What shall I read while en route to or in Iceland? Today I will finish "1954," a fine book by Bill Madden about that year and baseball and integration and other stuff. It will have been the thirteenth book I read in 2015. When I told my coffee-shop friend Bill B. that I was going to Iceland, right away he told me he had read two books by Icelander Halldor Laxness, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. Bill is admirably well read. I bow before him. So today I went to the DeWitt branch of the Onondaga County Public Library with the hope of securing a Laxness tome. No such luck. Instead, I came away with Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov and Mr. Bones by Paul Theroux. I was inspired to pick up the Nabokov because I had just finished an article in The New Yorker about his letters to his wife, Vera. I chose Theroux because he is such an acclaimed travel writer, though this is a collection of twenty short stories (fiction). I will begin one of these books tonight, Deo volente, and will likely continue one of these books on my flight to Reykjavik. Come to think of it, it will make much more sense to buy a Laxness volume in Reykjavik, maybe in his native tongue or maybe in English. I cherish in advance a lovely bookstore in the world's most northern capital city. There's a selfish motive involved here: imagine how impressed the lovely woman sitting across from me at the cafe will be when I breezily mention Laxness or if she sees me reading one of his works (if it's the Icelandic version I will be faking it; but they say "fake it till you make it").
p.s. Thank you, Wikipedia, for the aural pronunciation of the author of Lolita. iIve had it mostly right all these years, while other pronunciations I've heard over the years were not quite on the mark, which is fine.
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
STEAL THIS BOOK
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Monday, April 27, 2009
The English Major, Edited
In the last several years I've become an ardent fan of the novelist and poet Jim Harrison. For lack of a better description, he's a man's writer. And there are not many of those. But he also can be described as a nature writer and a philosophical explorer. His characters, and his prose, are down-to-earth inventions: accessible and reachable.
I find Jim Harrison's writing humorous, tragic, reflective, original, authentic.
You hear real voices.
I enjoyed his recent The English Major so much that I practically read it in one sitting.
I have a habit of dog-earing (dog-earring?) pages for later reference, mining for Laughorisms, aphorisms, maxims, and epigrams.
This work gave me these tidbits (neither endorsed nor opposed by The Laughorist):
-- "Time tricks us into thinking we're part of her and then leaves us behind."
-- "Weather-wise was it autumn or early winter in my life?"
-- ". . . I drove off with the unprofound thought of the hopelessness of sex to improve the human condition. Perhaps I should drive to New York City and announce this to the United Nations."
-- "I suddenly felt like I had as a boy on my first descending elevator down in Grand Rapids. Who and where was the driver?"
-- " 'Birds are holes in heaven through which a man may pass.' "
-- "Given the right tools men will always murder each other."
-- "What I missed was no longer there or on the verge of disappearing."
-- "Fuimus fumus, or something like that, said Thomas Wolfe, my hero when I was in senior high school. I think it meant that our life goes up in smoke." [actually "we were smoke"]
-- ". . . my frizzy-haired assistant professor would wear his bell-bottoms at a student cafe and say 'All power to the people.' I was never sure what people he meant."
-- ". . . no creature in nature jogs."
-- ". . . alcohol was the writer's black lung disease."
-- " . . . he told me that self-pity was a ruinous emotion. 'Look at the world, not up your ass.' It took me a while to figure this out."
-- "When you don't have much to do, why rush?"
-- " 'I won every argument and I was always wrong.' "
-- " 'Some men will climb the same mountain hundreds of times while other men need to climb hundreds of mountains.' "
-- ". . . I recalled James Joyce's motto 'Silence, exile, cunning,' . . . "
Being a persnickety wordsmith guy, though, I can't resist pointing out something that the author, his editor, or a copy editor should have caught, especially because the protagonist was, after all, an English major:
"Tragedy struck little Lothar a scant week after I brought she and her mother home from the dog pound."
She?
Shame!
I find Jim Harrison's writing humorous, tragic, reflective, original, authentic.
You hear real voices.
I enjoyed his recent The English Major so much that I practically read it in one sitting.
I have a habit of dog-earing (dog-earring?) pages for later reference, mining for Laughorisms, aphorisms, maxims, and epigrams.
This work gave me these tidbits (neither endorsed nor opposed by The Laughorist):
-- "Time tricks us into thinking we're part of her and then leaves us behind."
-- "Weather-wise was it autumn or early winter in my life?"
-- ". . . I drove off with the unprofound thought of the hopelessness of sex to improve the human condition. Perhaps I should drive to New York City and announce this to the United Nations."
-- "I suddenly felt like I had as a boy on my first descending elevator down in Grand Rapids. Who and where was the driver?"
-- " 'Birds are holes in heaven through which a man may pass.' "
-- "Given the right tools men will always murder each other."
-- "What I missed was no longer there or on the verge of disappearing."
-- "Fuimus fumus, or something like that, said Thomas Wolfe, my hero when I was in senior high school. I think it meant that our life goes up in smoke." [actually "we were smoke"]
-- ". . . my frizzy-haired assistant professor would wear his bell-bottoms at a student cafe and say 'All power to the people.' I was never sure what people he meant."
-- ". . . no creature in nature jogs."
-- ". . . alcohol was the writer's black lung disease."
-- " . . . he told me that self-pity was a ruinous emotion. 'Look at the world, not up your ass.' It took me a while to figure this out."
-- "When you don't have much to do, why rush?"
-- " 'I won every argument and I was always wrong.' "
-- " 'Some men will climb the same mountain hundreds of times while other men need to climb hundreds of mountains.' "
-- ". . . I recalled James Joyce's motto 'Silence, exile, cunning,' . . . "
Being a persnickety wordsmith guy, though, I can't resist pointing out something that the author, his editor, or a copy editor should have caught, especially because the protagonist was, after all, an English major:
"Tragedy struck little Lothar a scant week after I brought she and her mother home from the dog pound."
She?
Shame!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Book List, Executive Branch Version
Speaking of book lists (see post of a few days ago), Karl Rove in a Wall Street Journal column reveals that he and President Bush have had a yearly book-reading contest since New Year's Eve 2005.
And if Rove is to be believed (one would have healthy reason to be skeptical of anything these guys assert) their reading habits are if not prodigious at least substantial. Rove says he outdid the president each year, with Bush logging 95 books to Rove's 110 in the first year.
You can carp and quibble about their choices (more fiction, please; and some potent poetry, too; but, hey, The Stranger, by Albert Camus?!), and you can argue vehemently with their existential conclusions and lament loudly their decisions, but... but.... you've got to applaud the fact of reading.
Why do I say more fiction and more poetry? It's hard to explain, but true literature reveals, illuminates, pierces, shreds, unravels, sanctifies, enlightens, and translates reality in more and deeper ways that nonfiction never can.
Think King Lear. Or Hamlet. Or Julius Caesar. Or Macbeth. Or Richard III.
I stand by my list of 22, though.
And if Rove is to be believed (one would have healthy reason to be skeptical of anything these guys assert) their reading habits are if not prodigious at least substantial. Rove says he outdid the president each year, with Bush logging 95 books to Rove's 110 in the first year.
You can carp and quibble about their choices (more fiction, please; and some potent poetry, too; but, hey, The Stranger, by Albert Camus?!), and you can argue vehemently with their existential conclusions and lament loudly their decisions, but... but.... you've got to applaud the fact of reading.
Why do I say more fiction and more poetry? It's hard to explain, but true literature reveals, illuminates, pierces, shreds, unravels, sanctifies, enlightens, and translates reality in more and deeper ways that nonfiction never can.
Think King Lear. Or Hamlet. Or Julius Caesar. Or Macbeth. Or Richard III.
I stand by my list of 22, though.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Book 'em: We Are Listing, But Not Listless
In what has become an annual rite, here is my list of books read in 2008, in the order of my having read them. I know the year is not over, but I won't finish Netherland by Joseph O'Neill until sometime in 2009. You are invited to share lists of your own, publicly or privately.
1. The Lay of the Land. Richard Ford. Fiction. I place it in the top ranks of any year. A journey through the modern American landscape, especially the interior landscape of the older American white male. Yes, he has a soul.
2. The Quick of It. Eamon Grennan. Poetry.
3. Born Standing Up. Steve Martin. Autobiography.
4. Returning to Earth. Jim Harrison. Fiction.
5. A Three Dog Life. Abigail Thomas. Memoir. (Yes, Mark Murphy, I would have added a hyphen to the title.)
6. What the Gospels Meant. Garry Wills. Nonfiction. Erudite and excellent. Readable.
7. Three Days to Never. Tim Powers. Fiction. (Powers is one of son's favorites.)
8. Then We Came to the End. Joshua Ferris. Fiction. Bought in paperback at a fine bookstore in Potsdam, Germany. Catch-22 goes to the office. A book about people losing their jobs, the right book at the right time, for me.
9. God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. Adam Nicolson. Nonfiction. Scholarly and hugely entertaining.
10. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Kate Di Camillo. Fiction. It can be rewarding to share reading with your children (which is also true for numbers 7 and 3; or with one's spouse, number 5).
11. The Unknown Terrorist. Richard Flanagan. Fiction.
12. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Roddy Doyle. Fiction. Touching, and unbearably sad.
13. The Hidden Assassins. Robert Wilson. Fiction.
14. Once Upon a Fastball. Bob Mitchell. Fiction. Rewarding.
15. After Dark. Haruki Murakami. Fiction. Murakami. What else to say? (Read first by my daughter, who has become a fan.)
16. Skin Deep. E.M. Crane. Fiction.
17. Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. Nonfiction.
18. A Step From Death. Larry Woiwode. Memoir.
19. One Good Turn. Kate Atkinson. Fiction.
20. Supreme Courtship. Christopher Buckley. Fiction. I met his dad, William F. Buckley Jr., when "Christo" was around 12, at his home. He surely does not remember.
21. What Jesus Meant. Garry Wills. Again, Wills is so great. Unconventional and intelligent.
22. Holidays on Ice. David Sedaris. Fiction (some say nonfiction, but depends on the piece). Fresh after seeing him and meeting him at the Landmark Theatre, Syracuse. My kind of humor, for the most part.
1. The Lay of the Land. Richard Ford. Fiction. I place it in the top ranks of any year. A journey through the modern American landscape, especially the interior landscape of the older American white male. Yes, he has a soul.
2. The Quick of It. Eamon Grennan. Poetry.
3. Born Standing Up. Steve Martin. Autobiography.
4. Returning to Earth. Jim Harrison. Fiction.
5. A Three Dog Life. Abigail Thomas. Memoir. (Yes, Mark Murphy, I would have added a hyphen to the title.)
6. What the Gospels Meant. Garry Wills. Nonfiction. Erudite and excellent. Readable.
7. Three Days to Never. Tim Powers. Fiction. (Powers is one of son's favorites.)
8. Then We Came to the End. Joshua Ferris. Fiction. Bought in paperback at a fine bookstore in Potsdam, Germany. Catch-22 goes to the office. A book about people losing their jobs, the right book at the right time, for me.
9. God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. Adam Nicolson. Nonfiction. Scholarly and hugely entertaining.
10. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Kate Di Camillo. Fiction. It can be rewarding to share reading with your children (which is also true for numbers 7 and 3; or with one's spouse, number 5).
11. The Unknown Terrorist. Richard Flanagan. Fiction.
12. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Roddy Doyle. Fiction. Touching, and unbearably sad.
13. The Hidden Assassins. Robert Wilson. Fiction.
14. Once Upon a Fastball. Bob Mitchell. Fiction. Rewarding.
15. After Dark. Haruki Murakami. Fiction. Murakami. What else to say? (Read first by my daughter, who has become a fan.)
16. Skin Deep. E.M. Crane. Fiction.
17. Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. Nonfiction.
18. A Step From Death. Larry Woiwode. Memoir.
19. One Good Turn. Kate Atkinson. Fiction.
20. Supreme Courtship. Christopher Buckley. Fiction. I met his dad, William F. Buckley Jr., when "Christo" was around 12, at his home. He surely does not remember.
21. What Jesus Meant. Garry Wills. Again, Wills is so great. Unconventional and intelligent.
22. Holidays on Ice. David Sedaris. Fiction (some say nonfiction, but depends on the piece). Fresh after seeing him and meeting him at the Landmark Theatre, Syracuse. My kind of humor, for the most part.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Unperson of the Year, 2007
Well, today it is things back to normal, more or less, back to not being Time magazine's Person of the Year 2006. In fact, it is back to being Potential Person of the Year 2007, or Potential Nonperson of the Year 2007, or even potential person, or potential nonperson (I threw that in for existentialists and FOSK [Friends of Soren Kierkegaard]).
And what is "normal" on New Year's Day, anyway? It is not a normal day. It is a day groggy with the hangover of the memory of ancient hangovers, after a night of no imbibing, except for the intoxicating vision of numbing television, including the watching of the Waterford cystal ball falling, by increments of seconds, backwards-counting seconds, like those manned-spacecraft or unmanned (neutered?)-spacecraft launchings we watched in my youth. This, a scene from the new, Disney-fied Times Square, a far cry from the ancient, tawdry carnal "Midnight Cowboy" fleshpot carnival of yesteryear, though I admit to sometimes missing its vulgar, if menacing and perilous, "atmosphere" and allurements.
New Year's Eve. The memory -- my memory -- of retching mercilessly by the clock at Grand Central Terminal (frequently mistakenly called Grand Central Station, which is a post office), slobbering onto the marble floor, oblivious to the star-spotted cerulean blue, majestic ceiling. New Year's Day. "I'll never do that again. I promise." Those powerless vows. One such first day of the year taking the train from that very terminal (not the day after the oblivion onto the marble), drinking again, cavorting, parading, mock-marrying, annoying, dancing, falling, menacing for four, five, six hours. And then after the train ride making the rounds by car and foot and lechery through blurry strip clubs, Marvin Gaye music, a crack-up somewhere, knocking on strangers' doors at 5 a.m., fearing I was in Brooklyn (where I had never been). And then deigning to go to work the next day! These days, I'd have been fired on the spot -- and arrested too perhaps (cardiac or otherwise).
And so this sometimes unperson surprises no one when he says his New Year's Eves -- and the other 364 eves -- demand at the very least a modicum of sobriety, not so much as a virtue but as a personal, communal, and redeeming necessity. Achieved only by surrendering to and embracing grace, with an uppercase G, never the less. But always enough. An Abiding One-Day-At-A-Time Unearned (except by pain) Grace.
So what was "normal" today? Getting up around 10:30, everything thrown off. Sitting outside Toys R [with that obnoxious backwards, Cyrillic-alphabet-like inverted R] Us and laughing out loud at Steve Martin's genius novella The Pleasure of My Company. Laughing out loud as chubby suburban wives and surly dads and restless children run into the store and see an older man in a car reading a book -- and laughing. Do they think me a potential pervert? A molester? Let us hope not. (And somehow I think such miscreants are not inclined to wholesome laughter. Roaring laughter. Laughter at sheer humor, as well as the utterly distinct pleasure of reading someone whose style you love, whom you'd love to emulate, who just-plain resonates with you. Me, that is.) (The novella reminds me of Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine for its vision of daily minutiae.)
Did some dishes.
That's normal, isn't?
(We do not have one of those dish-washing machines, and I am glad.)
One never knows, you know? Today, in checking my emails, I found a very nice note from one of the authors on my list of 14 books, and authors.
Yikes! Who reads this stuff! question mark
It could be anyone!
Case in point: In November, I got an email from BBC Radio because I once mentioned A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre -- and they invited me to ask him a question for a radio show. And I did! I talked to him by phone! (enough of the exclamation points, dude)
Whew.
Merry New Year.
Laugh. Or....
Else.
p.s. Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Mystery Author Author. Clue to readers: I enjoyed The Nervous Breakdown.
And what is "normal" on New Year's Day, anyway? It is not a normal day. It is a day groggy with the hangover of the memory of ancient hangovers, after a night of no imbibing, except for the intoxicating vision of numbing television, including the watching of the Waterford cystal ball falling, by increments of seconds, backwards-counting seconds, like those manned-spacecraft or unmanned (neutered?)-spacecraft launchings we watched in my youth. This, a scene from the new, Disney-fied Times Square, a far cry from the ancient, tawdry carnal "Midnight Cowboy" fleshpot carnival of yesteryear, though I admit to sometimes missing its vulgar, if menacing and perilous, "atmosphere" and allurements.
New Year's Eve. The memory -- my memory -- of retching mercilessly by the clock at Grand Central Terminal (frequently mistakenly called Grand Central Station, which is a post office), slobbering onto the marble floor, oblivious to the star-spotted cerulean blue, majestic ceiling. New Year's Day. "I'll never do that again. I promise." Those powerless vows. One such first day of the year taking the train from that very terminal (not the day after the oblivion onto the marble), drinking again, cavorting, parading, mock-marrying, annoying, dancing, falling, menacing for four, five, six hours. And then after the train ride making the rounds by car and foot and lechery through blurry strip clubs, Marvin Gaye music, a crack-up somewhere, knocking on strangers' doors at 5 a.m., fearing I was in Brooklyn (where I had never been). And then deigning to go to work the next day! These days, I'd have been fired on the spot -- and arrested too perhaps (cardiac or otherwise).
And so this sometimes unperson surprises no one when he says his New Year's Eves -- and the other 364 eves -- demand at the very least a modicum of sobriety, not so much as a virtue but as a personal, communal, and redeeming necessity. Achieved only by surrendering to and embracing grace, with an uppercase G, never the less. But always enough. An Abiding One-Day-At-A-Time Unearned (except by pain) Grace.
So what was "normal" today? Getting up around 10:30, everything thrown off. Sitting outside Toys R [with that obnoxious backwards, Cyrillic-alphabet-like inverted R] Us and laughing out loud at Steve Martin's genius novella The Pleasure of My Company. Laughing out loud as chubby suburban wives and surly dads and restless children run into the store and see an older man in a car reading a book -- and laughing. Do they think me a potential pervert? A molester? Let us hope not. (And somehow I think such miscreants are not inclined to wholesome laughter. Roaring laughter. Laughter at sheer humor, as well as the utterly distinct pleasure of reading someone whose style you love, whom you'd love to emulate, who just-plain resonates with you. Me, that is.) (The novella reminds me of Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine for its vision of daily minutiae.)
Did some dishes.
That's normal, isn't?
(We do not have one of those dish-washing machines, and I am glad.)
One never knows, you know? Today, in checking my emails, I found a very nice note from one of the authors on my list of 14 books, and authors.
Yikes! Who reads this stuff! question mark
It could be anyone!
Case in point: In November, I got an email from BBC Radio because I once mentioned A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre -- and they invited me to ask him a question for a radio show. And I did! I talked to him by phone! (enough of the exclamation points, dude)
Whew.
Merry New Year.
Laugh. Or....
Else.
p.s. Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Mystery Author Author. Clue to readers: I enjoyed The Nervous Breakdown.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Saint Ersatz
Unseemly (and unsightly, some would say) as it seems, Pawlie Kokonuts (a.k.a. The Laughorist) played the part of Saint Nicholas yesterday. (This is either a new low, or a new high, depending on one's honesty or perspective.) The appearance marked the Feast of Saint Nicholas, December 6, at a local church event.
It involved Yours Truly donning a long, white robelike article of clothing, cardboard bishop's miter, wooden staff, and red velvety cape that weighs about 127 pounds. I did not wear a beard (except for my real goatee, trimmed very tightly today incidentally) or in any way try to disguise my so-called normal visage and appearance. And no ho-ho-ho's.
If you children don't behave, I will either spank you, or show you pictures of this episode.
In all seriousness, I tried to -- in a quiet way -- make a sort-of anti-Santa Claus statement.
The youngsters gathered around in a circle before me, and I crouched down to chat with them. Here are some of the things I told them, or tried to convey (whether based on facts or legends, I didn't get into; it doesn't matter):
My point is: somehow I juggle these disparate tangents of self, these self-delusions.
But yesterday's event, and my little research leading up to it, underscored how Western society, and most especially the United States, has perverted everything Saint Nicholas stood for. We call it Christmas and Santa Claus, but ain't it really Capitalism and $anta Claw$? (And I'm not naive: an immediate cessation of this nonsense would cause economic hardship to many; the tamped-down economic activity would shed thousands and thousands, if not millions, of real jobs.)
Well, it explains, just a little, why I'm such a holiday curmudgeon.
Laugh. Or....
Else.
It involved Yours Truly donning a long, white robelike article of clothing, cardboard bishop's miter, wooden staff, and red velvety cape that weighs about 127 pounds. I did not wear a beard (except for my real goatee, trimmed very tightly today incidentally) or in any way try to disguise my so-called normal visage and appearance. And no ho-ho-ho's.
If you children don't behave, I will either spank you, or show you pictures of this episode.
In all seriousness, I tried to -- in a quiet way -- make a sort-of anti-Santa Claus statement.
The youngsters gathered around in a circle before me, and I crouched down to chat with them. Here are some of the things I told them, or tried to convey (whether based on facts or legends, I didn't get into; it doesn't matter):
- The real Saint Nicholas, from present-day southeastern Turkey but under control of Greece in the 4th century, loved the poor.
- And he showed it. When his wealthy parents died, he gave his whole inheritance toward helping the poor and lonely and troubled and suffering.
- The whole bit about putting little gifts in stockings or shoes was based on the legend of his anonymous gifts to poor girls.
- He loved children.
- He loved them whether they were naughty or nice. He loved them. Period.
My point is: somehow I juggle these disparate tangents of self, these self-delusions.
But yesterday's event, and my little research leading up to it, underscored how Western society, and most especially the United States, has perverted everything Saint Nicholas stood for. We call it Christmas and Santa Claus, but ain't it really Capitalism and $anta Claw$? (And I'm not naive: an immediate cessation of this nonsense would cause economic hardship to many; the tamped-down economic activity would shed thousands and thousands, if not millions, of real jobs.)
Well, it explains, just a little, why I'm such a holiday curmudgeon.
Laugh. Or....
Else.
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