables” since her death. Patillo nicely arranges the reasons for the secrecy of these letters around actual and unexplained facts about Austen. This is what I enjoyed most about the book; the biographical information on Jane Austen that provided the basis for the plot. And even though I was rolling my eyes almost every other page (there are only so many fluttering hearts and Austen metaphors I can take), I did sometimes find myself identifying with Emma. I’ve had many conversations with friends about how things we love – whether they are Jane Austen novels or Disney cartoons or romantic movies I watched on TV when I was probably too young to be doing so – have ruined us by raising our expectations so high that we are only set up to be disappointed. Case in point: I will settle for nothing less than Captain Wentworth. It is nice to know that there are others out there with the same problem, but I think that in the future if I am in the mood for some Jane Austen, I’ll be reading one of her own novels rather than one inspired by her. In fact, I think it is about time for a rereading of Persuasion.

While we’re on the topic of Jane Austen, here are a few recent articles on her:

“What Would Jane Do?”, a great article on the morality, and wonderfulness, of Jane in the WSJ

“No Plain Jane”, a review of a new book of essays on Austen, in The Economist

A review of the Morgan Library exhibit in the NYT

Poetic & Artistic Inspiration

2009-11-24T22:24:00.008-05:00

The Lady of Shalott

John William Waterhouse, 1888

"On either side the river lie  

Long fields of barley and of rye,  

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;  

And thro' the field the road runs by

 To many-tower'd Camelot;

 And up and down the people go,

 Gazing where the lilies blow  

Round an island there below,  
The island of Shalott."

from "The Lady of Shalott"by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842

THE PENELOPIAD by Margaret Atwood

2009-11-21T22:15:00.001-05:00

There is nothing like a good retelling of a canonical work. As arguably one of the most canonical works, Homer’s Odyssey has been adapted and retold many times in many ways, from the film O Brother Where Art Thou? to James Joyce’s amazing (and canonical itself) Ulysses. Margaret Atwood contributes to this tradition with The Penelopiad, a look at the events of The Iliad and The Odyssey from the perspective of Penelope. As she wanders through the many levels of Hades and (often amusingly) encounters old acquaintances, Penelope gives us her take on the epic. She recounts how she felt about Odysseus, from the start of their arranged relationship through his long absence. She offers her own account of what happened at home in Ithaca over those twenty years without her husband, paying particular attention to the years the suitors descended and how, with the help of her servants and maids, she was able to keep them from overwhelming her. In telling Penelope’s side of the story, Atwood offers a completely new way of looking at Homer’s epic, making me question what I know and how I feel about this story that is so much a part of our culture.

The image of Penelope as put forth in The Odyssey and its countless subsequent retellings is almost invariably the same: she is the loyal, steadfast wife who patiently awaits her husband for twenty years while he wages war, makes a name for himself as the wisest king, battles monsters of land and sea, and beds nymphs and sorceresses galore. I always imagined (with the help of a TV movie or two) that the only thing that kept Odysseus going and Penelope from succumbing to her dangerous suitors was their undying love for one another. But, as most feminist retellings do, The Penelopiad completely changes the outlook of the original source material. Gone is the romance between Odysseus and Penelope, the image of Odysseus as the ultimate hero of wisdom and morality, the loving mother-son relationship between Penelope and Telemachus. Odysseus, though wise and brave to a degree, owes his heroic reputation more to his cunning and shrewdness than to deep wisdom. He uses these powers of persuasion and craftiness in their own marriage, which is certainly not based on the love and trust of Homer’s telling and the idealistic retellings. It is an arranged marriage of convenience in which Penelope will always only be the second place prize to her cousin Helen. Penelope does what she does not because of an undying love for Odysseus or a reverential obligation to her new kingdom, but because it is what is forced upon her as a woman.

Penelope’s is not the only voice we hear in The Penelopiad, however. Also narrating is the set of twelve maids who were loyal servants to Penelope throughout her husband’s absence, only to be murdered upon Odysseus’s return for liaising with (aka being raped by) the suitors. The hangings of these women are seldom discussed; with all the violent deaths and adventures of The Odyssey, how much do the deaths of these servant girls matter? Atwood, it seems, took issue with this absence of discussion and fittingly included it with her story of Penelope. These maids, in the tradition of the Greek Tragedy, act as the chorus collectively offering their thus far silent account of events through ballads, poetry, and plays. As Penelope is continually haunted by their violent hangings, the maids serve as a constant reminder of the place of women in their time – and, even more so, the place of women servants.

I often have a hard time reading revisionist works, especially when it comes to stories or books I love. Whether it is a reworking of a fairy tale or Jean Rhys’ reimagining of Jane Eyre, I don’t always want see my idealistic perception of the story or its characters changed (even if it becomes more truthful). And yet, I do read these reworkings and almost invariably enjoy them. Usually, despite my initial misgivings or natural aversion to changing my opinion, I end up better appreciating the original text and developing a much more well-rounded understanding of it. I think that is the importance of these kinds of works; to widen the conversation on classic texts by bringing certain aspects of them to the forefront and making us take a closer look. The fact that The Penelopiad does so much to change how I see these characters and the myth itself speaks to the power of Atwood’s writing – and her talent for shining light on the cracks in the epic that were hidden, but not invisible.

Interview with Cormac McCarthy

2009-11-13T13:49:00.000-05:00

It seems that every weekend the WSJ features great articles on books and authors. I live for the Weekend Journal. Today's paper has a wonderfully extensive interview with the notoriously private Cormac McCarthy, in which he comes off as decidedly more personable than I imagined him to be. The interview comes in time for the upcoming theatrical release of "The Road" (which promises to be horrifically depressing), and it is interesting to hear McCarthy's views on his books' translations to film. Among the many other topics he discusses are religion, his son as inspiration for The Road, his relationships with filmmakers, his future book, and the status of the modern novel. Some excerpts:

On the unamed disaster in The Road:

I don't have an opinion. At the Santa Fe Institute I'm with scientists of all disciplines, and some of them in geology said it looked like a meteor to them. But it could be anything—volcanic activity or it could be nuclear war. It is not really important. The whole thing now is, what do you do? The last time the caldera in Yellowstone blew, the entire North American continent was under about a foot of ash. People who've gone diving in Yellowstone Lake say that there is a bulge in the floor that is now about 100 feet high and the whole thing is just sort of pulsing. From different people you get different answers, but it could go in another three to four thousand years or it go on Thursday. No one knows.
[I knew it!]

On lengthy books:

People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you're going to write something like "The Brothers Karamazov" or "Moby-Dick," go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don't care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.

On what he writes:

I'm not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

I highly suggest reading the rest of the article and interview, "Hollywood's Favorite Cowboy."

Also in today's Journal is an article, "When Brevity is a Virtue," about a number of short story collections by established authors being published this season. I've been reading more short stories than usual lately, so I was especially interested to read the article's discussion of the place and purpose of the short story today. And it definitely got me interested in reading some of these upcoming collections, namely Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness. Hopefully there will be more great literary articles in tomorrow's Journal as well.

THE MATISSE STORIES by A.S. Byatt

2009-11-13T00:06:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I went to the Strand Bookstore to see A.S. Byatt read from and speak about her newest novel, The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize. I have yet to crack open the book (personalized and signed by Byatt herself!), but my anticipation for it continues to build. I had been meaning to read her books for a long time now, so when I saw that she would be at the Strand I decided to build at least a working familiarity with her work by reading some short stories. The Matisse Stories, as the title implies, is a collection of three stories loosely inspired by and centered around paintings by Henri Matisse. Each story is a glimpse (as short stories are) into the life of a middle-aged woman and her relationship, however varied, with art.

The woman of the opening story is drawn into her hair salon by the Matisse copy hanging inside. As she develops a play on the standard relationship with her hairdresser, her deeply rooted insecurities about growing older begin to manifest with the painting of the rosy nude (and its incongruous salon setting) as a strangely fitting background. This discomfort with aging is certainly a running theme throughout the stories, continuing with the woman of the second story as she attempts to reconcile the artistic dreams of her youth with her abandonment of this passion to support her family (particularly her failed and spoiled painter husband). As this self-proclaimed ‘creative’ family is forced to reassess what they accept as art through a surprise of their housekeeper, Byatt brings up questions on the limits and purpose of art and how different people in different situations view it. This discussion is expanded in the final story, which follows the dean of women at a London university and her struggle in dealing with the accusations of an unstable Fine Arts graduate student against an elder, distinguished visiting professor. Should the principles of art, beauty, and the devotion to artistic scholarship be upheld? Or should this woman and the university do what it can to help this unwell, but also untalented, student? What is more important – art or human compassion?

The stories are artistic in themselves; Byatt evokes paintings – Matisse ones especially – with her colorful and descriptive language. Her depiction of objects – their colors, light and presence – is striking. In fact, this is something Byatt discussed at the signing, in relation to The Children’s Book. She said that she often writes towards objects; that she develops ideas, and then has specific ideas of what objects she wants to write about and how she wants to represent them. Specifically, she spoke of a candlestick in The Children’s Book (I suppose that will mean something to those that have read the book). She had a very specific idea of what kind of candlestick she wanted and, with the help of the curator of The Victoria & Albert Museum, found precisely what she was looking for and made it an important part of the novel.

Both The Matisse Stories and seeing A.S. Byatt read have certainly whet my appetite for more of her stuff (The Children’s Book and Possession are eagerly waiting for me in my to-be-read pile). And she was very nice, which is always a plus. As I nervously approached her to get my book signed, I mumbled something about loving The Matisse Stories, and she told me how earlier that day she had tried to go to the MOMA to see their Matisse collection but was unable to get in because of the long line. MOMA, you should have been rolling out the red carpet for her!

The Morgan Library

2009-11-10T21:08:00.001-05:00

Because Tuesdays are my free afternoon days, today I decided to venture to the Morgan Library to see the Jane Austen exhibit I had heard about. Amazingly, I’ve never been to the Library before – it is certainly an overlooked gem. It began as J.P. Morgan’s personal collection of rare books, manuscripts, drawings, and artwork, and was given to the public by his son in the 1920s. The reading rooms that make up Morgan’s personal wing of the museum – with their massive collections of old books, dark wood shelves, plush couches, and beautifully frescoed ceilings – are a literary dream. The permanent collection boasts a Gutenberg Bible and a number of great pieces of art (I spotted a few Hans Memlings), in addition to all the rare books and illuminated manuscripts it contains. It was the special exhibit I came to see, however, and was excited to find that not only was there and exhibit on Jane Austen, but one on William Blake as well.

The Jane Austen exhibit was wonderful, featuring lots of Jane’s original letters, manuscripts, and first editions. It is always so exciting to me to see something originally from a writer or artist I admire up close, so I loved seeing her own handwriting in her copious and exhaustive letters. There was also a short documentary featuring well-known writers and artists discussing Jane and her effects on them – I especially enjoyed Colm Toibin’s (a writer I love) wish to invite Jane, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung to dinner, feed them lots of alcohol, and see what they made of each other. All the while, of course, I thought of my favorite Austen novel (Persuasion), and my favorite part of the novel (Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne). To avoid the risk of ruining the experience of the book for any unacquainted readers, I will refrain from saying more – just know that you must read Persuasion and savor your

first reading of said letter. Gosh, I love Persuasion.

The William Blake exhibit featured his many etchings and engravings – I often forget he was as much an artist as he was a poet. Engravings fascinate me. The great ones are so intricate and detailed, and to me evoke a certain kind of beauty I automatically associate with literature and poetry. I suppose it is people like Blake that are the causes of such associations – his etchings are beautiful, and of course literary. Here are the first few lines of “The Echoing Green,” from Blake’s Songs of Innocence (and his frontispiece):

The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies; 
The merry bells ring 
To welcome the spring; 

The skylark and thrush, 
The birds of the bush, 

Sing louder around 

To the bell's cheerful sound, 

While our sports shall be seen 

On the Echoing Green.

I was also happy to learn of Blake’s love for John Milton, and Blake’s poems and engravings inspired by Milton. This illustration, “The Wandering Moon,” was done by Blake to accompany Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, and features Milton in his Cambridge robes observing the moon, personified as a young woman. I just love his artwork (and poetry).

The Blake exhibit runs to January, while the Austen exhibit is until March. Go!

Two for One: IN THE WOODS and THE LIKENESS by Tana French

2009-11-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

I’ve never been much for mysteries or thrillers. Aside from the odd Alexander McCall-Smith or Agatha Christie novel (and a brief obsession with Helter Skelter – though I suppose that would be categorized more as True Crime), I have had very little experience with the genre. What drew me to French’s novels (In the Woods first, followed by The Likeness) was their Dublin setting. I’m a sucker for anything Irish, a pseudo-weakness that really worked out in my favor here. Both novels, which are related without quite being a series, center around the attempts to solve mysterious murders. The books, however, are not so much about the crimes themselves as they are psychological explorations of the detectives and their unexpected personal connections to these murders. With both books, French effortlessly weaves through literary genres and creates, with her unique characters and stories, works that are engrossing and difficult to classify.

In the Woods follows a case assigned to Detective Rob Ryan that unexpectedly leads him and his partner towards two decade-spanning murders. As a young boy, Ryan and his two best friends disappeared into the woods of a small town outside of Dublin. Hours later he alone was found – catatonic and uninjured, yet with a torn shirt and blood-filled shoes. Twenty years later, he still has no memory of those hours and his friends have never been found. As he attempts to solve the murder of a young girl in the very same woods, Ryan is forced to revisit his past and face what he fears most – his untapped memories. Though the mysteries of both murders are gripping (I was up until ungodly hours while reading this book), what is most powerful is seeing how the case personally and psychologically impacts all involved. French explores – with Ryan especially – the impact of memory on the psyche, the transient nature of human relationships, and the ability of the subconscious to determine our actions. As first person narrator, we see everything through Ryan’s eyes. Over the course of the case it becomes apparent what an unreliable observer he has become – he veers all over the place, from likable to unlikable, trustworthy to deceitful. French’s characterization of him, however, skillfully makes this unreliability part of his nature. These paradoxes, instead of being problematic, reinforce the latent effects of his past and directly lead to the troubles of his present.

I especially loved (of course) the Irish setting of the book. It wasn’t just, however, that the story itself took place in and around Dublin (or the fact that she often mentioned places and pubs I used to frequent when I studied abroad); French draws in so many ways from her Irish literary and cultural background. Throughout the book, and in The Likeness as well, hints of mysticism and the supernatural are always quietly present – rarely spoken of, but always there. These folkloric traditions that are so intrinsic to the Irish mindset – from the titular importance of the woods to the mystical undercurrents that are often invoked to explain unspeakable crimes – meet the characters at every twist and turn. And to think, this was French’s first novel.

Her second novel certainly didn’t disappoint – I liked The Likeness just as much as In the Woods, if not more. It picks up after the events of the first novel and follows Detective Cassie Maddox, Ryan’s partner. Several other incidental characters make appearances, but this is essentially Cassie’s book. Following her switch from Murder to Domestic Violence, she finds herself thrust into a bizarre undercover murder investigation with the discovery of the body of a young woman in the outskirts of Dublin. The circumstances that bring Cassie into the investigation are even more bizarre: besides looking nearly identical to her, this dead woman shares the name of Cassie’s former undercover persona, Lexie Madison. How often does one get to use the term ‘doppelganger’ in such a perfect context? As Cassie inhabits Lexie’s life (rules and ethics be damned), she is pulled into a strange world. She studies Literature as a postgraduate student at Trinity while inhabiting the eccentric Victorian-like lifestyle Lexie shared with her four very closely-knit (often strikingly so) housemates in their manor home in the country. As she tries to solve the puzzle of Lexie’s life (who was she really, and how did she get the name Lexie Madison?) and death while continuing to convince the housemates that she is indeed Lexie, Cassie gets increasingly drawn into this new strangely enticing world.

As we saw (though to a lesser extent) in In the Woods, Cassie is a strong character: smart and tough – perfect as a hard-ass detective – yet with personal vulnerabilities that, though they help her with the finer points of profiling and catching a killer, also slowly erode her mental stability in a case as complex as this. As with In the Woods, French explores the psychological effects of this case on Cassie. The more she settles into Lexie’s life, the more she becomes her – at the expense of her own life. Though we know better, we as readers fall into the same trap. I could see the mistakes Cassie was making in failing to distance herself from the case and suspects, yet I understood why she made these mistakes. Lexie and her housemates’ lives – with their deep camaraderie, endless poetry, philosophical discussions, constantly flowing whiskey, and magical country environs – is near irresistible. I was pulled into this strange world right along with Cassie, even as her inability to distance herself puts the case, the knowledge of what happened to Lexie, and Cassie herself in danger. As Cassie attempts to balance this lifestyle with solving the murder while undercover, the suspense of The Likeness kicks in and keeps you reading until you get answers.

By the time I finished both books, I felt as drained as the detectives solving these crimes. I got so wrapped up in them that I began to see everything as potentially dangerous or as a mystery that needed to be solved (I know now why I don’t read books like this more often). Aside from the skilled storytelling and accomplished writing of both books, I respect that French didn’t always feel the need to tie things up neatly at the end of the book. Some mysteries – small and large – are left unsolved, details are left vague, and questions are left unanswered (though, for the most part, not frustratingly so). This is an extension of something she manages to do throughout her books: to ground her stories in reality, somehow making the bizarre and sometimes unbelievable aspects of the stories plausible. I’m excited for the release of her next book (whenever that will be), whether it features Detectives Ryan and Maddox or not.

Writers on Writing

2009-11-06T22:44:00.001-05:00

Here is an excerpt from a wonderful article that appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal. It chronicles the actual writing techniques of a number of contemporary authors - where they write, the many steps they take, how long it takes them to write a novel. I find it fascinating to learn the actual day-to-day of so many contemporary writers (Margaret Atwood, Junot Diaz, and Hilary Mantel, to name a few), and to see how different each writer's technique is from the others. Because of my love for Kazuo Ishiguro, I included the article's look at his writing:

From the time he was a teenager until his mid-20s, novelist Kazuo Ishiguro tried, unsuccessfully, to make it as a songwriter. His early career helped him to develop his style of spare, first-person narration where the narrator seems to know more than he or she lets on at first.
Mr. Ishiguro, author of six novels, including the Booker-prize winning "Remains of the Day,"typically spends two years researching a novel and a year writing it. Since his novels are written in the first person, the voice is crucial, so he "auditions" narrators by writing a few chapters from different characters' points of view. Before he begins a draft, he compiles folders of notes and flow charts that lay out not just the plot but also more subtle aspects of the narrative, such as a character's emotions or memories.
Obsessive preparation "gives me the opportunity to have my narrators suppress meaning and evade meaning when they say one thing and mean something else," says Mr. Ishiguro.
He collects his notes in binders and writes a first draft by hand. He edits with a pencil, then types the revised version into a computer, where he further refines it, sometimes deleting chunks as large as 100 pages.
In spite of all the groundwork, some novels fail to come together, including one that took place in medieval Britain. "I showed my wife a segment that I had honed down and she said, "This is awful. You have to figure out how they speak to each other. They're speaking in a moron language," he says.

You can read the rest of the article here.

LOST GIRLS by Alan Moore

2009-10-27T22:53:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a good friend of mine who graciously/ wickedly lent me her mammoth copy, I just read Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls. For those not in the know (wink, wink), this graphic novel - very graphic graphic novel - places Wendy (of Neverland), Alice (of Wonderland), and Dorothy (of Kansas) together in a European hotel around the time of the outbreak of WWI. While there, they form relationships that lead them to explore their pasts and towards all kinds of sexual awakenings. To be honest, I really don't know what to write about it at the moment, as I'm still trying to take it all in. All I know is that these stories that I have loved so well have been completely changed for me. We'll see how that develops.

For a much better look at Lost Girls, and - even better - the source material, I direct you to said friend's examination of it. She does far better than I could hope to (especially as my mind is still reeling from the shock of the book).

In Honor of St. Crispin's Day...

2009-10-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

...I bring you the St. Crispin's Day speech at the Battle of Agincourt from William Shakespeare's Henry V. Enjoy!

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

(IV.iii.19-67)

NOCTURNES by Kazuo Ishiguro

2009-10-24T23:42:00.001-04:00

I love Kazuo Ishiguro. Love. So I was very excited to hear about this newest book, which is a collection of five stories “of music and nightfall.” As per usual, Ishiguro crafts his stories beautifully and (appropriate considering their themes) lyrically. Ishiguro is certainly an international writer, as he has proven with his novels (given their varied settings) and continues with these stories. He comfortably and convincingly places his stories and characters all over the world, ranging from LA to Venice to rural England, while using common human themes and passions to unite them. These different backgrounds and settings of the characters ultimately expose how similar they actually are in their relationships with people and with music.

Music is at center at each of these stories in different ways, from the aspiring musicians to the music lovers to the singer past his peak. The importance of music to each of these characters, however, is used more as a starting point to explore their relationships with or observations of others. In more than two (in fact most) stories, we see a marriage at its breaking point and the attempts of those involved to salvage it. We see the progression of friendships and family relationships, and the strains they can cause. Many of the characters attempt to reconcile following their dreams with accepting reality, often with the help of strangers. There are the musicians who relied on music and other musicians to escape from behind the Iron Curtain, both literally and figuratively. But if all this makes Nocturnes sound like a dark collection of stories and heavy meditation on human nature, I have been misleading. I found the stories overall light and pleasant – little glimpses into these musical lives, with their tragedies, oddities, and all. They are often humorous as well – Ishiguro seemed to enjoy exploring the frequent absurdity of life by placing his characters in situations that somehow involved a trophy-stuffed turkey and the boiling of an old boot. Along with these ruminations on life, music flows continuously throughout the collection. The progression within each story, and from one story to the next, has a musical quality to it. Little things, whether it is a character or an idea, come back like a refrain. At the risk of extending the musical metaphors too far, each story seemed to me like a bit of a song heard from a distance, blurry and dreamlike.

With all that said, however, I can understand why, for example, my mom didn’t care for the book. What I love so much about Ishiguro’s novels, aside from his masterful writing, is that I become so invested in them. That didn’t exist for me in Nocturnes. The nature of the short story (as great a literary form as it is) doesn’t lend itself as easily to that feeling as that of a novel. Though his characters were reminiscent of what I loved about those in his novels, particularly with the tone of their narration and reflections on memory, none of them stuck with me like his others did (I’m thinking especially of Never Let Me Go – read it). And yet, I definitely enjoyed Nocturnes. It was nice to see a change of pace from Ishiguro and experience his writing in another form – but I’ll be anxiously awaiting his next novel.

Artistic Inspiration

2009-10-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

Story of Golden Locks, Seymour Joseph Guy, c. 1870

THE DYING ANIMAL by Philip Roth

2009-10-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

I only recently fell for Philip Roth, having read and loved Goodbye, Columbus over the summer. I came across The Dying Animal in my favorite DC used bookstore (Books for America) and figured it was as good a place as any to continue with my Roth education. I was then unaware, however, that it is actually the third book in the trilogy of Professor David Kepesh novels. To appreciate The Dying Animal it is not necessary to read the other two books first – though (as I have not yet read them and do not know for sure) it may very well be that each book is more complete with the others as context. Regardless, on its own Roth’s short book provides a meditation on innate human nature and the nature of relationships between men and women.

In what could be called the book’s thesis, Professor David Kepesh insists that “No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you’re not superior to sex.” Kepesh, a product of the sexual revolution of the 60’s and longtime proponent of the freedom that it espoused, both proves and refutes this statement as he recounts his obsession with Consuela, a student of his. In his mid-sixties, he has spent his many years as a professor and public television personality bedding countless students and believing himself in control of his sexual life, until Consuela consumes him. Is it love? As he reflects on the jealousy that plagues him and his inability to stop thinking about Consuela, never does he admit to loving her – he always speaks of her in terms of a sexual obsession. Is this because he truly is only obsessed with her, or because the idea of love doesn’t fit in with the worldview he has practiced and promoted for so many years? Kepesh is on many counts – as an ex-husband, father, and teacher – an unlikeable man. In his world, women exist purely as sexual beings. Yes, he sees them as examples of beauty and acknowledges the intelligence of certain women he has known, but for him they exist primarily in terms of their sexuality. I wouldn’t accuse him of misogyny, however – both sexes exist purely as sexual beings in his view. Through Kepesh’s opinions on sex and the progression of his relationship with Consuela, the novel brings up many questions concerning love, sex, and human nature.

Though I often found myself angry at Kepesh, I think the questions he brought up are interesting and helpful in trying to define relationships (if they can be said to be definable). I am interested to read the other Kepesh novels (particularly The Breast - in which, apparently, he is metamorphosed into, of all things, a breast), though I will not be recommending this book to my parents any time soon, as it is certainly the most explicit book I’ve ever come across. A nice little surprise: I realized about halfway into the book the origin of its title. Like so many great things (Things Fall Apart, No Country For Old Men, Slouching Towards Bethlehem…) The Dying Animal takes its very appropriate title from a W.B. Yeats poem. “Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is…”

Poetic Inspiration

2009-10-11T15:24:00.001-04:00

When I Was One-And-Twenty

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

-A.E. Housman

84, CHARING CROSS ROAD by Helene Hanff

2009-10-10T18:59:00.000-04:00

I came across this delightful little book in the bookstore, where I read it in two (rather spaced out) short sittings. It is a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, an American television writer in New York, and Frank Noel (and friends), an Englishman working in an old bookshop in London. The letters begin in 1949 when Helene requests a rare book she is unable to locate in New York, and continue through 1968 upon Frank’s death. I picked it up half expecting a romantic letter-driven love story, but was actually glad to see it is not that at all – it is the progression of a unique friendship that spans the Atlantic Ocean and years.

Aside from being simply a pleasant short read featuring a whole cast of real people, the letters are interesting in that they offer a genuine view of Britain (and, to a lesser extent, America) at the time. It’s post-World War II that the staff of Marks & Co. Booksellers live in, complete with rationing, the death of a king, the ascent of Queen Elizabeth, and, eventually, the popularity of the Beatles. All these events and more are alluded to as the years advance, as such things are in letters between people of any time. Culturally the progression of the friendship between the two is funny to see, with Helene the brassy outspoken American and Frank the typically reserved Englishman writing such different kinds of letters. Helene teasingly berated Frank and his coworkers so often for neglecting to send her books that I often want to tell them, don’t worry! She’s only teasing! (but fear not, I think they knew it). Case in point: about her visit to London that all involved parties always hoped for, she wrote, “I’m gonna climb up that Victorian book-ladder and disturb the dust on the top shelves and everyone’s decorum”. Despite their differences in manners and writing styles (or probably partly because of them), their friendship and letters lasted for years – thankfully, because now we can read them.

What I took away from the book most was the desire to read more. With all their discussion of old English playwrights, poets, and writers – from Shakespeare to Donne to Austen – all I wanted to do was curl up in a library of old books and learn. In that sense, the book was inspiring and, despite its small size, packs a big punch. Apparently the book was made into a play and a movie, which I’ll have to seek out. And, perhaps even more than making me want to read, 84 Charing Cross Road made me lament the decrease in letter-writing. WHY don’t we write letters anymore?

BLACK WATER by Joyce Carol Oates

2009-10-09T00:39:00.000-04:00

With the explosion of newspaper and magazine articles that inevitably accompanied Ted Kennedy’s death this summer, I came across an editorial by Joyce Carol Oates that really got me thinking. Chappaquiddick has become part of the public consciousness and the mythology of the Kennedy family, sometimes even referred to as part of the ‘Kennedy Curse’ (which I think is absurd as it implies Ted was a victim in the event, when he in fact directly caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne). In the article, Oates reflects on what the years following the event meant for Kennedy, and what they mean now that he is gone. Is, as she asks through the words of John Berryman, “wickedness soluble in art” (or ‘good deeds’)? [Side note: this question seems especially relevant again these past few weeks, what with reemergence of the case on Roman Polanski. Ah, to be above the law like these men.] Now, I don’t know that she herself comes to a conclusion on this, or if his life has been filled with ‘good deeds,’ or even if there is a conclusion to come to; what I know is that the article moved me to read Oates’ very thinly veiled roman a clef, Black Water.

The novella tracks a day in the life (the last day) of a young woman, ‘Kelly Kelleher,’ as she attends the Fourth of July party of a friend and meets her political idol, ‘The Senator’. Oates opens the book in full force as the car the drunken senator had been driving begins to sink into the swampy water. It continues as Kelly’s mind jumps back and forth through her life as she attempts to understand what is happening to her in the time (reportedly about 4 hours at Chappaquiddick) between the moment the car entered the water and the moment of her eventual death. The book plunges us into Kelly’s thoughts as they drift in and out of coherency; her often unintelligible associations flow, from her memories and images of death to her imagined rescue, making her last hours all the more tragic. As she continues to hope and believe that the senator will return for her, even hallucinating that he does (rather than call his lawyer), I hoped alongside her while knowing the outcome and wishing it were different. Reading Black Water, one hopes this isn’t really how it happened; that the senator didn’t really use the woman’s body as a platform to propel himself to safety, that he didn’t really wait 8 hours before calling for help, that he didn’t really leave her for dead. But, sadly, we know at least some of these are true.

This is the only book I have read (so far) by the famously prolific Oates, and I find it easy to believe that is considered among her best. The unique writing style makes the story all the more tragic as we haltingly follow Kelly’s disjointed and rambling thoughts. In reading the mind of Kelly Kelleher, we are made to think of what Mary Jo Kopechne would have been thinking that night; it is there that, with Black Water, Oates makes her strongest impact.

Photographic Inspiration

2009-10-06T22:41:00.001-04:00

COMMENCEMENT by J. Courtney Sullivan

2009-10-06T01:08:00.001-04:00

Every time I entered a bookstore for much of the summer, J. Courtney Sullivan’s debut novel called to me from the new releases display. Recently, I finally gave in and got my hands on it (with the help of my library, where the abundance of readily available free books will never cease to amaze me) to see what kind of wisdom a book seemingly about commencement could impart upon a recent college graduate. It proved enlightening in more ways than one, as I found myself both identifying with its characters in familiar settings while being challenged to think about where to take my education from here and what it means to be a woman today.

The story of four close friends from Smith College, Commencement chronicles, often nonlinearly, the progression of the girls’ friendship from the start of their freshman year through their mid-twenties. I was, before I read the novel, pretty unfamiliar with Smith and its customs and hierarchies. But Sullivan paints such a vivid picture of the college – I imagine it must be a unique experience for an actual Smithie to read the book – that, upon its end, I almost felt a connection to the school. I think, however, this connection comes less from Smith itself than it does from Sullivan’s main theme: modern feminism. (Disclaimer: I have never actually studied feminist schools of thought and am speaking purely from the perspective of a female, so take this how you will.)

What the book is really about, I think, is the feminist movement in its many forms and divisions in modern America, and what this current generation of young women (myself included) can and are doing with our abundance of choices. Just as every woman is a unique representation of modern feminism in the real world, each of the girls in the book is a different kind of feminist, from the apathetic Southern belle to the radical anti-men activist. At times these different takes on feminism in the book could be isolating and even infuriating; there were times in the book in which I actively disliked some of the characters and was angered by their choices and opinions. I think, however, it was necessary for Sullivan to make her characters and their actions so polarizing, as they thus represented all sides and extremes of the debate (feminism is, after all, still a polarizing issue). All of this discussion of feminism and its place in America is only that – discussion – until we see it put onto action. As the four girls leave Smith for the ‘real world’ they each take their vastly different meanings of feminism to become very different kinds women, thus calling for reflection on the tangible effects of their kind of education and feminist thinking.

The book does not go on to explore what kind feminist idea makes a ‘successful’ woman - I don't think this is the point of the book. For all its big ideas and meditations on modern society, the heart of the novel is in the friendships of the four girls. I may not have gone to Smith, but I did go to a lovely all-girls high school and fully appreciate the unique friendships that come out of all-girls education. Still, it wasn’t the idea of Smith or any kind of all-girls school that made Commencement powerful for me. It was the exploration and admiration of the kinds of friendships that women share.

An Introduction & Mission Statement

2009-10-04T23:02:00.000-04:00

Welcome, adorable friends and friendly strangers, to my self-indulgent exploration of the wonderful world of literature. Another blog about books, you say? But why? Well, hypothetical reader, I’m aware that there are countless other blogs out there concerning the same thing and that I will be one droplet in the proverbial Internet ocean; I have, however, many reasons – both selfish and selfless – for the existence of this blog. After I finish a book, I take to the Internet to read as much as I can on the book – critics’ reception, peoples’ opinions, any available critical analysis. Here I hope to actively contribute to this conversation rather than be a silent spectator, while also providing another outlet for people looking to do the same. On a personal level, this shall be a multi-purpose blog: To keep me reading (though admittedly I don’t need a blog for that). To keep me thinking about what I am reading. To keep me writing about what I’m reading (a part of me misses the endless college English papers, if not the all-nighters that accompanied them). And to hone my critical reading and writing skills. I tend to like most things I read, though of course to different extents. It is my hope that if I am actively thinking about what made me like or dislike a certain book, I will, with practice, get better at truthfully criticizing or praising said book – and therefore further the literary education I developed with my degree in English. And, finally, I am here to explore (in the words of a Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow),

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books”