Book Love

No surprise, but Edward Champion is a book lover, or possibly an obsessive:

I wonder if I read too much, and why I feel compelled to have a book on me at all times. I’m not anti-social, although I like to spend long periods alone. I must have books — the way that others crave cashews or chew nails. I sometimes panic when I run out of books to read and I am in the middle of nowhere with time to kill. On long trips, I pack more books than I can possibly finish. I contemplate strange scenarios where I’m stuck in an elevator or locked in a building and there’s the small possibility that humanity will fail me. The books are trustworthy friends. And unless I get mugged by a pugilistic bibliophile, the books won’t leave me anytime soon. I wonder if this is a horrible conceit on my part or if this makes me a misanthrope. I wonder if all this is insalubrious. I wonder if this is an addiction.

I am the same way. Going to wedding last weekend, I wondered if it would be right to bring a book in with me (I decided against it--and was sorry for that). I feel completely ungrounded when I am in between books. I love the feel, the smell, the words passing before my eyes, the immersion that happens with a good book.

I am still recovering from reading Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. I need to write a review, but I don't even know where to start. The book had me so deep within that I feel a bit like a grounded fish. And how I am supposed to start another book now?

Book Review: Bright Lights, Big City

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

Did you ever pick up and begin reading a book, only to discover you've read it before? Only a couple of months before? I completely forgot that I had read this book. It's a short book, a quick read--in fact I finished it on a two-day business trip. The fact that I didn't even remember is hardly a good thing.

The book employs the gimmicky second-person perspective. Strike one. Maybe if the book had been everything it had pledged to be, it would have been a good idea. But the book turns out to be vapid. Oh, it's got its humor (I laughed at the ferret scene), and it skewers New York magazine publishing, and I imagine that some folks liked the books for those things.

To my disappointment the book never seems to make a statement about drug use or the nightclub scene. We see the central character fall as a result of the lifestyle, but ambivalence remains. I don't expect preachy morals, but I expect revelations (yes, epiphanies). Give me a moment of grace. Please.

New Prize for unpublished, unagented novel

From Yahoo! News:

The Sobol Award offers $100,000 for the best unreleased, agentless novel, with prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 for the runners-up and $1,000 each to seven others. The award was created by Sobol Literary Enterprises, a for-profit venture started by technology entrepreneur Gur Shomron, as "a venue to discover talented, unknown fiction writers and help them get the recognition they deserve."

It's all good until you find out about the $85 entry fee.

Will Self on Celine

The NYTBR presents an essay by Will Self on Celine. Self covers quite a bit of ground in this essay, but I'll just give you the closing graph (because he's spot on):

As for assaying the significance of “Journey” on this, its timely reissue, may I make some special pleading? This is the novel, perhaps more than any other, that inspired me to write fiction. Céline showed me that it was possible to convey things that had heretofore seemed inaccessible. Specifically, he showed how to yoke the equine demands of the body to the golden cart of fantasy, to create a form of dirty magic realism. When the novel first appeared, it was still possible to believe in the avant-garde: there were important things to be said, things suppressed by taboo and prejudice. Now, everything is permitted and nothing is heard. Yet, despite this, Céline’s voice still sounds out: bullying, loud, pathetic, craven and ultimately, I feel, triumphant.

Boy, would I like to have a drink with these two. Though I can't imagine the evening ending well.

Cincinnati Review of Bellow's Herzog

Powell's Review-a-Day for Sunday was a review by Heather Helper in the Cincinnati Review of Saul Bellow's Herzog and and she does a much better job of it than I do:

I sleep with Herzog on my bedside table even though I have finished reading it weeks ago. It no longer torments me, baiting me with its questions. Instead somehow it gives me comfort, knowing that even under an intense, ruthless scrutiny like Herzog's, the truths about life often escape us. It is as if in our attempt to bend down and pick up the very answer that we are searching for, we inadvertently kick it ahead of us, sending it rolling further along the path. As I lie in bed at night, letting my thoughts creep into the dimly lit places in my mind, I understand the realization Herzog reaches: that we may either torment ourselves with our own weaknesses or we may embrace them, realizing that perhaps there is not one truth that rules over all of life, but a more intimate truth that we construct from our own understanding.

Maybe I should learn to take time with my reviews.

Blogger trouble

Apparently Blogger in Beta is having a bit of trouble.

We'll see if this even posts.

UPDATE: We seem to be back in action.

Testing, one, two, testing

Changing to Blogger Beta seems to be presenting some trouble.

Rejection Update

Rejection slips have been appearing what seems like daily in my mailbox. At the sight of each self-addressed stamped envelope my wife offers an "oh, honey." I try and respond with something about how it's the nature of the business, or the circle of life, something like that which doesn't reveal that the sight of those white #10's doesn't make me a little sick inside, that each one doesn't steal a little of the joy out of life.

During July and August I sent out 8 stories to 3 literary journals each, putting a total of 24 submissions "out there." Flooding the market, you might say, but I can only buck up enough for the business of submitting every so often and when I do I ought to get out as much out as I can. Of these, one was rejected immediately because they (Chelsea Mag) aren't reading new fiction until January of next year, and I then sent another one out. So let's do the math:

8 x 3 = 24 +1 = 25

And so far I have received a total of 10 rejections.

25 - 10 = 15

Fifteen submissions remain in circulation, so there's still a chance.

The good news is that journals that weren't reading during the summer will be reading now. Many more markets are available now. It will soon be time to steel myself for another round of submissions.

Book Review: To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I never got around to this book because I swore that I'd read it as a kid. I was sure that in my wealth of reading during adolescence when one is allowed to wile away full days in bed or under a tree with a book this one would hav been on the list. Or at least I'd seen the movie. Either way, after hearing an interview with the author of Mockingbird, the current Harper Lee bio and starting my own project of what I'll call "rural" fiction, it was time to get around to this one. Besides, I was on vacation.

The book proved to be worthy of its status as a classic. It is outstanding work (nevermind the first-person perspective and the retrospective problem it poses). Wonderfully, the area's history and the history of its residents inform the present story. We follow along as Scout and Jeb learn life's morals and complexities, but never once do we feel we are beeing lectured to. It does (and should) prove inspirational.

A pity it is that we didn't get more work like this from Harper Lee. A pity too that it took me this long to get around to reading it.

Book Review: The Feast of Love

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter

The guy definitely displays some mastery and warrants taking his advice to heart. He tells a story that is suburban and authentic while being dramatic and at times stunning. What he manages extremely well is the use of different voices, different first person narrators, each with individual flavor. What is unfortunate about the novel is the frame of the story, utilizing the author as if he's talking to these characters and they're giving him their story. I didn't need that set-up.

While this was a National Book Award finalist, I was only a little let down by the first experience with the work of Baxter, beyond his short stories and writing about writing.

Not that Chick-Lit Thing again

This is ought to get some people riled up.

Some in the publishing industry questioned whether women -- who
are widely believed to buy a majority of books -- really needed an imprint
of their own. "Pam's a good editor, and I'm sure she'll do a good imprint,"
said David Rosenthal, publisher of Simon & Schuster. But, he added, "I'm
always wary of ghettoization."

Hyperion Starts Imprint to Help Women Whittle the Book Choices - New York Times

Fall book releases - Yahoo! News

Here's the ones I'm looking forward to:

"The Lay of the Land" (Alfred A. Knopf), Richard Ford returns with Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Independence Day."

"The Road" (Alfred A. Knopf), a post-apocalypse tale from Cormac McCarthy.

"The View from Castle Rock" (Alfred A. Knopf), a new collection from short story master Alice Munro.

Fall book releases - Yahoo! News

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

My wife keeps walking around singing that song, so I guess that means we're really going on vacation. Seven days with no internet (good). More concentrated time to write (good?).

TC Boyle Recommends John Cheever Collection

As if we need anybody to tell us that we should read John Cheever.

NPR : On Learning to Appreciate John Cheever's Stories

Doris Lessing reviews new Anna Kavan bio

A new biography of Anna Kavan, A Stranger on Earth, by that pest Jeremy Reed is reviewed by Doris Lessing here: Independent Online Edition > Reviews.

I call Jeremy Reed a pest because he has managed to write either Fiction or Non-Fiction on nearly ever fun subject. Every time I turn around to see what's been written about Rimbaud or Artaud, there's that damn Jeremy Reed. And now he has this biography coming out on my favorite fiction writer, Anna Kavan. Underappreciated she is, but then again you might easily believe that this is the way she would have wanted it. Her work has often been compared to Doris Lessing, so her thoughts on the subject are relevant:

Changing her name, changing husbands, she destroyed letters, diaries, anything that might assist a biographer like Jeremy Reed - who has done pretty well, with no assistance. This biography is a good enough introduction: reliable, but it is a bit short on insight.
[...]
she has her own original voice in one startling novel after another. Mercury, Asylum Piece, Sleep Has His House, My Soul in China: in each Anna Kavan speaks, and with authority. She is being recognised as the most distinctive of 20th century
novelists. Her experience with drugs may have added phantoms and fantasies to
her landscapes, but it is the cool lucid light of that unique mind which makes
her Anna Kavan.

Add another book to that wish list.

Book Review: Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

I went into this book with some pretty high expectations and I was not disappointed. Woodrell manages to paint the bleakest of scenes with beautiful prose. While the subjects are lowly, the language stays lyrical (if only Denis Johnson did the same).

There have been some comparisons to Faulkner and they make perfect sense. The author shows an incredible amount of skill in description as well as tension. And I can't ignore the way Woodrell manages to catch that Southern Missouri dialogue without painting them as stereotypical hillbillies.

My only complaints might be that the novel is so short (I would have read much more) and an unnecessary note of optimism at the end.

It is a great thing to read a book that lives up to the reviews, and there's nothing much better than finishing a good book.

Is a story ever "done?"

I am afraid to read the stories in my MFA thesis. After spending so much effort on these stories, rewriting scenes, creating new endings, the end product was often much different than the earlier drafts. There was little time for reflection, though. I never had the chance to decide whether any particular change was the necessary one. I turned in the thesis and turned my back. Those stories were "done."

As I send out these stories now, I wonder if I should look back at them again. I'm afraid they'll let me down. I'm afraid that no matter the condition I'll find something to change. I think that any writer at any point can look back at a story and see room for improvement, even after publication. I don't think stories are ever really "done."

Book Review: Herzog

Herzog by Saul Bellow

This one started out one of those bedside books out of which only a page or two might be read before sleep closed one eye. Other books, several of them, came and got in the way, but finally I had to make it the priority. The only reason a book takes so long is if it is difficult or not particularly interesting. This one was both.

It is a traditional psychological novel and we spend the entire 400+ pages of it inside the mind of Moses Herzog. It isn't the best place to be. I actually tend to like these stories and at times this one was brilliant, but often it all came off as rambling. He has a fair amount going on, a number of neuroses that kept it interesting, but I got the feeling early on that very little was going to happen. I enjoyed bits, but it was a tough read. Admirable in some aspects, but not really worth a recommendation.

Your average audiobook listeners

This article, You Say Tom Robbins, I Say Tom Clancy - New York Times, on audiobooks and the disputes they cause between couples on roadtrips is pretty worthless, except for these juicy quotes from audiobook listeners:

"I did try getting a couple of the Patterson books but I think the writing is unbelievably bad. "

“The guys won’t listen to chick lit, but the women will listen to what guys are interested in, like biography and action,” Ms. Zeiher said. Not that women are pushovers.
“I think women’s interest in literature is broader than men’s,” she said. “We can handle their stuff better than they can handle ours. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?”

Killing an Arab

Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation
And we really know why, don't we.

I feel the steel butt jump
Smooth in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring at myself
Reflected in the eyes
Of the dead man on the beach
The dead man on the beach

I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab