Category: reading

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Time to “Howl”!

The word made picture is always problematic, especially when the word is poetry. But I was happy to find the movie “Howl” the most successful attempt I’ve seen.

There are many layers here. There’s “Howl” the poem at the heart of it all. And there’s “Howl” the event that made a generation of critics, readers, and self-annointed keepers of public morality howl with varying degrees of delight and outrage. And there was “Howl” the court case, which ruled on the question of whether or not publication of the poem should be prohibited on the grounds of obscenity. Finally, there was the poet, Allen Ginsberg, himself, whose howl of protest became one of the 20th century’s touchstones.

The movie manages to incorporate each of these. It cuts from James Franco as the young Ginsberg reading his poem to Ginsberg a few years later giving an interview to a courtroom in which the obscenity trial is taking place. In doing so, the film gives a sense of the immediate reaction to the poem and the context of its appearance in 1950s America.

The movie does one other thing, which I found extraordinary. It actually makes parts of the poem visible through illustrations that are as imaginative and captivating as they are uneven. They’re far from perfect, but they are an engaging attempt to add an additional dimension to the words. Do the words need an additional dimension? Most definitely not. But how likely would it be to have a film about a poem that relied on the spoken word alone? Actually, how likely would it be to have a film about a poem at all?

That’s what I found most exhilarating about “Howl” the movie. It actually starred “Howl” the poem. It has a lot going on, to be sure, but it gets out of the way of the words enough so you can tell what all the fuss continues to be about. “Howl” the poem is astounding.

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To read or not to read

I hate to start and book and not finish it. And I know I’m not alone in this. It feels like some kind of character flaw, or maybe a breakdown in the unstated contract between reader and writer. And yet at this very moment I have TWO books on my nightstand that I probably will not finish.

The first is “The Adventures of Augie March,” Saul Bellow’s early break-through coming-of-age novel. It’s masterfully written and every time I pick it up I am astounded by Bellow’s craft, his beautiful use of language, his astounding breadth of reference. And then I put it down. I’ve been reading it since May. Okay, it’s not a short book, but still. Since May I’ve read maybe a dozen other books, many of them just as long if not longer. And I keep asking myself why I can’t seem to stick with this one. I know this is an admission of my deep lack of something or other, but, much as I admire the writing, I’m just not all that interested in the story. So I am close to admitting defeat and putting Augie back on the shelf, where–true–I could resume reading any time.

Then there is “The Corrections,“ the book Jonathan Franzen wrote before he was anointed Boy Genius, Great American Writer, and maybe the Second Coming of Elvis for his new novel, “Freedom.” There was a little something gnawing at me that felt as if Franzen’s Genius was being crammed down my throat. But I hadn’t read this earlier novel and there it was on the shelf, just waiting. Reader, I hated it. I know, I know, many people have loved it. Many people whose opinions on books I respect have loved it. But not me. I find his repetition of the word “correction” used in various ways, annoying and silly. I find his characters mostly small and unlikable; the few I liked the most seemed to be the ones he liked the least. And, up to page 335 out of 562, I am not seeing the ambition of scope that I had expected. I closed the book last night and have returned it to its place next to E.M Forster. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, as a little palate-cleanser, I picked up Laurie Colwin’s “The Lone Pilgrim.”which I had not looked at in many years. Colwin, if you are not familiar with her, wrote five luminous novels, two short story collections, and a series of food columns that were collected into two books. Sadly, she died at 48, in 1992. Her stories are filled with characters you wish you knew–complex and human and trying to figure out their lives. Here’s a small taste selected totally at random: “Woe to those who get what they desire. Fulfillment leaves an empty space where your old self used to be, the self that pines and broods and reflects. You furnish a dream house in your imagination, but how startling and final when that dream house is your own address. What is left to you? Surrounded by what you wanted, you feel a sense of amputation. The feelings you were used to abiding with are useless. The conditions you established for your happiness are met.”

Next post I’ll give you the recipe for her fabulous tomato pie!

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Let us now praise copy editors

For the past few years I’ve been thinking about copy editors. Actually, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for them: as a writer I’ve appreciated their ability to keep me from embarrassing gaffes and missteps. In fact, that keen second look is one of the things I miss now that I’m writing a blog instead of a newspaper column. And as a reader, I’ve appreciated their behind-the-scenes touch that leaves me free to concentrate on the sense of what I’m reading without being distracted by errors.

I just read about a major copy editing lapse at the New England Journal of Medicine where, you would think, attention would be paid to the fact that a mistake could actually be a life or death issue.

Typical, I say. For several years now I’ve been wondering if copy editing, even at major publishing houses, has been replaced by a quick run through a spell check program. So “here” can sometimes be “hear.” Or maybe “there’s” no “they’re” “their.” No book, it seems, is significant enough to get careful hands-on editing. I was particularly grieved to find two glaring mistakes in the late Wendy Wasserstein’s final work, her novel, “Elements of Style.” And more recently, the Pulitzer Prize winner “Tinkers,” too, had two sadly obvious problems. In fact, there’s hardly a book I’ve read lately where I haven’t noticed at least one error.

And, really, copy editing is one of those things that shouldn’t be noticed. It should be invisible. You should be able to read a book without thinking that someone had to make sure each word was right. Each word should, simply, be right.

Putting something in print gives it authority, so it had better be right. There is a lot of fine writing out in the world. And there is some good, careful editing, too. Maybe it’s economics. Maybe it’s the democratizing effect–good in so many ways–of everyone being able to publish instantly. Whatever the cause, there’s also a lot of bad writing, too, and it chips away at our respect for the craft, to the detriment of the good writers. And, perhaps even worse, careless editing leaves us distrusting the written word.

To all you copy editors, my thanks for work well and unobtrusively done. Your work may be invisible, but when it’s left undone or poorly done, it shows all too clearly. And we, as writers and readers, are the worse for it.

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The body of work

So I told you how impressed I was with “The Great Man“ a novel by Kate Christensen. Well, I am about 50 pages into another of her novels, “Jeremy Thrane,” and I don’t think I’ll be reading much further. It’s understandable that a writer’s body of work would not necessarily be all at the same level. Understandable, but disappointing.

It’s the same feeling I had when, after reading Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” or Colm Toibin’s “The Master.” How many writers produce book after book of unfailingly high quality? There’s a reason Jane Austen and John Updike and their ilk actually have, well, such a small “ilk.” What they accomplished, book after book, is extraordinary. They just made it look easy.

Part of the disappointment comes from meeting an author for the first time in a book you’ve heard or read good things about. Then, when you want to read more–the atavistic Bobbsey Twins/Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew impulse–maybe what you’re left with are the earlier novels in which literary gifts were being gradually honed. Maybe it’s our impatience to discover the next new wonderful read coupled with the writer’s impatience to be the next brilliant young star. Didn’t writers used to have the luxury of a long, steady apprenticeship out of the spotlight, away from all but private expectations? Maybe writers need to have some unpublished work stashed away in desk drawers.

But I’m also thinking that I need an attitude adjustment. First comes savoring the books that are truly wonderful, giving myself to them slowly and completely without rushing to the end and looking for more. That there may not be more does not diminish what there is.

And second comes discovering a different pleasure: following the development of a gifted writer, reading his or her work chronologically and enjoying watching the gift unfold. How many of us, after all, would want to be judged on our early efforts in anything? Maybe it is not a question of disappointment that a particular writer has not produced more wonderful work but rather, gratitude that he or she produced the one wonderful thing we have in front of us right now.

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Surprising summer reading

It’s summer (all right, it’s a big three days into summer) and already I’m feeling the warm laziness that extends to even choosing a book to read. So I was glad to be handed a book by my sister-in-law, Susan, a discerning book person personally and professionally.

The book was something of a surprise. I had not heard of “The Great Man” and knew nothing about its author, Kate Christensen. The title, author photo, and first few pages led me to expect a different book, one I was surprised Susan would recommend. I was wrong.

The novel is about a constellation of women whose lives have revolved around the eponymous “great man,” a critically acclaimed artist so much larger than life that he remains at the heart of the women’s lives despite having died five years earlier. This could so easily have been light fiction of little consequence. There is the wife, the mistress, delicious food being prepared, a few outfits being chosen: all the basic warning signs of what is condescendingly referred to as chick-lit. (I could stop here and do a whole rant on the sexist dismissiveness of this term, but I won’t.) .

But then came the surprises: substantive and fascinating discussions of modern art and artists, septuagenarians in unapologetically juicy relationships, serious questions of what truth is and what art is and how women’s lives unfold through conscious decision and circumstance.

In short, I devoured the book and find that, several days later, it remains with me, satisfying and thought-provoking. And, no surprise, I’m going to read more of Kate Christensen’s work.

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A Weekend in Another Country

I’m spending a weekend with friends in rural Connecticut in a 19th century house on a hill with wonderful views in all directions. Just outside the window where I’m writing this I can see a small and perfect garden of purple and white and some spots of pink.

It’s a lazy weekend, that started with plans for hikes and bike rides and wound down to snacks and people reading in every corner of the house. The house is filled with books and magazines that tempt me away from the book I brought. I found a magazine that carried me to another time.

I had never heard of the magazine—it was called Show—and the issue I found celebrated its third anniversary: October, 1964. There were nostalgia-prompting ads, for Hasselblad cameras and Garrard turntables and a tennis resort where “you don’t have to be Pancho Gonzales.”

But it was the articles that astounded me. Thought-provoking, erudite. “Four A.M.,” a haunting essay on that lonely hour by James Baldwin, accompanied by a Richard Avedon photo. A delightful brainy photo essay of the separated-at-birth genre, but this one matched famous faces with ancient works of art. A feature on the 1964 version of Brad and Angelina: Liz and Dick. (Taylor and Burton.) A writer’s chance encounter with Robert Frost. Musings on the definition of success.

And then this: An editorial section headlined “Show Deplores,” which included these:

–“Character assassination masquerading as biography. “ Well, ok, that’s still going on.

–“The damage being done to the English language by the space age.” They should have had a glimpse into the tweeting age!

–“The continuing rudeness of a few box office attendants in New York’s legitmate theaters. “ Custom service people treating customers rudely, can you imagine?!

–“The five Midwestern Congressmen, members of the House Education and Labor Committee, who filed a minority report opposing that Committee’s National Arts and Cultural Development Act.” What can we say? The arts continue to be expendable.

Reminders of such a different time on a weekend when a hole in the earth is spewing oil into the Gulf waters and no one seems to know how to stop it. Another Memorial Day. The sun is shining and we go on.

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Reading….and then not so much

It’s a wonderful book, beautifully written by an author I admire. So why is it languishing on my night stand while I finish two others plus the Janet Malcolm piece in last week’s New Yorker?

The book in question is “The Adventures of Augie March,” by Saul Bellow. Undeniably a Great Work by an Important Writer. But, more than that, a book I’ve meant to–wanted to–read, looked forward to reading, and now, night after night, can’t seem to get myself to pick up.

One of the reasons I wanted to read the book just now is that I recently read an excerpt of a collection of Bellow’s letters. He revealed himself to be not only, of course, a meticulous and thoughtful writer, but also an astoundingly generous one. Letters to a just-starting-out Philip Roth, to Martin Amis feeling distanced from his father, to a young wannbe at a writers’ conference–uniformly kind, encouraging, large-hearted, helpful.

But now that I’m reading “Augie March,” instead of “just one more chapter” being the mantra that reins me in, it’s the one that’s prodding me forward. What’s going on here?

There is the overwhelming maleness, true. Sometimes it feels like a different language, right from those uber-muscular opening words, “I’m an American–Chicago born.” But I love those words. There is something exhilarating about them. And I got over the Y chromosome factor enough to love the Updike Rabbit books.

There’s that overstuffed quality, with so much going on in each sentence. So much elegant and precise language, but also so many esoteric words and references that are the hallmark of Bellow’s writing. Maybe this is reading not for bedtime, but for a more energetic time of day.

I know I’ll finish it eventually. And I’m sure I’ll love it. And I guess it is convenient to be reading a book that doesn’t seem to compel me to put down everything else. But what makes a book put-down-able or not? And, in the long run, does that interfere with our appreciation of it?

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Letters

Lately I’ve been thinking about letters. The kind we don’t get anymore. The kind we don’t send anymore. The kind we’re glad someone once wrote and saved. When Mozart was writing his opera “Idomeneo,” for example, he wrote long letters to his father discussing his work. I heard a talk about the opera the other night that included some discussion of how significant the letters were, to Mozart in thinking through and explaining what he was trying to accomplish in writing his first opera and to those who want to understand the work and the process more fully.

I heard that talk soon after I finished reading a book of letters between Wassily Kandinsky and his lover, also an artist, Gabriele Munter. I hadn’t known anything about her, or about their relationship I until I saw it referred to throughout an exhibit of Kandinsky’s paintings at the Guggenheim Museum in New York last winter. The letters in the book were filled with triumphs and–more frequently–self-doubts about work on the part of each, along with talk of their relationship and also very touching encouragement from each to the other.

A few years ago I read another collection of letters, between Edith Wharton and Henry James. Again, with ups and downs and those self-torturing questions about their work and their lives. And, again, the focus on doing the work (James) and on how to get the work done in the face of family demands (Wharton). A reminder that probably the female half of any creative couple still has to figure out what’s for dinner, not to mention who bears and cares for the children. But that’s another discussion.

Anyhow, all this leads me to wonder where the next generation of letters will come from , or if there will be any. Is anyone saving e-mails or text messages? And, if so, what will they tell us? Will it still feel like eavesdropping on a private conversation–in a good way?

In just a few years we’ve become conditioned to dropping everything at the sound of a “you’ve got mail” indicator. But remember the (admittedly less frequent) excitement of finding in an actual mailbox an actual letter with a stamp with handwriting and maybe a few smudges or cross outs, carrying, even invisibly, the fingerprints of an actual person who has written it? Aren’t we still–once we get over the shock–still excited to get one?

Maybe the next Mozart is, right now, sending a txt msg: “gud wrk on nu opra. mnc. l8r” Think someone’s going to save it?

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“How do you read a book of poems?”

That’s what my friend Michael asked in an e-mail he sent me today. Michael is a major reader, devouring books in astonishing numbers, across genres and centuries, and he is a thoughtful reader whose note asked important questions about reading poetry.

So he asked how I read a book of poems. “Do you read it straight through or dip into it now and then? Do you read it with pencil and paper, taking notes, or just immerse yourself in it? Do you go back and read specific poems or the whole volume? My dilemma is how to retain something of the language, beauty, images, sounds, etc. that make poetry so wonderful.”

My first response was, “aaaah.” What poet is not heartened, cheered, thrilled, by the thought of readers out there who want to know how best to approach our work? Who want to bring themselves to it with their most careful attention?

How do you read poetry? I can answer only for myself. As a poet I have been gratified to have many people tell me they read my first collection, “Afterwords,” straight through. Unlike many poetry collections, “Afterwords” has a strongly narrative line, and I have been glad to know that it has so often been read start to finish. I think that a reader gets it in a different, maybe better, way reading that way because it is very specifically “about” something, the illness and death of my husband and the reimagining of my life in the shadow of that loss which has the element of time.

My second book, “Container Gardening,” is a more typical collection, with thematic sections, but with an overall relatedness among the poems that may be subtle enough to be apparent only to me. I can picture it being read piecemeal, though again, I hope it is sometimes read cover to cover.

I obsessed over the selection of poems to go into my books and their order. I think that’s almost always the case, with choices being made carefully, often in consultation with editors, fellow poets, and trusted readers. Which poems group together most cohesively? And then, which one builds on the mood of the one before? Which gives the reader a breath? Which complements or varies the length, the sound, the shape? The results of those decisions can be seen only by the reader who takes in the book as it was put together to be read.

As a reader, though, I have to confess that, though I ultimately end up reading front to back, I often start with the box of chocolates approach, paging through for a favorite I’ve heard or scanning the table of contents to see if there is a poem calling out to be looked at first.

I don’t read poetry–or fiction either, for that matter–with pen and paper in hand, although I often leave little bookmarks in both at pages I know I’ll want to revisit, maybe read to someone else. I think Michael’s word is the perfect one here: “immerse.” Poetry is as much about sound as it is about content. In order to really get it, you do need to immerse yourself in it, free yourself from distraction and give yourself up to the words.

Most of all, as a reader, I want to be alone with the sound of the poem. Immersed.

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“Mazel tov!”

I’ve just finished reading a strange, exhilarating, and fascinating book, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God,” a novel by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.

It is the story of Cass Seltzer, who is drifting in the academic still waters of his specialty, the psychology of religion, when he is struck by zeitgeist lightning. He writes a book, “The Varieties of Religious Illusion,” that makes a case for reason over faith. With religion on everyone’s mind, in art as in life, the book becomes a bestseller, bringing its author fame, fortune, a teaching offer from Harvard, and a challenge to debate the existence of God.

Around Cass revolve a constellation of academic types, including his unbearably beautiful, unbearably brilliant lover; his mentor who is just plain unbearable; a vibrant earth-mother character; and a remarkable child caught in an impossible situation. The book is filled with theological philosophy and send-ups of same. It is a delicious read, veering between thesis-friendly dialogue and chick-lit pacing, existential ponderings and egomaniacal panderings. It is curious, original, and ultimately makes a strong case for our complicated, flawed, and endlessly interesting species.

The book’s abundant Jewish references, coupled with Goldstein’s odd tendency to mention the upper lip of nearly every character, reminded me of an old Jewish legend about the philtrum, that little cleft below the nose. According to the story, in the months before a child is born the angel Gabriel visits the child and teaches him or her everything about the world. But just before birth, Gabriel touches the child on the upper lip and all the knowledge is instantly forgotten. The cleft remains as a sign of everything we spend our lives relearning. This probably has nothing to do with the book, but I love the legend. And the book is, at its heart, about what we believe, what we know, and how we make sense of the world. And maybe about how we try to relearn those lessons from the angel.

In the book’s final scene (this is not a spoiler) people are joyously greeting each other with cries of “Mazel tov!” Although, in Hebrew and Yiddish, this translates into “good luck,” it is actually used, as Goldstein notes, to congratulate someone on whom fortune has already smiled. And so “mazel tov” to me and to those among you who have already had the pleasure of reading this book. To those who have not, “mazel tov” to you for getting this recommendation!