My Thoughts on The Singing by C.K. Williams

When I was in college, I became excited about some poets, Frank O'Hara, Tennyson, C.K. Williams, and some others. This interest stemmed from a poetry class and from hanging around too much in the local used book store. But I've never been grasped by poetry, there's something too arbitrary about it for me. Still, Some poems by Williams in the New Yorker piqued my interest and I picked up his collection, The Singing, which went on to win the National Book Award. There are handful of very moving poems in this collection. Williams' best poems are grounded by concrete imagery, and they are engagingly anecdotal. But there are too many poems in this book that aren't tethered to earthly things at all, and it is difficult for the reader to reach them. He writes engagingly about growing old and about war. The best in the collection is called "The Hearth." It can be found here.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:19 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Roth Excerpt

Visit this link (and scroll down) for an excerpt of the new Philip Roth novel, The Plot Against America. In other news, Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones is one of 23 people to be given a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. That's "annual checks for $100,000 for the next five years, to be used however they want," for those of you keeping score at home. This year's other literary geniuses are short story writer Aleksandar Hemon (The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man) and poet C.D. Wright (Deepstep Come Shining, Steal Away). Here are profiles of Chicago's two geniuses.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:11 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 27th in a Series (Classifying Classics)

Tiffany writes in with this intriguing question:

What qualifications does a book have to meet in order to be considered as a classic?

This is probably an argument almost as old as the written word. Nearly everyone who reads has an opinion on what should or shouldn't be a "classic," and the criteria for this classification shifts with changing times and tastes. Only the very few, special books will be considered classics by generation after generation of readers. It's safe to say that the halls of academia are where these arguments begin. Academics typically publish their findings in obscure journals, but some go straight to the masses like Harold Bloom, whose book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages seeks "to define the essential masterworks of world literature." Bloom's book, when it came out was, as most of these books tend to be, quite controversial. The press, too, plays a role in these discussions. Book critics with long and distinguished careers encounter enough books to make their own judgments about the classics. Lists like Jonathan Yardley's "State of the Art" add to the public discourse about what makes a book a classic. Publishers come up with lists of classics to get people talking about books; the Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the Century is a recent example. The discussion has even arrived on our televisions. Last summer the BBC put together the Big Read which searched for Britain's best loved books. Even Oprah reinvented her book club by shifting the focus to classics last year. Oprah fans have read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and John Steinbeck's East of Eden in recent months, and they'll be reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck next. In the end there aren't any official rules that determine what is a classic and what isn't, but if we had to adopt some, I would recommend that we borrow the set of rules put forth by Italo Calvino in his book Why Read the Classics?

1. The classics are those books about which you usually hear people saying: "I'm rereading..." and never "I'm reading..."
2. The classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.
3. The classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves as unforgettable on our imaginations, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual's or the collective unconscious.
4. A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much a sense of discovery as the first reading.
5. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.
6. A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.
7. The classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left on the culture or cultures (or just in the languages and customs) through which they have passed.
8. A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.
9. The classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.
10. A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on par with ancient talismans.
11. "Your" classic is a book to which you cannot feel indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation even in opposition to it.
12. A classic is a work that comes before other classics; but those who have read other classics first immediately recognize its place in the genealogy of classic works.
13. A classic is a work which relegates the present to a background hum, which at the same time the classics cannot exist without.
14. A classic is a work which persists as background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

- C. Max Magee @ 3:40 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Dylan Speaks

This week's Newsweek has an excerpt of Bob Dylan's new memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:40 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Booker Shortlist Excerpt Extravaganza

The Booker frenzy is reaching a fevered pitch. I've scoured the web for the words of the shortlisted authors. Place your bets accordingly.

• The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall -- excerpt
• Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst -- profile
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell -- excerpt
• The Master by Colm Toibin -- excerpt
• I'll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward -- excerpt
• Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor -- interview

- C. Max Magee @ 11:29 PM ~ ~ Links to this post

 

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.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:52 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Litblogosphere

There are probably two cardinal rules of blogging; that is, there are two things that a blogger must do to have a fully realized blog within the mass that is the blogosphere. One, the blogger should post relatively frequently and consistently, several times a week lets say. Second, a blogger should link to other blogs. I've been reasonably successful at the former, but inadequate at the latter. But I can assure you, this has been out of laziness and not by design. When I started this blog about 18 months ago, it didn't occur to me that there might be other blogs about books out there, but indeed there were, and new ones crop up all the time. It occurred to me recently that the readers of my blog, being book fans, might like to know about the litblogs that are out there. So here are some of my favorites. Add them to your bookmarks, read them. Enjoy their daily nourishment:

• Beatrice -- It's not what you think. Beatrice isn't an old woman with a beehive hairdo, it's blog run by Ron Hogan. Beatrice is probably my favorite of all the litblogs. Hogan touches on all the big stories with humor, and he often has his own insights to add. Plus, and this is a very big plus, he has an unbelievable archive of interviews he's conducted with literary luminaries over the years.
• The Elegant Variation -- I met Mark Sarvas once at the bookstore I worked at in Los Angeles. He was there for a sparsely attended reading, by whom I can't recall, and we got to chatting. Like first time fathers, we talked about our, at the time, brand new blogs. And while I would continue to plug away in my fashion, Sarvas quite rapidly put together one of the most widely read litblogs out there. If you want to stay on top of the lit world and the litblog world, the Elegant Variation is essential.
• Golden Rule Jones -- When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to have the city's second-best litblog. His listings of local readings are indispensable, and his understanding of the city's literary scene is deep. Still, Golden Rule Jones is a quieter redoubt, and Jones isn't afraid to present his readers with the occasional poetic interlude. If you live in Chicago and love books, you might as well make Golden Rule Jones your homepage.
• The Literary Saloon -- The Saloon is a very newsy sort of litblog with a British bent. It's great place to keep up on Booker gossip and the like. n.b. The Saloon is attached to one of the best book review sites on the web: The Complete Review
• Maud Newton -- Maud Newton is the grande dame of litbloggers. Her tremendously popular blog lays it all out on the table from her literary loves to her daily trials and tribulations. Something about Maud makes you really want to root for her. Go Maud!
• Rake's Progress -- A relative newcomer, Rake's Progress consists of terrific links and off the cuff literary analysis delivered with a well-developed sense of irony and humor.
• Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind -- Sarah Weinman is professional book reviewer who has been kind enough to share her talents with the blogosphere. Her background is in crime fiction, but she turns her journalist's eye on all aspects of the literary world. She's a real pro.
• GalleyCat -- An outgrowth of the publishing networking site, Media Bistro, GalleyCat is a newsy spot that will keep you up to date on all the latest stories in the publishing world and in litblog land. If you just have time to read one blog a day, GalleyCat will keep you in the loop.
• Bookdwarf -- Bookdwarf is a blog that's close to my heart because it has a lot in common with The Millions. Bookdwarf works at a great independent bookstore, just like I used too. And just like me she can't help but spread all that bookstore knowledge far and wide.
• Tingle Alley -- Tingle Alley is a blog by a writer who happens to be, as all good writers should be, an avid reader. She shares her thoughts on the latest book news, on the books she reads, and on the progress of her novel.
• Waterboro Library Blog -- Lots of libraries have a web presence, but none of them blog like the folks in Waterboro, Maine. In the helpful spirit of librarians everywhere, the Waterboro Blog is a great source for important book news. It's a real public service.
• Conversational Reading -- Scott Esposito's blog is a real readers' blog. He eschews the gossipy book news and sticks to discussing reading, posting long, insightful pieces about his reading experience. Esposito also reviews books for various publications.
• Casa Malaprop -- Don Lindgren is a rare book dealer who has an eye for interesting links, (and, presumably, rare books).
• languagehat.com -- I've mentioned languagehat on this blog before. Its not really a litblog per se, but languagehat is so chock full of interesting linguistic information that it really shouldn't be missed. After reading languagehat, you will be tempted to become an amateur linguist yourself.
• Old Hag -- Jimmy at Old Hag is a funny guy. He finds the humor in the book world, in trying to be a writer, in blogging about all this stuff. He'll make you laugh. (Lizzie's funny, too.)

So that's it for now. I've probably forgotten to mention many worthy litblogs and misrepresented some of the ones I did mention. The point is, there's lots of great blogs about books out there, and if you only read mine you're missing out. So check these guys out; you won't be disappointed.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:56 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-sixth in a Series (Next from a Recluse)

Well, after the Gabriel Garcia Marquez scoop, I suppose people are expecting the impossible from me. Lou writes in with this question:

what of thomas pynchon? we last heard that he was working on a novel about a russian female mathematician but that was a couple of years ago. should we begin to wait for years more?

See what I mean? Thomas Pynchon, more than Don Delillo, more than J.D. Salinger, is the literary world's greatest recluse. Accordingly, new information about him or his writing comes into this world at a rate of no more than one speculative tidbit per year. Pynchon's notorious silence has spawned legions of Pynchon watchers who eagerly attempt to conjure meaning from the crumbs. I have a feeling that the only person on the face of the earth who knows when the next Thomas Pynchon book will come out and what the next Thomas Pynchon book will be about is, of course, Thomas Pynchon. Still, I can at least reprint the full rumor that you cite in your question, (which dates back to 2000) for what it's worth:

The German Secretary of Culture, Michael Naumann (who not long ago worked in NYC for Henry Holt, Pynchon's publisher) told recently on radio that Pynchon is working on a new novel. The setting: Goettingen early in the 20th century; the heroine: young female mathematician from Russia who belonged to the circle around David Hilbert. After a while the Russienne falls in love with another colleague.

Whether or not the Russian mathematician really is the subject of Pynchon's next book, chances are the reading public won't get a ton of advance notice. One thing I realized when I was working at the book store was that unlike movies where there is a tangible news-generating build up (on set reports, previews, etc.) there is not typically a public element to the creation of a book. And though most books first appear in publishers' catalogs and (less frequently) in quickie season preview articles in newspapers and magazines, plenty of books are simply released when they are ready, having been written by authors in the privacy of their own homes. That new Garcia Marquez book is a good example. So, don't be surprised if the next thing you hear about Pynchon's book is the story announcing its impending arrival in stores.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:50 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Hardcover or Paperback?

In a post last December, I briefly explained why books first come out in hardcover and then, nine to eighteen months later, they come out in cheaper paperback versions. This has become a standard in the book industry, and as a result, some readers, myself included, are leery of books that come out in paperback first without ever being released in a hardcover edition. "What is wrong with this book," I think to myself, "that the publisher didn't want to release it as a hardcover?" At the same time, many readers, including myself, are frustrated that the book industry is so rigid like this, and that it is so expensive to purchase a brand new book. Laura Miller in the Times Sunday Book Review goes over many reasons why the current setup is counter-intuitive, including this one: "riskier books rely heavily on reviews and other media coverage to attract readers, but the reviews appear when the books are new. By the time the books show up as affordable paperbacks, the spotlight has moved on." Miller wonders if the industry's rigid selling strategy might be thawing, and she points to David Mitchell's popular new book Cloud Atlas, recently released as a paperback original, as a sign. Read the column here.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:11 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Book News

On Monday I saw Marjane Satrapi speak at a local bookstore. Her graphic novel Persepolis has been a great success, and now she's out promoting the sequel, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. As a speaker she was surprisingly frank and funny. When someone asked her about her self-imposed exile in France, she described Iran as her mother, but France as her wife. "You can cheat on your wife," she said as the audience chuckled. She also wryly called out an audience member who implied that she was an Arab in asking whether Satrapi's ethnicity posed any problems for her in her adopted country. "No," Satrapi said, "in France they know that there is a difference between an Iranian and an Arab" (emphasis hers). Satrapi also said that she wrote fourteen children's books and received hundreds of rejection letters before she shifted her focus slightly and morphed her project into a graphic novel. She proved to be a delightful and entertaining speaker, and I found myself thinking that she would probably be as successful doing speaking engagements as she is at penning graphic novels.

After pushing the literary world's buttons last year by awarding Stephen King an honorary National Book Award for contributions to American letters, the National Book Foundation has decided to continue in that same vein by giving this year's award to the iconic writer of children's books, Judy Blume. The New York Times reports.

In book review news, Michiko Kakutani doesn't like T.C. Boyle's new novel, The Inner Circle, likening it to a couple of his lesser works, Riven Rock and The Road to Wellville. Meanwhile, in the New Yorker, Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America gets a good review, but I've received some emails from readers who managed to get their hands on advance copies saying the book isn't Roth's best.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:14 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Juvenile Fun with Famous Poetry

A couple of years ago at my old job as a group of us frittered away the last hours of the night shift, my coworker Lucia, who runs the world's coolest online book store, entertained us with a fun little trick. She discovered that if you take William Carlos Williams' famous poem about chickens, "The Red Wheelbarrow," and use Babelfish to translate from English into a foreign language and back to English, the results are quite amusing. Remembering this just the other day, I decided it would be fun to share this game with you:

The original:

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

English --> Dutch --> English:

This way much hang from a red wheel wheelbarrow vitrified with rain water beside the white chickens

English --> German --> English:

hangs as much after a red wheel truck off glazed with rain water beside the white chickens

English --> Japanese --> English:

So side of the white chicken where the rainwater and the gloss which depend on the red monocycle can be applied

English --> Portuguese --> English:

thus very it depends in top of a red stand on hand of the wheel vitrified with water on rain to the side of the white hens

English --> Chinese (simp) --> English:

Extremely is decided to a red wheel handcart to enamels with the rain water nearby the white chicken

And finally... my favorite: English --> Korean --> English:

Lapse in the rain adjacent waters which depends in the deep-red wheel grave the wheel me in the side of the white chicken

- C. Max Magee @ 11:21 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-fifth in a Series (Desperately Seeking Sequels)

Rosanne writes in and, faintly echoing the last Book Question, asks about another multi-volume, highly praised biography:

I'm wondering when the next volume of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobiography is coming out - anyone know?

I learned two things in attempting to find an answer to this question. First, the Spanish language media, and particularly the South American media, covers Marquez as we might cover hotel heiresses or teenage pop stars, that is, extensively. Second, my Spanish skills are makeshift at best. I did, however, garner some interesting tidbits. In 1999 Marquez was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He described his illness as a "stroke of luck" because it compelled him to begin writing his memoirs. He decided to separate the memoirs into three volumes. The first, Living to Tell the Tale, covers Marquez's childhood up through the publication of his first book. In an unprecedented move, Knopf initially published the book in the original Spanish language in the US. The other two volumes, speculates the New York Times, will be divided as follows: "one perhaps taking the reader through 1982, when he is awarded the Nobel, and the other about his relationships with world figures like Fidel Castro, Bill Clinton and Francois Mitterrand." Unfortunately, I could not find any indication as to when these volumes might appear on shelves. He may, in fact, not be done writing them.

However, just days ago came the surprise announcement, originally reported in the Argentinean paper, Clarin, that the Spanish speaking world will have a new novel by Gabo (as they affectionately call him) next month, his first new work of fiction in over ten years. The news hasn't yet been reported English speaking world, and there are no reports as to when this novel might appear in the US. The novel, titled Memorias de Mis Putas Tristes (Memories of My Sad Whores) is being described as "a history of love narrated in little more than 100 pages."

- C. Max Magee @ 9:38 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Two Quick Links

Check out an excerpt of the Art of Fiction with Haruki Murakami from The Paris Review. If you are a Murakami fan like me, you should buy the issue and read the complete interview. If you do, you will find a discussion of Murakami's upcoming novel Kafka on the Shore, which is due out in January. And from the British Library: "On this site you will find the British Library's 93 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the theatres were closed in 1642." (LINK)

- C. Max Magee @ 11:55 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Booker Season

We are swiftly approaching the announcement of the Booker Prize. Britain's highest award for fiction, the award is fussed over endlessly by the gossip-hungry British press, and, for the winner, the rewards are plentiful, often turning a book into a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Take Yann Martel's Life of Pi, for example. This year's Longlist has been out for a while and the Shortlist will be out in a week. The winner will be crowned on October 19th. For the American reader, it is worth mentioning that this is the first year that American authors are eligible for the Booker. Still, as is often the case, the Longlist includes books that are not currently available in the States, though others have been bestsellers and award winners here. Here are the ones that have excerpts available:

The Island Walkers by John Bemrose -- excerpt
Havoc, in Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett -- excerpt
A Blade of Grass by Lewis Desoto -- excerpt
The Honeymoon by Justin Haythe -- excerpt
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard -- excerpt, my review
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell -- excerpt
The Master by Colm Toibin -- excerpt

The Brits love to bet, and the bookmakers over there actually come up with odds and take bets on the Booker each year. According to them Cloud Atlas is the big favourite. And if you don't believe me when I tell you that the Brits (and the whole of the Commonwealth) get really saucy over the Booker, check out The Bluffer's Guide to the Booker or better yet, Tibor Fischer's tell-all about being a Booker Judge.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:02 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

More New Books

T.C. Boyle's new book, The Inner Circle is out and the reviews are starting to appear. Here's one from Newsday. There's also an excerpt available at Boyle's newly redesigned website.

Michiko Kakutani likes the Gish Jen novel The Love Wife. Here's an excerpt so you can see what all the fuss is about.

And to continue from my last post about Art Spiegelman, The Village Voice also published a review of his new book. Also mentioned in that review is New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger's new book, Up from Zero, about deciding the fate of Ground Zero. Here's an excerpt from the book.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:17 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Art Spiegelman's Latest

Art Spiegelman has a new book out about 9/11, and it appears to be generating some controversy. USA Today and most other papers are praising the new book, which is short on pages but big on production value. Others, like the customer reviews at Amazon, are very disappointed. Meanwhile, controversial cartoonist Ted Rall has written a scathing indictment of Spiegelman in the Village Voice.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:39 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Excerpts of New and Upcoming Books

An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg -- excerpt, review
His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis -- excerpt
Villages by John Updike -- excerpt

- C. Max Magee @ 5:49 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

What Chabon's Been Up To

Most folks probably know that Pulitzer-winning Kavalier & Clay author Michael Chabon had a hand in penning the script of this summer's blockbuster movie, Spiderman 2. It turns out he's been working on some books, too. As is mentioned in this article, keep your eyes open for a new novella in the Sherlock Holmes vein coming out this November. It's called The Final Solution: A Story of Detection. He'll also be editing another installment of the McSweeney's "Thrilling Tales" series entitled McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories. Finally, in the more distant future look for a new full-length novel. "The Yiddish Policemen's Union is set in a parallel world in which the Jewish homeland was set up in Alaska rather than Israel, something that president Franklin D. Roosevelt considered during World War II." Happy Labor Day!

Update: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

- C. Max Magee @ 11:12 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-fourth in a Series (A Plethora of Presidentiality)

Christian writes in with this question:

What is currently known about the next volume(s) of Robert Caro's magnificent biography of LBJ?

The presidential biography is a major sub-genre of American literature, and it seems to be the constitutional right of every president to enter the annals of history by receiving the biographical treatment. The second half of the twentieth century is crowded with notable presidents, all of whom have garnered copious ink of varying quality and espousing a wide spectrum of opinions. Amidst the glut of Kennedy books and quality biographies of Truman, Reagan, and others, Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson stands out both for its size and its quality. I remember hearing somewhere that the biography was originally intended to be a smaller, one volume affair, but that Caro found LBJ so compelling he just couldn't stop, and the project ballooned its current astronomical page count, 2719 with one more volume on the way. Now, this isn't a case of quantity over quality; Volumes One and Two won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Volume Three won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer. Not too shabby. So, when can we expect volume four, the capstone of Caro's stupendous achievement? Well, the short answer is that they don't have a date yet, but we can at least hazard a guess. The first book, The Path to Power came out in 1982; the second, Means of Ascent, in 1990, and the third, Master of the Senate, in 2002. So, after doing some back of the envelope calculations, I would expect to see the fourth and final volume (tentatively titled The Presidency) some time between 2010 and 2014. Chances are it'll be worth the wait. Thanks for the question Christian!

- C. Max Magee @ 11:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post