Inspired by the recent release of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, podcaster Len of Jawbone Radio paid a visit to Bill Watterson’s home town, Chagrin Falls, Ohio. He ended up interviewing Watterson’s mom, laying eyes on some original Calvin and Hobbes artwork and sharing some interesting bits of trivia about the beloved strip.
In Search of Bill Watterson
My Landlord
I can't believe I've never mentioned this: My landlord is the moderately famous French philosopher and Columbia University professor, Sylvere Lotringer. He co-wrote a book with Paul Verilio called Pure War, and gave us each copies when we signed the lease. He is married to Chris Kraus a novelist/filmmaker from New Zealand/Germany. Just now he called to talk about the plumber.
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New Work from Kapuscinski
The Paris Review has published some work by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died last year. The essay (not available online) covers more of Kapuscinski's travels through Africa, a familiar subject to those who have read his books. What's notable is that this issue also includes some of Kapuscinski's photography, which nicely augments his writing - though those who have read Kapuscinski's work know that he is more than able to conjure up images with his writing.It's a good time for Kapuscinski fans because in addition to The Paris Review essay, a new book by Kapuscinski is on the way. I noted Travels with Herodetus at the end of my "most anticipated books of the year" post, but there were few details available at the time. Now we have a cover (as you can see), as well as the book's description, which tells us that Kapuscinski has written about his years as a young reporter.From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include Shah of Shahs, The Emperor, and The Shadow of the Sun, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain.Just out of university in 1955, Kapuscinski told his editor that he'd like to go abroad. Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life's work - to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuscinski gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes.The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the "father of history" - and, as Kapuscinski would realize, of globalism - who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner's spirit - both supremely worldly and innately Occidental - that would continue to whet Kapuscinski's ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey.Bonus Link: Google video has Kapuscinski's appearance in 2000 on The Charlie Rose Show. (You may need to turn the volume all the way up to hear it.)
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Jonathan Lethem gets Autobiographical
When Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude came out, there was much discussion of how the novel paralelled Lethem's own upbringing in pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Now we're getting the real Lethem story for those who want to compare and contrast. It arrives in the form of a book of essays, The Disappointment Artist, which comes out in two weeks. An excerpt, which depicts a young Lethem immersed in obsessions with books, movies and music while trying to come to turns with his mother's death appeared in last week's New Yorker (but it's not available online). I'm beginning to wonder if this exercise in autobiography (with the New Yorker as the stage) has become a rite of initiation for American novelists who have made the big time. Most prominent among them is Jonathan Franzen, who has had a number of meandering autobiographical essays in the magazine over the last few years. I wonder what drives the phenomenon. Do people really want to know about their lives or are these novelists just good at telling a story?
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Spotted on the El
I have an odd schedule this fall - I'm a part time grad student and a part time professional. I'm spending time north of the city in Evanston as well as downtown and at my apartment on the North Side. This means a lot of off-peak time spent on the El, where I've been able to continue my quasi-sociological study of Chicago based on what I observe people reading on the El. One thing I learned today: there's not as much reading going on during those off-peak hours. Apparently, if you're riding around on the train at ten in the morning or three in the afternoon, you're not likely to have your nose in a book. On the four trains and one bus (purple line, red line, and the 92) that I rode today I only spotted four books, three of which I was able to identify.Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach - It seems a bit morbid for an afternoon train ride, but I'm told that this book is a quite entertaining example of the "biography of a thing" genre.Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power by Timothy B. Tyson - This one sounds pretty interesting. It's about a militant civil rights radical who was forced to flee the country. He ended up in pre-revolutionary Cuba where he started a radio show called Radio Free Dixie.Bloodlines by Dinah McCall - mass-market paperbacks are to bookspotting as pigeons are to bird watching.Previously: May, July, August
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Bookspotting (Airports of America Edition)
Airports and airplanes are a great place to go bookspotting. They are also a great place to confirm that the bestseller lists aren't lying. In fact, it sort of made me realize that there should be two different categories of bestseller lists: one for people who buy less than fifteen books a year and one for people who buy more. The vast majority of people fall into that first category, and when you realize this, you realize why the publishing industry isn't very different from other entertainment industries. If people have a certain finite number of movies that they will be able to see in a given year given constraints on time and money, I think they will be less likely to take a risk on an unproven independent instead of a known quantity like one of the Matrix movies (maybe this is why sequels do so well.) The same is true of video games and any other form of entertainment that can be consumed as a unit. Therefore it makes sense that authors like John Grisham and Stephen King and many bestselling authors of lesser talent have such a strong repeat business. Readers who don't have the time or inclination to seek out risky books will therefore prefer to purchase books that they ALREADY know that they will enjoy. (This theory, by the way, also explains why political rant books do so well, no matter how absurd they seem to some people). So, I like to test this theory of book consumption when I travel, because airports and airplanes are the one place where people who do not have the time or inclination to read regularly read for lack of any better way to pass the time. Here's what I spotted:Buffalo Niagara International Airport:Hide & Seek by James Patterson: "Maggie Bradford is one of the most beloved singer/songwriters anywhere. She's also the devoted mother of two children. She seems to have it all. And so, how could she have murdered not just one, but two of her husbands? With unrelenting suspense, James Patterson answers that question."The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank: "As it explores the life lessons of Jane, the contemporary American Everywoman--who combines the charm of Bridget Jones, the vulnerability of Ally McBeal, and the wit of Lorrie Moore--The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing offers wise, poignant, and laugh-out-loud insight."Q Is for Quarry by Sue Grafton: "The #1 "New York Times" bestseller, based on an unsolved homicide that occurred in 1969, is now available in paperback. Revisiting the past can be a dangerous business, and what begins with the pursuit of Jane Doe's real identity ends in a high-risk hunt for her killer."A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry: "With the compassionate realism of Dickens and a narrative sweep worthy of Balzac, this internationally acclaimed novel draws an unforgettable portrait of the cruelty and corruption, kindness and heroism of India. Set in 1975, A Fine Balance follows the destinies of four strangers who are forced to share a cramped apartment in an unnamed city by the sea."Krakatoa by Simon Winchester: "From the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World comes an examination of the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the world's most dangerous volcano--Krakatoa."Detroit Wayne County:The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver: "In her most highly acclaimed book to date, Kingsolver presents a compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, telling the story of an American missionary and his family in the Congo in 1959."The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle: "According to Tolle, accessing the deepest self, the true self, can be learned by freeing ourselves from the conflicting, unreasonable demands of the mind and living 'present, fully and intensely, in the Now.'"Los Angeles InternationalThe Testament by John Grisham: "This 'compulsory page-turner' journeys deep into the halls of justice--and the rain forests of Brazil. An eccentric billionaire leaves his fortune to his illegitimate daughter, a Christian missionary in Brazil. Rachel stands to inherit $11 billion, but only if attorney Nate O'Reilly can find her."Four Blind Mice by James Patterson: "Alex Cross is plunged into a case where military codes of honor conceal dark currents of revenge and ambition, and the men controlling the moves have the best weapons and training the world can offer."Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling: "In the richest installment yet of J. K. Rowling's seven-part story, Harry Potter confronts the unreliability of the very government of the magical world, and the impotence of the authorities at Hogwarts. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) Harry finds depth and strength in his friends, beyond what even he knew; boundless loyalty and unbearable sacrifice. Though thick runs the plot (as well as the spine), readers will race through these pages, and leave Hogwarts, like Harry, wishing only for the next train back."So, there you have it, a small, but interesting cross-section of what the American casual reader is reading right now. Some is good and some is bad, but it's nice to see so many people reading in one place.
The LBC Awakes
The Litblog Co-op blog is stirring once again. Here's what's going on. The spring Read This! selection will be revealed on Monday followed by the rest of the finalists for this round. There will be six weeks worth of discussion about the books, and anyone who comments over the course of the six weeks will be entered into a drawing to win all five books for the round. And while you're there be sure to check out the four finalists for the summer round. We've decided to start announcing the finalists early so that everyone has enough time to read the books. For all the details, get yourself over to the LBC blog.
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More on Dybek: From the Archives
News that Stuart Dybek, a great and overlooked short-story writer, had been awarded a MacArthur grant sent me back to the archives of the now-defunct Fabulous World of Hot Face for this review of 2003's I Sailed With Magellan. As you can see below, I recommend that Dybek neophytes may want to skip around in this collection, or start with The Coast of Chicago.I Sailed With MagellanLike the Joyce of Dubliners, Stuart Dybek writes with an exquisite sense of place and an amazing sensitivity to the dreams and dislocations one encounters in the borderland between childhood and adulthood. His last work of fiction, The Coast of Chicago, is one of my favorite books, and I approached I Sailed With Magellan with high expectations. If The Coast of Chicago, with its unified setting, its young-to-old chronology, and its careful patterning (alternating short stories with lyrical "short shorts"), seemed more like a latter-day Winesburg, Ohio than a mere collection of stories, I Sailed With Magellan feels more like a group of very good stories than the "Novel-in-Verse" its title page insists it is. Here, Dybek preserves the setting and tone of his earlier work, but organizes his stories loosely around a central character: Perry Katzek. Like Kerouac's Jack Duluoz, Perry seems pretty clearly to be a stand-in for his author, and the richness of lived experience fills to bursting the strongest stories here - "Song," "Undertow," "Blue Boy," and "Je Reviens." All four offer glimpses of Perry's childhood in the Bronzeville section of Chicago. Another excellent quartet of stories - "Lunch at the Loyola Arms," "Orchids," "We Didn't," and "Que Quieres" - show Perry in various stages of a deferred maturity, and although they seem slightly less finished... well, so does adulthood; I'll call it "evocative disarray" and chalk it up to authorial intent. Throughout, images and characters recur in the background. We see again and again morning glories and the spray of fire hydrants in summer and Perry's uncle Lefty. These devices may justify the inclusion of "Breasts," a novella largely unrelated to Dybek's attempt at bildungsroman, but here, Dybek indulges his weaknesses - stagy dialogue, purple eroticism, and scenes and characters seemingly lifted from TV.Even sans "Breasts," I Sailed With Magellan doesn't succeed as a novel. Broken into discrete chunks, Perry's journey seems stripped of causality. For example, his mother's madness - alluded to in several stories - can remain, in a story collection, undramatized. In a novel, however, such a powerful influence on the protagonist wouldn't remain merely implicit. Other experiences that seem to lie at the heart of Perry's (and perhaps Dybek's) character stay in the background, as well, and while Dybek gestures in a few stories toward focusing this book on the relationship between Perry and his Uncle Lefty, the uncle disappears for long stretches. It is always a pleasure to read Dybek, and some of his best work is here, but I Sailed With Magellan argues less for a reenvisioning of the novel's possibilities than the creation of some genre between collection and novel that might serve Dybek's intentions better than the "Novel in Stories" seems to.
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