Finally, Erin's Library has a book to report! Now that the Move and the Cold are in the rearview mirror (mostly, at least), I have been able to pick up a book and get some serious reading done. The choice? T.C. Boyle's Drop City, a novel about two different communities of drop outs.
The parallels between the two are pretty cool. The novel is set in the late 1960s, so one group consists of your stereotypical hippies. And since I know my Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters pretty well, no real surprises there. Although Boyle is skillful in getting inside the heads of his three hippie protagonists to show that in some ways they are just as square as I am - and that is always reassuring. Their counterparts are a some off-the-gridders in BFN, Alaska. Except for booze, everything is freshly caught, skinned, stuffed, and built. They are self-reliant in a way the commune is not, and their relationship with nature is more authentic. And of course - though I haven't gotten that far yet - these drop outs are about to collide.
When I was first reading, I thought I preferred the Alaskans to the hippies, but as I read, I realized that I didn't. And Boyle isn't setting it up for the readers to identify more with one group than another. At least I don't think so. His real motivations will be revealed later, when Free Love and Northern Exposure come face to face. I can't wait.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
"How we read one another"
The above is the subtitle to Milan Kundera's essay in the January 8 issue of the New Yorker (not online). That's right, here it is, the 23rd, and I am both behind in my magazines and still haven't managed to pick up a book this year.
But the relocation of Erin's Library (and her cat and other possessions) has occurred, and I'm expecting reading to get back to normal soon.
Until then, I'm reading catch as catch can, and this evening came across this Kundera essay. He's an interesting guy, and I greatly enjoyed the novels (most of his Czech language ones) that I read while in college. Since he started writing in French, however, he's gotten strange(r) and his arguments less cohesive.
This piece is called "Die Weltliteratur" and deals with the creation of world literature, and the ways art and literature can be placed within the historical context of the culture in/for which it was written, or within the historical context of the art form itself, sans borders. Most people can only view their own culture's literature within the former; he argues for the importance of the latter.
Kundera analyzes the national/supranational debate from the standpoint of the Central European, who had to watch as his culture and nation (one of many within C. Eur.) struggled for autonomy. And as a history student of that region, I was most drawn not to his larger argument, but to his comparison of the people of the European powers to those of the European strugglers:
But the relocation of Erin's Library (and her cat and other possessions) has occurred, and I'm expecting reading to get back to normal soon.
Until then, I'm reading catch as catch can, and this evening came across this Kundera essay. He's an interesting guy, and I greatly enjoyed the novels (most of his Czech language ones) that I read while in college. Since he started writing in French, however, he's gotten strange(r) and his arguments less cohesive.
This piece is called "Die Weltliteratur" and deals with the creation of world literature, and the ways art and literature can be placed within the historical context of the culture in/for which it was written, or within the historical context of the art form itself, sans borders. Most people can only view their own culture's literature within the former; he argues for the importance of the latter.
Kundera analyzes the national/supranational debate from the standpoint of the Central European, who had to watch as his culture and nation (one of many within C. Eur.) struggled for autonomy. And as a history student of that region, I was most drawn not to his larger argument, but to his comparison of the people of the European powers to those of the European strugglers:
What distinuishes the small nations from the large is not the quantitative criterion of the number of their inhabitants; it is something deeper. For the small nations, existence is not a self-evident certainty but always a question, a wager, a risk [emphasis mine]
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
No, not Dutton's!
Why does no one love independent bookstores anymore? Wait, that's not really all that accurate. I think the love is there, but apparently not the money. Or not enough money.
Today's LA Times reports that the Brentwood Dutton's may be in danger. Property owner Charles T. Munger, of Munger, Tolles & Olson, wants to develop:
Or, as the Times puts it:
I'm hoping that this article is largely a way to drum up outrage and prevent/put off redevelopment plans. But the larger trend away from indie bookstores is clear. And I too have been guilty of turning to Borders or B&N for my book fix.
But I challenge myself, and all of you, to go indie again. Support your local bookseller. My goal: a book a month.
Today's LA Times reports that the Brentwood Dutton's may be in danger. Property owner Charles T. Munger, of Munger, Tolles & Olson, wants to develop:
"It's the ultimate redevelopment site," Munger said, adding, "We've always been straight with Doug and told him the property would be developed in due course. The more time goes by, the closer we are to due course."Hmph. Munger claims he wants to keep Dutton's in the new site, or at the very least an independent bookstore, but how would it be the same without the meandering buildings and the crammed coziness, particularly in the fiction section?
Or, as the Times puts it:
Arguably Los Angeles' signature independent bookshop, the store is a beacon for both prominent authors and passionate readers. A move would indelibly alter the store's identity, many feel. Dutton's, with its irregular layout, ripped carpet and books overflowing their shelves onto old flagstone floors, is considered by many to be not just a city institution but one of the nation's great idiosyncratic bookstores.And author Carolyn See refers to the store as a "secular church."
I'm hoping that this article is largely a way to drum up outrage and prevent/put off redevelopment plans. But the larger trend away from indie bookstores is clear. And I too have been guilty of turning to Borders or B&N for my book fix.
But I challenge myself, and all of you, to go indie again. Support your local bookseller. My goal: a book a month.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Re-discoveries, Russian style (part 2)
One of my favorite things about Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden-Baden is saying Baden-Baden out loud. And that really proves what a big dork I am b/c there is so much to like about this novel.
I first learned about it sometime in the fall of 2001, when Susan Sontag wrote about it in the New Yorker. It was a lost novel, written in the 1970s Soviet Union in secret. Sontag gushed, and provided the introduction for the English translation. (Kudos to the translators, Roger and Angela Keys, who must have had their hands full, but more on that later.) I haven't read much Sontag, so couldn't know whether our tastes aligned, but this was one of the best book recommendations I've ever gotten. (That same fall, the New Yorker also turned me on to Orhan Pamuk and My Name is Red - there must have been some sort of perfect storm of literary taste-making.)
Tsypkin - more or less - is one main character of the novel; he's on a train to Leningrad, reading the diary of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's wife Anna. At the same time, Fyodor and Anna are traveling to Baden-Baden, Germany, to take the waters. Also, Dostoyevsky falls prey to a gambling addiction, a humiliating run-in with Ivan Turgenev, and some epileptic fits. It becomes painfully clear how difficult - and yet still rewarding - it must have been to be Anna, amanuensis and caretaker. Reading the final pages of the book (in the sunshine out behind my Berkeley apartment - memorable for whatever reason), tears came to my eyes. I was in love with this book.
Like Dostoyevsky, Tsypkin shows a great eye for detail, demonstrating the Russian realism that was warped into Soviet socialist realism. And as is much easier to do in Russian than English (but done, thanks to the Keys's), he employs run-on sentences and paragraphs, building clauses upon one another for a rich layered effect. Plus Tsypkin - most likely typical for any thinking Soviet citizen of his era - is keenly aware of the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the sublime.
To sum up, Summer in Baden-Baden is extraordinary.
I first learned about it sometime in the fall of 2001, when Susan Sontag wrote about it in the New Yorker. It was a lost novel, written in the 1970s Soviet Union in secret. Sontag gushed, and provided the introduction for the English translation. (Kudos to the translators, Roger and Angela Keys, who must have had their hands full, but more on that later.) I haven't read much Sontag, so couldn't know whether our tastes aligned, but this was one of the best book recommendations I've ever gotten. (That same fall, the New Yorker also turned me on to Orhan Pamuk and My Name is Red - there must have been some sort of perfect storm of literary taste-making.)
Tsypkin - more or less - is one main character of the novel; he's on a train to Leningrad, reading the diary of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's wife Anna. At the same time, Fyodor and Anna are traveling to Baden-Baden, Germany, to take the waters. Also, Dostoyevsky falls prey to a gambling addiction, a humiliating run-in with Ivan Turgenev, and some epileptic fits. It becomes painfully clear how difficult - and yet still rewarding - it must have been to be Anna, amanuensis and caretaker. Reading the final pages of the book (in the sunshine out behind my Berkeley apartment - memorable for whatever reason), tears came to my eyes. I was in love with this book.
Like Dostoyevsky, Tsypkin shows a great eye for detail, demonstrating the Russian realism that was warped into Soviet socialist realism. And as is much easier to do in Russian than English (but done, thanks to the Keys's), he employs run-on sentences and paragraphs, building clauses upon one another for a rich layered effect. Plus Tsypkin - most likely typical for any thinking Soviet citizen of his era - is keenly aware of the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the sublime.
To sum up, Summer in Baden-Baden is extraordinary.
Monday, January 01, 2007
The Curse of the Supersmart?
There is a list of authors who make me mad. Chief among the members are husband and wife team Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss. Really I'm just jealous because they are incredibly talented and doing something they love and are just about my age. Added to the list is Marisha Pessl, the precocious-seeming author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
This book enjoyed a good deal of buzz, although less than Claire Messud did for her book (see my review below). Like Foer and a growing number of young authors, she is a master of the gimmick. In this case, her protagonist is hyper-read, perhaps even more precocious than Pessl herself. Blue Van Meer narrates (from the distance of a year) her senior year in high school, the first time that she and her itinerant lecturer father have settled in a place for an entire academic year. Blue fills her narrative with in-text references to other works - of fiction and non-fiction. She mixes real and fake works willy-nilly. (I was particularly disappointed to note that "British chick-lit classic 'One Night Stand' (Zev, 2002)" does not seem to exist.) But these details add humor and insight to Blue's observations, and strengthen Pessl's characterization of Blue as a preternaturally smart young lady who really only knows things based on books, her father's proclamations, and her distanced analyses of her peers. When life gets "real" on her, she can barely cope.
But luckily (I guess), real life for Blue Van Meer is bizarre as f***. We know we're in a murder mystery, but the first 300 pages of what really is a tome are lead-in. With Blue as the Lindsey Lohan character in Mean Girls, more or less. It's a stronger and more sympathetic satire of (privileged) high school culture than Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (more here and here). And then we get to the murder mystery and all hell breaks loose. I spent the last 200 pages wondering what on earth was going on. Blue has an over-active imagination, and it's a good thing she does, because otherwise she'd never keep up with real events.
That's it. I think anything more would start to give too much away. Blue and Pessl both take some getting used to. But if you take the time to get into it, you'll be rewarded with a strange and funny and almost Usual Suspects-like mystery.
This book enjoyed a good deal of buzz, although less than Claire Messud did for her book (see my review below). Like Foer and a growing number of young authors, she is a master of the gimmick. In this case, her protagonist is hyper-read, perhaps even more precocious than Pessl herself. Blue Van Meer narrates (from the distance of a year) her senior year in high school, the first time that she and her itinerant lecturer father have settled in a place for an entire academic year. Blue fills her narrative with in-text references to other works - of fiction and non-fiction. She mixes real and fake works willy-nilly. (I was particularly disappointed to note that "British chick-lit classic 'One Night Stand' (Zev, 2002)" does not seem to exist.) But these details add humor and insight to Blue's observations, and strengthen Pessl's characterization of Blue as a preternaturally smart young lady who really only knows things based on books, her father's proclamations, and her distanced analyses of her peers. When life gets "real" on her, she can barely cope.
But luckily (I guess), real life for Blue Van Meer is bizarre as f***. We know we're in a murder mystery, but the first 300 pages of what really is a tome are lead-in. With Blue as the Lindsey Lohan character in Mean Girls, more or less. It's a stronger and more sympathetic satire of (privileged) high school culture than Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (more here and here). And then we get to the murder mystery and all hell breaks loose. I spent the last 200 pages wondering what on earth was going on. Blue has an over-active imagination, and it's a good thing she does, because otherwise she'd never keep up with real events.
That's it. I think anything more would start to give too much away. Blue and Pessl both take some getting used to. But if you take the time to get into it, you'll be rewarded with a strange and funny and almost Usual Suspects-like mystery.
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