Coincidentally, I'm currently reading Werewolves in Their Youth. Only a couple stories in, but I'm liking it more than the first Chabon collection I read, A Model World, which I thought was a bit ordinary and tedious. These are the only things I've read by Chabon, and about 100 pages of Kavalier & Clay, which I put down not because I didn't like it but because I thought I should start with his supposed lesser works instead of his masterpiece so as not to ruin me for the rest of his output.

Do you still feel this way?

Chabon use of language always impresses me and he's a great storyteller. Make sure that you eventually make your way to Kavalier & Clay - it's worth it.

I read it in college. And fucking hated it.

Do you just disdain that sort of thing in general? Maybe you had a poor translation. The Seamus Heaney translation is terrific and really makes it come alive. It's like a glance into a completely foreign world with its own set of values. And the tightly organized framing devices make it look like the work of a singular genius.

I have no idea what translation it was. I just remember being so bored and completely uninvested. I don't normally read epic battle style literature, so I maybe I just don't like the entire genre...?

I really, really dig Chabon, too -- The Yiddish Policeman's Union was one of the neatest things I've read in awhile (few years back). There's one short story in Werewolves... that really upset me (the way he intended, I suppose).

That House of Leaves...thing? Project? Whatever? It's garbage. I'll reshelve it next to Infinite Jest and they can lean on each other for support - totally unreadable.

I picked this up last Friday after work -- totally fun ride. Y'all know the slang "getting laid" has Chicago roots? Yep. Snag this book & read up on the Everleigh Sisters and you'll learn why.

I finally got to Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie', that landmark work of the American theater. It's pretty damn good. Williams' poetic dialogue reads well (must have been jarring to a mid 1940s audience raised on the stiff 'Proletarian' dramas and trivial drawing room comedies that had been popular at the time) and the ending is heartbreaking.

Just finished this. I would think a good mystery ought to fill a reader with questions they're dying to know the answers to. The only question The Final Solution had me asking was, "Why am I even reading this?" Chabon, unfortunately, never provides the answer.

The story lacks the elements that make the best genre fiction so enjoyable, and is far too shallow to be compelling as literature. It's "a story of detection" that lacks much in the way of detection. It has the feel of a kid's book, minus the fun that such a category implies.

It's a slight novella made even slighter by the illustrations which are so few and rudimentary they might as well not even be there. In fact, they detract from the book, rendering a more childish and cartoonish vision than Chabon seems to intend.

It's decently written as expected from the author, but at times the quality of the writing, as good as it is, undermines the narrative, with Chabon favoring lengthy overwritten and tedious digressions on minutia that stall the story and contribute to an escalating boredom just when I should be eagerly flipping pages. It doesn't help that I didn't really care about the central mystery, or any of the too-many characters, who were mostly flat and underdeveloped. Of course, this is such a short book that some loss of complexity should be expected. Chabon, however, devotes over two pages at one point to a description of a car coming to a stop, so clearly the issue isn't length but misplaced priorities.

read this last year and thought it was fun/tragic at times. couldn't disagree more about house of leaves but hey, different strokes....
read this last night for the first time in ages:

night - elie wiesel

next up: the women - tc boyle

fake edit: really i only posted in here to make up for posting in the newsom thread

Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon. Just started this. Only 20 pages in and I've already fallen in love.

Snow-balls have flown their Arcs, starr’d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware, - the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking’d-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel’d Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar, - the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax’d and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.

The only crew member he has ever been Civil to is Veevle, legendary thro'out the Royal N. for being impossible to wake to stand Watch. Countless hundreds of Ship-mates have tried without issue to rouse the somniac Tar. The Admiralty is understood secretly to have plac'd in Escrow a £1000 reward for the first who should succeed. Audible methods, such as screaming, having been discourag'd by others requiring sleep, his would-be Awakeners have tried hitting the Soles of Veevle's Feet with Rope-ends, introducing Cockroaches up his Nose, and rolling him over and administering Enemas of Lucas the Cook's notorious Coffee, which in several sworn instances has restor'd life to certified Cadavers. Nothing works. They whisper elaborate Promises. They light Slow-Matches and place them between his Toes. They wrap him in his Hammock and lower him over the Side, and at the touch of the Waves, he but makes a snuggling motion, and begins to snore. It is soon widely appreciated that one must catch Veevle whilst awake, and trick him into standing someone else's Watch, whereupon he becomes the smartest and most estimable of Seamen.

Mason & Dixon, pg 54.

I think that including favorite excerpts should be a more common practice in this thread. Gives a chance for potential readers to get a small taste of the style of a writer; considering there is so much out there for me to read.

The Great English Epic is still pretty great. When read out loud, Milton's Latinate, complexly subordinated, rolling periods sounds like a huge Baroque organ with all the stops out and his Satan is a proto Byronic hero.

Let's get some of your favorite excerpts, Tony.

haha, nice.

Hard to pick a handful but I'm game...



The description of Satan, Belial and sundy minions settling down in Pandemonium (a word coined by Milton meaning "All-Demons") to discuss the plan of attack against God...

The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim
In close recess and secret conclave sat,
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full. After short silence then,
And summons read, the great consult began.


Milton depicts the War in Heaven in Homeric/Virgillian terms, complete with armor and shield. Just what use these items would be to non-corporeal and immortal angels (and why would God send them out to fight if he knows who is going to win anyway) is another question. But the poetry is so great that one doesn't ask questions...


Of rigid spears, and helmets thronged, and shields
Various, with boastful argument portrayed,
The banded Powers of Satan hasting on
With furious expedition; for they weened
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise,
To win the mount of God, and on his throne
To set the Envier of his state, the proud
Aspirer;



And this needs no introduction...

Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise: What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.

Yeah, I really need to read Paradise Lost. Maybe that'll happen this year. Good stuff.

Be sure to check out Isaac Asimov's great annotated edition. He's especially fascinating when expounding Milton's equivocal relationship with modern Physics and astronomy - Milton was aware of the developments brought on by the discoveries of Kepler and Galileo (he met the latter as a young man) and deep down knew they were right but preferred the Ptolemaic system which he felt was more in keeping with the symmetic beauty of God, and hinted at it whenever he could.

P.S. Gallileo is the most contemporary personage mentioned in the poem. He died 25 years before PL was published.

I'll definitely check that out. Sounds right up my alley.

Mason & Dixon is a great read. Currently making my way through this one myself.

I'm going to seek out that Sin in the Second City book. It looks interesting. As for House of Leaves, I thought it was hard to read, but very interesting. It was just really dense and the style made it hard for me to get into it. I found myself have to reread sections a lot.

Night was excellent. Depressing as hell, but that's to be expected.

Last read was Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49. Currently, I was looking for a lighter read so I picked up Murakami's latest non-fiction. It's keeping me motivated to run while the weather is so shitty outside.

Richard Thompson: The Biography - Patrick Humphries

I can't quite tell if this is well-written or not, because I cannot discern whether Humphries is the King of Comma Splices or if British grammar is vastly more different than I'd realized. In any case, Thompson's interesting enough to me that his life and career are worth muddling through the butchery. Rock bios cleave to a strict formula and this is no exception: Early life, musical beginnings, coverage of each album and tour, intercut with behind-the-music drama. Not sure what other way there'd be to do it, but I read so many of these I long to find it. Humphries resists the Clinton Heylin tendency to freely savage his subject each time Thompson disappoints, which is a relief, while still offering a modicum of critical perspective. He can't quite seem to decide between oral history and straight narrative, so he splits the difference and tries both. If it works at all, and I suppose it must since I devoured it, my curiosity gave him the latitude moreso than his prose earned my respect. Worthwhile for fans.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

I finally finished this entire thing a few weeks ago. Previously, I'd only read the first half for one of my college courses several years back but was distracted from it by some other school work and by the time I got back to it I decided I wanted to reread the first half before continuing into the second.

Wonderful book, though I must dispute the notion that this is a love story. It's a story about obsession and delusion. Perhaps Humbert loved Annabel. But he doesn't love Lolita. Rather he loves what she represents, and really she could be any nymphet at all, and indeed Humbert's fascination with nymphets doesn't end with her but continues throughout the book, with his gaze often falling on all sorts of young girls.

Part of what makes the book so interesting is precisely this distinction. Nabokov, through Humbert, uses the language of love letters and love poetry to describe not love but lust and obsession. And it's absolutely gorgeous language, but coming from Humbert it feels so empty, as if he's more in love with his creation of Lo through language than the actual Lo in reality. As the language continues into the second half with the obvious non-reciprocation of feeling from Lolita, it feels more and more pathetic, not the result of a genuine passion for Lo, but for the dream of Lo and, perhaps, the dream of Humbert's lost childhood.

Maybe I've misperceived the assessment then. The book is indeed a love story, but the object of Humbert's love isn't the obvious Lolita, but the briefly mentioned Annabel, the dream of Poe's poem*, the ideal he can never get back to no matter how hard he tries.

*A quick Wikipedia search mentions Annabel Lee as an inspiration for Nabokov, and says that originally he titled the novel "The Kingdom by the Sea."

A Riot Of Our Own: Night And Day With The Clash

Fun read so far. Full text on Google Books.

That's the consensus.

It's a love story but between the author and the English language. It's also about the clash between Modernism and Postmodernism. One of the earliest examples of an artistic treatment of trashy pop culture that divides the line between them (hence being an early avatar of PoMo). You can draw a straight line between Lolita and Pulp Fiction.

I was talking more about the text than the subtext (or metatext), but you're absolutely right about it being a love story between author and English (I believe he mentions something to this effect in his afterword). Where should I go with Nabokov next? I've only read this and Pnin (which I loved) and I have Pale Fire and Ada sitting on my shelf.

'Pale Fire' is astounding. Though you may want to try the two remaining Anglophone novels you haven't read that he wrote before Lolita before tacking it. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Bend Sinister. The former is a short delight and the latter is one of the earliest novels about 1930s totalitarianism and what it can do to the creative artist. And It sure beats the shit out of 1984.

Interesting note: Nabokov regarded Salinger as one of the greatest living American writers.

for those interested, Patti Smith is at the Harold Washington Library this Sunday talking about/signing her new book

also,


hi red!

It's easy to see why Salinger was so taken with Rilke. In these letters to an admirer, the German poet talks about the virtues of solitude and the wisdom of children and their purifying innocence. It would be nice to get an e-mail like this from a celeb who you had written to.

Does Britannia, when she sleeps, dream? Is America her dream?-- in which all that cannot pass in the metropolitan Wakefulness is allow'd Expression away in the restless Slumber of these Provinces, and on West-ward, wherever 'tis not yet mapp'd, nor written down, nor ever, by the majority of Mankind, seen,-- serving as a very Rubbish-Tip for subjunctive Hopes, for all that may yet be true,-- Earthly Paradise, Fountain of Youth, Realms of Prester John, Christ's Kingdom, ever behind the sunset, safe til the next Territory to the West be seen and recorded, measur'd and tied in, back into the Net-Work of Points already known, that slowly triangulates its Way into the Continent, changing all from subjunctive to declarative, reducing Possibilities to Simplicities that serve the ends of Governments,-- winning away from the realm of the Sacred, its Borderlands one by one, and assuming them unto the bare mortal World that is our home, and our Despair.

Mason & Dixon, pg 345.

Back when critics were critics...

Some contemporary comments about Ibsen''s 1881 drama 'Ghosts':


"Ibsen's positively abominable play entitled Ghosts....An open drain: a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly....Gross, almost putrid indecorum....Literary carrion.... Crapulous stuff" - Daily Telegraph

"Revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous ....Characters either contradictory in themselves, uninteresting or abhorrent." - Daily Chronicle

"Morbid, unhealthy and disgusting story....A piece to bring the stage into disrepute and dishonour with every right-thinking man and woman." – Lloyd's

"Lugubrious diagnosis of sordid impropriety....Characters are prigs, pedants and profligates....Morbid caricatures.... Maunderings of nookshotten Norwegians" – Black and White

"As foul and filthy a concoction as has ever been allowed to disgrace the boards of an English theatre....dull and disgusting....Nastiness and malodorousness laid on thickly as with a trowel." – Era

"Ninety-seven percent of the people who go to see Ghosts are nasty-minded people who find the discussion of nasty subjects to their taste, in exact proportion to their nastiness" – Sporting and Dramatic News

"Ugly, nasty, discordant, and downright dull.... A gloomy sort of ghoul, bent on groping for horrors by night, and blinking like a stupid old owl when the warm sunlight of the best of life dances into his wrinkled eyes" – Gentlewoman

"The socialistic and the sexless....The unwomanly women, the unsexed females, the whole army of unprepossessing cranks in petticoats....Educated and muck-ferreting dogs.... Effeminate men and male women..... They all of them–men and women alike–know that they are doing not only a nasty but an illegal thing.... The Lord Chamberlain [the censor] left them alone to wallow in Ghosts.... Outside a silly clique, there is not the slightest interest in the Scandinavian humbug or all his works.... A wave of human folly" – Truth

I also read this last year. It was such a fun book to read. I enjoy historical fiction about Chicago. Not much has changed....


Hi Red!

hmm, many writers taking similar positions, reiterating the same misgivings of sarah palin actually became quite boring. i mean, i'm a hater as much as the next guy but i'm not sure this was necessary. probably felt good to its many authors though.

?
was under the impression this is a nonfiction book and would be interested in reading anything that refutes this.

edit: nevermind. flipping through the memory banks of this read and i think i see where you are coming with this but let's just say i would disagree that this falls into the category of historical fiction.

Continuing on my drama kick I went through this seminal 1933 American play. Not as dated as I thought it would be. The themes of economic assimilation and generational conflict are still relevant. All that and the Jewish mother from hell!

Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness. On top of my regular reading this year, I'm slowly going through this. Anyone here read it? Anyone dig it?

Yes. Yes. Yes. When I initially responded to your post, I had only read about 2.5 short stories in the collection. I'm now about 2/3 done and wow. Absolutely riveting. The story "Retreat" is one of the best short stories I have ever read. Really good stuff.

I find it strange that I can knock out a 250 page novel in a few days, but a 250 page collection of short stories takes me so much longer. I don't find myself finishing one story and going to the next directly following it, as I might with chapters in a novel. Any one else find that they do the same thing? I wonder if that says anything about my head.

I'm pretty much the same way. For me, I think it's the lack of continuity. You have new characters, a new setting, a new situation, conflict, etc. in a collection of short stories, whereas in a novel, even something told by multiple narrators, you know that there is a sense of it all being of a piece and all the details contributing to the total effect.

funny, same thing happened to me. i started it whenever i wrote that, and then had off work for like a week due to blizzard, yet couldn't pick it up again. then i only actually finished it last week. only took me like three sittings, but short story collections are hard to finished. something about the rhythm of it. you get started, and then have to restart over and over. this one is well worth it, though. the final story hit me as a little gimmicky at first, but then ends in such an unbelievable way that it's actually affected my life a little bit. hit me fucking hard. this book is something special. not to oversell it for others who aren't sonic, but this is a modest collection of short stories that really capture something special. if it were more pretentious, it would fail to make the same effect. just wonderful, all around.

Agree entirely. Just finished "Door in Your Eye" and, once again, I was blown away. Really great characters, it all seems so honest.

I should pick that up. I've only read one Wells Tower story (I forget what it was called, it was in McSweeney's and involved moose hunting), but I loved it.

Yeah that's "Retreat", which I was talking about earlier. Terrific short story. Definitely check it out when you get a chance.

This is only quasi-reading but last night I saw the Goodman Theater double bill of O'Neill's 'Hughie' and Beckett's 'Krapp's
Last Tape' with Brian Dennehy. I had the books with me and read a lot of it on the train there and back. Dennehy was simply great!

I'd like to see "Krapp's Last Tape" performed.

Man, I had no idea Lester Bangs lived so long and cast such a wide net.

It's playing through the end of the month.

I was thinking that at the end of 'Bartleby the Scrivener', Melville summed up the existential condition with the line "Ah Bartleby, Ah Humanity!" Perhaps Beckett should have ended his play with "Aw Krapp!".

Yeah, what I should have said was:

I'd like to see it performed; if only I lived in Chicago.