BOOKS I JUST READ

"It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes."

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:00:52 -0400

“It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.”

- Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

"It was merely the hope for less pain, hope played like a playing card upon another hope, a wish for..."

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:39:43 -0400

“It was merely the hope for less pain, hope played like a playing card upon another hope, a wish for kindnesses and mercies to emerge like kings and queens in an unexpected twist in the game. One could hold the cards or not: they would land the same way, regardless.”

- “Referential” - Lorrie Moore

WHAT BOOKS SHOULD I BRING ON VACATION? I’m thinking good but glib, something funny or...

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:13:24 -0400

WHAT BOOKS SHOULD I BRING ON VACATION?

I’m thinking good but glib, something funny or thrilling or romantic. SUGGESTIONS PLZ I AM PANICKING!

WHAT BOOKS SHOULD I PACK FOR VACATION?

"You’ll have gathered by now that I am fascinated by this story. But at the same time I think..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 10:43:24 -0400

“You’ll have gathered by now that I am fascinated by this story. But at the same time I think it’s getting to me.”

- Laurent Binet, HHhH

Men in Space

Mon, 14 May 2012 19:29:17 -0400

Men in Space would be, like, my dream man if the book were a man. It’s mysterious, European, youthful, and portends future greatness. All desirable qualities in partners and books (at least for me). There’s romance and sex and art and danger too.

Men in Space is Tom McCarthy’s first book, and as I read, I was so glad to be reading his early work. I could see the themes and style he would hone to write Remainder and C. This book is a thriller and an adventure, if a meandering and melancholy one. The characters were thoroughly European, and their isolation and expatriation seemed very genuine alongside a longing for home. It’s this European-ness that is the charming element of the novel, that lends Men in Space its gravity and dirty Communist era beauty. The men in this book have an almost uniform stubble to them.

The origins of the power and strangeness that are coming to define McCarthy’s voice are present in Men in Space, if a little less developed and fluid.

Indeed, the biggest theme I’ve found in his work is present here- art within art. In Men in Space this kaleidoscope of artistry was obvious and in your face, as the plot centers around an ancient religious painting being copied by an artist. The idea of copying art is questioned and probed, while in Remainder, McCarthy’s depictions of art become stranger and more abstract. Copying and art are again central themes, but in Remainder, there’s no physical art, just the idea of replication and comfort in its beauty. In C, the art becomes prosaic and commonplace; ancient Egyptian art crumbles underfoot and deaf students put on brilliant plays year after year to no particular praise or notice. In C, McCarthy’s depiction of art becomes scientific. He focuses on the beauty of discovering electricity and biology diagrams, and juxtaposes the research of ancient Egyptian art with its almost ignored presence. With a replica being constantly compared to its original painting in Men in Space, one can really see where these themes began.

When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka

Sat, 12 May 2012 11:32:46 -0400

Julie Otsuka’s writing, though fluid and competent and technically admirable, just didn’t do it for me. When the Emperor Was Divine was a short little novel about the heartbreaking treatment of Japanese during WWII. I think I would have preferred to read a memoir about this topic over Otsuka’s novel, because I kept wanting to know more. Otsuka’s language and her structure and her characters didn’t stop me from wondering about the internment of an entire people in America, it didn’t satisfy my curiosity. To be honest, this book was a little boring to me.

I’d been wanting to read something by Julie Otsuka for a while, because I have heard such nice things about her writing. But it seemed a little prosaic to me, not special or unusual or fascinating.

What do you call a group of...

Thu, 10 May 2012 15:24:00 -0400

What do you call a group of...:

PEOPLE…

a blush of boys a drunkship of cobblers
a hastiness of cooks
a stalk of foresters
an observance of hermits
a bevy of ladies
a faith of merchants
a superfluity of nuns
a malapertness (= impertinence) of pedlars
a pity of prisoners
a glozing (= fawning) of taverners

"McSweeney’s: The stories seem to begin with a feeling rather than with an image. Do you write from a..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:16:29 -0400

“

McSweeney’s: The stories seem to begin with a feeling rather than with an image. Do you write from a feeling? What feeling inspires a story?

Heti: The feeling of wanting to write. Which feels like being full and empty at the same time and having motion in one.

”

- An interview with Sheila Heti in McSweeney’s

"Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems that do not know where to go, and,..."

Sun, 06 May 2012 13:12:31 -0400

“Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems that do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves cannot bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.”

- Jose Saramago, Blindness

Leaving the Atocha Station

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:28:25 -0400

I’d been wanting to read Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station for a while, and finally I was just like, BUY IT AND READ IT.

Leaving the Atocha Station is one of those rare books that’s both fun and painful to read. The things that make it painful make it fun. I felt almost like a squeamish reader, for once, and kept thinking “oh no, don’t SAY that,” or “jesus not again,” or “how embarassing!” And all this inner concern and shyness was for the main character and for Ben Lerner, the writer, who either was intimately familiar with or experienced the self-deprecation, self-doubt, and low self-worth that his protagonist does. At one point, Adam gets lost in an unfamiliar city, tells his lady he’s getting coffee, and he can’t get back to her. The pit in my stomach as Adam fruitlessly searched for his way back to their hotel must have mirrored his own. Adam is pathetically smart. He gets lost on his way to get coffee.

He is stubborn in his steadfast belief that he is stupid, and this marks him as one of literature’s inevitable man-children, someone immature thrown into a terribly adult situation. That’s kind of what it feels like when he experiences a terrorist attack- he’s unequal to the task, can’t even honestly observe, as though his thoughts or feelings wouldn’t be enough for the gravity of the situation, as though his intellect can’t face death or suffering.

Lerner’s writing, deft enough to conjure stomach-pits and sympathy for an almost oafish poet, does one thing- it creates a human connection between the reader and the fictional character of Adam, who’s sympathetic in his pathetic-ness, who elicits concern when he’s doing the mentally unhealthy thing. We want to shake Adam, to get him grow, even though Lerner’s done a perfect job of letting him exist ont he page on his own, as himself.

"In the woods beyond a spot where we sat little creatures told jokes on the other little creatures..."

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:01:05 -0400

“In the woods beyond a spot where we sat little creatures told jokes on the other little creatures and clicked their nails on tree bark and skittered so the leaves waffled and twisted as they laughed their kind of laughs. From somewhere off yonder came a soft mumble of a creek dreaming a good one.”

- THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER - Daniel Woodrell

Pulitzer poll

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:22:01 -0400

strandbooks:

Lost Memory of Skin- Russell Banks

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:59:00 -0400

The title of Russell Banks’ new novel evokes so much before you even read it, but it’s only after you finish Lost Memory of Skin that the title really sinks in, that you get it, that the title tranforms from a whisper to a bold statement. The Kid, the protagonist, indeed has no memory to lose, and The Professor, an almost interloper and facilatator, has too much. The interplay between innocence and guilt, the devil and angel on the shoulder, the grayness of an intended transgression gone unrealized, these are all things Russell Banks has successfully descriped in some terse, beautiful, and observant language.

Lost Memory of Skin has flashes of Americana, indeed can be called an American novel. Only in America could the intensity of both of these men’s lives be so mundane, acceptable. One feels that Banks is among the first to actually question the condition these men exist in, a sort of mental and experience squalor. Only in the Kid’s case, it’s a physical squalor as well. The two men function as opposite ends of a teeter-totter; the Professor tries to teach the Kid responsibility and self-ownership while the Kid accidentally shows the professor a complicated inner life. Both men lack each other’s qualities, and as the book progresses the teeter-totter slowly reaches equilibrium, the men seem to become a Venn diagram of American manhood.

The flashes of Americana in Lost Memory of Skin are similar to the flashes of genius in Banks’ writing. Both are enthralling, surprising, and yet totally comfortable between the covers of this book. In Banks’ linguistic gymnastics, instead of being complicated like a back flip, sentences are strong like an arrow-straight headstand, and graceful like a perfect cartwheel.

And the Winner of the Pulitzer... Isn't - Ann Patchett

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:28:25 -0400

And the Winner of the Pulitzer... Isn't - Ann Patchett:

So much to quote, but here are my favorites:

“Wallace is not going to have another shot at a win, which makes the fact that no one could make up their minds as to whether or not he deserved it all the more heartbreaking. “

“Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important.”

The Pulitzer Saga

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:24:00 -0400

This year, there will be no Pulitzer Prize winning novel. I find this sad for a few reasons.

1. The implication that there were no stand-out novels this year is definitely there with this decision, no matter what anyone says. Now we know that isn’t true, but the fact remains that there will be no literary standard of conversation this year. Last year was fun, talking about Jennifer Egan and her Goon Squad. There was a kind of national conversation about literature that happens only a few times a year, which, fine, this year there IS a conversation, but it’s not about a book or a writer. It’s about the prize and the people behind it.

2. Book Sales. The Pulitzer really impacts book sales positively. This year, they won’t!

3. David Foster Wallace never won while alive, and while being a finalist is very special, I was a little bummed that the history books will rate this among the Pullitzer’s “scandals.” I didn’t think The Pale King was better than Swamplandia!, but I do think DFW deserves formal recognition for his work in the form of a major American literary prize.

4. I had my own hopes and excitements about who might win the Pulitzer. Russell would have been one of my frontrunners!

5. And this actually makes me happy, not sad- the internet is indeed buzzing and humming about literature and American fiction. Which is very cool! I hope this continues and some good writing comes out of it, I can’t wait to read what critics have to say about this year’s finalists, and the lack of an actual prize.

FUTURE BOOK ALERT!

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:22:20 -0400

“His first fiction since winning the National Book Award for Europe Central, William T. Vollmann’s LAST STORIES, a collection of “ghost” stories: supernatural, metaphysical, and psychological tales about love, death, and the erotic, set all over this world and the next, and THE DYING GRASS, the next novel in his “Seven Dreams,” series exploring the clash between Native Americans and White settlers, set during the Nez Perce War of 1877 with flashbacks to the Civil War.”

YAY I AM SO EXICTED FOR WILLIAM VOLLMANN GHOST STORIES!

(From Publisher’s Marketplace.)

"What he likes most of all is rising up over the clouds and then flying in sunlight. He can lean out..."

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:07:07 -0400

“What he likes most of all is rising up over the clouds and then flying in sunlight. He can lean out over the edge and see the shadow play on the whiteness below, expanding and contracting on the surface of clouds.”

- Colum McCann, “TRANSATLANTIC”

Bad Marie - Marcy Dermansky

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:53:56 -0400

Bad Marie was less a novel and more a sensory experience. Not sensory like “oh I could see this all unfolding as though it were a movie” or “I can imagine their voices.” I could feel the book all around me, like the baths Marie and Caitlin sit in, the sticky food on their fingers, the sand they walk though. Bad Marie taught a lesson in badness, about a singular badness, Marie’s badness.

Yet, all she did really seem to care about was good food. The scenes in which she’s eating become vivid, grandiose, and spectacular. The food, her nourishment, the substance that gives her energy, is all that ends up mattering. And those lush, lovely scenes stand out- macaroni and cheese, strawberry jam, croissants. These are all things that were bathed in the light of Dermansky’s writing.

Marie, less than bad, was more selfish. She was self-serving and proud of her ability to spontaneously take care of herself. She was proud to fall but prouder still to fall on her feet, to fall while taking. I saw Marie as competitive, even though she wasn’t ambitious or particularly driven. But she was competitive, even in the act of stealing a stroller from an old lady in Paris. She wanted to see herself as winning the game of life, having everything good against the odds. She wasn’t happy until she was taking something away from someone, as though her theft made her better, thievery was better than earning.

Marilynne and Paul, in conversation

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:46:57 -0400

“I only create characters whom, frankly, I love.” - Marilynne Robinson

Seeing Marilyne Robinson and Paul Harding in conversation last night at the 92Y was inspiring, and Marilynne’s reading from her new essay collection was surprisingly funny, and her voice was like a kind grandmother or a favorite professor. Which, she is, to many writers, including Paul Harding. Paul rhapsodized on her teaching skills, which Marilynne obviously values. “Values” was an oft-spoke word during the evening, as my favorite point Marilynne made was about valuing yourself. She said that one of her favorite parts of being a teacher is showing students how good a writer they can be.

Book Worship

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:54:08 -0400

Book Worship:

I love love this site.