Yet another use for books (other than reading them): pile them up and use them as a bar.
Care for a Drink?
What People are Reading
In fiction, people are reading a new novel by a former sports writer, Mitch Albom. Perhaps you recall an earlier book of his: Tuesdays with Morrie, it sold millions of copies. This new book, Five People You Meet in Heaven, though fictional, covers much of the same life and death territory that his bestseller did. Also big right now is the latest incisive and sharply funny novel by Diane Johnson, L’Affaire. From what I’ve heard, her books are character driven, modern, droll, and witty. Johnson is a two-time Pulitzer finalist and a three-time National Book Award finalist, so she is the real deal. Also, a new book by newly minted Nobel Laureate, J. M. Coetzee, has been rushed to stores. Originally intended for release in November, Elizabeth Costello, was released early to take advantage of and celebrate Coetzee’s latest honor.And in non-fiction??? Plath-mania continues with the release of what is apparently one of the best books yet written about the deeply troubled poet and her husband Ted Hughes. Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, Portrait of a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook is another in a long line of books that look at Sylvia Plath and Hughes, and from what I hear it’s quite good. Steel yourself for a tremendous resurgence in interest in Sylvia Plath, as the release of a biopic starring Gwyneth Paltrow approaches. For those of you intending to keep it real, get a copy of The Bell Jar quick before they put Gwyneth’s face on it. Meanwhile, true crime aficionados and Mafia watchers are rushing to get their copies of The Brass Wall by New York Times journalist David Kocieniewski which is about an NYPD detective who infiltrated the mob, but was later betrayed by a fellow officer. Apparently this one reads as though written directly for the screen.Lots of movie talk today, which is good because it allows me to mention that Phillip Roth’s highly-regarded novel, The Human Stain, while always a strong seller, has kicked it up a notch in anticipation of what is apparently a highly-regarded film version. (As I mentioned a few weeks ago, ditto Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River). The other paperback that people are buying is a bit less serious, but it seems like a pretty terrific gag gift for David Beckham fans as well as anyone who watches Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern Man.
Art Garfunkel is a Voracious Reader
A perfect post to leave you with as we head into the long weekend. Perhaps, like many people, you’ve been wondering what Art Garfunkel’s been reading for… oh… the last 39 years, give or take. Luckily, he’s been keeping track.As a result, perusing through the nearly 1,000 books he’s read in that time, I now know that:When I was born, Art Garfunkel was reading Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur.When I graduated high school, he was reading “Our Crowd” by Stephen Birmingham.When I graduated college, he was reading Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.And when I got married, he was reading Love, Groucho, the letters of Groucho Marx.What was Art Garfunkel reading on the important dates in your life? (Thanks to John for sending that brilliant link my way)
More Stories
Another comprehensive collection by a short story master is hitting shelves this week. Bradbury Stories is a collection of 100 stories by, who else, Ray Bradbury. Aside from being delightful reading, this collection displays his mastery of the form, providing whatever “proof” might be necessary that Bradbury diserves to be considered one of our best writers. Here’s a good interview with Bradbury from The Onion.A Letter to ThailandHere’s a letter to my friend Cem. He’s world travelling and I thought I might recommend him some books.Cem…Checking in. Southern Turkish still in Northern Thailand I presume. From my little hammock of paradise, it’s hard to imagine your jungle roamings. I don’t know if you have the time to read or the ability to acquire these books, but I’ve got two more for you: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges. He talks about the effect of national conflict on individuals, and, more specifically, he explores his own addiction to war, which has led him around the world. Also, I’m reading a surreal mystery novel called Bangkok 8 by John Burdett. As the title suggests, it’s set in the country where you hang your hat.It’s all picnics and baseball here in the states. I hope you’re enjoying an appropriate Thai substitute.Dreaming of Ships,Max[Note: These books are great for the general populace, too. Not just world travelers]
A Book of Baghdad
Anyone who read Jon Lee Anderson’s accounts in the New Yorker of the weeks leading up to and during the American invasion of Baghdad probably shares my interest in Anderson’s new book, The Fall Of Baghdad, which chronicles those events. I was recently told by someone from Penguin that this book is all new material, so if you liked the articles, this should be a real treat.In another news, a comment of mine over at Bookdwarf is inspiring some discussion about bloggers trying to make money off of blogs. I encourage you to weigh in if you have thoughts on this.
On Reading Snow in Turkish
1.
Like many American youths, I spent a number of years toiling pallidly in middle and high school French, the end result of which was being able to identify the opening strains of “La Marseillaise,” being aware of the mnemonic device “Dr. & Mrs. Vandertramp,” being able to inaccurately recite a poem by Jacques Prevert, and being able to conduct one halting conversation with a man in a bar, the highlight of which occurred when I boldly spoke of jus d’orange. I also remember vividly the mid-century expression for peeing the bed, courtesy of the oft-viewed classroom film Au Revoir les Enfants.
I could probably struggle through a French article about cats, written for children, but it would not occur to me to say that I am a French speaker. The decisive moment never came when I chose to say to myself and the world: “I speak French,” and by thus saying willed it so. You must make your linguistic statement of faith and mean it.
2.
Through a series of happy accidents, I began learning Turkish when I was 21, first haphazardly, then in earnest, then not at all, then all the time, and now once a week for a prescribed number of hours.
Please don’t misunderstand me–I cannot speak Turkish the way that millions of people from around the world speak uncannily beautiful and idiomatic English. But I made my statement of faith and I’m sticking to it. I ride to school and whisper words like “threshold,” “doomsday,” and “willow tree.” I stop in the middle of sentences and turn red and start again.
Like many people who begin learning a language in the country where it is spoken, until lately I was in the position of knowing many breathtaking and largely unsayable obscenities, but could not read a book or newspaper.
Reading is not like speaking. You cannot look at a page and will yourself to understand, the way you can open your mouth and say nonsense and hope that someone kindly will do the work of comprehension. Illiteracy is terrifying; semi-literacy is agonizing. I knew Turkish words and grammar (which, viewed from English, is approximately backwards), but not how they went together on the page. I would start a paragraph and soon, my eyes would begin skipping across the paragraph at their accustomed speedy clip, apprehending nothing.
I bought Orhan Pamuk’s novel Kar (Snow) four years ago, when I had just left Turkey and felt myself, in the face of significant evidence to the contrary, a competent speaker. Confidence is important. A good way to feel optimistic is to acquire what Benjamin Franklin, the randy goat, called a sleeping dictionary. In Turkish there is an expression which communicates the same thing, an arch pun on dil, which means both “language” and “tongue.”
Unfortunately, most flings in foreign lands do not equip the besotted with the skills required for reading Nobel novels. As I have said before, I reached page 16 of Kar, which is actually page 8, by performing a very painful and ill-advised word-for-word transcription on the book’s actual pages, thereby ensuring that I would never be able to return to and read the opening chapter, or, for that matter, my own inaccurate translation. The pages, thus defaced, resemble something out of Paul Auster, or Pamuk at his most post-modern.
During my summer reunion with this elegant language, I took a class with a very patient professor who slowly coaxed us through excerpts of early republican stories, poems, and a Vikipedi article on jaguars (beneklerle kaplıdır–“they are covered with spots”).
Setting aside the dictionary I bought in my first week in Turkey, a tiny yellow Langenscheidt, the inside of which is coated with an archaeological film of loose tobacco, I obtained a big-league dictionary. A grown-up, non-smoking dictionary, which weighs 10 pounds and has words I don’t know in English, like “eryngo” (çakırdiken), and “schreinerize” (ipek efekti vermek), and “helve” (sap). It also includes a fair selection of unsayable things, which are important to know. I feel very secure with this dictionary, although I keep the yellow one in my purse, for the train.
When the summer class drew to a close, I returned to Kar, page 16, with my adult dictionary and a sense of purpose. For a moment, I saw the old chaos before me. But I forced myself to go one word at a time. Before long, rather than feeling as though I had been strapped blind to some infernal machine, I opened my eyes to find that I was actually riding a bicycle very slowly, peddling haltingly but definitively forward down an unfamiliar street. At first, the effort of keeping my momentum and balance prevented me apprehending the architectural features of this new territory:
The Kars Police Headquarters was a long three-story building that was an old building that was made from stone that was used for many government buildings that were arranged on Faikbey Street that stayed from the rich Russians and Armenians.
It took me a week of train commutes with the small dictionary to progress four pages, and to perceive what I was reading in a way that seemed distinctly literary. I am not a translator; I don’t begin to understand the alchemy of translation. But on page 26, for the first time ever, I felt moved by something I read in a language not my own:
In the empty lot next to the Yusuf Pasha District’s park, with its unhinged swings and broken slide, in the light of the streetlamps which illuminated the adjacent coal warehouse, he watched high school-aged youths playing football. Listening to their exchanged shouts and curses, which were swiftly muffled by the snow, he felt so strongly the distance and unbelievable loneliness of this corner of the world, under the faded yellow lamplight and the falling snow, that he felt the idea of God inside him.
In my head, this was beautiful.
At page 85, I continue to creep along.
I think I can, I think I can.
The Week in books
The big sellers around my neck of the woods this week were: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was the big seller in hardcover fiction. This book is no big surpise as it has already taken the New York Times bestseller list by storm. This looks like a pretty exciting read, definitely one for the summer. It’s got a real Indiana Jones vibe to it, full of puzzles and unravelling the mysteries of the past, in this case the source material is the Mona Lisa. In hardcover non-fiction there’s Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser, who wrote the book that blew the lid off McDonalds and the rest of the burger slingers: Fast Food Nation. Now, I found Fast Food Nation to be a bit preachy and I felt that sometimes he went over the top trying to get his point across, but at the same time I was impressed by his feats of investigative journalism. So when I first heard about Reefer Madness, ostensibly an expose on the illegal drug industry, I was looking forward to reading it. The reviews I have read have tempered my enthusiasm, however. Michiko Kakutani wasn’t very impressed, and I was especially disappointed to find that the book consists of three distinct essays cobbled together to represent a discussion of “the underground economy,” in this case pornography, the plight of illegal migrant workers, and the domestic marijuana industry. After the book came out, I realized that I had already read most of the section on pornography when it appeared in the New Yorker a few months ago. I hadn’t really been that into it at the time. So, unfortunately, it seems like Schlosser, instead of attacking a new subject with the zeal he displayed in his attack on fast food, has thrown together a follow up and slapped a catchy title on it, knowing that his name will sell the book. For now, at least, it seems to be working. In the realm of paperback fiction, Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis were the big sellers. I have already talked about both of these books, but it is good to see more and more people coming around to old Maqroll the Gaviero.My trip to EuropeNext week, I am travelling to Barcelona and then to Ireland. I have some serious airplane time ahead of me so I am packing several books. I had a thought that it might be a fun idea to read a novel that takes place in Barcelona while flying over there. I did a little research and found myself an intriguing little book: The Lonely Hearts Club by Raul Nunez. Apparently it is about a lonely man in Barcelona, who joins “a lonely hearts club” to alleviate his solitude. Instead, it throws him into contact with the most eccentric characters in an eccentric city. Sounds like fun.
New Books: Ben Ehrenreich, Jeffrey Ford, Kate Grenville
The Suitors, a debut novel by Ben Ehrenreich, draws from Homer’s Odyssey and James Joyce’s Ulysses. The story is another rewrite of those famous epics – there are so many, but then again it’s a fertile place to start – set, as PW puts it, “in a never-never land equal parts contemporary America and classical antiquity.” Ehrenreich is best-known as a widely published journalist whose work regularly appears in the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and The Believer. Ehrenreich is the son of participatory journalist, Barbara, author of the best-selling Nickel and Dimed, in which she tried to get by on minimum wage.Jeffrey Ford’s excellent novel The Girl in the Glass is currently being discussed in exhaustive detail at the Litblog Co-op blog, but he’s got a new book out, too. The Empire of Ice Cream is a collection of stories. Ford, as I recently had the pleasure of discovering, is like very few others writing today. Though he might be labeled as a writer of “speculative fiction,” his work doesn’t really need a label at all, as it is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good story told well. To see what I mean, check out a few stories from The Empire of Ice Cream: “The Annals of Eelin-Ok,” “The Empire of Ice Cream,” and “A Man of Light.”Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret River, has already won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and has been shortlisted for the Miles Frankin Prize awarded to the year’s best Australian novel. The Secret River is a historical novel about the convict settlement of Australia and follows the story of a particular convict named William Thornhill. The Guardian writes: “There isn’t much underlying moral ambiguity in this book: the costs of settlement are appalling, which makes Thornhill its villain, even while he carries its sympathetic weight.” Grenville previously won the Orange Prize in 2001 for her novel The Idea of Perfection.