The Mercy of Thin Air

The above is the title of Ronlyn Domingue's first novel, which I read earlier this week. I had an advance copy, and the novel - set in and around New Orleans - was set to release in September 2005. Not sure how Hurricane Katrina may have affected that. (A peek on Amazon shows that it was indeed released that month.)

The heart of the novel is Razi Nolan, a sparkling 1920s co-ed who died tragically young and remained "between" to guide others through the process of moving beyond. Or really, she stayed because she couldn't let go. It's 70 years later, and she is still trying to find out what happened to her beloved, Andrew, who was essentially ruined by her death. Mirroring Razi and Andrew's love story is the present-day struggle of Amy and Scott to build a life together despite the ghost that haunts them. (It brings to mind the Magnetic Fields, and the song "The One You Really Love.") And of course, the two stories intertwine and solve one another.

It's a prettily constructed tale, that jumps forward and backward in time, and allows the coincidences to feel acceptable and fated, rather than trite. Mostly, at least. Razi's character is a little too much, and I would have toned her down a bit, but I still grieved over the idea that one with so much life could die so young. Domingue offers a reminder that life and death are often unfair, but that acceptance is the key to moving on, in life and in death.

Someone's feeling a little touchy

I'm feeling too lazy to dig up all the links, but there's been some discussion lately in the press about the plight of newspaper book reviews, and the role of lit bloggers in this trend.

On Sunday, the LA Times ran a piece by film and book critic Richard Schickel. The title? "Not everybody's a critic," i.e. "anyone with a blog can express an opinion about a book. But real criticism is so much more." And all these faux critics are messing things up for the real guys. So I guess I'm part of the problem.

Except am I really? I wouldn't even call this a lit blog; it doesn't purport to be literary criticism. It is overtly a set of (often un- or at least underinformed) opinions about whatever it is I'm reading. And if I don't know you and you're reading this, awesome, but this was always intended as a way for me to share with family and friends my thoughts about the books and articles that occupy so much of my life.

That said, I think Schickel must be trying to provoke when he says

Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.

Dude. Chill. We respect you.

Even more, I respect D.J. Waldie, who you quote as saying that "blogging is a form of speech, not of writing." Good point. I don't suffer over turns of phrase on this blog the way that I did when writing even grad papers, at least not usually. But I wish I did. And I think a lot of bloggers wish they did too. Cut them a little slack.

My unfortunate new obsession

I love Twitter, the web/text/IM 140 character "what are you doing?" application which is apparently sweeping the nation, b/c Barack Obama is now one of my friends.

But a more intriguing friend is TwitterLit, with roughly twice/day posts of first sentences of books. I love this idea. Would that we were all this clever...

Anyway, if you are a Twitterer, feel free to come visit me.

Sitting at the Kids' Table

I know I'm partial to the name Simon, but in the case of Simon Rich, author of a recent New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs piece, I think deservedly so.

Shouts & Murmurs, the magazine's comedic short, is very inconsistent. It's not even that it depends on the writer; just some weeks it'll be funny, others it will totally bomb. But the March 26th issue carried a piece on children's perspectives that I thought was pretty awesome.

Called "The Wisdom of Children," it imagines what happens with adults when they're not around, and how they respond to the machinations of the young. Here is a clip from the first section, entitled "A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table":

MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
[snip]
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.

And in the final section, the US Govt. responds to youth political engagement:

—Did you hear the news, Mr. President? The students at the University of Pittsfield are walking out of their classes, in protest over the war.
—(spits out coffee) Wha— What did you say?
—Apparently, students are standing up in the middle of lectures and walking right out of the building.
—But students love lectures. If they’re willing to give those up, they must really be serious about this peace thing! How did you hear about this protest?
—The White House hears about every protest, no matter how small.

And a description of Woodstock: "Apparently, young people hate the war so much they’re willing to participate in a musical sex festival as a protest against it."

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a la Turk

Last summer, I wrote about Elif Shafak, a Turkish author who faced defamation charges because of her characters' comments about the Armenian genocide. The charges were dropped, and the novel in question is available in English.

So this week, I read The Bastard of Istanbul. It is beautiful, full of richly eccentric characters and scents and sights. Women dominate this book; men, to the extent they appear at all, are foils to their more colorful female counterparts, even as their actions have such an impact on the course of all their lives.

The book is about family, in all its convoluted and messy forms. That alone would make a compelling novel. But Shafak has greater aspirations.

It is also about discovery and reconciliation. Within the family, and within the broader family of the old Ottoman Empire. The interplay of memory and forgetting is constant. Characters shed old identities in order to forge on; the matriarch slips into Alzheimers, the "bastard" of the title knows nothing of her past. And superimposed on each character's battles with memory is the broader Armenian-Turkish dispute. Were the events of 1915 a genocide? Why is it important to know? Sometimes it's necessary to forget the past in order to escape its grasp.

Trained as a historian, I obviously have pretty strong views about why we need to address and study the past. For the beauty of its stories, for one, and in order better understand ourselves and those around us. Maybe even to learn from it. But despite (or maybe because?) of my historical bent, I can also see the need to address it and move on. And why for so many individuals and even culture, the second step in that process is often so much easier than the first.

These themes come out clearest in an exchange between Asya, the eponymous fatherless young woman, and Armenian Americans on a message board. She writes,

perhaps it is exactly my being without a past that will eventually help me to sympathize with your attachment to history. I can recognize the significance of continuity in human memory. I can do that...and I do apologize for all the sufferings my ancestors have caused your ancestors.

And a response from another poster, after her "private" apology is rebuffed:

the truth is [...] some among the Armenians in the diaspora would never want the Turks to recognize the genocide. If they do so, they'll pull the rug out from under our feet and take the strongest bond that unites us. Just like the Turks have been in the habit of denying their wrongdoing, the Armenians have been in the habit of savoring the cocoon of victimhood. Apparently, there are some old habits that need to be changed on both sides.

And there you have it. An argument for why history must neither be shunned, nor wielded as a weapon. And yet so much easier said than done.

Festival of Books, Day 2

I almost forgot that I went back to the Festival on Sunday. Essentially just to see Jane Smiley, b/c it wouldn't be the same without her. She and Times book editor David Ulin discussed literature, sex, Boccaccio, politics, 9/11 fiction, and more. Smiley is so good in conversation. I don't know if it's from practice, or if she is just naturally a good speaker. She is comfortable being on stage, and doesn't patronize her audience, but is also clearly really intelligent. Also self-deprecating and witty. This wasn't the most entertained I've been by her, but still worth the trip.

Purchases:
The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory (I've made fun of this book for ages; figured it was finally time to read it)
Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger (the tv show is one of my guilty pleasures)

Swag:
more Ghiradelli chocolate

Ode to a Library

As a graduate student at Georgetown, I relied heavily on inter-library loan and the Library of Congress. But occasionally, I liked to get away from the academic grind, and turned to the local library.

My local branch was a beautiful mansionesque building at Wisconsin and R. Set up on a hill, it looked over the rest of the neighborhood. And on Monday, it burned. And I can't tell from news reports how much was salvaged. It wasn't alone either - another DC treasure, Eastern Market - was also heavily damaged by a fire earlier in the day.

History suffered too:

The library's archivist, meanwhile, stood at Wisconsin and R streets, heartbroken over warped and soot-covered historic paintings and documents that firefighters were bringing out and placing on plastic sheeting on the sidewalk.

The branch's holdings include photos, maps and paintings of the neighborhood and individual files on each home in Georgetown that have been donated over the decades.

I have no words. Libraries and history should never be lost.

Festival of Books, Day 1

It was that time of year again, where I drop everything and spend the weekend traipsing around UCLA. I was choosier this year about panels, but still spent 8 hours at the Festival on Saturday.

My morning began with a trip around the grounds before heading to "Food Fight: When Did Eating Get Controversial?" moderated by Times columnist Russ Parsons. Joining him were three professors: sociologist Barry Glassner (USC), nutrition scientist Marion Nestle (NYU), and journalist Michael Pollan (Cal). Discussion ranged from GMOs to industrial farming to the rise of farmers markets to the cultural identities involved in eating. And probably more. Calories and corn made several appearances as well. I was utterly taken with Nestle, who was joyful and enthusiastic. I imagine she is amazing in the classroom (not to imply that the others aren't). Several books going on my list after this.

Next up, a trip across campus to the oddly named "Fiction: Jumping Off the Page," I guess referring to the vivid nature of these writer's prose. And the writers? A uniformly witty crew: Chris Bohjalian, Peter Orner, Gary Shteyngart (the only of the writers I knew before), and Marianne Wiggins, whose name was familiar but unplaced. The authors discussed their upcoming/most recent books, their writing habits and styles, how they are best friends with their editors, and... oh, and lots of comments about various quirks and neuroses. I want to read all of their books now. And I kind of have a crush on Orner.

Next came more wandering and time for reading the paper. And finally, a reading by T.C. Boyle. He read the story "Beat," a pulsing account of a adolescent boy's rendezvous with Jack Kerouac and his cohorts. He said, and I forget how often this is true, that there is something so valuable about hearing a work in the author's own voice. I would add that hearing it at all is a different and important way to experience fiction. Cadence and timing become important, and it's utterly unlike reading, where I see at least 5 or 6 words (if not more) at once. So that was cool, and of course he is himself an epitome of sorts of cool. And therefore a good way to end the day.

Day 1 Purchases:
"Save a Child, Save the World" t-shirt from Skirball, supporting International Relief Committee work in Darfur.

Day 1 Swag:
Ghiradelli chocolate squares
free copies of The Nation
soundtrack to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, coming soon to HBO (plus bookmarks!)
BookTV totebag
Walt Disney Concert Hall magnet
Organic basil seeds from Toyota
Shake and light flashlight (also from Toyota)

Foodie in Action

I made it to the end of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I partook, vicariously, of Michael Pollan's four meals: industrial, organic, local, and foraged. I thought about my own food choices, and how to reconcile (or at least recognize) the contradictions within those choices.

The book was often bedtime reading, and there is just something about food that makes me sleepy, so it took a while to get all the way through. And I was still reading the final pages with Michael Pollan on stage before me (more on that later). But it was worth the long haul.

The mix of fun facts and lively language kept the book moving briskly. I love random statistics and explanations, so parts that should perhaps have been boring weren't. On the other hand, you could tell that Pollan wrote the sections piecemeal, and the editing process didn't remove places where he explained or cited the same information again and again. Repetition can turn me off. (Yes, I can hear the snide laughter from all of you who have been subjected to my stories multiple times.)

Anyway, some fun passages:

The first bias predisposes us toward sweetness, a taste that signals a particularly rich source of carbohydrate energy in nature. Indeed, even when we're otherwise sated, our appetite for sweet things persists, which is probably why dessert shows up in the meal when it does. A sweet tooth represents an excellent adaptation for an omnivore whose big brain demands a tremendous amount of glucose [...] The adult human brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but consumes 18 percent of our energy, all of which must come from a carbohydrate.

Excellent to have an excuse for my sugar cravings. And, regarding pigs aerating manure into compost by rooting for corn kernels...

Buried clear to their butts in composting manure, a bobbing sea of wriggling hams and corkscrew tails, these were the happiest pigs I'd ever seen.

In fact, witnessing this "essential piggyness" is key to Pollan's philosophical coming to terms with eating meat. I can't do that chapter (number 17) to justice, but suffice it to say that I was impressed. Which goes for the entire book, really.

Ending Library Week with some stories on libraries

Libraries got some play in the front section of today's LA Times.

On page A17, "Chicago State's brave new library" made news with a series of crates and robotic bins instead of old-fashioned stacks. Users request a book online, and the appropriate bin is delivered to the librarian, who can quickly grab the right book. Elapsed time: 3 minutes. (This is impressive, seeing as how the Library of Congress used a similar system, and my waiting times were usually closer to an hour.)

Library and Information Sciences Dean Lawrence McCrank (McCrank?!) extols the new technology:

"We discovered that the average student took 30 minutes to find a book. Books would be misplaced or not filed correctly," McCrank said. "That's a lot of time that cuts into how long students can spend analyzing the material, focusing on work, or continuing to find even more research on a particular subject."

But I am sympathetic to critics "who note that these storage systems eliminate the tradition of students accidentally discovering new and sometimes better material while roaming through the stacks." And while that didn't happen to me that often, I did enjoy roaming down halls and coming across bizarre titles on the way to my book.

And on the other side of the page, not only is NYU getting my friend Jen this fall, but the university's Tamiment Library has recently received the US Communist Party archives. The process of cataloging all these goodies may take up to five years. (The print edition has some pictures that aren't online, of rallies and posters.)

And one more article for today: the New York Times discovers fair trade in their midst. And I discovered that I apparently have hipster cred. Or, as they put it:

Fair trade, like more familiar labels such as organic, cruelty-free and sustainable, is another in a series of ethical claims to appear on products — a kind of hipster seal of approval. The fair trade ethic is spreading eastward from the West Coast, where it has been promoted by well-financed activist campaigns and where progressive politics are more intertwined with youth culture.

This was a little bit of a surprise to me, b/c while plenty of cool kids do the fair trade thing, most of Fair Trade LA's members got involved through religious groups who focused on social justice. Upon a second reading, I'm feeling more generous, but on the first pass the article seemed pretty patronizing. But then again, it was in Fashion & Style.

Normally I like to be on time...

... but the New Yorker has gotten away from me. I'm finishing up the March 19th issue (it's the Spring Style issue, if you were wondering). And since today is April 19th, I'm only a month behind. Ugh - I need a reading sabbatical.

Of course, if I didn't spend so much time ogling this little guy, I would have more time for actual reading...

Re-discoveries, Obasan

In twelfth grade, I took the AP exam in English Language. It included a reading passage about a young girl getting on a train with her grandmother, and the accompanying preparations and observations. What made it spectacular was that it was not a voluntary trip - they were Japanese-Canadian, and being relocated to the interior.

This wasn't my first encounter with the internment of North Americans of Japanese descent during WWII; I had read Farewell to Manzanar in middle school. Perhaps more importantly, I was "in love" with Paul Kariya, whose father had been born in a Canadian internment camp.

The passage was gorgeous, and the topic was one that interested me, so I made a note of the novel - Obasan, by Joy Kogawa. That summer, during a drive to Vancouver, I read the book. And while I have yet to meet Paul, I did two projects on the Japanese internment camps while in college.

But I digress. The thing to know about Kogawa is that she writes lyrical, evocative prose. Opening at random, I find the following:

The handwriting in blue-black ink is firm and regular in the first few pages, but is a rapid scrawl later on. I feel like a burglar as I read, breaking into a private house only to discover it's my childhood house filled with corners and rooms I've never seen.

Or another:

I stand beside her and over the redness of my body she scrubs vigorously, like an eraser over a dirty page. The dead skin collects in little rolls and falls off into the water. She exclaims at the rolls.

And it builds to a painful, yet still poetic, crescendo. Lovely, just lovely.

Of Maize and Man

Everyone stop and groan at my awful pun.

But seriously, I am corn. So says Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma. Because virtually every non-natural food item (even some organic ones) that I eat now embody our country's insane glut of corn. This isn't news to me, as I've been on a mission against high fructose corn syrup for awhile now, but it's still unbelievably depressing. And fascinating too, the way that corn and humans have achieved a symbiotic state - but a precarious one for both species.

Pollan's book is subtitled "A Natural History of Four Meals" and in the book he traces fast food, supermarket, organic, and "found" meals - one each - to their source, investigating the social, scientific, and political circumstances behind each. So far I'm still in the industrial meal, so I don't have a good basis of comparison, but I hope that the rest of the book is able to delve so fully into the basis of each meal. I've heard mixed - albeit overall positive - reviews about this, so we'll see.

(And also, um, stop shooting people. I mean, really.)

Best Week Ever!

I like to use hyperbole, but seriously, I am celebrating this week. Why?

It's National Library Week! A whole week of love for that great institution that contains books and knowledge - and shares them for free. The LA County library system is excited too, with speakers each night. Co-hosting, another of my favorite things: the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It's only two weeks away, and tickets will be available starting at noon next Sunday - to help cure your blues and post-library week hangover.

The city's libraries are more circumspect, I guess, b/c I didn't see anything about it on their website. And didn't notice anything during my quick trip to my local branch Saturday. However, while I was searching, I did remind myself of the amazing events hosted regularly by the library. I signed up for a couple mailing lists. You should check out the site and maybe do so too.

Erin's Library will be celebrating the week by posting every day (or attempting to). So check back often.

What Other People Are Reading

There's a new addition to my blogroll at right: L.A. Stories. Don posted a comment about reading during commute and lunch - negating the need to combine reading and nightlife. Absolutely true, although I can no longer read on buses b/c I get sick, and now I spend my lunches with friends. So it doesn't quite work for me, but I am making efforts to find a better balance between the literary fun and social fun. So far it's working out.

But I checked out his blog, and discovered my new favorite kind of post: what books he notices on the bus. NICE. During my old bus commute, I pretty much only noticed people with the newspaper and the Bible. On BART in the Bay Area on the other hand, I noticed all sorts of random things.

Anyway, thanks Don for this peek into LA public transit readers. I'll be looking for more.