Category Archives: Links

The Dud Avocado Arrives

June 10, 2007 By in Books, Links

Excellent news! My copy of The Dud Avocado just arrived, which I actually ordered six months ago on the recommendation of Terry Teachout and OGIC. Teachout wrote the introduction, which defends books that are funny in general as well as The Dud Avocado in specific, and is a plea for the book.

From him an accolade like this means a lot: “But even if The Dud Avocado is doomed to remain one of those novels that is loved by a few and unknown to everyone else, we lucky few who love it will never stop recommending it to our friends, for it is so full of charm and life and something not unlike wisdom that there will always be readers who open it up and see at once that it is just there kind of book.”

So far I’ve read about 30 pages and agree with his assessment; I’m reminded most strongly of Robertson Davies’ A Mixture of Frailties, the strongest and most mature of his Salterton Trilogy. Here’s what I wrote:

Davies better expresses complex emotion and growth in A Mixture of Frailties than in the earlier two novels, which lack the control and advanced characterization; his protagonist, Monica Gall, is more of a person and less of a placeholder or type than the characters in the first two.

Davies traces Gall’s journey away from rural Canadian roots […]

It’s too early to tell if the comparison to The Salterton Trilogy is apt or if Sally Jay Gorce is fleeing something in the manner of Monica Gall, as I’ve seen only her flouncing about in Paris, without too much about her back story, save that a rich Uncle is financing her. What I’ve read so far delights and I hope the feeling continues.

EDIT: I just wrote a fuller post on The Dud Avocado

The Prisoner of Convention

June 9, 2007 By in Books, Links Tags: , , ,

The Atlantic just posted a non-gated review of Elmore Leonard (the review nominally covers The Hot Kid, but B.R. Myers is more interested in Leonard than this particular book). Myers makes an intriguing but wrong point about Leonard’s shift from Westerns to caper novels in that the latter abdicate morality in pursuit of cool and hence lose their… what? Heft? Authority? I can’t exactly tell, but I argue the opposite: Leonard’s move from simple stories of good and evil to stories with a shifting moral landscape make them better and more interesting novels that avoid easy conclusions about the characters inhabiting them and hence reach a depth that some of his earlier stories don’t.

I also dislike the implicit critical assumption about cultural commentary in Myers’ piece: that books, or at least Leonard’s books, need cleanly delineated good/evil opposites to function. He writes, “Back then [Leonard] was still immune to the silly idea that it’s unrealistic to pit a very good person against a very bad one.” It may or may not be unrealistic, but Myers seems to imply that he prefers stories about very good people against very bad ones—which is fine, but if so, he shouldn’t criticize Leonard for writing the kind of books he does not prefer. I find nothing wrong with the style of novel in which good/evil characters are made evident—Lord of the Rings is among my favorite novels, and no one is worse than Sauron or better than Aragorn—but to imply that stories involving ambiguity are inherently bad means that Myers won’t let novels explore what makes good good and bad bad; Leonard, in a subtle way, usually does in his caper novels, and also manages to show how good guys and bad guys often aren’t so different, when one even can identify the good guys and bad guys. Carl Webster in The Hot Kid is the supposed good guy mostly because he has a bade in The Hot Kid, and he’s mostly comic in Up in Honey’s Room, though to his credit he is chasing Nazis. Sometimes one can’t easily tell the good guys from the bad guys. Leonard might want to write about cool, so let him, without encumbering him with moralistic baggage.

Read “The Prisoner of Cool” for its useful and interesting observations about Leonard’s style and progression, even if you too think the conclusions are wrong. There is a reason I title this, “The Prisoner of Convention.”

UPDATE: I posted again on Myers here.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union—so far

May 15, 2007 By in Books, Links

Maud Newton liked it and so did the New York Times. The Elegant Variation heard Chabon in L.A. for what sounds like a fascinating discussion.

Judging from the links above, everyone compares it to Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, although I haven’t read any in-depth analysis comparing the two. Superficially they have much in common: Jews, alternate history surrounding World War II and the Holocaust, writers normally associated with capital-L Literary fiction. I’m haunted by the suspicion that Chabon’s first detective fiction may not be his best; like early Leonard, it has too much explanation and not quite enough flow. As much as I like the idea of the Literary Writer expanding their horizon, I’m not sure he’ll pull it off, although I’m becoming more engrossed as the story develops.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union still qualifies for being Literary, at least if you’re willing to accept science fiction and Raymond Chandler. One obvious stylistic quirk stands out in Chabon’s book compared to Chandler and Elmore Leonard in that the first few chapters—all I’ve read so far—have a surprising amount of exposition interspersed between and maybe even interrupting the dialog. This is atypical of science fiction, which usually lets the reader pick up the “rules,” and it’s not at all like Leonard, who he conveys so much through dialog and little through direct speech. I find the running backstory in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union distracting, but perhaps without it I would be confused.

Two big metaphors dominate the book so far: chess, a game Landsman, the protagonist, hates because of his complicated relationship with it as a child, and the perpetual uncertainty stemming from the status of the Jews. The political situation of Sitka, a semi-autonomous state in Alaska looms large, and the angst of its status reflects much of the angst Israel has felt over all the years of its existence. The point is direct: all states are changing and no state permanent; while the Jews feel that issue more acutely than many, they are not alone in their anxiety or the larger push and pull of the world’s forces.

I’m looking forward to Chabon’s talk in Seattle on May 16 and will be there for it.

More on reviews

May 2, 2007 By in Books, Links Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I commented previously on the decline of newspaper book reviews, and even in the short month and a half since then much has happened, as chronicled in the National Book Critics Circle Campaign to Save Book Reviewing. Note particularly Michael Connelly’s perspicacious post.

Now the New York Times weighs in. They’re hardly a disinterested party, given that they have one of the strongest, if not the strongest, newspaper book reviews in the country, but the article covers the debate: do book reviews matter in the age of blogs, and if so how much? The debate is occurring chiefly among bloggers—or the public part is, anyway. I like Maud Newton’s assessment:

“I find it kind of naïve and misguided to be a triumphalist blogger,” Ms. Newton said. “But I also find it kind of silly when people in the print media bash blogs as a general category, because I think the people are doing very, very different things.”

I agree, and I do not like to think of myself as a “triumphalist blogger.” But I cannot perceive what force could stem the decline of newspaper reviews, and enlightened self-interest seems unlikely to suddenly ascend in newspapers, and so view the rise of blogs as more or less inevitable, whether it is a net gain or loss. In an ideal world both would coexist, complementing each other, but that works only if newspapers continue to provide real coverage.

The Amis Inheritance

April 23, 2007 By in Books, Links Tags: , , , , , ,

The New York Times Magazine from yesterday ran a long article on “the curious writerly firm of Amis & Amis, founded by Kingsley, who died in 1995, and now run by his son Martin.” It deals with an obvious question in the lives of both writers, but one that hasn’t often been seriously examined because Martin is equally often hostile and dismissive of those who ask one-off questions about how Kingsley affected his writing. Take this response from January titled Martin Amis: You Ask The Questions; The novelist writes in answer to ‘Independent’ readers about misogyny, Islamism, Iran’s nuclear threat and Kirk Douglas’s naked body:

How do you think you might have ended up spending your working life if your father hadn’t been a famous writer? JOHN GORDON, Eastleigh

Well, John, that would depend on what my father had chosen to do instead. If he had been a postman, then I would have been a postman. If he had been a travel agent, then I would have been a travel agent. Do you get the idea?

That echoes dialog between John Self and a character named Martin Amis in Martin’s novel, Money:

‘Hey,’ I said, ‘Your dad’s a writer too, isn’t he? Bet that made it easier.’
‘Oh sure. It’s just like taking over the family pub[,]’ [Martin said.]

Money also tempts an autobiographical reading into aspects of the protagonist, John Self, as he also has an overbearing, promiscuous father and other similarities to Martin. To be sure, I doubt even people inclined towards biographical readings would argue that the Self’s excesses reflect Martin’s lifestyle, but there are certainly parallel elements.

The father figure issue is a subject Martin must get far too many questions about—perhaps his equivalent of “where do you get your ideas?” or like John Banville being asked about Benjamin Black. As a result, the article from The New York Times provides as good a summary as one’s likely to find about them in particular and literary progeny (in a literal sense) in general.

This Amis mania—the links above are just a smattering of recent press coverage—probably comes in part from Martin’s new novel, House of Meetings, and from Zachary Leader’s new biography, The Life of Kingsley Amis. Christopher Hitchens reviewed it favorably in The Atlantic. “Favorably” probably isn’t a strong enough word, as Hitchens says: “In this astonishingly fine and serious book, which by no means skips the elements of scandal and salacity, Zachary Leader has struck a near-ideal balance between the life and the work, and has traced the filiations between the two without any strain or pretension.” The rest of the article discusses little about the book but much about Hitchens’ recollection of Kingsley, as Hitchens knew the father and knows the son, and so complements the larger work.

Like Hitchens, I loved Lucky Jim when I read it, but I didn’t care for Girl, 20 the first time through. I recently gave it another shot, though, and changed my opinion, making posting the previous link a tad embarrassing to post. Regardless, “The Amis Inheritance” is worth reading, as are the books of Amis & Amis.

An update: The New Yorker also has a piece on The Life of Kingsley Amis available online.

Update # 2: Terry Teachout writes more on Kingsley in Commentary magazine.

More on Banville and noir fiction

April 17, 2007 By in Books, Life, Links

Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle board of directors blog (whew), has a post about noir fiction, respect, and evil. They agree that we lack adequate language for describing evil, although I am not convinced this is true. Language is inherently metaphorical, so perhaps we just haven’t developed sufficient metaphors for evil, or we cannot fully conceive of it and thus describe it, or perhaps evil people tend not to write books. The post says:

Banville read a section of “The Book of Evidence” to illustrate “the poverty of language when it comes to describing badness.” He then went on to point out that much of our fiction portrays us in a much kinder light than we deserve. “It would be a much better world if the priests and the politicians and the novelists just dropped this facade,” he said. “Even the best of us are monsters, horribly selfish people. Noir simply admits this.” Which, he continued, explains the sense of relief, of glee almost, we have in reading it. Gray agreed: “noir fiction release us of the baggage of morality,” he said.

I’m reminded of the cliche holding that criticism says more about the critic than the work, and I think the view of what people inherently are says more about the person making the statement than about humanity as a whole. I haven’t yet read The Book of Evidence, though my copy was signed along with Christine Falls, so I cannot say whether I agree with Banville’s point about language.

As far as people are concerned, I am convinced that circumstances play a greater role in who we regard as good or evil than most suppose. These situational factors affect whether we consider someone “evil,”, as Philip Zimbardo argues in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (he’s also interviewed by The New York Times, though this may be behind their walled garden). If so, that makes a view of people as inherently good or evil less interesting than pondering the circumstances under which good people do bad things, which appears to be the bulk of Zimbardo’s book. The only thing I really see people being is self-interested, and whether good or evil springs from that has more to do with circumstances. How’s that for combining a bit of psychology, philosophy, economics, and literature?

Going back to Critical Mass, I also note that it says the panelists respect genre fiction, something I especially appreciate given what my earlier description:

The sense of mischief might have come out when Banville showed a curious disrespect to, or at least distance from, the noir genre, calling Christine Falls “playing at fiction.” But he also said he created a new identity to show that Christine Falls isn’t a joke or literary lark.

Good fiction comes in many guises, and I want to know about that good fiction regardless which bookstore section it resides in.

Rate your students

April 11, 2007 By in Links

I recently sent a post to Rate Your Students, a blog chronicling the tribulations of modern college professors. Has much changed since Lucky Jim, or even Straight Man? I would guess not, or not so much as many professors on that site seem to think, save perhaps that their students are somewhat less literate than they once were and that the quality of student has declined as the quantity of student has gone up.

Book reviews in newspapers

March 10, 2007 By in Books, Links

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece (subscription required) about the paucity of advertisements placed in newspaper book sections by publishers, and the Journal cites that problem as a reason for the tendency to cut back independent book sections as publishers apparently favor of spending ad dollars in places like prominent displays in book stores. The Los Angeles Times‘ recent decision to fold its once-independent book review into other pages is a primary example of the trend. Perhaps the most interesting quote comes in the penultimate paragraph:

“I think it’s time to relaunch [a book review],” Mr. Wilson [of the Philadelphia Inquirer] says. “I don’t understand why newspapers, when they want to cut space, they immediately think of depriving people who like to read.”

On the one hand, I’m sympathetic to that point of view, but on the other, I feel like the train has long since left the station (or, for a science fiction metaphor, the ship has already been launched into orbit). Like music aficionados who want hipster blogs and p2p networks, book people have probably already moved substantially online to book blogs and Amazon.

In the time I’ve been alive—which, at 23, isn’t all that long in the grand scheme of things—I can’t remember the Seattle Times or PI having an independent book review section. These days, however, I’d be unlikely to read it even if they did: I get most of my book news from blogs, and now that I write one of my own, I sometimes get the goods about items of interest sent straight to me.

And Jessa Crispin of Bookslut makes another useful observation: “Part of me while reading this article […] was thinking “None of the ‘endangered’ book sections listed here are even very interesting.” Aside from the much maligned New York Times Book Review—I don’t share the widespread hostility so many book blogs have toward it—I read few newspaper reviews. The most interesting stuff too infrequently shows up in newspapers.

BookDaddy, meanwhile, has a slightly different take: the absence of ad dollars is business as usual, and publishers just can’t get the budget to pay for ads. This seems odd—if movies can get ad budgets, why can’t books? Although some of the discrepancy is no doubt due to the fact that movie big movie studios release dozens or at most a few hundred movies a year while publishers release thousands of title, it doesn’t follow that publishers can barely spend anything—unless they’ve realized that those ads don’t move books. And in my case, they’re right because I don’t read book reviews in newspaper, so those ads just can’t move me to buy a book.

Writing space

February 22, 2007 By in Life, Links Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Inspired by BlogLily, I took a picture of where I write. Unlike some, I haven’t cleaned up, so you’re seeing my desk au natural. Just to the left of my PowerBook is a stack of six books waiting to be written about and a few recent copies of The New Yorker, which further add to the chaos.

workspace2

While at Kate’s, I also noticed her typewriter post and sent her this e-mail (edited slightly):

I’m a bit younger than you and so do not remember a time without computers, and while I love the convenience of computers I also like the thrack-thrack-thrack typewriter noises and the key sensation. Some computer keyboards offered a similar tactile experience: the old-school IBM Model M and Apple Extended Keyboard II.

Both these have been replaced by soft-key keyboards, although independent companies have resurrected the older style. On the Windows side a Kentucky company sells the Customizer, and on the Mac side a Canadian company sells the Matias Tactile Pro. Like you, I also use a PowerBook, and I bought one of the (original) Tactile Pros and love it. The keyboard is ludicrously expensive, to be sure, and the noise annoys others if they have to share the same space, but it comes as close as you can get to the typewriter.

You can see the white Tactile Pro at the bottom of my desk.

EDIT: Things have changed since this was posted—see the new setup here.

Martin Amis

January 20, 2007 By in Books, Links Tags: , , , ,

The New York Times loves Martin Amis’ new novel, House of Meetings, which rather heartens me because I agree with Kakutani’s low assessment of his last few novels. But his best stuff—and here I’m thinking of Money, mentioned in my comments about The Player—cements his reputation, and even his worst is at least serious. Next Friday he’ll be in Seattle. In the meantime, enjoy this Q&A. Sample:

The phrase “horrorism”, which you invented to describe 9/11, is unintentionally hilarious. Have you got any more? JONATHAN BROOKS, by email

Yes, I have. Here’s a good one (though I can hardly claim it as my own): the phrase is “fuck off”.

And:

How do you think you might have ended up spending your working life if your father hadn’t been a famous writer? JOHN GORDON, Eastleigh

Well, John, that would depend on what my father had chosen to do instead. If he had been a postman, then I would have been a postman. If he had been a travel agent, then I would have been a travel agent. Do you get the idea?

There are serious answers too, though all of them have at least something comic about them, which, as Robertson Davies does, should be distinguished from funny or silly.