Ask a Book Question: The 31st in a Series (Who is Wells Tower?)

Renee writes in with this question:There is a relatively new book (fiction) that has been compared with The Group by Mary McCarthy. What is it? I have done an exhaustive search and cannot find it.The Group, published in 1962, is described by some as McCarthy’s biggest success. “The group” is eight graduates of Vassar, then an all-women college. McCarthy explores the different paths their lives take and offers a satire of stuffy east coast, Ivy League society. Though the book’s characters are graduates of the class of 1933, the book is more a relic of 1962, as McCarthy was not shy about the sex lives of her characters, presaging the loosening of social mores that was to come later that decade. Though not all that well-known now, the book is still highly regarded, which is no doubt part of the reason why it inspired A Fortunate Age, a forthcoming debut by Joanna Smith Rakoff. From Booklist:Like the classic novel it so obviously pays homage to, Mary McCarthy’s The Group, Rakoff’s mesmerizing debut opens with a wedding and closes with a funeral. In between, the novel provides a pitch-perfect portrait of the generation that came of age in the 1990s as four ambitious Oberlin graduates arrive in New York City full of hopes and dreams.A Fortunate Age will be published in April 2009.

Michael wrote in with this question:For some reason (an end of summer shortening of attention span, perhaps) I’m in the mood for poetry, so I was wondering if, in the interest of discussing that other form of literature, the crew at The Millions could suggest some favorite poems, poets or poetry collections (the latter would be especially helpful, its the easiest way to carry around a dozen great mind in your pocket). Anyway, thanks for any suggestions.A trio of Millions contibutors chimed in on this one:Andrew: Full disclosure: my experience with poetry has been minimal, and for the most part it is my obsession with song and music that has led me to certain poets. In this context, then, I have been stirred most by the poetic voice of Leonard Cohen. The very fact that I know his voice intimately from his songs means that I hear his poems, too, spoken in my ear in that same voice. And while he’s often labeled as a darkly intense romantic, in fact some of his finest poems have a light, playful quality. The one that first caught my attention is a little thing called “I Wonder How Many People In This City”, from The Spice-Box of Earth, his second collection of poems from 1961. Here it is in its entirety:I wonder how many people in this citylive in furnished rooms.Late at night when I look out at the buildingsI swear I see a face in every windowlooking back at meand when I turn awayI wonder how many go back to their desksand write this down.All his collections are great, and his first one Let Us Compare Mythologies, from 1956, has recently been reissued. Additionally, many of his poems (including the one cited) and song lyrics can be found within the pages of the massive Stranger Music.Garth: Inspired by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, I’ve been working my way through John Berryman’s Dream Songs this year. Even for someone like me, who enjoys the fragmentary and fractal poetry of, say, John Ashbery, the Dream Songs were an adjustment, in that point-of-view and syntax are ever-shifting. For the first ten poems, I found myself searching for a way in. But this seems to be one of those great books that teaches you how to read it; I latched on to the rhythm, started reading the poems aloud to myself, and was off and running. One of the pleasures of reading this book is that so many of my friends turn out to have read it, and everyone has different favorites. Dream Songs Week at The Millions, anyone?Emily: If you don’t have a preexisting taste for a particular kind of poetry and you like browsing, there’s really nothing like The Norton Anthology of Poetry – then you’ve got everything from Beowulf to Billy Collins (our former poet laureate, whom I loathe, but many people seem to like) in chronological order, along with brief bios of all the poets, and a bit of a reader’s guide on versification (rhyme, meter, forms) and poetic syntax. But it’s not cheap and with 1828 poems by 334 poets, it’s not a pocket book either.For price and selection – oh, most beloved of American publishers! – you cannot beat Dover paperbacks for poetry collections (where, right now, you can also get Obama and McCain paperdolls). All of their books are between a dollar and $10 and they have both single author collections (Yeats, Rochester – one of my favorites – a dirty, disillusioned Restoration poet, Browning, most wonderful Keats, Blake, Christina Rosetti, Tennyson, Sandburg), and multi-author collections. Favorite American Poems and 101 Best Loved Poems both looked good, but they have historical collections as well, like English Romantic Poetry, if you want to be more methodical in your reading.I also highly recommend the Academy of American Poets. They have an extensive online collection of poetry by American and English poets – more poets than the Norton – and they also have recordings of many of the poets reading their work. I highly recommend listening to Gwendolyn Brooks reading “We Real Cool” or Langston Hughes reading “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” It’s a very user-friendly site and in addition to better biographical sketches than the Norton, they have an index of occasional poems for those so inclined (wedding, funeral, etc).As for individual favorite poems: I love Christopher Smart’s crazy “Jubilate Agno” – it’s a long poem, but a small portion of it gets anthologized and excerpted a lot as “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry” or just “My Cat Jeoffry.” I also love Ogden Nash’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man” (also, if you can find the recording of this, it’s delightful). Robert Herrick’s short poems: “The Night Piece, to Julia,” “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” “Upon Prue, His Maid,” “Delight in Disorder,” and also his pastoral poems like “The Hock Cart” and “Corinna’s Going A-Maying.” Milton is great but he’s a workout – his syntax can be a bit like taking part in WWF Smackdown for some readers. And Marvell’s “The Garden,” his “Mower” poems, and “Bermudas.” Others to try: Gerrard Manly Hopkins, Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market,” Dorothy Parker’s “Resume,” Robert Graves, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes’ “The Thought Fox” …There are so many more, but I think I’ve probably already said too much.As a final note: I recommend you begin by reading William Carlos Williams’ “This is just to say” and then read Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams.”

Rob writes in with this question:I’m a seventeen year old who is going to be spending five weeks this summer in Chicago (to be specific – Evanston, since I’ll be part of Northwestern’s summer high school music institute). I’m a life-long New Jerseyan, and have never been in the city of broad shoulders for longer than three days.So, since I like reading books about the place I’m visiting, I was wondering if you could recommend anything that captured the essence of Chicago – I’m looking for works that encapsulate Chicago in the same way Kavalier & Clay encapsulates New York.I was thinking about The Lazarus Project and Carl Sandburg’s work. Do you have any other ideas?Chicago has inspired some of America’s greatest fiction and continues to be a fruitful setting for contemporary writers. I’ve just completed The Lazarus Project (review hopefully forthcoming), and its twinned stories – set in Chicago 1908 and present day Eastern Europe – mine Chicago’s multicultural past and ignominious history. The book, based on the true story of the mysterious death of immigrant Lazarus Averbuch reminded me a lot of The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson’s non-fiction account of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the serial killer who lurked in its shadows (my review here). Both Devil and Lazarus vividly evoke the chaos of Chicago, a turn of the century boomtown of slaughterhouses, nascent industry, and the first “skyscrapers” that was quickly aligning itself as the country’s center after only decades earlier being its frontier.An interest in this era in Chicago will inevitably lead one to Upton Sinclair, whose 1906 novel The Jungle is a muckraking, contemporary account of the slaughterhouse workers who drove Chicago’s economic engine. The novel is a landmark among American social novels.Jumping forward in time, Chicago produced one of America’s greatest novelists, Saul Bellow, who haunted the hauls of Northwestern in the 1930s. Garth writes that “the greatest Chicago novel ever is The Adventures of Augie March, which is highly recommended for someone who liked Kavalier & Clay.” This contention is hard to dispute.Patrick points us to another, more contemporary literary lodestar for Chicago: “The poet laureate of Chicago is Stuart Dybek (I mean, I don’t think he actually is, I just think he should be). The Coast of Chicago and I Sailed With Magellan are both absolute must reads. They both entirely take place in Chicago (mostly the South Side, but not exclusively). He’s one of my favorite authors, and somebody who should have a much larger audience.”Patrick also throws a more recent selection into the mix: “Also, it’s not like a totally Chicago Chicago book, but I think [Joshua Ferris’s] Then We Came to the End is about Chicago in a really interesting way, as it encapsulates life in the Loop, full of business people commuting from all the suburbs, folks who live in Lincoln Park, people who drive up from the South Side. Plus it’s really fun.”To these I would also add Adam Langer’s well received duo of books set in West Rogers Park, a neighborhood at the northern edge of the city not far from where I used to live: Crossing California and The Washington Story. Finally, anyone interested in Chicago fiction should consider Chris Ware’s landmark graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. It’s another twinned story, with threads taking place in the near present and during 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, for so many the moment of Chicago’s emergence. Ware’s pathos is haunting and his spare, eccentric drawings are mesmerizing. Along with Devil in the White City, it is a favorite of contemporary Chicagoans.We’ve undoubtedly skipped over much worthy Chicago literature, so please enlighten us with further suggestions in the comments. Rob, thanks for a great question!