Category: reading

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When good things happen to good writers

I have just returned from a lovely party celebrating my friend Edith Pearlman and her new book, “Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories.” It is Edith’s fourth book and begins with an enthusiastic intro by Ann Patchett, herself a wonderful writer. You may have read the glowing front page review in the New York Times with your morning coffee. Or the similar one in the Los Angeles Times. I can’t wait to read the book and you’ll want to read it, too.

Edith has published hundreds of works of fiction and nonfiction in literary journals, national magazines, and online publications. Her short stories have been anthologized (“Best American Short Stories”) and have won O. Henry, Pushcart, and other prestigious prizes. So why has the tone of the praise been along the lines of “why haven’t I heard of Edith Pearlman before?” More importantly, why are people hearing about her now?

Edith herself credits a few people–her agent, Jill Kneerim; Patchett, who has admired her work for years; and Benjamin George, the editor of Lookout Books, the brand new literary imprint beginning its life with “Binocular Vision.” What happened was that George, who had published Edith’s stories in the magazine he edits, “Ecotone,” simply liked her work enough to want to help it find a larger audience. Maybe “simply” isn’t quite the operative word here, with all the complications of publishing and promoting a book, getting it into the hands of reviewers, and then the hands of readers. But the short version of what happened is this: Someone. Paid. Attention. Someone noticed that these stories were, indeed, very fine, worthy of much praise and wide readership.

I am extraordinarily happy for Edith (to whom I am eternally indebted for introducing me to Dr. D!). And her experience, I think, has something to teach us all. For writers the message is to stay true to what you do. For readers–and that includes the writers–honor the work that has been offered to you. Read it with open hearts and let it touch you: pay attention.

Edith will be reading from “Binocular Vision” this Tuesday at 7 at Brookline Booksmith. See you there.

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What I read on my vacation: two books I didn’t finish, for very different reasons

I used to never give up on a book, but that’s all behind me. Life is too short. And so, though it comes weighted with Important Critical Reviews and the Man Booker Prize, I got only to chapter 4 (that’s 7% in Kindle-speak) in Howard Jacobson’s “The Finkler Question.” I was inclined to give it some sympathy because it arrived with the unfortunate label of “comic novel.” And, true, there were a couple of smiles and one laugh. But there was also a sense of –say it–boredom. It’s possible I may reopen it in the future, but for now, no thanks. I’ll be glad to hear from anyone who has read the book and wants to urge me to give it another chance.

The reason for closing the other book was quite the opposite. I had been looking forward to reading “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones and I still am. It’s just that, a single chapter into it, I knew this was not the time or place. The book is a strongly written and engaging novel about slave ownership by blacks in the antebellum American south. I was immediately drawn into it. But every time I looked up at the beach and the waves, every time I reached for another dab of 85 SPF sunscreen or another pleasant little snack, I knew this book had to wait.

Now back home surrounded by the rigors of a New England winter I will be able to give “The Known World” the kind of reading it deserves.

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What I read on my vacation: “Regeneration”

I had heard about Pat Barker’s trilogy of historical novels about World War I. Like Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy which I gobbled up last year, this one sounded like nothing I’d want to read. I was wrong.

“Regeneration” starts with a statement against the war by the poet Siegfried Sassoon: “I am making this statement as as act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

“I am a soldier, convinced that I am writing on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation….

“I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.”

Hmmm.

It continues with Sassoon’s stay in a mental hospital where he is treated by Dr. William Rivers. This is all historical fact, as is Sassoon’s meeting a very young Wilfred Owen, who is an aspiring poet in awe of Sassoon. There is, in fact, one wonderful scene in which the two are basically workshopping a poem Owen has written.

There is also much about the cruelty of war, often exacerbated by the unthinking cruelty of British military officers. And there is quite a bit of very interesting early 20th century psychiatric thinking and practice.

This was a fascinating book that took me by surprise. I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series.

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What I read on my vacation: Henry James…on Kindle

I just got back from two warm and sunny weeks at the beach where I did a lot of reading and I have much to share about what I read. Rather than give a long list, I thought I’d do a short separate blog post for each book. First up, “The Ambassadors” by Henry James.

No, it’s not exactly a beach read. I had actually started it before I left on vacation. It was my first book on my new Kindle; I had wanted to select something special to inaugurate the Kindle and this definitely was. So poor James was in odd circumstances in terms of both where and how I was reading him: not surprisingly, he rose to the occasion.

First about the Kindle. I like it a lot but I’m not going to be giving up print books any time soon. It is a different experience, more like the difference between watching the same movie in a theater or at home. It’s still the same work and you can still enjoy it or not as itself, but you do take it in in subtly different ways. And there are some books I want to own in hard copy, have up on my shelf, feel the pages of. Still, I’m glad I have this new option for reading.

What I like:
I love going on vacation knowing I’ll have enough books and yet I’ll still be able to lift my suitcase. I even downloaded an additional book while I was away.

I like the physical ease of holding it, even if the book was a thick one.

I like the font, which can be modified in several ways to individual preference. I actually stuck with the default font, which I found attractive and appropriate for reading on an electronic device.

I liked the dictionary function, although with James that’s hardly all the help I’d like to have.

What I don’t like:
This is a little strange but I often like to read the last page early on just so I can relax and enjoy the book without–does this make sense to anyone else?–racing through it to see what happens. That’s still possible with the Kindle, but takes a little maneuvering.

Likewise, going back to reread something is a little harder to do. I may get more adept with practice, but right now, I sometimes just give up on it.

I miss what happens when people read in public. There’s something lost, I think, when you can’t say to a stranger on the beach or on the T, “Do you like that book?” or “I loved that one.” Of course, right now when it’s still new, there is the opportunity to talk about the Kindle itself. But isn’t it more fun to talk about books?

Now, “The Ambassadors”:
Such a wonderful book. Such fascinating characters. So much to think about. If only I could have understood it all. I blogged recently about an excellent annotated edition of “Pride and Prejudice” by Pat Spacks; I wish there were one for “The Ambassadors.” I’d love to know more about all the nuances of social expectations and behavior James writes about. But even knowing that I missed much, this is such a substantive book that it is a delight to read.

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The gift of reading

When it comes to gift-giving, we’re people of the books, Dr. D. and I. All those neat rectangular packages. So packable. So easy to wrap. So–okay–predictable. But what could be better? I am one of those romantics who sees a book cover as a door ready to be opened to–what? An idea? A world? A new way of seeing? Or just (just???) a good story to entertain.

Around this time last year I wrote about the pleasure of giving and receiving books. To recommend a book you have loved seems like a gift that goes so much farther than even the nicest cashmere sweater or snazzy new i-thing. We recently had some recommendations in the family that went like this: Zach read Kate DiCamillo’s “Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.” He said it was the best book he had read all year and that he cried at the end. Wow.

So I bought “Edward Tulane” for Cameron and Ryan, who tore through it in two days because they couldn’t bear to stop reading. And, like Zach, they were teary at the end.
So now, Sam, Mia, guess what’s in those rectangular packages with YOUR names on it.

Crying at the end of a book–what could be better? It means both that the book had the power to touch and that you opened your heart to it and let yourself be touched. A truly perfect gift at any time of the year.

For book recommendations for kids, check out my friend Deborah Sloan’s blog, The Picnic Basket. For a wonderful selection of books around Boston, my favorites are Brookline Booksmith, Porter Square Books, and Harvard Book Store. And, for the gift of poetry, the one and only Grolier Poetry Book Shop.

Back in touch next year–I’m going to read a book!

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Finishing the (Best books of 2010) Hat

So The New York Times “10 Best Books” list is out for 2010 and all the usual suspects are rounded up. Jonathan Franzen, of course. Well, this is clearly the Year of Jonathan Franzen and maybe he deserves it simply for the hard work of producing a 675-page novel. I’m going to have to read “Freedom,” I know, but as someone who couldn’t get past about page 382 of “The Corrections,” I’m not looking forward to it.

I was more than sorry to not see one single book of poetry. Not one? Especially hard to fathom as I am being totally knocked out reading the National Book Award winner, “Lighthead,” by Terrance Hayes.

There are a few that I am planning to read, including the new Stacy Schiff biography of Cleopatra.

But the one on the list that I absolutely am loving and want to recommend most highly is “Finishing the Hat” by Stephen Sondheim. True, I am a Sondheim groupie. But even if you’re not, this book has important things to tell you in its humorous, honest, self-effacing way. It is not only about creating theater, but also about taking it in. It is about poetry, about taste, about what makes for good theatrical lyrics and why.

Above all, it is about creating art. Its title comes from a song in one of my favorite Sondheim shows, “Sunday in the Park with George.”
“There’s a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat…
Starting on a hat….
Finishing a hat….
Look, I made a hat…
Where there never was a hat.”

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“Long for This World”

I didn’t find the book I was looking for in the library, so I picked up one I vaguely remembered reading a review of. Good review? Bad? Didn’t remember; maybe that’s why they say there’s no such thing as a bad review. Anyway, I took home “Long for This World,” Sonya Chung’s first novel, and I’m glad I did.

It is a story of a Korean family, some members in Korea, some in America. What can I say? It’s about life. Tragedy intersects with daily routine and occasional joys. Beloved people finish their lives, just as they do off the page. And, piece by piece the days and years build, families continue.

A quote: “A slight shift in one direction or another and she will slide off the surface of her life. Eow easily this happens to a person. How little it takes to unhinge what once seemed securely locked.”

This is a slim book but so filled with nuanced details of thoughts and actions and characters that it keeps you in its world past the last page. A wonderful bonus is the overlay of Korean culture. After I read it–partly in tribute and partly under the spell of the women in the kitchen chopping, chopping–I went out for lunch at a Korean restaurant. (Koreana at the corner of Prospect and Broadway in Cambridge. I definitely plan to go back.)

There’s another book out with the same title, a non-fiction book about longevity. But that’s a different book. This one, the novel, doesn’t tell you about living longer. Just about living.

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“To the End of the Land”

Someone I know, reading this book, said that he hated putting it down because it was so beautiful and he hated picking it up because it was so painful. That seems as good a description as any of reading “To the End of the Land,” the new novel by Israeli author David Grossman.

Yes, it is a beautiful book. The characters are complex, flawed, understandable, inscrutable. They live with an impossible backstory and an equally impossible present that is part of living in a country where the political is overwhelmingly, pervasively personal.

The story is this: Ora, mother of a son in the army, leaves her home to hike through the country so that if/when the “notifiers” come to her door with bad news, she will not be there to receive it. It is a hike she had planned to take with her son. She takes it, instead, with an old friend, “old friend” in this case being a bloodless euphemism for how these two intertwined lives have unfolded.

“A Woman Escaping News,” the novel’s title in Hebrew, carries a very different message from the English. “To the End of the Land” has echoes of geopolitics and journey. “A Woman Escaping News” deals more in magical thinking, the illusion that anything we do could be a bargaining chip for the lives and safety of those we love. The news the woman, Ora is trying to escape exists not only in the world and possibly on her doorstep, but also in her anguished rehashing of past events, regrets, misunderstandings.

Because so much has been written about this book and its author it is impossible to come to it without the knowledge that Grossman’s son Uri, who was in the Israeli army, was killed while his father was writing the book. But even knowing that, it feels like a shock to come to the afterword in which Grossman tells how he started this book three years before Uri’s death, gave Uri updates on its progress, and completed it after the story had taken this tragically personal turn.

This is a sad book, yes, but it’s also an extraordinary one that I highly recommend.

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Jane, Annotated

At first I was less than charmed by the idea. An annotated edition of “Pride and Prejudice”? Could be interesting, yes, but this was one of my favorite books. Did I want to read it with 2000 footnotes? Did I want this additional voice intruding on my private time with Elizabeth Bennett? The answer, as it turns out, is yes. I kept an open mind on this, and now, dear reader, I must tell you how much I am enjoying this. The book, officially, is “Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition,” edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks and published by Harvard University Press.

First of all, the book is physically beautiful. An e-book is all well and good in its place, but this is not the place. This is a large, heavy book with paper that affords noticeable tactile pleasure. There are wonderful illustrations, from the familiar watercolor of Jane painted by her sister Cassandra, to a wonderful drawing “A Gentleman’s Art Gallery” that shows what a room at Pemberley might have looked like, to a group of illustrations done for the book in 1894, including a priceless one in which the unbearable Mr. Collins is recoiling at the thought of–horrors!–reading a novel. One of my favorites is the poster from the movie version with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, that looks like the cover of a paperback bodice-ripper.

The footnotes, rather than getting in the way, are like having a knowledgeable companion on the sofa next to you, pointing out all the good bits. I had the pleasure of hearing Patricia Spacks talk about the book, and her warm voice is exactly what I hear as I read about various kinds of coaches the characters rode in, the relative levels of social standing of the characters, or what quadrille is. A chatty aside may dish about how Mr. Collins looks at women and furniture alike as objects awaiting his approval or disapproval.

Maybe a gift for the Austen fan in your life?

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Mary Ann is back!

I just got my online copy of this week’s New York Times Book Review and–thank you, life!– Armistead Maupin has given a gift to everyone who ever loved the residents of 28 Barbary Lane.

For the uninitiated, Maupin wrote a series of novels–”Tales of the City,” “More Tales of the City, “ “Further Tales of the City,”etc. in which a very diverse group of San Francisco residents lived under the unstated motto of “Can’t we all just get along.” I loved those people–Michael Tolliver, Anna Madrigal of the anagram name, and the often naive Mary Ann Singleton who innocently rented a room in the boarding house and, well, you have to find out for yourself. Reading those books felt like having an endearing, but slightly out of control group of houseguests descend for an intense, brief time. A little crazy, but after they left, you worried about them, missed them, wanted them to come back.

PBS made a film of the first book that starred Laura Linney as Mary Ann and Olympia Dukakis as Anna, so you can just imagine the deliciousness. And now–oh joy!–a new book. Mary Ann in Autumn. Oh, autumn. Well, ok, I got older, too. I can handle this. I’m ready for whatever Maupin brings my way. In fact, I can’t wait.