I love Haruki Murakami. My first encounter with him was probably in a New Yorker short story, but I first discovered him the summer after graduating from college, reading Norwegian Wood. It was haunting and sad and lovely. Most of his short stories are as well. And then there is the utterly bizarre The Wind-up Bird Chronicles. This novel is fantastical and nonsensical - like a dream that seems normal while you're in it, and then you wake up and think "what?!" Like Tom Robbins. (Another re-discovery that should be on my list: Jitterbug Perfume.)
I have heard (but have no immediate source) that Murakami is somewhat derided in Japan for his embrace of Western pop culture and literary style. Having no deep knowledge of the Japanese version of either of these, I can't tell. But I do know that his commentary of the isolation and search for human connections in modern life rings true to me.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Secrets
Thanks to greenLAgirl, I am able to brighten up this blog with the occasional meme. So here goes...
Five things you didn't know about me (with a slightly literary spin):
1. I cheated on a spelling test in second grade so that I could get a perfect score. (I believe the word in question was "swiming" (sic).)
2. I had (have?) a huge crush on Ramses Emerson. (Thank you Elizabeth Peters for my absolute favorite guilty pleasure reading.)
3. Bob Saget cut in front of me in line at the buffet table during a taping of "America's Funniest Home Videos." Oh, and I was on the show too.
4. When I was 9 or 10, I penned a "tome" called "The Book about Everything." I think it was about 6 pages long.
5. I served in the honor guard at a police funeral.
Who should I tag? This isn't really my thing, but Lyen & Becky, you're up. Michael too.
Five things you didn't know about me (with a slightly literary spin):
1. I cheated on a spelling test in second grade so that I could get a perfect score. (I believe the word in question was "swiming" (sic).)
2. I had (have?) a huge crush on Ramses Emerson. (Thank you Elizabeth Peters for my absolute favorite guilty pleasure reading.)
3. Bob Saget cut in front of me in line at the buffet table during a taping of "America's Funniest Home Videos." Oh, and I was on the show too.
4. When I was 9 or 10, I penned a "tome" called "The Book about Everything." I think it was about 6 pages long.
5. I served in the honor guard at a police funeral.
Who should I tag? This isn't really my thing, but Lyen & Becky, you're up. Michael too.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Countdown to 9/11
I love the LA Public Library's "Hot off the Press" program. They make a selection of popular new books available at the branches for a 7-day loan period. So you have to read fast, but you don't have to wait forever on the hold list.
This is how I got my hands of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. It's on pretty much every best books of 2006 list, but has apparently also become fashionable to hate on as of late. (I'd provide links, but I'm on this 7 day deadline. Maybe later.) But I'm not a hater by nature, and even if I were inclined to be, I loved this book.
Messud's characters are awesome - they move in rarefied circles and are comfortable in the kind of intellectual banter that most of us don't get on a daily basis. So in some ways it's hard for me - even as a graduate of another elite university - to identify with them. On the other hand, they are charmingly flawed and selfish. And oddly enough, I love the ways that they are frustrated by the petty imperfections of those they love the most. Because after all, who doesn't carp about their friends?
Anyway, the book starts in March of 2001, and jumps through the odd numbered months through to September, to that fateful day, and then beyond to November. As the reader, you know all along what's coming, and how it will - must - affect their lives and plans. And at the same time, I at least found myself reliving my own pre-9/11 live, just out of college, and wondering if it would have been different had I known what lay ahead.
If you've read the book, let me know what you thought of the characters. I was most drawn to Danielle, and wasn't sure if that was the author's intention, or a reflection on myself. And insights into Ludo are particularly welcome.
This is how I got my hands of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. It's on pretty much every best books of 2006 list, but has apparently also become fashionable to hate on as of late. (I'd provide links, but I'm on this 7 day deadline. Maybe later.) But I'm not a hater by nature, and even if I were inclined to be, I loved this book.
Messud's characters are awesome - they move in rarefied circles and are comfortable in the kind of intellectual banter that most of us don't get on a daily basis. So in some ways it's hard for me - even as a graduate of another elite university - to identify with them. On the other hand, they are charmingly flawed and selfish. And oddly enough, I love the ways that they are frustrated by the petty imperfections of those they love the most. Because after all, who doesn't carp about their friends?
Anyway, the book starts in March of 2001, and jumps through the odd numbered months through to September, to that fateful day, and then beyond to November. As the reader, you know all along what's coming, and how it will - must - affect their lives and plans. And at the same time, I at least found myself reliving my own pre-9/11 live, just out of college, and wondering if it would have been different had I known what lay ahead.
If you've read the book, let me know what you thought of the characters. I was most drawn to Danielle, and wasn't sure if that was the author's intention, or a reflection on myself. And insights into Ludo are particularly welcome.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Snarky
This week's surprisingly quick read was Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh. First published in 1930, it details the mostly vapid lives of London's "Bright Young Things." Waugh has a sharp wit and is often very funny, but I was somewhat unsatisfied. He just seems so mean-spirited; I started feeling uncomfortable that no one had any particularly redeeming characteristics. I guess I prefer a slightly more tender bite.
But I'm willing to give Waugh another try - he was young when he wrote Vile Bodies, so I'll have to see if he softened a bit with age. Besides, how can you not love someone who writes this about the Prime Minister:
Who knew Bush was prime minister in the 20s?
But I'm willing to give Waugh another try - he was young when he wrote Vile Bodies, so I'll have to see if he softened a bit with age. Besides, how can you not love someone who writes this about the Prime Minister:
" '...You treat me like a child,' he said. It was all like one of those Cabinet meetings, when they all talked about something he didn't understand and paid no attention to him."
Who knew Bush was prime minister in the 20s?
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Re-discoveries, mad romantic
The English Patient has pulled off the accomplishment of being among my all-time favorites in both novel and movie form. (The film's soundtrack, for one, is stunning.) Michael Ondaatje is amazing - when I read the novel at age 17, I had never come across anything quite like it.
While the film has two main narratives (present and past), each goes in roughly chronological order. The novel goes into the past of more characters, and completely mixes up the chronology in favor of an unveiling, piece by piece, of the characters and their tales. And the descriptions - they are lyrical and haunting. Ondaatje has also published collections of poetry, and it shows in his prose.
God, I love this book. It's been so long since I've read it, I can't give specific details. But reading it is like stepping into a whole other world, and putting yourself into Ondaatje's very sure hands.
While the film has two main narratives (present and past), each goes in roughly chronological order. The novel goes into the past of more characters, and completely mixes up the chronology in favor of an unveiling, piece by piece, of the characters and their tales. And the descriptions - they are lyrical and haunting. Ondaatje has also published collections of poetry, and it shows in his prose.
God, I love this book. It's been so long since I've read it, I can't give specific details. But reading it is like stepping into a whole other world, and putting yourself into Ondaatje's very sure hands.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Sweet Suite
After finishing Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, I decided I needed a few days to mull over what I wanted to write here. But then I waited too long, and I have to return the book right after work. So here is my capsule review:
This novel is gorgeous - the descriptions are so lush, and the people are real even as they are archetypes. (I also loved the scene in which the cat goes exploring, arriving back at his owner's bed seconds before an air raid.) The juxtaposition of love and life with invasion and occupation is fascinating and very moving - the French were not innocent in their loss to the Germans, but nor should they be held fully accountable for collaboration. There were so many shades of grey.
But what makes the book truly amazing is the story of its genesis. Nemirovsky was a well-known writer in France before the war, a Ukrainian Jewish refugee from the Soviet Revolution. She wrote the novel essentially contemporaneously with events, and while struggling to survive. A losing battle, it turned out; she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in summer 1942. Her husband followed her a few months later, but her two daughters lived, hidden, with her notebooks.
In the 1990s, they revisited the notebooks, which were previously too great a source of pain, and discovered that in addition to notes and a journal, there was a full-fledged novel taking shape. Suite Francaise is only the first two sections of what was to be a full "suite" of France during the war and occupation, a difficult task for Nemirovsky, as she did not know France's fate. After the body of the novel, the book includes Nemirovsky's journal and notes, laying out a rough sketch of her plans for the future parts. One guiding light was Tolstoy and War and Peace, which should give you a sense of why I liked this book so much.
Anyway, it is stunning. Purely stunning. I will be looking for more of her work in translation (or possibly even in the original French).
This novel is gorgeous - the descriptions are so lush, and the people are real even as they are archetypes. (I also loved the scene in which the cat goes exploring, arriving back at his owner's bed seconds before an air raid.) The juxtaposition of love and life with invasion and occupation is fascinating and very moving - the French were not innocent in their loss to the Germans, but nor should they be held fully accountable for collaboration. There were so many shades of grey.
But what makes the book truly amazing is the story of its genesis. Nemirovsky was a well-known writer in France before the war, a Ukrainian Jewish refugee from the Soviet Revolution. She wrote the novel essentially contemporaneously with events, and while struggling to survive. A losing battle, it turned out; she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in summer 1942. Her husband followed her a few months later, but her two daughters lived, hidden, with her notebooks.
In the 1990s, they revisited the notebooks, which were previously too great a source of pain, and discovered that in addition to notes and a journal, there was a full-fledged novel taking shape. Suite Francaise is only the first two sections of what was to be a full "suite" of France during the war and occupation, a difficult task for Nemirovsky, as she did not know France's fate. After the body of the novel, the book includes Nemirovsky's journal and notes, laying out a rough sketch of her plans for the future parts. One guiding light was Tolstoy and War and Peace, which should give you a sense of why I liked this book so much.
Anyway, it is stunning. Purely stunning. I will be looking for more of her work in translation (or possibly even in the original French).
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Re-discoveries, Russian style
The random choice for this week turned out to be Resurrection, by David Remnick. It's the follow-up to his Pulitzer-Prize winning Lenin's Tomb, from his reporting from the final days of the Soviet Union. These books are stunning - and Remnick became my hero, a status that only grew when he took over at the New Yorker.
These are both long books, especially the latter, but are well worth the read. Remnick is an amazing observer, and weaves the incredible tale of Glasnost into a coherent narrative. In Resurrection, the story is the nascent Russian democracy, and the Yeltsin's struggle for reelection. It's less than ten years old, but already you can see how far the Russian republic has slipped from its post-Soviet aspirations. There was a period where the enormous wealth and corruption didn't necessarily have to lead to an autocratic president.
As a trained Russian historian, these two books are obviously a little form of nirvana (I took Lenin's Tomb with me to Italy) but anyone interested in current events and politics - or even just excellent reporting - will get a lot out of Remnick's work.
These are both long books, especially the latter, but are well worth the read. Remnick is an amazing observer, and weaves the incredible tale of Glasnost into a coherent narrative. In Resurrection, the story is the nascent Russian democracy, and the Yeltsin's struggle for reelection. It's less than ten years old, but already you can see how far the Russian republic has slipped from its post-Soviet aspirations. There was a period where the enormous wealth and corruption didn't necessarily have to lead to an autocratic president.
As a trained Russian historian, these two books are obviously a little form of nirvana (I took Lenin's Tomb with me to Italy) but anyone interested in current events and politics - or even just excellent reporting - will get a lot out of Remnick's work.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Re-discoveries
A weekly series where I comment on a book that I read before the launch of the Library
The inaugural feature, chosen semi-randomly (I ran my hand down the bookshelf) is Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker, by Ved Mehta, a long-time staff-writer at the magazine. It's a memoir of his years writing for Mr. Shawn, and an ode to Shawn's career as an editor.
I read this book a year of so after becoming enamored with the New Yorker, and its rhapsodizing tone suited my admiration. But even at the time I recognized it was a little much. Shawn wasn't superhuman. (btw, Shawn is also known for being the father of Wallace Shawn, who played Vizzini in Princess Bride)
What I liked best about this book was the detailed description of how an article makes its way from germ of idea to the pages of the magazine. And the characters that peopled the magazine during the era.
In all, a charming read :)
The inaugural feature, chosen semi-randomly (I ran my hand down the bookshelf) is Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker, by Ved Mehta, a long-time staff-writer at the magazine. It's a memoir of his years writing for Mr. Shawn, and an ode to Shawn's career as an editor.
I read this book a year of so after becoming enamored with the New Yorker, and its rhapsodizing tone suited my admiration. But even at the time I recognized it was a little much. Shawn wasn't superhuman. (btw, Shawn is also known for being the father of Wallace Shawn, who played Vizzini in Princess Bride)
What I liked best about this book was the detailed description of how an article makes its way from germ of idea to the pages of the magazine. And the characters that peopled the magazine during the era.
In all, a charming read :)
Saturday, November 18, 2006
A little bit of whimsy
I finished Literacy and Longing in L.A. this afternoon. I stick with my previous statement that it was a bit of a letdown. But still sweet. Dora may be shallow, but she is also giving. And the ending, while unsatisfyingly written, is at least satisfying in terms of plot.
One thing I loved was the occasional reference to landmarks that are part of my LA as well. Like Dutton's. Although it's called McKenzie's, the central bookstore is unmistakable. It was nice to see such a haven for books get a starring role in a novel.
On a different note, I saw The Science of Sleep tonight. Michel Gondry, who wrote and directed, is an odd one. His protagonist, Stephane, can barely tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness, and therefore often neither can we. But the love story between him and his neighbor, Stephanie, is both quirky and heartwarming. It's only in his dreams that Stephanie reassures him that they are on the right track. When awake, things never seem to go quite as well. And yet you believe it is the sleeping Stephane and Stephanie that represent the true nature of their relationship.
One thing I loved was the occasional reference to landmarks that are part of my LA as well. Like Dutton's. Although it's called McKenzie's, the central bookstore is unmistakable. It was nice to see such a haven for books get a starring role in a novel.
On a different note, I saw The Science of Sleep tonight. Michel Gondry, who wrote and directed, is an odd one. His protagonist, Stephane, can barely tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness, and therefore often neither can we. But the love story between him and his neighbor, Stephanie, is both quirky and heartwarming. It's only in his dreams that Stephanie reassures him that they are on the right track. When awake, things never seem to go quite as well. And yet you believe it is the sleeping Stephane and Stephanie that represent the true nature of their relationship.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The Westside Crazy Book Lady
No, that's not me. I still live in Hollywood, so I'm safe for now. But I'm reading Literacy and Longing in LA, a joint project by two Angelenas (is that a real term?). It's about a woman who is having a life crisis, and handles all crises by locking herself up and reading voraciously.
Much of this I can identify with. But I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed with the book so far. Dora, the protagonist, seems a little flaky, even if she is intelligent. And it's hard to believe her when she bemoans the shallowness of the Brentwood/West LA population when you discover that she lives (at 35) on a trust fund, thinks her size 12 sister seems fat (for LA, admittedly), and spends her days flitting around book stores and spying on her estranged husband.
But it IS white Los Angeles, so what is objectively shallow seems to make perfect sense within the context. I guess I just expected to identify with her more, and I'm finding that I don't want to be like her. (Although I wouldn't mind having a trust fund.)
The novel will probably grow on me. Expect a more positive review coming soon.
Much of this I can identify with. But I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed with the book so far. Dora, the protagonist, seems a little flaky, even if she is intelligent. And it's hard to believe her when she bemoans the shallowness of the Brentwood/West LA population when you discover that she lives (at 35) on a trust fund, thinks her size 12 sister seems fat (for LA, admittedly), and spends her days flitting around book stores and spying on her estranged husband.
But it IS white Los Angeles, so what is objectively shallow seems to make perfect sense within the context. I guess I just expected to identify with her more, and I'm finding that I don't want to be like her. (Although I wouldn't mind having a trust fund.)
The novel will probably grow on me. Expect a more positive review coming soon.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Plan B for the Earth - and why it needs to happen now
I have been sloooowly reading Lester R. Brown's Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. I wish it hadn't been such slow going, but lots of technical details (and repetition) have a soporific effect on me. In the end, I was pretty much reading it like an academic text - pulling out information rather than really digesting each sentence. It's the kind of book you want around as a reference, full of facts and figures and lots of suggestions.
Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute, and he is writing to attempt to save the Earth from collapse. Our use of resources is unsustainable, and even so, far too much of the planet's population lives in poverty. So Plan B is two-fold: poverty-alleviation and "earth restoration." The annual price tag for the two: $161 billion. Sounds steep, until you realize that the United States spends more than three times that much on defense each year. And we know that some of that money is being wasted. So the money is there (and in lots of other places too, for those of you Defense Dept. boosters).
While reading, I vacillated between optimism and despair. We are in bad, bad shape. And my mind still boggles: what on earth were we thinking that oil - a fossil fuel that takes eons to form - would just never run out?! Or trees? Or topsoil? But on the other hand, lots of places are doing amazing things. Sweden and Germany have reformulated their tax systems to better reflect the costs of unsustainable activities. Bogota has dramatically dropped crime while making the city more pedestrian-friendly. New technologies have so much potential for sustainable energy, water, and more - and will create new jobs at the same time.
But it's a big, overwhelming task. We need to take it seriously. As Brown puts it, "We have won a lot of local battles, but we are losing the war." It's winnable. And we have to win.
Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute, and he is writing to attempt to save the Earth from collapse. Our use of resources is unsustainable, and even so, far too much of the planet's population lives in poverty. So Plan B is two-fold: poverty-alleviation and "earth restoration." The annual price tag for the two: $161 billion. Sounds steep, until you realize that the United States spends more than three times that much on defense each year. And we know that some of that money is being wasted. So the money is there (and in lots of other places too, for those of you Defense Dept. boosters).
While reading, I vacillated between optimism and despair. We are in bad, bad shape. And my mind still boggles: what on earth were we thinking that oil - a fossil fuel that takes eons to form - would just never run out?! Or trees? Or topsoil? But on the other hand, lots of places are doing amazing things. Sweden and Germany have reformulated their tax systems to better reflect the costs of unsustainable activities. Bogota has dramatically dropped crime while making the city more pedestrian-friendly. New technologies have so much potential for sustainable energy, water, and more - and will create new jobs at the same time.
But it's a big, overwhelming task. We need to take it seriously. As Brown puts it, "We have won a lot of local battles, but we are losing the war." It's winnable. And we have to win.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
ELECTION DAY!!!
I can't concentrate at all. I don't know what I was thinking coming to work (you know, making sure future generations are civically engaged) instead of going to be a poll monitor like everyone else I know.
What would help, of course, is if I could get away from the computer and my desk and read a good book :)
And speaking of good books, I just finished one: California Uncovered, a 2005 collection of stories from Californian authors. Many of the selections are excerpts from novels, and quite a few made me curious about the larger work itself. [When I get home, I will update with some examples.] One of the editors is Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who I have liked very much since I was in college. (I've seen her at readings too - she is lovely in person.)
On the other hand are bad stories, and that is what I've been writing (see my post below). I do not think I'm cut out to be a novelist. I tried for 2 days, and had my "novel" go in about 60 different directions. I haven't given up entirely, but I'm not convinced I should write as a chore, when I can just read something instead.
Vote, vote, vote! I love Election Day. Even if I usually don't have much to cheer about.
Update: The following were my favorites
Yxta Maya Murray (from The Conquest)
Paul Beatty (from The White Boy Shuffle)
Brian Ascalon Roley (from American Son)
Khaled Hosseini (from The Kite Runner)
Dana Johnson ("Melvin in the Sixth Grade")
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ("Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter")
What would help, of course, is if I could get away from the computer and my desk and read a good book :)
And speaking of good books, I just finished one: California Uncovered, a 2005 collection of stories from Californian authors. Many of the selections are excerpts from novels, and quite a few made me curious about the larger work itself. [When I get home, I will update with some examples.] One of the editors is Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who I have liked very much since I was in college. (I've seen her at readings too - she is lovely in person.)
On the other hand are bad stories, and that is what I've been writing (see my post below). I do not think I'm cut out to be a novelist. I tried for 2 days, and had my "novel" go in about 60 different directions. I haven't given up entirely, but I'm not convinced I should write as a chore, when I can just read something instead.
Vote, vote, vote! I love Election Day. Even if I usually don't have much to cheer about.
Update: The following were my favorites
Yxta Maya Murray (from The Conquest)
Paul Beatty (from The White Boy Shuffle)
Brian Ascalon Roley (from American Son)
Khaled Hosseini (from The Kite Runner)
Dana Johnson ("Melvin in the Sixth Grade")
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ("Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter")
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Erin's Library to Climb a Mountain
Or rather, write a novel or something in the month of November.
One of the many non-books that I read is the blog LAist. Thanks to the power of its team of bloggers, I have learned about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to the cool kids). As far as I can tell (their site is sloooooow today), the NaNoWriMo folk are dedicated to proving that all you need to write a novel is a little push. Their push: 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. Along with tens of thousands of your closest friends. And they even forewarn that it'll be crap. At least, most of it. But if you're me, and you like to write but don't make the time (and don't actually have a fiction story flitting around in your conscious brain), it's a pretty cool deal. So I am in the process of signing up (like I said, the site is slow) right now.
Another driving factor: I like things you can count. I am very tangible in the way I look for results. September was 10,000 steps a day + and I took great joy in calculating the change in my average performance from week to week. (I added the equivalent of an 8th day/week of walking by the end of the month.) October was sit-up and arm weight month, with similarly numerical planned gains. It got boring around the 24th. So I was trying this morning to figure out what November would be. And what better challenge than something I would never do on my own, with word/day goals, and no exercise required :) So here I go. If the novel gets far enough to acquire a title, I'll let y'all know.
One of the many non-books that I read is the blog LAist. Thanks to the power of its team of bloggers, I have learned about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to the cool kids). As far as I can tell (their site is sloooooow today), the NaNoWriMo folk are dedicated to proving that all you need to write a novel is a little push. Their push: 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. Along with tens of thousands of your closest friends. And they even forewarn that it'll be crap. At least, most of it. But if you're me, and you like to write but don't make the time (and don't actually have a fiction story flitting around in your conscious brain), it's a pretty cool deal. So I am in the process of signing up (like I said, the site is slow) right now.
Another driving factor: I like things you can count. I am very tangible in the way I look for results. September was 10,000 steps a day + and I took great joy in calculating the change in my average performance from week to week. (I added the equivalent of an 8th day/week of walking by the end of the month.) October was sit-up and arm weight month, with similarly numerical planned gains. It got boring around the 24th. So I was trying this morning to figure out what November would be. And what better challenge than something I would never do on my own, with word/day goals, and no exercise required :) So here I go. If the novel gets far enough to acquire a title, I'll let y'all know.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Writers who read and readers who write
On my commute home, I listened to Francine Prose talk about her book Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them on KQED's radio show Forum. (What decade do you think host Michael Krasny's photo is from?)
I was a big fan of her latest novel, A Changed Man, so was curious to hear what she had to say about the craft of writing. And listening to a writer who loves books (see also Jane Smiley) talk about books is lovely. So it made up for the fact that my bus was late and then stalled, stretching the commute out to the full hour.
Prose has a list of 100+ "Books to Read Immediately" at the back of her book, so you know I'll be checking that out.
Also moving back up my list: Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers, a book that has languished because I never feel quite "ready" for it.
I was a big fan of her latest novel, A Changed Man, so was curious to hear what she had to say about the craft of writing. And listening to a writer who loves books (see also Jane Smiley) talk about books is lovely. So it made up for the fact that my bus was late and then stalled, stretching the commute out to the full hour.
Prose has a list of 100+ "Books to Read Immediately" at the back of her book, so you know I'll be checking that out.
Also moving back up my list: Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers, a book that has languished because I never feel quite "ready" for it.
Book Awards, So Cal style (and other updates)
A reunion, a car accident, and a cold later....
Erin is back with reading updates.
I re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion last week (for the book club). I think Anne Elliott is a mysterious character: not as vivacious as Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse, but not as much of a mouse as Fanny Price. She remains, yet, a bit of a cipher in relation to the strong personalities around her. But Austen remains as witty, and comfortable, and biting, and evocative as ever.
Another book that's been on my list won at the 2006 Southern California Booksellers Association awards: Literacy and Longing in L.A., by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. It's supposed to be readerly chick lit, and I'm looking forward to it as a light escape and a reminder that other people in this city are also obsessed with books.
Erin is back with reading updates.
I re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion last week (for the book club). I think Anne Elliott is a mysterious character: not as vivacious as Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse, but not as much of a mouse as Fanny Price. She remains, yet, a bit of a cipher in relation to the strong personalities around her. But Austen remains as witty, and comfortable, and biting, and evocative as ever.
Another book that's been on my list won at the 2006 Southern California Booksellers Association awards: Literacy and Longing in L.A., by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. It's supposed to be readerly chick lit, and I'm looking forward to it as a light escape and a reminder that other people in this city are also obsessed with books.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Yay!!!
I'm on my way to my college reunion, but first:
Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature
The NY Times article lede:
And the Swedish Academy:
More thoughts coming soon...
Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature
The NY Times article lede:
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize Thursday for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures.
And the Swedish Academy:
in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city [Pamuk] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.
More thoughts coming soon...
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Post-nuclear dystopias
Right in time for North Korea to go nuclear, I finished reading Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx, a tale of a future Moscow after the Blast. While some have survived (and gained virtual immortality) to remember the good old days, most know only this world: primitive and strange. Everyone has a Consequence from the radiation, ranging from extra limbs to feathers (and more).
I don't want to say too much about it, because it's going to be a future selection in our Russian literature book club. But it's a fascinating satire of Soviet Russia, as well as a deeply disturbing portrait of the Russians' historical tendency toward cults of personality.
On another note, books play a huge role in the novel, as the main character becomes obsessed with reading:
I don't want to say too much about it, because it's going to be a future selection in our Russian literature book club. But it's a fascinating satire of Soviet Russia, as well as a deeply disturbing portrait of the Russians' historical tendency toward cults of personality.
On another note, books play a huge role in the novel, as the main character becomes obsessed with reading:
I only wanted books - nothing more - only books, only words, it was never anything but words - give them to me, I don't have any!It's terrifying to imagine - what if there was nothing left to read?! Luckily, that's unlikely to ever be a problem for me! :)
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Trouble in Education
It has been a busy time at the Library. Catching up on some reading, and checking out some books for an upcoming book club. (Anyone interested in a 6 novel "history of Russian literature" group?) And also lots of work.
But on a guilty pleasure trip to the library on Saturday (I wanted a romance novel - it shall not be reviewed here, as I've already revealed too much about an occasional weakness), I finally broke down and checked out my first audio book.
I went with Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, which had been hovering at the edges of my book list. Kozol has been writing for some time about how public schooling is failing American children; this is a pretty damning indictment of our self-congratulation of Brown v. Board of Ed while letting the schools reossify into middle-class white and lower-class of color. And lest you think this is "separate but equal," curricula and even recess are entirely different matters. And how disgusting is the administrators' euphemism "diverse" for schools that are anything but, over 90% African-American. That's not diversity, it's just not whiteness.
This is a touchy subject for me, as I've wondered what I would do if I were raising my own future children in Los Angeles. I don't think most of the schools are good enough for my children; yet I believe very strongly that more middle-class families have to keep their children in struggling school systems, and work to lift them up. On a more pressing timeline, the Munchkins (aged 7 and 4) are currently attending/will attend a public elementary school, but will they have to go private or charter by junior high?
Also troubling is the relentless emphasis on teaching to the test that Kozol finds in these schools. I have never ever liked standardized testing, although in retrospect it was pretty cool to spend school time on an activity I knew I'd do well on. But precisely because I was the queen of the multiple choice exam, I never believed that it could say all that much about how smart you were. Isn't real learning and intelligence about more than that? And hearing how much time is spent on testing instead of science, history, music, PE, or the silly activities that make school fun made me so mad that I fumed down the street.
Which reminds me... I was listening to the book while walking down the street. I loaded the cds onto iTunes, and from iTunes to my iPod, and was good to go. It's definitely strange to listen to a book, but I think as it goes, nonfiction is the way to break into it. It's all written in one voice - the author's - anyway, and so it feels sort of like a lecture. It a nice way to commute (and also works for grocery shopping).
But on a guilty pleasure trip to the library on Saturday (I wanted a romance novel - it shall not be reviewed here, as I've already revealed too much about an occasional weakness), I finally broke down and checked out my first audio book.
I went with Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, which had been hovering at the edges of my book list. Kozol has been writing for some time about how public schooling is failing American children; this is a pretty damning indictment of our self-congratulation of Brown v. Board of Ed while letting the schools reossify into middle-class white and lower-class of color. And lest you think this is "separate but equal," curricula and even recess are entirely different matters. And how disgusting is the administrators' euphemism "diverse" for schools that are anything but, over 90% African-American. That's not diversity, it's just not whiteness.
This is a touchy subject for me, as I've wondered what I would do if I were raising my own future children in Los Angeles. I don't think most of the schools are good enough for my children; yet I believe very strongly that more middle-class families have to keep their children in struggling school systems, and work to lift them up. On a more pressing timeline, the Munchkins (aged 7 and 4) are currently attending/will attend a public elementary school, but will they have to go private or charter by junior high?
Also troubling is the relentless emphasis on teaching to the test that Kozol finds in these schools. I have never ever liked standardized testing, although in retrospect it was pretty cool to spend school time on an activity I knew I'd do well on. But precisely because I was the queen of the multiple choice exam, I never believed that it could say all that much about how smart you were. Isn't real learning and intelligence about more than that? And hearing how much time is spent on testing instead of science, history, music, PE, or the silly activities that make school fun made me so mad that I fumed down the street.
Which reminds me... I was listening to the book while walking down the street. I loaded the cds onto iTunes, and from iTunes to my iPod, and was good to go. It's definitely strange to listen to a book, but I think as it goes, nonfiction is the way to break into it. It's all written in one voice - the author's - anyway, and so it feels sort of like a lecture. It a nice way to commute (and also works for grocery shopping).
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Vote! (or else I'll footnote you to death)
Among other things in recent days, I've been reading Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace's collection of essays about random cultural phenomena that he has been contracted by some magazine or another to write about. He's an interesting guy - I'd like to know a little more about him. (Probably googling or wiki-ing him would work. If only I weren't too lazy to do that before writing this...)
Anyway, DFW has a reputation for being ridiculously smart and for loving the footnotes. As a tangential, full-of-asides thinker, I like this. But I still think it's a gimmick. Plus, it sometimes works better than others. In "Big Red Son," the footnotes are hilariously juxtaposed against the topic, which is porn. In "Host," the footnotes are actually placed within boxes within the body of the text, with arrows from the referring point (and sometimes more arrows to fn's about fn's, etc.) Visually kinda cool. The Dostoyevsky article, on the other hand, is too academic for footnotes, even if it seems ironic to write that. And "Up, Simba," a 2000 Rolling Stone profile of John McCain, would completely flounder if it had footnotes at all.
Which reminds me, "Up, Simba" is perhaps the most interesting article of the bunch. (Speaking as a historian.) It's an amazing reminder of how quickly political history can move. McCain's primary opponent is "the Shrub" and the journalists are in thrall to their cell phones (with pull-out antennae) and the occasional Palm Pilot. Imagine political wonks now without their Blackberries. And DFW's commentary on voter apathy and politician sincerity and the staged artifice of the whole campaign trail is like crack for this post-West Wing viewer. And since political engagement is near and dear to my heart, I was particularly impressed by this passage:
And this is backed up by all sorts of anecdotal evidence, btw. Anyway, I'm planning to use this argument whenever I can. It's the kind of thing that you know on some level, but sometimes need spelled out for you. At least I think so.
I'm going to put Infinite Jest, DFW's novel, on my reading list. I need the extra information to determine what exactly I think of this hyper-erudite writer.
Anyway, DFW has a reputation for being ridiculously smart and for loving the footnotes. As a tangential, full-of-asides thinker, I like this. But I still think it's a gimmick. Plus, it sometimes works better than others. In "Big Red Son," the footnotes are hilariously juxtaposed against the topic, which is porn. In "Host," the footnotes are actually placed within boxes within the body of the text, with arrows from the referring point (and sometimes more arrows to fn's about fn's, etc.) Visually kinda cool. The Dostoyevsky article, on the other hand, is too academic for footnotes, even if it seems ironic to write that. And "Up, Simba," a 2000 Rolling Stone profile of John McCain, would completely flounder if it had footnotes at all.
Which reminds me, "Up, Simba" is perhaps the most interesting article of the bunch. (Speaking as a historian.) It's an amazing reminder of how quickly political history can move. McCain's primary opponent is "the Shrub" and the journalists are in thrall to their cell phones (with pull-out antennae) and the occasional Palm Pilot. Imagine political wonks now without their Blackberries. And DFW's commentary on voter apathy and politician sincerity and the staged artifice of the whole campaign trail is like crack for this post-West Wing viewer. And since political engagement is near and dear to my heart, I was particularly impressed by this passage:
If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary [replacable with Election - ed.] day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.
And this is backed up by all sorts of anecdotal evidence, btw. Anyway, I'm planning to use this argument whenever I can. It's the kind of thing that you know on some level, but sometimes need spelled out for you. At least I think so.
I'm going to put Infinite Jest, DFW's novel, on my reading list. I need the extra information to determine what exactly I think of this hyper-erudite writer.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Not the most uplifting of reading...
I finished Disgrace (J.M. Coetzee) sometime in the last week or so. I haven't written about it mainly because I wasn't sure what to say. Sometime, with the book club selections, it seems to work best to blog my review after the meeting, and incorporate others' views into my own coalesced opinion.
But I got bored of waiting. This novel is filled with disturbing events and internal reveries. In this respect, it reflects - sometimes overtly, sometimes implicitly - the confusion and readjustment of whites (even liberal ones) to the post-apartheid world. Sex is potent as a symbol of asserting manliness and power - as a weapon, a reassurance of attraction, etc. It reminded me a lot of Philip Roth in this respect. (I'm not very convinced that male authors like women very much. Are they representative of the average man's secret fears? I'd prefer to think not.) But there is also a generational dispute between the male pro(?)tagonist and his daughter. Like in Fathers and Sons (thanks to Michael and a review he found for the comparison), in a time of change and confusion, the eternal struggle between parents and children is freighted with extra meaning.
But attempts of erudition aside, what was most striking about Disgrace was how much of it I spent wanting to cover my eyes, urging the main character "What are you thinking?! - Stop." It's not that much fun, and I'm not totally convinced that it deserved the Booker.
For all my ambivalence, however, Disgrace is a far more accomplished novel than the one I just finished: Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. It made it onto my reading list after a promising review earlier this year. Set in a research lab in the mid-80s, Intuition addresses the ups and downs of scientific research and the intuitions (hence the title) that lead people to monomaniacal obsession with proving their instincts correct. In the end, intuition can ruin relationships.
Intuition is a fascinating topic for a book on scientific inquiry, a field that is supposedly ruled by reason and empirical evidence. And Goodman starts out with a fast pace, drawing interesting characters and setting up several intriguing story arcs. But around half-way through, it fizzles out, and the last hundred or more pages was just a slog to the finish. I also wondered why Goodman set the novel in Boston of 1986 rather than today - it was never clear to me why an era two decades past was crucial to her story.
So both books are pretty much downers, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say I disliked either, neither managed to capture my imagination for very long.
But I got bored of waiting. This novel is filled with disturbing events and internal reveries. In this respect, it reflects - sometimes overtly, sometimes implicitly - the confusion and readjustment of whites (even liberal ones) to the post-apartheid world. Sex is potent as a symbol of asserting manliness and power - as a weapon, a reassurance of attraction, etc. It reminded me a lot of Philip Roth in this respect. (I'm not very convinced that male authors like women very much. Are they representative of the average man's secret fears? I'd prefer to think not.) But there is also a generational dispute between the male pro(?)tagonist and his daughter. Like in Fathers and Sons (thanks to Michael and a review he found for the comparison), in a time of change and confusion, the eternal struggle between parents and children is freighted with extra meaning.
But attempts of erudition aside, what was most striking about Disgrace was how much of it I spent wanting to cover my eyes, urging the main character "What are you thinking?! - Stop." It's not that much fun, and I'm not totally convinced that it deserved the Booker.
For all my ambivalence, however, Disgrace is a far more accomplished novel than the one I just finished: Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. It made it onto my reading list after a promising review earlier this year. Set in a research lab in the mid-80s, Intuition addresses the ups and downs of scientific research and the intuitions (hence the title) that lead people to monomaniacal obsession with proving their instincts correct. In the end, intuition can ruin relationships.
Intuition is a fascinating topic for a book on scientific inquiry, a field that is supposedly ruled by reason and empirical evidence. And Goodman starts out with a fast pace, drawing interesting characters and setting up several intriguing story arcs. But around half-way through, it fizzles out, and the last hundred or more pages was just a slog to the finish. I also wondered why Goodman set the novel in Boston of 1986 rather than today - it was never clear to me why an era two decades past was crucial to her story.
So both books are pretty much downers, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say I disliked either, neither managed to capture my imagination for very long.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Cricket - c.1989-2006
this is my fuzzy little princess, seen last ChristmasOn a day tailormade for memorials, it saddens me to add to the bunch Cricket, my (parents') tortoiseshell who was terrified of just about everything, and a little bit bitchy, but all in all a very sweet little cat.
She became part of our household in July 1995; she came into the animal shelter in a carrier while we were there and settled into my mother's arms before ever going into a shelter cage. And though she hid for the first few days in our house, and was later pestered by her rambunctious fellow kitty Mikey, she settled in. We named her Cricket after the squeaky noise she made, although she came to whine imperiously more than squeak. And even though she had been ailing for quite some time, it is still a shock to lose her.
Lest you be thinking this is unrelated to books, Cricket used to like to lie on my back or the back of my legs if I was reading on my stomach. (Each of my cats has had a different way of reading with me. Pushy used to like to curl up under my chin and drool on the pages; Mikey would prefer to swish his tail in front of my face so that I couldn't see.)
Farewell Cricket. We've loved you very much.
She became part of our household in July 1995; she came into the animal shelter in a carrier while we were there and settled into my mother's arms before ever going into a shelter cage. And though she hid for the first few days in our house, and was later pestered by her rambunctious fellow kitty Mikey, she settled in. We named her Cricket after the squeaky noise she made, although she came to whine imperiously more than squeak. And even though she had been ailing for quite some time, it is still a shock to lose her.
Lest you be thinking this is unrelated to books, Cricket used to like to lie on my back or the back of my legs if I was reading on my stomach. (Each of my cats has had a different way of reading with me. Pushy used to like to curl up under my chin and drool on the pages; Mikey would prefer to swish his tail in front of my face so that I couldn't see.)
Farewell Cricket. We've loved you very much.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Meme, or, How I Learned a New Word Today
Until this afternoon, meme was one of those words (like trope and singularity had once been) that I vaguely knew but mostly dismissed as pretention. Until I got tagged by greenLAgirl, accused of falling for a pyramid scheme by Michael, and figured it was time I got an official definition. Hooray for Dictionary.com which built on Michael's expanded definition of "chain letter/thought virus" and explained that a meme was from same Latin root as "mime" and is "a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." Like a gene, except of ideas.
Anyway, but I believe I was tagged to talk about my literary tastes, not my fondness for etymology. So, without further ado:
A book that changed my life
The Fall of a Sparrow, by Robert Hellenga. Friends have challenged this one, but I read it at the exactly the right moment, in the right place.
A book I’ve read more than once
Emma, by Jane Austen. Possibly my all-time favorite book.
A book I’d take with me if I were stuck on a desert island
I am leaning toward Tolstoy, and War and Peace for the epic sweep. But I would also consider The Bible (King James), since I haven't read much of it and I'd have the time to consider a lot of stories.
A book that made me laugh
Anything by Helen Fielding - I am particularly fond of two that I know made me laugh aloud in public: Cause Celeb and Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination
A book that made me cry
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. That book tore me apart inside.
A book that I wish had been written
My dissertation? It was going to be on life behind the lines (i.e. where they sent all the promising students and most of the government) in Soviet Union during WWII.
A book that I wish had never been written
So many books have inspired hatred and violence - I could choose one of them. But I won't, because I don't seem to be able to find it in me to wish a book unwritten.
A book I’ve been meaning to read
I've had Herodotus' Histories on the backburner since I got through half of it the first week of my graduate program. Also at least 30 others.
I’m currently reading
In addition to my pile of New Yorkers, I have begun Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee.
Mr. Library (better known to some as the voice behind Vibes Watch) has graciously consented to be tagged. And I am realizing that my blogroll is pretty limited. So.... help me build it up, yo. I recognize that Rahul is probably above this, but just in case, I'll try tagging him too. As well as HH, whose i8 I just discovered. Will you come to LA and cook for me?
Anyway, but I believe I was tagged to talk about my literary tastes, not my fondness for etymology. So, without further ado:
A book that changed my life
The Fall of a Sparrow, by Robert Hellenga. Friends have challenged this one, but I read it at the exactly the right moment, in the right place.
A book I’ve read more than once
Emma, by Jane Austen. Possibly my all-time favorite book.
A book I’d take with me if I were stuck on a desert island
I am leaning toward Tolstoy, and War and Peace for the epic sweep. But I would also consider The Bible (King James), since I haven't read much of it and I'd have the time to consider a lot of stories.
A book that made me laugh
Anything by Helen Fielding - I am particularly fond of two that I know made me laugh aloud in public: Cause Celeb and Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination
A book that made me cry
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. That book tore me apart inside.
A book that I wish had been written
My dissertation? It was going to be on life behind the lines (i.e. where they sent all the promising students and most of the government) in Soviet Union during WWII.
A book that I wish had never been written
So many books have inspired hatred and violence - I could choose one of them. But I won't, because I don't seem to be able to find it in me to wish a book unwritten.
A book I’ve been meaning to read
I've had Herodotus' Histories on the backburner since I got through half of it the first week of my graduate program. Also at least 30 others.
I’m currently reading
In addition to my pile of New Yorkers, I have begun Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee.
Mr. Library (better known to some as the voice behind Vibes Watch) has graciously consented to be tagged. And I am realizing that my blogroll is pretty limited. So.... help me build it up, yo. I recognize that Rahul is probably above this, but just in case, I'll try tagging him too. As well as HH, whose i8 I just discovered. Will you come to LA and cook for me?
Three Lucys
A glimpse at three characters sharing the Library "Name of the Week":
Temptress and Madonna, these Lucys. Or maybe simply Eve. The former two are the magical women at the heart of Daniel Wallace's The Watermelon King; the latter is the stable daughter of a unstable academic in J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, my current read and next book club selection.
She wore the prettiest sundresses, white and yellow and covered with blue and purple flowers. All wavy and loose. Sometimes she'd wear her hair up, to give her neck some air she said, and she looked nice that way. But then when she'd take it down, the way it tumbled off her heead and rolled across her shoulders in waves, and colored like fire, the way fire is not just one color but about seven, all becoming one another over and back again: that was her hair.
There was something that she did to me, just looking at her, knowing she was close. That was all I did, of course: look, pass her in the hallway on the way to supper, smell the scent of her in my room after she'd cleaned it, her presence everywhere, in this house, on my mind, her note in my pocket.
Now here she is, flowered dress, bare feet and all, in a house full of the smell of baking, no longer a child playing at farmng but a solid countrywoman, a boervrou.
Temptress and Madonna, these Lucys. Or maybe simply Eve. The former two are the magical women at the heart of Daniel Wallace's The Watermelon King; the latter is the stable daughter of a unstable academic in J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, my current read and next book club selection.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The Watermelon King
My "books to read" list - at least the one I currently use - dates back to Christmas 2002, when Michael purchased me an adorable book-tracking book. It has served me quite happily. So no entry on the list is even four years old. Yet I cannot for the life of me remember the circumstances that led me to put Daniel Wallace's The Watermelon King on the list. But list it I did, and this past weekend, I actually got around to reading it.
It came as a bit of a surprise. In addition to a quirky title, it had a quirky design. (You can see the cover here.) And this is when I discovered that it was by the author of Big Fish, the 2003 film directed by Tim Burton and starring Ewan McGregor. I watched this movie with my parents (it is right up their alley); while I found it sweet, I couldn't imagine seeking out works by the author. And yet apparently I had. Anyway, on with the book...
The Watermelon King is set in the same fictional town as Big Fish - Ashland, Alabama. And in both stories, a young man is in search of a parent's past; in both, the father figure has created a world of fabulous tales that cannot be believed. But perhaps they should be.
Wallace's characters are mostly caricature, and yet roughly plausible, even when the events befalling them are not. In TWK, our hero Thomas Rider spends the first half of the novel allowing them to speak for themselves, and make their case about their role in his mother's life and death. And once he takes over the narrative, events again converge in a way that sweeps everyone in the town along with it. The journey's end is mostly predictable; the past that leads you there is not quite.
I enjoyed reading TWK. It passes quickly and has a strong forward momentum. I started it while lying on the beach, which may be why I would label it "beach reading." More accurately, it's for a wicker chair on a veranda (a porch will do) on a sticky afternoon, with a pitcher of lemonade by your side.
It came as a bit of a surprise. In addition to a quirky title, it had a quirky design. (You can see the cover here.) And this is when I discovered that it was by the author of Big Fish, the 2003 film directed by Tim Burton and starring Ewan McGregor. I watched this movie with my parents (it is right up their alley); while I found it sweet, I couldn't imagine seeking out works by the author. And yet apparently I had. Anyway, on with the book...
The Watermelon King is set in the same fictional town as Big Fish - Ashland, Alabama. And in both stories, a young man is in search of a parent's past; in both, the father figure has created a world of fabulous tales that cannot be believed. But perhaps they should be.
Wallace's characters are mostly caricature, and yet roughly plausible, even when the events befalling them are not. In TWK, our hero Thomas Rider spends the first half of the novel allowing them to speak for themselves, and make their case about their role in his mother's life and death. And once he takes over the narrative, events again converge in a way that sweeps everyone in the town along with it. The journey's end is mostly predictable; the past that leads you there is not quite.
I enjoyed reading TWK. It passes quickly and has a strong forward momentum. I started it while lying on the beach, which may be why I would label it "beach reading." More accurately, it's for a wicker chair on a veranda (a porch will do) on a sticky afternoon, with a pitcher of lemonade by your side.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
The Secret Life of Books
Normally I don't have that much patience for essays about how "readerly" a person is - I kind of find it annoying. Maybe because I like to believe that I'm an iconoclast, and whenever other people proclaim their allegiance to books I'm like "uh, poseur" or "oh, maybe I'm not so unique."
But for whatever reason, I was touched by Dana Gioia's essay in a recent issue of Stanford magazine. It's about his childhood as a reader - definitely going against the grain in his immigrant, working-class community. And the way that reading opened new vistas. I had already learned that Gioia is a reader by compulsion, but was nonetheless moved by his phraseology:
I've argued with others whether it's better to observe or do. I usually end up feeling like I'm losing out by liking to read my adventures rather than live them. But Gioia argues that the lives we read are our own and intensely real as well, something I've felt intuitively but not heard often enough from others. So despite the fact that he is part of the Administration as head of the National Endowment for the Arts, he gets a little star from Erin's Library.
But for whatever reason, I was touched by Dana Gioia's essay in a recent issue of Stanford magazine. It's about his childhood as a reader - definitely going against the grain in his immigrant, working-class community. And the way that reading opened new vistas. I had already learned that Gioia is a reader by compulsion, but was nonetheless moved by his phraseology:
every true reader has a secret life, which is equally intense, complex and important. The books we read are no different from the people we meet or the cities we visit. Some books, people or places hardly matter, others change our lives, and still others plant some idea or sentiment that influences our futures. No one else will ever read, reread or misread the same books in the same way or in the same order. Our inner lives are as rich and real as our outer lives, even if they remain mostly unknowable to others. Perhaps that is why books matter so much. They serve as our intimate companions. Some books guide us. Others lead us astray. A few rescue or redeem us. All of them confide something of the wonder, joy, terror and mystery of being alive.
I've argued with others whether it's better to observe or do. I usually end up feeling like I'm losing out by liking to read my adventures rather than live them. But Gioia argues that the lives we read are our own and intensely real as well, something I've felt intuitively but not heard often enough from others. So despite the fact that he is part of the Administration as head of the National Endowment for the Arts, he gets a little star from Erin's Library.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Adieu Mahfouz
It turns out that I read Palace Walk at a relevant time. Nobel Prize-winner (the first to write in Arabic) Naguib Mahfouz has passed away. He was 94 and had been ailing since a fall earlier in the summer. His death is a reminder to me that we may be losing a generation of authors that create sweeping, epic views of a place and time. The Latin American magical realist authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez are aging. Young English-language writers like Jonathan Safran Foer maintain the magic and sympathetic voice, but are often gimmickly; other novels, like Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, show society through a family's life but are harsher and more sarcastic in tone. I personally like empathy.
But back to Mahfouz. He essentially popularized the novel for Arabic audiences and brought Egypt to life at the same time. Some excerpts from the NY Times obit:
update: Here is the LA Times' obit. It's very prettily written.
But back to Mahfouz. He essentially popularized the novel for Arabic audiences and brought Egypt to life at the same time. Some excerpts from the NY Times obit:
Mr. Mahfouz’s city was teeming Cairo, and his characters were its most ordinary people: civil servants and bureaucrats, grocers, shopkeepers, poor retirees, petty thieves and prostitutes, peasants and women brutalized by tradition, a people caught in the upheavals of a nation struggling through the 20th century.
[He] was often called the Egyptian Balzac for his vivid frescoes of Cairenes and their social, political and religious dilemmas. Critics compared his richly detailed Cairo with the London of Charles Dickens, the Paris of Émile Zola and the St. Petersburg of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Peter Theroux, the American translator of several major Arab novelists, wrote about completing a new version of “Children of the Alley” in 1996: “Readers of Mahfouz in any language are in thrall to his magic. The warmth of Mahfouz’s characters, the velocity of his storytelling, his gift for fluent dialogue and telling details are unique in modern Arabic literature.”
update: Here is the LA Times' obit. It's very prettily written.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Generation Gaps
I just reread Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. It's been about 10 years and a whole lot of growing up in the interim, so I was pleased to discover that many of my initial insights still seemed sound: parents and children will always struggle to simultaneously bridge and widen the gap between them; it's tragic when people are so wrapped up with negation that they deny themselves the joy of ever embracing anything; you can enjoy both a simple, sweet love story and a passionate one.
But knowing Russian history and literature enriched the story in so many ways. Reform and revolution were really starting to take hold in younger generations, and the reform had to choose between Europhilism and Slavophilism - learning from the (to be freed) serfs or teaching them, elitism or back-to-the-soil-ism. So after generations of a relatively static caste system, there was about to be room for limited social mobility, and plenty of anxiety about how that would look. The novel was published in 1862 and set in 1859 or '60, and make no mistake - this was a seminal moment in Russian history and book is firmly grounded in it. It is not an explanation of primitive Russian through the ages.
However, what makes it work for a Western audience is that the relationship between fathers and sons (i.e. parents and children) is a universal one, even in harmonious times. And certainly, the generation gaps between Boomers and their parents, and Xers and Boomers are part of the contemporary American consciousness - so we are predisposed to identify with the story of an older generation battling to maintain its hold on society while its children begin their inevitable march to dominance.
I like Turgenev quite a bit. His descriptions and characterizations are vivid, and his attention to detail - finding wonder in the smallest events - lovely. A wonderful introduction to mid-19th century Russia, a place of turmoil and boredom, impoverishment and beauty.
But knowing Russian history and literature enriched the story in so many ways. Reform and revolution were really starting to take hold in younger generations, and the reform had to choose between Europhilism and Slavophilism - learning from the (to be freed) serfs or teaching them, elitism or back-to-the-soil-ism. So after generations of a relatively static caste system, there was about to be room for limited social mobility, and plenty of anxiety about how that would look. The novel was published in 1862 and set in 1859 or '60, and make no mistake - this was a seminal moment in Russian history and book is firmly grounded in it. It is not an explanation of primitive Russian through the ages.
However, what makes it work for a Western audience is that the relationship between fathers and sons (i.e. parents and children) is a universal one, even in harmonious times. And certainly, the generation gaps between Boomers and their parents, and Xers and Boomers are part of the contemporary American consciousness - so we are predisposed to identify with the story of an older generation battling to maintain its hold on society while its children begin their inevitable march to dominance.
I like Turgenev quite a bit. His descriptions and characterizations are vivid, and his attention to detail - finding wonder in the smallest events - lovely. A wonderful introduction to mid-19th century Russia, a place of turmoil and boredom, impoverishment and beauty.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
I found the plot
I finished Palace Walk last night and in the last 100 pages or so I found the plot. It is indeed the story of a family, and how external events (the Egyptian independence moving following the Great War) threaten to tear a happy equilibrium apart.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and will definitely read the others in the trilogy. My main quibble with Mahfouz concerns his use of stream-of-consciousness when he enters the heads of his characters. It is a useful tool for showing their internal contradictions and how they rationalize them away - but sometimes the streams are so convoluted as to be almost unreadable. Juxtaposed against the rest of his prose, these passages can be jarring. (*In fairness, this could be the fault of the translation. If anyone reads Arabic and wants to find the book and let me know, I'd be curious to find out.)
Also, if you think you might like Mahfouz but aren't in the mood for a 500 page starter novel, I also recommend the slim Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth. Weighing in at less than 200 pages, you can get a taste of Mahfouz as well as a fascinating fictionalized account of a monotheistic pharoah and his beautiful wife Nefertiti.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and will definitely read the others in the trilogy. My main quibble with Mahfouz concerns his use of stream-of-consciousness when he enters the heads of his characters. It is a useful tool for showing their internal contradictions and how they rationalize them away - but sometimes the streams are so convoluted as to be almost unreadable. Juxtaposed against the rest of his prose, these passages can be jarring. (*In fairness, this could be the fault of the translation. If anyone reads Arabic and wants to find the book and let me know, I'd be curious to find out.)
Also, if you think you might like Mahfouz but aren't in the mood for a 500 page starter novel, I also recommend the slim Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth. Weighing in at less than 200 pages, you can get a taste of Mahfouz as well as a fascinating fictionalized account of a monotheistic pharoah and his beautiful wife Nefertiti.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Old-timey Cairo
When my dear friends Lisa and Mariam up and moved to Cairo on me, I was envious, albeit not envious enough to drop everything and join them. I am fascinated by Egypt and its loooooong history, and how ancient Egyptian culture, Arab Muslim culture, and international globalism all come together there. (One thing I did learn from my favorite correspondents: there is a class of people who are "recyclers" and in the end virtually all trash ends up reused somehow.)
And yet, instead of reading about modern Egypt, I keep ending up with books that go back almost 100 years. This selection is by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz: Palace Walk, the first in his "Cairo Trilogy." Published in the 1950s, the novel seemed (to me) as though it could have taken place at any time, until the war, a hope for German victory, and Australian occupiers arises. Even then, it took me at least another 100 pages until I realized that this was World War I, not II. And now, sheepish about my lack of knowledge of Mediterranean history during the World Wars, I am grounded in the novel itself.
Palace Walk takes the reader into the lives of an upper-middle class Cairene family. The husband is a tyrant to his family, but hedonistic and charming with his friends and the ladies. One son takes after his father (but doesn't know it), another is a serious law student, and the third a naive and rambunctious youngster. The daughters are sweet, dutiful, and largely reconciled to having their lives sheltered from the outside world. The younger is a ravishing blonde; the elder capable and caustic, but unfortunately plagued with a big nose which may or may not stymie their marriage options.
And then there is the mother, Amina. She suffers with a distant and stern husband, but over the years has forgotten that she is, compared to other Cairene wives, suffering indeed. Her world revolves around custom, routine, and her beloved family.
I'm two-thirds through the book (which is 500 pages long), and haven't quite figured out whether there is a strict plot and upcoming climax. It is in some ways more like the Tolstoyan life-of-a-family epics. But I guess Mahfouz has another 2 volumes to make his narrative arc. Regardless, it's a beautiful book, and very evocative in its depiction of the scenes and sounds of colonial Cairo.
And yet, instead of reading about modern Egypt, I keep ending up with books that go back almost 100 years. This selection is by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz: Palace Walk, the first in his "Cairo Trilogy." Published in the 1950s, the novel seemed (to me) as though it could have taken place at any time, until the war, a hope for German victory, and Australian occupiers arises. Even then, it took me at least another 100 pages until I realized that this was World War I, not II. And now, sheepish about my lack of knowledge of Mediterranean history during the World Wars, I am grounded in the novel itself.
Palace Walk takes the reader into the lives of an upper-middle class Cairene family. The husband is a tyrant to his family, but hedonistic and charming with his friends and the ladies. One son takes after his father (but doesn't know it), another is a serious law student, and the third a naive and rambunctious youngster. The daughters are sweet, dutiful, and largely reconciled to having their lives sheltered from the outside world. The younger is a ravishing blonde; the elder capable and caustic, but unfortunately plagued with a big nose which may or may not stymie their marriage options.
And then there is the mother, Amina. She suffers with a distant and stern husband, but over the years has forgotten that she is, compared to other Cairene wives, suffering indeed. Her world revolves around custom, routine, and her beloved family.
I'm two-thirds through the book (which is 500 pages long), and haven't quite figured out whether there is a strict plot and upcoming climax. It is in some ways more like the Tolstoyan life-of-a-family epics. But I guess Mahfouz has another 2 volumes to make his narrative arc. Regardless, it's a beautiful book, and very evocative in its depiction of the scenes and sounds of colonial Cairo.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Another Egyptian Mystery
The information hasn't made it onto this blog, but many of my readers will know that I am a sucker for Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries. Peabody is a sassy archeologist in turn-of-the-(20th)century Egypt, and the matriarch of a menagerie of humans and cats. (She is also the mother of Ramses, who over the course of the series proceeds from precocious pest to broodingly romantic hero and a personal favorite fictional character.)
But I digress, as this post is actually about my Maine trip reading, Arthur Phillips' The Archeologist. Set mostly in 1922, the novel is concerned with a young archeologist, Ralph Trilipush, and his drive to discover the tomb of the mysterious early king (not Pharoah, we are instructed) and erotic poet Atum-hadu. The narrative is formed of Trilipush's journal and correspondence from Egypt back to Boston, where his funders and fiancee await, as well as letters from Mr. Ferrell, written three decades later, to the fiancee's nephew, about how he, an Australian private investigator, found himself intangled in the Trilipush case. Which, we eventually find, is filled with intrigue, murder, pretense, and a search for a king that may or may not exist.
I would stretch to make any but the most general comparisons between Phillips work and Peters' series. [On second thought, I am finding more similarities.] Peters has a doctorate in Egyptology, which grounds her works in serious scholarship, but is also aware that she is writing swashbuckling romantic mysteries at the same time. Phillips, googling reveals, was inspired by a scrap of letter to base a novel on the unfamilar topic of Egyptology. (One thing both authors do is integrate famous archeologists such as Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut's tomb, into their work.)
Phillips' characters are enigmas, appearing through their own or others' writing. And everyone has good reason to misrepresent him or herself. Thus the reader must determine how much to trust, and which lines to read between. This can get tiresome, and I imagine some readers will put the book down rather than do so. However, it does make for an entertaining psychological mystery. To say more would reveal too much.
I was a big fan of Phillips' 2002 novel, Prague (set in Budapest, of course). Only mixed reviews kept me away from his follow-up until now. After reading both, I can say that is a more ambitious novel, but that The ArcheologistPrague is the more satisfying and successful.
But I digress, as this post is actually about my Maine trip reading, Arthur Phillips' The Archeologist. Set mostly in 1922, the novel is concerned with a young archeologist, Ralph Trilipush, and his drive to discover the tomb of the mysterious early king (not Pharoah, we are instructed) and erotic poet Atum-hadu. The narrative is formed of Trilipush's journal and correspondence from Egypt back to Boston, where his funders and fiancee await, as well as letters from Mr. Ferrell, written three decades later, to the fiancee's nephew, about how he, an Australian private investigator, found himself intangled in the Trilipush case. Which, we eventually find, is filled with intrigue, murder, pretense, and a search for a king that may or may not exist.
Phillips' characters are enigmas, appearing through their own or others' writing. And everyone has good reason to misrepresent him or herself. Thus the reader must determine how much to trust, and which lines to read between. This can get tiresome, and I imagine some readers will put the book down rather than do so. However, it does make for an entertaining psychological mystery. To say more would reveal too much.
I was a big fan of Phillips' 2002 novel, Prague (set in Budapest, of course). Only mixed reviews kept me away from his follow-up until now. After reading both, I can say that is a more ambitious novel, but that The ArcheologistPrague is the more satisfying and successful.
The History of Love
So much for the lazy summer days (post-Nationals, at least) of my youth. Summer of '06 has had a whirlwind quality to it thus far. While I've been reading steadily, I've been posting practically not at all. But I'm here today, the last of my vacation, catching up.
Last month's book club selection was Nicole Krauss' The History of Love. I can't mention it without the aside that she is married to Jonathan Safran Foer and they are an obnoxiously talented and successful young couple. Hmph. But I can't be too grudging about it, because they are both lovely and soulful writers who have truly touched me.
The History of Love is a little too complicated to explain, but as a rough outline it follows the tale of a book "The History of Love," and its impact on its elderly author and the teenage namesake of its heroine. Plus assorted other characters. There are enough twists to keep you guessing, and while I'm pretty sure I've figured it all out by now, I am apt to agree with my librarian Adele, who claims that the novel reveals new insights upon further readings.
I found the two main characters, Leo and Alma (the younger), utterly heartbreaking and charming. Their idiosyncracies made them recognizable and above all human. And while all the characters live to various extents in worlds of their own making, their attempts to bridge distances and create connections are both funny and touching. The note Leo wears on his lapel when he goes out is just one example.
The night I finished reading, I found myself lying in bed weeping, not of our sorrow, but because of an overabundance of emotion. Krauss, like her husband, is expert at probing emotional soft spots, and manipulating them in ways that aren't overbearing, but leave lasting marks.
Last month's book club selection was Nicole Krauss' The History of Love. I can't mention it without the aside that she is married to Jonathan Safran Foer and they are an obnoxiously talented and successful young couple. Hmph. But I can't be too grudging about it, because they are both lovely and soulful writers who have truly touched me.
The History of Love is a little too complicated to explain, but as a rough outline it follows the tale of a book "The History of Love," and its impact on its elderly author and the teenage namesake of its heroine. Plus assorted other characters. There are enough twists to keep you guessing, and while I'm pretty sure I've figured it all out by now, I am apt to agree with my librarian Adele, who claims that the novel reveals new insights upon further readings.
I found the two main characters, Leo and Alma (the younger), utterly heartbreaking and charming. Their idiosyncracies made them recognizable and above all human. And while all the characters live to various extents in worlds of their own making, their attempts to bridge distances and create connections are both funny and touching. The note Leo wears on his lapel when he goes out is just one example.
The night I finished reading, I found myself lying in bed weeping, not of our sorrow, but because of an overabundance of emotion. Krauss, like her husband, is expert at probing emotional soft spots, and manipulating them in ways that aren't overbearing, but leave lasting marks.
Friday, July 14, 2006
More on Turkey
Turkish authors and the Turkish past has been a recurring theme on this blog - which is strange because I didn't know I was so interested in the subject. The latest news is a new defamation case. This one isn't about Orhan Pamuk, thank goodness, but is in many ways more troubling.
Author Elif Sharak is facing jail time over her new novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
Author Elif Sharak is facing jail time over her new novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
Shafak's book is the story of an Armenian family in San Francisco and a Turkish family in Istanbul whose lives intersect over nine decades.Did you catch that? What a fictional character says is grounds for a defamation case against the author?! I hope that Turkish society can move past the censors and nationalists that want to prevent a national dialogue about a tragic and complicated time in Turkey's history.
Its references to the slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during and after World War I are by Shafak's own admission "difficult to digest" because the overwhelming majority of Turks deny that the genocide took place.
However, the book has topped best-seller lists, selling more than 50,000 copies since its publication in March. "The feedback I received has been very, very positive," Shafak, 35, said in a recent interview.
[snip]
Kemal Kerincsiz, a right-wing lawyer, filed charges against Shafak last month. In one of the passages, presented by Kerincsiz as evidence against the author, an Armenian character says, "I am the grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives in the hands of Turkish butchers in 1915."
Shafak argued that comments made by fictional characters could not be used to press charges, and the case was throw out. An appeals court, however, overruled that decision last week.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Two "Reviews"
I haven't posted in a while because the thought of figuring out what to write about Cynthia Ozick's Heir to the Glimmering World depressed me. (As did the book, for that matter.) The book has some wry humor and is fascinatingly unsympathetic. During our book club conversation, we also decided that Ozick provided a troubling commentary on the alienation of people. If alienation and a cast of exiles is your thing, check it out. As for me, I preferred the book that it almost reminded me of, Muriel Spark's A Long Way from Kensington.
Enough said.
Moving onto my most recent read, Azadeh Moaveni's Lipstick Jihad. This was much more enjoyable, largely because it seemed more human. Azadeh was someone I almost understood (although at my age she was a correspondent for Time magazine). She is probing, and catty, and ridiculous, and thoughtful, feeling her way for an identity that fits. I never questioned my national identity, blissfully American - in fact envious of my friends whose family cultures included more that a null set of commercialized values and traditions. In many ways, I was very lucky, unlike Azadeh, who discovers that - having grown up between two worlds - she will not find a single place where she "belongs". But everyone knows the feeling of not belonging (see Ozick above), and so even when the memoir is utterly foreign, it is also not.
My best friend in fourth grade had an American journalist father and a Persian mother. She was born the year of the revolution. That didn't mean anything to me at the time, but now I am old enough to wonder about their lives. The mother - how did she suffer the loss of her homeland? In Thousand Oaks was she close enough to an emigre community? Would she have lived and raised her daughter in America regardless? And my friend herself - we grew apart and moved in very different circles by high school. I saw her clique as pretty shallow, and I mourned the loss of my funny, brilliant friend. But was she struggling to carve out her own identity, embracing the American, the Persian, the Iranian, the Valley Girl?
There's been a spate of interest in women and Iran of late: Reading Lolita in Tehran (read my review here), Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels, a recent episode of KQED Forum, and more. And from it, I believe that we better understand Iran and Iranians, at least those of the diaspora, who so often go home. But - and perhaps this is good - we are no closer to predicting what the future holds for Iran.
Enough said.
Moving onto my most recent read, Azadeh Moaveni's Lipstick Jihad. This was much more enjoyable, largely because it seemed more human. Azadeh was someone I almost understood (although at my age she was a correspondent for Time magazine). She is probing, and catty, and ridiculous, and thoughtful, feeling her way for an identity that fits. I never questioned my national identity, blissfully American - in fact envious of my friends whose family cultures included more that a null set of commercialized values and traditions. In many ways, I was very lucky, unlike Azadeh, who discovers that - having grown up between two worlds - she will not find a single place where she "belongs". But everyone knows the feeling of not belonging (see Ozick above), and so even when the memoir is utterly foreign, it is also not.
My best friend in fourth grade had an American journalist father and a Persian mother. She was born the year of the revolution. That didn't mean anything to me at the time, but now I am old enough to wonder about their lives. The mother - how did she suffer the loss of her homeland? In Thousand Oaks was she close enough to an emigre community? Would she have lived and raised her daughter in America regardless? And my friend herself - we grew apart and moved in very different circles by high school. I saw her clique as pretty shallow, and I mourned the loss of my funny, brilliant friend. But was she struggling to carve out her own identity, embracing the American, the Persian, the Iranian, the Valley Girl?
There's been a spate of interest in women and Iran of late: Reading Lolita in Tehran (read my review here), Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels, a recent episode of KQED Forum, and more. And from it, I believe that we better understand Iran and Iranians, at least those of the diaspora, who so often go home. But - and perhaps this is good - we are no closer to predicting what the future holds for Iran.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Heating Up
I read Dog Days over a week in which summer came to Los Angeles with a vengeance. It's been hot enough to recall the Dog Days of August 2004, which I - like Melanie, the novel's heroine - spent in DC. Unlike her, however, I was not hooking up with my married lover in fancy hotels; also, I walked and took the bus rather than jumping in cabs all the time.
All that said... I don't have an inspired review. Ana Marie Cox maintains some of her bloggery sparkle. And I enjoyed the "veiled" analogies to actual Beltway personages and events. And like West Wing, it's an alternative universe that co-exists uneasily with the present. It is 2004 and the incumbent is a fool of a president named Golden; Yet Cox mentions the Bush twins. (Etc. Some of these inclusions are rather funny, especially - and perhaps only - if you follow Washington gossip.)
A few things distance Dog Days from your standard chick lit, so far as I can tell. One is that it does not include your typical romance; another is a (slightly) nuanced ending. These are good things. What didn't work for me was Melanie's jaded tone. It's desirable to have acute observational skills and a sharp tongue; it's less so when said observational skills overlook endearing and redeeming qualities in people. What worked as Wonkette - a sexy and louche lush - worked because it was a put-on. One can't help feeling that Cox really cares. But Melanie - who should care - ends up showing us nothing to care about. Which may be the trouble with Washington today, but also makes for a bit of a downer.
So. The upshot is that I still think this was a good book for me. I loved the little Washingtonian notes that made me feel like an insider. (A central character works at my Austin Grill - one in a chain of popular but pretty icky restaurants - a location all of a 4 minute walk from my old apartment.) I still love Cox. But I would recommend her novel sparingly. Instead, look for her on the pages of Time.
All that said... I don't have an inspired review. Ana Marie Cox maintains some of her bloggery sparkle. And I enjoyed the "veiled" analogies to actual Beltway personages and events. And like West Wing, it's an alternative universe that co-exists uneasily with the present. It is 2004 and the incumbent is a fool of a president named Golden; Yet Cox mentions the Bush twins. (Etc. Some of these inclusions are rather funny, especially - and perhaps only - if you follow Washington gossip.)
A few things distance Dog Days from your standard chick lit, so far as I can tell. One is that it does not include your typical romance; another is a (slightly) nuanced ending. These are good things. What didn't work for me was Melanie's jaded tone. It's desirable to have acute observational skills and a sharp tongue; it's less so when said observational skills overlook endearing and redeeming qualities in people. What worked as Wonkette - a sexy and louche lush - worked because it was a put-on. One can't help feeling that Cox really cares. But Melanie - who should care - ends up showing us nothing to care about. Which may be the trouble with Washington today, but also makes for a bit of a downer.
So. The upshot is that I still think this was a good book for me. I loved the little Washingtonian notes that made me feel like an insider. (A central character works at my Austin Grill - one in a chain of popular but pretty icky restaurants - a location all of a 4 minute walk from my old apartment.) I still love Cox. But I would recommend her novel sparingly. Instead, look for her on the pages of Time.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
A Confession
I don't think I've ever pretended to be immune to the lure of chick lit, although I don't indulge all that often. (Exceptions made for Helen Fielding.)
But last night, I started the oft-mentioned Dog Days, by Official Erin's Library Icon Ana Marie Cox, now Time columnist extraordinaire. Thus far, it is a just barely disguised account of the 2004
presidential campaign. Apparently some Washingtonienne gets thrown in too. And there's a little West Wing too, and a HUGE dose of Blackberry love. Our heroine Melanie has a glamorous life, sort of. So it's catty and sexy, and yet nerdy too.
This is not the best of books, and I prefer the blogging/columnist Ana Marie to the novelist. But that doesn't mean that it's not a rollicking good time to read.
But last night, I started the oft-mentioned Dog Days, by Official Erin's Library Icon Ana Marie Cox, now Time columnist extraordinaire. Thus far, it is a just barely disguised account of the 2004
presidential campaign. Apparently some Washingtonienne gets thrown in too. And there's a little West Wing too, and a HUGE dose of Blackberry love. Our heroine Melanie has a glamorous life, sort of. So it's catty and sexy, and yet nerdy too.
This is not the best of books, and I prefer the blogging/columnist Ana Marie to the novelist. But that doesn't mean that it's not a rollicking good time to read.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Istanbul was Constantinople... (finale)
Last week was the book club discussion on Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, which I finished less than 24 hours ahead of time. (It goes by pretty fast, all told, but it's still a really long book.)
I was very pleased with the discussion, which was almost uniformly positive and struck a good balance between focusing on the book itself and wandering off on related tangents. And as a historian, I was pleased that so many other readers expressed their delight in learning more about a place and era that was new to them. Someone made the point that Americans are likely to be unaware that WWI took place anywhere other than Western Europe. I myself was particularly intrigued with this look at how nationalism took hold (piecemeal, to be sure) and brought about the downfall of one of the great multi-ethnic empires.
The fate of the village - which in a way is the novel's main character - and the villagers is poignant and interesting and seems authentic. I won't give any details, but I felt satisfied.
I was very pleased with the discussion, which was almost uniformly positive and struck a good balance between focusing on the book itself and wandering off on related tangents. And as a historian, I was pleased that so many other readers expressed their delight in learning more about a place and era that was new to them. Someone made the point that Americans are likely to be unaware that WWI took place anywhere other than Western Europe. I myself was particularly intrigued with this look at how nationalism took hold (piecemeal, to be sure) and brought about the downfall of one of the great multi-ethnic empires.
The fate of the village - which in a way is the novel's main character - and the villagers is poignant and interesting and seems authentic. I won't give any details, but I felt satisfied.
Powell's Rocks
Happy Election Day to my California readers! I hope that you voted (even if it wasn't very exciting).
While I am a library devotee, I am also a fan of bookstores, especially when they have any of the following:
It's not fair. Separated by only a year, and yet I'm struggling to keep up with my book lists and she's has a reader's dreamland in her hands. If anyone out there has a book empire out there to give away, please keep me in mind...
While I am a library devotee, I am also a fan of bookstores, especially when they have any of the following:
- cafe
- staff recommendations with little cards
- a huuuuuge collection
It's not fair. Separated by only a year, and yet I'm struggling to keep up with my book lists and she's has a reader's dreamland in her hands. If anyone out there has a book empire out there to give away, please keep me in mind...
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Istanbul was Constantinople...
This month's book club selection is Birds Without Wings, an epic novel by Louis de Bernieres about the final years of the Ottoman Empire. I am about 2/3 of the way through, and still developing my impressions, but since it is long and there is likely much to say, I figured I may as well begin.
De Bernieres is also the author of Corelli's Mandolin, of Nicolas Cage film fame. A friend reviewed that book approximately as follows: "I expected it to be really bad, but it wasn't." Which is a little mysterious, but I would say that Birds Without Wings is probably better. It is sweeping - covering at least 20 years in the life of a little town in Anatolia, as well as the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Kemal Ataturk. How multiculturalism hardens into nationalism forms another central theme. And there are at least 10 characters telling the narrative, among them the town imam, his wife, her Christian best friend, the latter's beautiful daughter and her ugly best friend; the potter and his son and son's friend, as well as the town's nobleman and his mistress. Plus of course Mustafa Kemal. The chorus of different voices makes for a rich and almost magical set of tales (some more enjoyable than others, of course, but all crucial to the whole).
It's a tragedy, by the way. The full extent isn't yet clear, but we just made it through World War I and the traumatic birthing of modern Turkey and Greece is yet to come.
De Bernieres is also the author of Corelli's Mandolin, of Nicolas Cage film fame. A friend reviewed that book approximately as follows: "I expected it to be really bad, but it wasn't." Which is a little mysterious, but I would say that Birds Without Wings is probably better. It is sweeping - covering at least 20 years in the life of a little town in Anatolia, as well as the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Kemal Ataturk. How multiculturalism hardens into nationalism forms another central theme. And there are at least 10 characters telling the narrative, among them the town imam, his wife, her Christian best friend, the latter's beautiful daughter and her ugly best friend; the potter and his son and son's friend, as well as the town's nobleman and his mistress. Plus of course Mustafa Kemal. The chorus of different voices makes for a rich and almost magical set of tales (some more enjoyable than others, of course, but all crucial to the whole).
It's a tragedy, by the way. The full extent isn't yet clear, but we just made it through World War I and the traumatic birthing of modern Turkey and Greece is yet to come.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Joan Didion & Magical Thinking
Library Mom will be happy to hear that Joan Didion was thinking of anthropology in titling her blockbuster memoir/reverie of death and recovery The Year of Magical Thinking. She found herself engaged in magical thinking, performing the same sorts of rites as peoples who believed that certain rituals would cause effects rationally unrelated, such as sacrificing a virgin to make the crops grow.
I don't know about you, but I have definitely done some magical thinking of my own. And I can point fingers at others who have as well, even if they wouldn't admit it. Two examples from my adolescence: the "belief" (?) that singing Tears for Fears' song "Shout" would somehow bolster the Mighty Ducks, and re-examining again and again dance competitions that didn't go well, thinking that somehow a reimagining could and would change the outcome. Or, more darkly, the fear of days that seemed too beautiful, as within three months days like this brought a dangerous brush fire that threatened our home and the murder of a family friend. (This last superstition I haven't quite let go of.)
This spurt of revelation is meant to serve as introduction to a book that I was a bit worried about reading. I've had some trouble lately with books and movies being overhyped to me. Turns out I had nothing to fear from Didion. The Year of Magical Thinking is masterful and deeply moving. It was open and honest, and yet self-protective. It felt profoundly true.
Didion lost her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, on December 30, 2003, in the midst of daughter Quintana's illness - a flu that morphs into pneumonia and eventually neurological damage. (And, after the period covered in the book, Quintana's own untimely death.) This double-whammy complicates mourning and grief, and by Didion's own account, it is not until the summer of 2004, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, that she realizes she is Not Okay. And so, she begins to write.
And she was. Her evocation of thoughts and emotions was so powerful for me that I literally felt my mind racing as if it were my own, and felt myself on the verge of her same anxiety attacks. (That part seemed a little unfair. I could have used a little more distance.)
As Didion cares for Quintana, trying to boss her way into making her daughter better, only slowing accepting that there are limits to what she can do, she considers the inherent dilemma in the mother-child relationship. Seeing Quintana in the ICU after neurosurgery, she whispers, "I'm here. You're safe."
Having written for longer than I perhaps intended, I will just say that I have found few books so wholly satisfying. The Year of Magical Thinking is truly stunning.
I don't know about you, but I have definitely done some magical thinking of my own. And I can point fingers at others who have as well, even if they wouldn't admit it. Two examples from my adolescence: the "belief" (?) that singing Tears for Fears' song "Shout" would somehow bolster the Mighty Ducks, and re-examining again and again dance competitions that didn't go well, thinking that somehow a reimagining could and would change the outcome. Or, more darkly, the fear of days that seemed too beautiful, as within three months days like this brought a dangerous brush fire that threatened our home and the murder of a family friend. (This last superstition I haven't quite let go of.)
This spurt of revelation is meant to serve as introduction to a book that I was a bit worried about reading. I've had some trouble lately with books and movies being overhyped to me. Turns out I had nothing to fear from Didion. The Year of Magical Thinking is masterful and deeply moving. It was open and honest, and yet self-protective. It felt profoundly true.
Didion lost her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, on December 30, 2003, in the midst of daughter Quintana's illness - a flu that morphs into pneumonia and eventually neurological damage. (And, after the period covered in the book, Quintana's own untimely death.) This double-whammy complicates mourning and grief, and by Didion's own account, it is not until the summer of 2004, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, that she realizes she is Not Okay. And so, she begins to write.
This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself. As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I develooped a sense that meaning itse3lf was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs, a technique for withholding whatever it was I thought or believed behind an increasingly impenetrable polish.The power of the former sentence almost obscures the importance of the latter. For her whole life, Didion was able to use writing to remake the world, hide behind her prose. Suddenly, she "need[ed] whatever it is I think of believe to be penetrable, if only for myself."
And she was. Her evocation of thoughts and emotions was so powerful for me that I literally felt my mind racing as if it were my own, and felt myself on the verge of her same anxiety attacks. (That part seemed a little unfair. I could have used a little more distance.)
As Didion cares for Quintana, trying to boss her way into making her daughter better, only slowing accepting that there are limits to what she can do, she considers the inherent dilemma in the mother-child relationship. Seeing Quintana in the ICU after neurosurgery, she whispers, "I'm here. You're safe."
It occurred to me during those weeks that this had been, since the day we brought her home from St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, my basic promise to her. I would not leave. I would take care of her. She would be all right. It also occurred to me that this was a promise I could not keep. I could not always take care of her. [...] Things happened in life that mothers could not prevent or fix.And please let no one ever say to me that the mother-adopted child relationship can not be as strong and elemental a force as the biological one. This is a quibble I have with some fellow readers. Following her talk at the Festival of Books, I was in a circle in which I was the only one who had yet to read the book. Others claimed that her relationship with John seemed to be much richer and more important than the relationship with Quintana, that she felt his loss more. I argued, but from the gut, and unarmed with knowledge from the book. Now, having read the book, I think my gut was right. Both losses are unfathomable, in different ways. Dunne and Didion were intertwined through 40 years of life together, and a deep love. Didion and Quintana were mother and daughter, entwined in an entirely different way. Mourning each of them must (and should) be different. (Not to mention that Didion had not lost her daughter at the time of writing the book, demurred when invited to add a postscript about Quintana's death, and has been on a book tour perhaps as a way to blunt the process of grieving. That last is a little bit of unnecessary psychoanalysis, but I hold the main point.)
Having written for longer than I perhaps intended, I will just say that I have found few books so wholly satisfying. The Year of Magical Thinking is truly stunning.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Festival of Books, Day 2
Sunday saw us back at UCLA, for a shorter stint at the Festival of Books.
Our morning session was on "Pleasures of the Text" - though a more accurate title for the panel's focus could be "The Sky is Falling: Why No One Reads Except the People in this Room." I think this was partly the fault of the moderator, again Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds. The other panelists were 2005 Erin's Library star Jane Smiley, star translator Gregory Rabassa, NEA administrator and poet Dana Gioia, and Publishers Weekly editor Sara Nelson. Nelson verbalized a sensation I knew well - that I just had to have a book with me, that I didn't feel right if I was without reading material. On the other hand, Gioia and Nelson also ruined it by explaining that they were able to read so much because they didn't sleep. Also, Gioia claimed not to have a life. I am okay with giving up some extracurricular activities in favor of reading - obviously I do so already, and my coworkers already mock the time I spend with my newspaper and New Yorker. I am emphatically not, on the other hand, interested in giving up sleep.
I'm getting off topic a little though. The discussion also talked about how these great readers became readers, what they thought of the ebb and flow of "the novel" and whether it as a form had lasting appeal (yes), and why young people aren't reading. Gioia presented some sobering statistics (downloadable report), and Nelson and Smiley both discussed how their children saw reading. Conclusion: in the past, children read "great works" that were child-appropriate; now there is a pedagogy of children's literature, which young people - sensing condescension - scorn. Etc. Etc. I walked away thinking about the roles I could play in encouraging reading, and reaffirmed in the importance of reading in my own life.
The afternoon session, which had the sparsest attendance of any we went to, was a conversation with Times editor Dean Baquet. Interviewing him was Kevin Roderick. His take on the interview (and links to other bloggers at the Festival) is here. They discussed blogs, local/national/international coverage, Baquet's plans as he enters his second year at the helm, major issues facing Los Angeles, and more... Baquet seemed very human, which I liked, and extremely ambitious about the paper. It was sitting there that I realized how many changes had been implemented in the year that I've subscribed. I still don't know that it's the paper of my youth, but it's a pretty amazing paper. (For contrast, the Bay Area offers three major dailies, all of which seem profoundly mediocre.) The audience itself was interesting, and can be split into three major categories. First: Times staffers or watchdogs; Second: younger people - maybe college journalists?; Third: the unclassifiable folks like us.
Take for the second day: significantly smaller. More chai and some purchased (but deeply discounted) books.
Our morning session was on "Pleasures of the Text" - though a more accurate title for the panel's focus could be "The Sky is Falling: Why No One Reads Except the People in this Room." I think this was partly the fault of the moderator, again Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds. The other panelists were 2005 Erin's Library star Jane Smiley, star translator Gregory Rabassa, NEA administrator and poet Dana Gioia, and Publishers Weekly editor Sara Nelson. Nelson verbalized a sensation I knew well - that I just had to have a book with me, that I didn't feel right if I was without reading material. On the other hand, Gioia and Nelson also ruined it by explaining that they were able to read so much because they didn't sleep. Also, Gioia claimed not to have a life. I am okay with giving up some extracurricular activities in favor of reading - obviously I do so already, and my coworkers already mock the time I spend with my newspaper and New Yorker. I am emphatically not, on the other hand, interested in giving up sleep.
I'm getting off topic a little though. The discussion also talked about how these great readers became readers, what they thought of the ebb and flow of "the novel" and whether it as a form had lasting appeal (yes), and why young people aren't reading. Gioia presented some sobering statistics (downloadable report), and Nelson and Smiley both discussed how their children saw reading. Conclusion: in the past, children read "great works" that were child-appropriate; now there is a pedagogy of children's literature, which young people - sensing condescension - scorn. Etc. Etc. I walked away thinking about the roles I could play in encouraging reading, and reaffirmed in the importance of reading in my own life.
The afternoon session, which had the sparsest attendance of any we went to, was a conversation with Times editor Dean Baquet. Interviewing him was Kevin Roderick. His take on the interview (and links to other bloggers at the Festival) is here. They discussed blogs, local/national/international coverage, Baquet's plans as he enters his second year at the helm, major issues facing Los Angeles, and more... Baquet seemed very human, which I liked, and extremely ambitious about the paper. It was sitting there that I realized how many changes had been implemented in the year that I've subscribed. I still don't know that it's the paper of my youth, but it's a pretty amazing paper. (For contrast, the Bay Area offers three major dailies, all of which seem profoundly mediocre.) The audience itself was interesting, and can be split into three major categories. First: Times staffers or watchdogs; Second: younger people - maybe college journalists?; Third: the unclassifiable folks like us.
Take for the second day: significantly smaller. More chai and some purchased (but deeply discounted) books.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Festival of Books, Day 1
I have spent the past three days surrounded by crowds of passionate, passionate people. Today I marched with about half a million Angelenos down Wilshire Blvd. (Look for pics on the LA Greens Flickr site soon.) But over the weekend, the interest that drew us all together was the written word.
I love the LA Times Festival of Books; I feel so lucky that such an amazing event takes place in my town. I love seeing a college campus overrun with people who recognize the joy of books. Last year, Michael and I collected swag and attended largely political sessions. This time, we were slightly more judicious about the swag (and also spent more money) but went for a more literary focus for ticketed events.
We kicked off the day Saturday with "First Fiction," a panel moderated by a Times Book Reviewer, Susan Salter Reynolds, and presenting three novelists who recently published their first book. The draw for us was Olga Grushin, whose book I own. The others - Kirstin Allio and Uzodinma Iweala - also shared interesting perspectives on how to publish without compromising your vision, the role of both mentors and children, and the gulf between the first novel and the second - the latter being that which confers "writerdom." Iweala's novel, Beasts of No Nation, a first-person account by an African child soldier, won the Times' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and suggests a staggering talent. He was also utterly charming. (They all made me a little jealous though.)
Next was the big event, where we joined about 1000 others in Royce Hall to see and hear Joan Didion. (I have yet to read The Year of Magical Thinking, but Mr. Library read it last week and will I hope chime in with some comments.) The buzz around me was how frail she would look (pretty frail, but not exactly breakable) and how forthcoming she would be. I was struck by her body language; she gestured with her hands often, almost trying to push away questions. She also managed to be both blunt and somewhat evasive. It's a bit understandable. When discussing your most recent book, about the loss of your beloved husband (followed by your daughter's death), wouldn't you have a little trouble? And when the topic moved to Didion's past writing, she was so matter-of-fact about her talent, as though it was such a natural part of her that she had never had to analyze or explain it before.
We ended the day with Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with Michael Silverblatt (of "Bookworm" on KCRW. He is loooong-winded). I don't know what of hers I've read before (I assume that I have read her though). My first thought though, was that she looks a bit like an Edward Gorey figure, lean and severe, with a pointed chin and black frizzy hair. She's an amazing reader - reading a 40-year-old story, she inhabited her pre-teen narrator and gave voice to the competing currents of innocence and terror. Plus she was engaging and funny. These are qualities that the first-novelists were somewhat lacking, and only Iweala was a good reader of his work. Maybe it comes with time....
Take for the day: "Believer" magazine and totebag, BookTV tote, LA art book from the Hammer, 4 copies of the Nation, and a matchbook. Plus chai mix.
I love the LA Times Festival of Books; I feel so lucky that such an amazing event takes place in my town. I love seeing a college campus overrun with people who recognize the joy of books. Last year, Michael and I collected swag and attended largely political sessions. This time, we were slightly more judicious about the swag (and also spent more money) but went for a more literary focus for ticketed events.
We kicked off the day Saturday with "First Fiction," a panel moderated by a Times Book Reviewer, Susan Salter Reynolds, and presenting three novelists who recently published their first book. The draw for us was Olga Grushin, whose book I own. The others - Kirstin Allio and Uzodinma Iweala - also shared interesting perspectives on how to publish without compromising your vision, the role of both mentors and children, and the gulf between the first novel and the second - the latter being that which confers "writerdom." Iweala's novel, Beasts of No Nation, a first-person account by an African child soldier, won the Times' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and suggests a staggering talent. He was also utterly charming. (They all made me a little jealous though.)
Next was the big event, where we joined about 1000 others in Royce Hall to see and hear Joan Didion. (I have yet to read The Year of Magical Thinking, but Mr. Library read it last week and will I hope chime in with some comments.) The buzz around me was how frail she would look (pretty frail, but not exactly breakable) and how forthcoming she would be. I was struck by her body language; she gestured with her hands often, almost trying to push away questions. She also managed to be both blunt and somewhat evasive. It's a bit understandable. When discussing your most recent book, about the loss of your beloved husband (followed by your daughter's death), wouldn't you have a little trouble? And when the topic moved to Didion's past writing, she was so matter-of-fact about her talent, as though it was such a natural part of her that she had never had to analyze or explain it before.
We ended the day with Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with Michael Silverblatt (of "Bookworm" on KCRW. He is loooong-winded). I don't know what of hers I've read before (I assume that I have read her though). My first thought though, was that she looks a bit like an Edward Gorey figure, lean and severe, with a pointed chin and black frizzy hair. She's an amazing reader - reading a 40-year-old story, she inhabited her pre-teen narrator and gave voice to the competing currents of innocence and terror. Plus she was engaging and funny. These are qualities that the first-novelists were somewhat lacking, and only Iweala was a good reader of his work. Maybe it comes with time....
Take for the day: "Believer" magazine and totebag, BookTV tote, LA art book from the Hammer, 4 copies of the Nation, and a matchbook. Plus chai mix.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Freakish Numbers
I finally sat down with Freakonomics, the intensely popular "look at everyday phenomena in a different light" book of 2005. Economist Steven Levitt and New York-based writer Stephen Dubner collaborated on a popularization of some of the studies that have made Levitt a darling of the academic world.
(Note: is he really a "darling"? They make it sound that way, but if I were old school, I'd find him pretty annoying.)
I enlisted Michael to write a review since he read the book first, but he has missed several deadlines, so you'll have to check the comments for his take.
This was our April book club selection, and I think that overall it went pretty well. We are a tough crowd. General thoughts: it was a pleasant and quick read, but not well-enough written. It didn't go in depth enough on each topic (maybe because details would be boring for non-economists?). Levitt seems to cherry-pick his data and doesn't always back up conclusions. Several of the stories, however, we rather interesting. (The group especially liked the drug dealers and the grad student embed. I preferred the bits on parenting and children's names.)
It was surprising to me that my fellow clubbers (Michael excepted) hadn't heard much about the book before we chose it. As I mentioned above, it's been quite the "It" book in certain circles. For my money, I prefer Malcolm Gladwell. Of course, since I don't actually have to choose, I'll enjoy them both.
And man, are there ever opportunities. A quick trip the Freakonomics web site reveals a fountain of information, including free study guides (see! I knew they'd be using this in college econ courses) and info on the "Freakonomics" column at the New York Times. There's even a blog! Here's an example post from Dubner, from earlier this week:
Anyway, it's a fun read. If you like kooky statistics, check it out. If not, hang on for next month's book, set in turn-of-the-century Turkey...
UPDATE: Be sure to check out Rahul's thoughts in the "comments" - he argues forcefully that the book fails to live up to its promises.
(Note: is he really a "darling"? They make it sound that way, but if I were old school, I'd find him pretty annoying.)
I enlisted Michael to write a review since he read the book first, but he has missed several deadlines, so you'll have to check the comments for his take.
This was our April book club selection, and I think that overall it went pretty well. We are a tough crowd. General thoughts: it was a pleasant and quick read, but not well-enough written. It didn't go in depth enough on each topic (maybe because details would be boring for non-economists?). Levitt seems to cherry-pick his data and doesn't always back up conclusions. Several of the stories, however, we rather interesting. (The group especially liked the drug dealers and the grad student embed. I preferred the bits on parenting and children's names.)
It was surprising to me that my fellow clubbers (Michael excepted) hadn't heard much about the book before we chose it. As I mentioned above, it's been quite the "It" book in certain circles. For my money, I prefer Malcolm Gladwell. Of course, since I don't actually have to choose, I'll enjoy them both.
And man, are there ever opportunities. A quick trip the Freakonomics web site reveals a fountain of information, including free study guides (see! I knew they'd be using this in college econ courses) and info on the "Freakonomics" column at the New York Times. There's even a blog! Here's an example post from Dubner, from earlier this week:
The National Association of Realtors has started a blog. The lead item today is headlined “The Cost of Selling without a REALTOR®: $31,800.” Pretty scary, huh? Here’s the lead: “Real estate professionals do more for sellers than make the transaction easier. They make them money. In fact, the average seller who uses a real estate professional makes 16 percent more on the sale of their home than do sellers who go it alone. That’s an average of $31,800 per home.” Unfortunately, there’s no supporting data. So it could be that a Realtor actually brings in, on average, $31,800 more per home sale. Or it could be that a few dozen, or few hundred, or few thousand Realtor-sold multimillion-dollar homes skews the average very high compared to FSBO’s, which tend to be cheaper. Or it could be a few dozen other factors.Take that, Realtors! Or another, by Levitt:
An article in yesterday’s USA Today reports on a recent survey of health care providers. The study asked them whether or not they would report to work in a flu pandemic. Nearly half said they would be no-shows.If only bosses were as sympathetic as professors...
If there is one thing economists have learned, it is that what people say and what they do are often not the same. And the way words and actions diverge is easy to predict. I am much more likely to tell a survey-giver that I will show up at the ER in the next pandemic than I am to actually be there. With that in mind, the problem of health-care providers playing hooky is certain to be worse than even this study suggests.
(And, for the record, if you are a student in my class and a bird flu pandemic hits, class is cancelled.)
Anyway, it's a fun read. If you like kooky statistics, check it out. If not, hang on for next month's book, set in turn-of-the-century Turkey...
UPDATE: Be sure to check out Rahul's thoughts in the "comments" - he argues forcefully that the book fails to live up to its promises.
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