Last night myself and my friend Edan were the facilitators for the first installment of a new book club at the book store where I work. It was the first time either of us had ever been in a book club, and I think we both had a good time. Last night we discussed The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. After a few minutes of polite discussion, it came out that half the people in attendance strongly disliked the book, which made for some excellent debate. As best as I could tell, the dislike for the book is a part of the backlash against the “virtuoso perfomances” of young writers of late, who, according to certain readers, are over-writing in order to produce a novel that is “big” and masterful. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen are two examples of this trend that came up during our discussion. I, on the other hand, am relatively lenient in my feelings about this book at least in part because I have always rather enjoyed the over-written modern novel, John Irving (see The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany) and T. C. Boyle (see The Tortilla Curtain, World’s End, and Water Music) being among my favorite practitioners. The question now is: what do we read for next month?
Book Clubbin’
Appearing Elsewhere
Millions contributor Emily’s award-winning review of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale has been posted by VQR. Check it out.
Staying Sane: A Year in Reading (Part 10)
A couple of weeks passed and I had the urge to read another novel, so using a trip to Chicago as the good chance it was, I picked up J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. Again, I was amazed at the ease with which Salinger grasps the reader’s attention and pulls him into the dialogues of Franny and Zooey. The Glass family is extraordinary in many ways and Zooey’s rants reminds me of an older version of Vince Vaughn. I could not finish the novel on my flights to and from Chicago, which is just as well, because on Monday, after I got home from work I filled the tub a la Zooey, lay in it for half an hour, and finished the book. A friend of mine once mentioned that it was his favorite piece growing up and he’d read it once every week, I understand and respect his mania now. I think I shall turn to The Catcher in the Rye next and keep reading the genius that Salinger is.I traveled to Charlottesville and back via train in the same week. During the thirteen hours I spent on the Amtrak couch, I luxuriously started and finished Orhan Pamuk’s Sessiz Ev (silent house, La Maison du silence). I really like Pamuk, he is a pretentious, rich, aristocratic bastard in life but his novels are for the most part very successful in grasping certain periods of Turkey’s modern history. I am afraid that Sessiz Ev has not been translated into English but you can read it in French if you so desire. In this second novel of his, Pamuk describes the visit of three siblings to their grandmother’s residence an hour east of Istanbul. It is the summer of 1980, three months before the military coup, the youngest brother, now a senior in high school, wants to continue his education in the U.S. and has high capitalistic ambitions, the sister, a junior in college, is an ardent communist and would like nothing better than to see the fascists beat, and the older brother, a thirty-four-year-old drunken history professor, is aloof to everything and resembles his father and grandfather in his disconnect to the world. Sessiz Ev is a very interesting study of an important period in Turkey through common, unhappy and disgruntled characters.My last pick of the year is a serious undertaking, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I am almost halfway through and enjoy the story, language, and the other novellas inserted in the middle. Clearly there is much to be said about Don Quixote but I will keep my reserve until I am done reading the whole novel.And last but not least, I also picked up Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord Henry Wotton’s opinions have forced me to put Don Quixote on hold and indulge in the vanity that Lord Henry propagates. Of course, more on The Picture of Dorian Gray once I am done, but let it suffice to say that I am currently thrilled by its brilliance.[Thanks for sharing your year in reading, Emre]Previously: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Querying the New Yorker
If you’re a New Yorker obsessive like I am, then you’ll love the new feature at Emdashes. Emily has lined up a pair of librarians who work at the New Yorker to answer questions about the magazine, and as one might expect, they are very thorough in their responses. The first installment covers A.J. Liebling’s start at the magazine, spot illustrations, typewriters, Calvin Trillin’s food writing, movie reviews, and fact-checking cartoons. There will be more installments to come, so send in your questions.
New and upcoming books
John Burdett’s sequel to Bangkok 8, his mystery set in Thailand, has come out. It’s called Bangkok Tattoo. Here’s my review of Bangkok 8 (scroll down). Here’s EW’s review of Bangkok Tattoo. And here’s an excerpt.I noticed that Penguin has put out a smart-looking new edition of John Keegan’s essential history book, The Second World War. The new edition includes a new foreword by Keegan.It looks like T.C. Boyle will have a new collection of short stories out this fall called Tooth and Claw.
A Writer Without Borders
In July 1995, Barnes & Noble opened a 25,000-square-foot superstore in Portage, MI, on a suburban strip teeming with mall complexes and fast food chains. Coexisting among the global brands were a number of independently owned businesses, including John Rollins Booksellers, a much-loved local outfit. Rollins had moved to Portage in 1986, fleeing a withering retail climate in its original location, downtown Kalamazoo. By the time Barnes & Noble set up shop—literally across the street—Rollins had expanded to 13,000 square feet and stocked 80,000 titles.
I was a longtime Rollins devotee—its Kalamazoo store was the first bookstore I remember being in—and feared Barnes & Noble would extinguish not only it, but all independent bookstores in the area, including the Michigan News Agency, where I was then employed. Nevertheless, as someone who loves books in virtually any context or quantity, my resolve slowly faded, and sometime that fall or winter, I paid my first visit to a Barnes & Noble. I walked around for a moment, feeling oddly guilty, then left without buying anything. My boycott didn’t last long.
Here’s how it is with me: Whenever I show up at a place with books for sale—superstore, indie, thrift store, library basement, street vendor—more than half the time, I’ll leave with at least one. And I go to bookstores at least twice a week. I’ve bought new titles in hardcover, then again in paperback; I’ve bought used copies of books I already own so that I can have all the different covers (in this way I acquired three copies of Charles Portis’s Masters of Atlantis); often I stand gazing at the hundreds of books on my shelves, thinking a single, urgent thought: I need more books.
Now and then I’ll make a vow to shop only at independents. I usually stick to it for a month or two. Then I’ll find myself at, say, Barnes & Noble in Union Square (where I will have gone to kill time before meeting a friend), surrounded by “browsers” who’ve practically set up shantytowns in the aisles, pondering a Michael Connelly paperback and deciding, finally, that I must own it.
In years past, Borders was a sanctuary for me, a place to flee the boredom and disappointment of the various office jobs that prevented me from writing my own stuff. Being among books for an hour or more (I was never a model employee)—touching them, leafing through them, and, yes, buying them—helped me to regain a tenuous equanimity and get through the mind-numbing afternoons.
It was largely a coincidence of geography that Borders served this purpose. I worked in the World Trade Center for the last year and a half of its existence and went to the Borders in the Five World Trade complex several times a week. After 9/11, I found myself back downtown—another cubicle, another unfulfilling job—and sought refuge in that store’s replacement, on lower Broadway (I also frequented the Strand’s Fulton Street Annex, now defunct). In 2007, I landed uptown, in the most soul-killing corporate office I’ve worked in. By the end of my first week I was roaming another Borders, on Fifty-seventh Street and Park Avenue.
There was another reason why I was drawn to Borders and happily spent so much money there—the chain, like me, is from Michigan, a state whose economy you may have heard something about. I’ve been to its original store in Ann Arbor many times. So, even on Park Avenue, in one of hundreds of Borders locations worldwide, there remained a dim sense that I was supporting a “local” business. For all these reasons, I was unaccountably depressed when I learned not only that Borders had filed for Chapter 11 protection, but that the list of stores set to close as a result included two of my former havens—lower Broadway, and Fifty-seventh and Park.
Is it odd to mourn the closing of certain big-box stores? You could argue that Borders brought trouble on itself, that after years of outrageous expansion, partnering with Amazon, and failing to keep pace with the rise of e-readers, it deserves whatever it gets. Intellectually, I might agree with you. But as the author of three books, I have an emotional stake in this too.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ecstatic the first time I saw my book at a superstore. No less than seeing it on the shelf of one of New York’s great indies, this signified “making it” to me. Over the years I’ve heard from a fair number of readers who tell me where they first encountered my books. Often they mention one of the big chains. These are actual human book buyers, not numbers in a newspaper article about the death of publishing, and some of these book buyers, I gather, are writing from places where a chain store in a mall is the only game in town.
On the other hand, I’ve developed the kinds of relationships with store owners and staff at independent bookshops that aren’t possible at a chain. Three Lives & Co. in New York, to name just one, has given my books crucial store exposure and word-of-mouth support. It also offers something that would seem like a no-brainer but that no superstore provides: a deeply pleasurable browsing experience. It’s one thing to seek out a public restroom, or to prefer a certain bookstore to your cubicle. Abandoning yourself for long stretches to the sensuous art of aimless browsing is quite another.
As a reader and writer, the current moment is endlessly confusing to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a one-man mission to save publishing, buying books weekly from indies and chains alike, for the sake not only of my future work, but that of future writers, young people far from urban centers, dreaming up stories in Texas or Idaho or Michigan.
When I was teenager I spent hours at John Rollins Booksellers, fantasizing about one day seeing my own book for sale there. By the time my first one came out, it was too late. Rollins tried to compete with Barnes & Noble, opening a second, hangar-like location with a cafe across town. That store closed in early 2000, and the Portage store followed soon thereafter. The Michigan News Agency, however, is still in business, as it has been since 1947. They carry a wonderful selection of new paperbacks and a staggering number of magazines. Stop by if you’re ever in Kalamazoo.
(Image: Borders Books Reflected from doortoriver’s photostream)
What’s New For September
If you are like me, you are probably getting tired of politics. Politicians, political news, television ads from concerned citizens for this or that, conventions finally almost past, and debates still to come, I’m tired of all of it. Thank god someone decided that it was ok for people to make up big, long stories (or collect little, short ones) and for other people to read those stories. A diversion, if you like. So, what will divert us this month? T. C. Boyle, who has over the years become a bigger and bigger name in American fiction, has a new novel coming out called The Inner Circle. Set in 1940, the book is about a young man who works as an assistant for the sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey (a real historical figure), and quickly becomes embroiled in the sort of bizarreness one might expect from a novel by T. C. Boyle. I hope to read that one soon. If you’re the type of person who likes to know about the next big thing, have a look at Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. You’ll be hearing about this book a lot for the next few months, so you might as well read it. Touted as, what else, Harry Potter for grown ups, this debut novel by Susanna Clarke is set to release simultaneously in the US, Britain, and Germany with a first run of 250,000 copies (astronomical for a debut by an unknown writer). Part of the buzz stems from the subject matter; it’s about magic, magicians, and mysticism, and with the success of Potter and Da Vinci Code these topics seem like a sure bet. But, according to many accounts, the book is not just timely, it’s a great read. Those looking to avoid the buzz may want to try another debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan. Tyne is an African immigrant who has raised his family in Canada. Circumstances and yearning for a better life lead him to relocate to Aster, a small town with a utopic history. He finds there a different set of struggles. For readers in the mood for something a little lighter and with a quicker pulse try The Little White Car a speedy little novel from Britain that sounds as energetic as Run, Lola, Run. The book was supposedly written by a new French talent, a young woman named Danuta de Rhodes, but skeptical British critics were quick to announce that de Rhodes is merely the alter ego of Dan Rhodes, known trickster and acclaimed author of Timoleon Vieta Come Home. Finally, those with a hankering for short stories might consider When The Nines Roll Over And Other Stories by David Benioff who previously wrote the novel The 25th Hour (which later was made into a movie by Spike Lee), and also The Secret Goldfish by David Means. Sounds a lot better than politics to me.The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle — Boyle’s blogJonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke — previewThe Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Edi Edugyan — excerptThe Little White Car by Danuta de Rhodes — the scoop, reviewWhen The Nines Roll Over And Other Stories by David Benioff — excerptThe Secret Goldfish by David Means — excerpt, review
Oprah and the Recluse
You’ve got to hand it to Oprah. After a public snub from Jonathan Franzen, an abrupt switch to focusing on classic books, and a return to the contemporary with a confessional memoir that turns out to plagiarized – resulting in the very public humiliation of its author on her show – one would think that Oprah would have run out of opportunities to grab big headlines with her book club. And yet, by selecting Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and convincing the famously reclusive author to appear on her show, she has done it yet again.I had a couple of thoughts about this pick. In the early days of the club, Oprah selected quite a few emotionally challenging books, often with female protagonists in some sort of peril. With her selection of Franzen’s The Corrections, however, the club broke out of its shell and then traversed the various ups and downs noted above. Still, it is fascinating to me that this unabashedly mass market phenomenon, the TV show book club, would pick a book that is by all accounts harrowing and devastatingly serious and not an easy read in any sense. It’s not the first time Oprah has selected a formally “difficult” book. Recall the “Summer of Faulkner.” Still, to take a book that is all of the above and also contemporary seems rather incredible. It will also be interesting, if The Road goes on to win a Pulitizer or National Book Award, to have had Oprah “anoint” a book before our more formal institutions have.Secondly, I couldn’t help but think about poor Franzen as I read the news that McCarthy would appear on Oprah’s show. Franzen, of course, famously feuded with Oprah after she selected his book and he was publicly ambivalent about being an “Oprah author.” This led to plenty of comments like this one from an independent bookstore owner at the time of the controversy, saying that she felt “that good literature cannot be an Oprah selection.” With McCarthy appearing on the show for his “first television interview ever,” it’s hard to make that argument any more. We’re talking about a legitimate Nobel Prize candidate here (and somehow this is different from Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred Years of Solitude being selected a while back). And poor Franzen, taking a public stand for his art and facing plenty of ridicule at the time, has had his legs cut out from under him by a literary giant – a famously reclusive one at that – eschewing the hand-wringing and taking the Oprah honor in stride.Update: It’s been pointed out to me that The Road missed its chance to win the National Book Award – it went to The Echo Maker, as you’ll recall. The Road is still in the running for the Pulitzer, but as it is far from the typical Pulitzer candidate, I’d guess its chances there are slim. So McCarthy will have to be satisfied with the unlikely duo of an Oprah Pick and a TMN Tournament of Books win (which the book appears likely to snag).