At tonight's taping of The Daily Show, I was thinking about what a boon Jon Stewart has been for the publishing industry. In between the Doris Kearns Goodwins and the Tom Brokaws who turn up to push their books, there are more obscure authors whose books on the Teapot Dome scandal or Mary Todd Lincoln would never get any play anywhere but C-Span2 on weekends.
I wondered whether these books see a sales bump, the way almost all of the authors booked on Oprah do. Of course, Jon Stewart is no Oprah (proven by the fact that there were no car keys under my seat this evening). But The Daily Show is hitting an awfully desirable demographic: educated liberals, otherwise known as People Who Buy Books.
As I checked the Bookscan sales for the books who have been on the show lately, I realized there was a problem: if the author appears on The Daily Show the same week the book comes out, how can you tell whether the sales are due to this publicity and not whatever else the publisher is doing? Well, you can't. So "new" books were out.
BUT. There are cases where the author appeared on the show months after a book's release for whatever reason (political timeliness, late pushes from the book publicist, etc.). Like Robert Dallek's Nixon and Kissinger. Book was released in April. Dallek was on the show in late July. Sales increased 133% the week after the show, and another 28% the week after that. Last week, Ronald Kessler came by to talk about torture--with his November book, The Terrorist Watch, on full display. Sales have gone up 100% this week.
Our previously mentioned friend, Doris K-G, was on the show in late January to talk about the state of State of the Unions. No mention of her last book, and no copy sitting on the desk. No spike in sales. So it's clearly the specific mentions that are driving this. I'm willing to bet (and offer 9-1 odds!) that Colbert's author guests see similar results.
It's not that I'm surprised that television publicity leads to sales. And there's so little proof of what does cause people to go out and buy books, outside of assumption and possibly coincidental timing. But what I do find amazing is that The Daily Show and its progeny have amassed this kind of power. Who saw that coming, back in the Craig Kilborn days--or even the early Stewart days? If someone had said, in 1996, that Comedy Central would become the go-to place for authors, he'd have been burned at the stake (they did that back then, right?).
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Sunday, March 02, 2008
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
If Freud was right, and all women really do have penis envy, I'm pretty sure I've been cured of that by modern American literature. Between the Rabbit Angstroms and the Nathan Zuckermans and now the Frank Bascombes, I am eternally thankful that I will never be a middle-aged man.
Based on recommendations from friends, Jacob and I picked Richard Ford's The Sportswriter as our latest book club selection. Ford's hero is Frank Bascombe, a quasi-sportswriter whos
e home field is suburban New Jersey. Since no one in his right mind chooses to live in suburban New Jersey, that should tell you right away that dude's got issues. But I digress.... Frank's main problems are these: his life has completely fallen apart after the death of his son two years ago; his wife stopped enabling his neverending string of midlife crises (teaching in New England! Relationships with other women! A motorcycle!) and left him, taking their two surviving kids to a different neighborhood; and he doesn't know how to manage his relationships with women. Or with men, for that matter. Frank can't really connect to anybody anymore. A lot of this is his own fault; he tries so hard to see everything from every perspective that he fails to commit to anything, whether it's spending time with his kids, or his new girlfriend, ditzy nurse Vicki. He sees what he could do, he sees what could happen accordingly, and then he reacts by panicking and doing or saying the worst possible thing. That's how he ends up in a quarrel with pretty much everyone he meets on Easter weekend in 1983. Without going back through the book, I'm pretty sure he gets punched more than once.
But Frank does try to have a smooth suburban life. He keeps the house he bought with his wife when they were first married, and he was a newly published author. He takes in a seminary student border. He joins a Divorced Men's Club, a gruesome exercise in male bonding that involves phony fishing trips and torturous conversations over beer. He sees himself as the genial Other figure in everyone's life, so he doesn't have to figure out how to be the central figure in his own--and he sees the homogenous greenness of New Jersey as the way to accomplish that. Same deal with his career. Even though he seems to have little interest in actual sports, he loves the process of ferreting out the feel-good stories, and bringing tidy ideas of literature to the masses of men who read his magazine. In short, he wants to be That Guy Down the Street, the one who can bullshit with you about the Knicks over a beer or two, but doesn't go any deeper than that. He wants to be simple and uncomplex, but he lives so fully within his own head that everything is totally self-conscious.
His relationships with the women in his life are more problematic. He wants his ex (whom he actually calls X) to be more accessible to him, but sort of accepts that she gets to move on without him. He wants his girlfriend, a deceptively sweet belle from Texas, to be the uncomplicated lover--sometimes he thinks they should get married and then can't stand to be in the same room with her, usually in the same minute. And when X and Vicki start looking less likely, he thinks he wants another crack at his previous lovers, even though those relationships ended just as awkwardly. Jacob astutely pointed out that Frank thinks the women are there just for him: appearing in hotel bars, or naked on the bed exactly when he wants them to be. Objectively, he knows that they've got lives too, but he can't really see them branching out after he's been around. By the end of the book, Frank has become unglued because he can't find the female tethers anymore--he's basically adrift in a sea of Boy Issues: post-divorce loneliness, sexual confusion, life situations that can't be fixed with sports metaphors or a quick one-night stand.
Honestly, the whole book left me unsettled--it was one of those books that got darker the more I thought about it. The writing was good, but my desire to shake Frank eventually eclipsed that. It didn't do much for my fear that all guys cheat when they see a more attractive opportunity (which is more my fault than Frank's, but still), or my hope that maybe living in your head isn't so bad. If nothing else, it's a good argument for going out there and making emotional connections, before you find yourself 38 and unable to do it. Oh, and for not moving to New Jersey. That's probably always a bad idea.
Based on recommendations from friends, Jacob and I picked Richard Ford's The Sportswriter as our latest book club selection. Ford's hero is Frank Bascombe, a quasi-sportswriter whos
e home field is suburban New Jersey. Since no one in his right mind chooses to live in suburban New Jersey, that should tell you right away that dude's got issues. But I digress.... Frank's main problems are these: his life has completely fallen apart after the death of his son two years ago; his wife stopped enabling his neverending string of midlife crises (teaching in New England! Relationships with other women! A motorcycle!) and left him, taking their two surviving kids to a different neighborhood; and he doesn't know how to manage his relationships with women. Or with men, for that matter. Frank can't really connect to anybody anymore. A lot of this is his own fault; he tries so hard to see everything from every perspective that he fails to commit to anything, whether it's spending time with his kids, or his new girlfriend, ditzy nurse Vicki. He sees what he could do, he sees what could happen accordingly, and then he reacts by panicking and doing or saying the worst possible thing. That's how he ends up in a quarrel with pretty much everyone he meets on Easter weekend in 1983. Without going back through the book, I'm pretty sure he gets punched more than once.But Frank does try to have a smooth suburban life. He keeps the house he bought with his wife when they were first married, and he was a newly published author. He takes in a seminary student border. He joins a Divorced Men's Club, a gruesome exercise in male bonding that involves phony fishing trips and torturous conversations over beer. He sees himself as the genial Other figure in everyone's life, so he doesn't have to figure out how to be the central figure in his own--and he sees the homogenous greenness of New Jersey as the way to accomplish that. Same deal with his career. Even though he seems to have little interest in actual sports, he loves the process of ferreting out the feel-good stories, and bringing tidy ideas of literature to the masses of men who read his magazine. In short, he wants to be That Guy Down the Street, the one who can bullshit with you about the Knicks over a beer or two, but doesn't go any deeper than that. He wants to be simple and uncomplex, but he lives so fully within his own head that everything is totally self-conscious.
His relationships with the women in his life are more problematic. He wants his ex (whom he actually calls X) to be more accessible to him, but sort of accepts that she gets to move on without him. He wants his girlfriend, a deceptively sweet belle from Texas, to be the uncomplicated lover--sometimes he thinks they should get married and then can't stand to be in the same room with her, usually in the same minute. And when X and Vicki start looking less likely, he thinks he wants another crack at his previous lovers, even though those relationships ended just as awkwardly. Jacob astutely pointed out that Frank thinks the women are there just for him: appearing in hotel bars, or naked on the bed exactly when he wants them to be. Objectively, he knows that they've got lives too, but he can't really see them branching out after he's been around. By the end of the book, Frank has become unglued because he can't find the female tethers anymore--he's basically adrift in a sea of Boy Issues: post-divorce loneliness, sexual confusion, life situations that can't be fixed with sports metaphors or a quick one-night stand.
Honestly, the whole book left me unsettled--it was one of those books that got darker the more I thought about it. The writing was good, but my desire to shake Frank eventually eclipsed that. It didn't do much for my fear that all guys cheat when they see a more attractive opportunity (which is more my fault than Frank's, but still), or my hope that maybe living in your head isn't so bad. If nothing else, it's a good argument for going out there and making emotional connections, before you find yourself 38 and unable to do it. Oh, and for not moving to New Jersey. That's probably always a bad idea.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Personals Ad by Allen Ginsberg
One of my goals for 2008 is to read more poetry. So far, I'm not doing so well....I've got a new volume of rock 'n roll-themed poetry--foreword by Bono!--sitting on my shelf, and it's not exactly burning its way to the top of my queue. But I was watching the awesome Ovation channel the other day, and caught a half-hour profile of Allen Ginsberg. Talking about his final years, it featured a poem I'd never seen before, but which charmed me thoroughly:
Personals Ad (1990)
Poet professor in autumn years
seeks helpmate companion protector friend
young lover w/empty compassionate soul
exuberant spirit, straightforward handsome
athletic physique & boundless mind, courageous
warrior who may also like women&girls, no problem,
to share bed meditation apartment Lower East Side,
help inspire mankind conquer world anger & guilt,
empowered by Whitman Blake Rimbaud Ma Rainey & Vivaldi,
familiar respecting Art's primordial majesty, priapic carefree
playful harmless slave or master, mortally tender passing swift time,
photographer, musician, painter, poet, yuppie or scholar
Find me here in New York alone with the Alone
going to lady psychiatrist who says Make time in your life
for someone you can call darling, honey, who holds you dear
can get excited & lay his head on your heart in peace.
The whole thing, like most of Ginsberg's poetry, sounds even better when you read it aloud. And the moral of the story is this: don't discount those weird little ads in the back of the New York Review of Books. Lovah memoirs still score big advances. Or it could just be Philip Roth, looking for a last sexually dysfunctional relationship to feature in his next book. Either way, it may be worth the risk.
Personals Ad (1990)
Poet professor in autumn years
seeks helpmate companion protector friend
young lover w/empty compassionate soul
exuberant spirit, straightforward handsome
athletic physique & boundless mind, courageous
warrior who may also like women&girls, no problem,
to share bed meditation apartment Lower East Side,
help inspire mankind conquer world anger & guilt,
empowered by Whitman Blake Rimbaud Ma Rainey & Vivaldi,
familiar respecting Art's primordial majesty, priapic carefree
playful harmless slave or master, mortally tender passing swift time,
photographer, musician, painter, poet, yuppie or scholar
Find me here in New York alone with the Alone
going to lady psychiatrist who says Make time in your life
for someone you can call darling, honey, who holds you dear
can get excited & lay his head on your heart in peace.
The whole thing, like most of Ginsberg's poetry, sounds even better when you read it aloud. And the moral of the story is this: don't discount those weird little ads in the back of the New York Review of Books. Lovah memoirs still score big advances. Or it could just be Philip Roth, looking for a last sexually dysfunctional relationship to feature in his next book. Either way, it may be worth the risk.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis
Back in the old days of aught-six, I read a book which (I presumed) represented some of the most extreme wordplay junkies: Crossworld. Now, thanks to Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, the crossword enthusiasts look like like slacker hobbyists.
In Stefan Fatsis's memoir/immersion research piece, he examines the small, ridiculously competitive world of tournament Scrabble. He begins with a Plimpton-esque goal of learning more about a game that's always interested him on a casual level. However, the narrative turns into his own obsession with joining the expert ranks, and fitting in with the cool kids. (Insofar as as adults who customize Scrabble boards and study words lists for fun can be "cool.") The early bits offer some background on the game and board games in general, which is pretty cool. Did you know that in 1953, Scrabble was so hot and rare that "buying a Scrabble set in New York is something akin to nabbing a prime rib roast at ceiling price during WWII"? That Candy Land sales reflect the birth rate of three years earlier? That Scrabble sells millions of units per year with virtually zero advertising? Or that Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit were developed by the same company, and so mismanaged that they almost died in their respective booms? Anyway, I found that interesting.
Scrabble is also notable for having the biggest, most rabid community of players of any proprietary game (e.g. not chess, backgammon, or other games which have been played for centuries). This, of course, leads to major political issues: who has the best interests of the game at heart? Is it the people who own the copyright and make the money, or is it the people who devote large chunks of their lives to the play and study of the game? There's a middle group, the National Scrabble Association (NSA), but they pretty much piss everyone off by being the unfortunate middle man. Some of the funniest parts of the book are the descriptions of the interactions of players with the NSA. Let's just say it all involves death threats over word lists, mass protests over whether or not the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary can censor racial slurs, and a bizarre twelve-act play about how the head of the NSA slighted one player's "contributions to Scrabble."
Competitive (or at least serious) Scrabble players don't seem to be the happiest people around. One of the nation's top players, briefly a writer for SNL, is hooked on herbal uppers, and supplements his virtual unemployment with obsessive Scrabbling and occasional stand-up comedy gigs. Another, a gifted anagrammer, lives in Baltimore (avoiding jobs because working 9-5 doesn't "suit his personality") and takes 30-hour bus trips to various tournaments. Yet another has major gastrointestinal problems. Others have regular day jobs, but devote their free time and social lives to playing Scrabble in clubs or in Washington Square Park. They're a community, though, and have the light moments and the camaraderie along with the competition. There just doesn't seem to be much joie de vivre--or at least not the kind one might associate with playing a beloved game.
That becomes apparent in Fatsis's voice, too. When he's just a journalist, meeting people and taking notes for his nebulous piece on Scrabble, there's a joy to be learning different methods and words, and socializing with a new group. But he gets more and more invested in winning himself, and reaching the expert level of his new friends and recent teachers. His own score becomes the timeline, and bits of crankiness with the game and the people start to show.
They all seem to discount any happiness that might derive from any part of the game that's not winning, or improving obscure word skills so that one will win next time. Words don't need definitions; they just need to be among the 120,302 valid words in the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary. Where's the fun in a game if you have to keep stopping to explain why your use of UNCINATE or STOURIE is technically correct? Fatsis tries to establish that the senses of community and intellectual sharing are the heart--but the emphasis on words that will never, ever come up outside of a game board is a little off-putting.
While memorizing thousands of words without context is entirely unappealing, I did learn a lot about how to step up my game. I'd like to check out the group at Washington Square, to see if that's still around. And maybe slightly obsessive practice on Facebook, online, and in living rooms from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side, are okay. Or it's all a gateway drug, and I'll be plugging away in some low-level tournament in New Jersey, trying to add a few paltry points to my rating. Whatever.
In Stefan Fatsis's memoir/immersion research piece, he examines the small, ridiculously competitive world of tournament Scrabble. He begins with a Plimpton-esque goal of learning more about a game that's always interested him on a casual level. However, the narrative turns into his own obsession with joining the expert ranks, and fitting in with the cool kids. (Insofar as as adults who customize Scrabble boards and study words lists for fun can be "cool.") The early bits offer some background on the game and board games in general, which is pretty cool. Did you know that in 1953, Scrabble was so hot and rare that "buying a Scrabble set in New York is something akin to nabbing a prime rib roast at ceiling price during WWII"? That Candy Land sales reflect the birth rate of three years earlier? That Scrabble sells millions of units per year with virtually zero advertising? Or that Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit were developed by the same company, and so mismanaged that they almost died in their respective booms? Anyway, I found that interesting. Scrabble is also notable for having the biggest, most rabid community of players of any proprietary game (e.g. not chess, backgammon, or other games which have been played for centuries). This, of course, leads to major political issues: who has the best interests of the game at heart? Is it the people who own the copyright and make the money, or is it the people who devote large chunks of their lives to the play and study of the game? There's a middle group, the National Scrabble Association (NSA), but they pretty much piss everyone off by being the unfortunate middle man. Some of the funniest parts of the book are the descriptions of the interactions of players with the NSA. Let's just say it all involves death threats over word lists, mass protests over whether or not the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary can censor racial slurs, and a bizarre twelve-act play about how the head of the NSA slighted one player's "contributions to Scrabble."
Competitive (or at least serious) Scrabble players don't seem to be the happiest people around. One of the nation's top players, briefly a writer for SNL, is hooked on herbal uppers, and supplements his virtual unemployment with obsessive Scrabbling and occasional stand-up comedy gigs. Another, a gifted anagrammer, lives in Baltimore (avoiding jobs because working 9-5 doesn't "suit his personality") and takes 30-hour bus trips to various tournaments. Yet another has major gastrointestinal problems. Others have regular day jobs, but devote their free time and social lives to playing Scrabble in clubs or in Washington Square Park. They're a community, though, and have the light moments and the camaraderie along with the competition. There just doesn't seem to be much joie de vivre--or at least not the kind one might associate with playing a beloved game.
That becomes apparent in Fatsis's voice, too. When he's just a journalist, meeting people and taking notes for his nebulous piece on Scrabble, there's a joy to be learning different methods and words, and socializing with a new group. But he gets more and more invested in winning himself, and reaching the expert level of his new friends and recent teachers. His own score becomes the timeline, and bits of crankiness with the game and the people start to show.
They all seem to discount any happiness that might derive from any part of the game that's not winning, or improving obscure word skills so that one will win next time. Words don't need definitions; they just need to be among the 120,302 valid words in the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary. Where's the fun in a game if you have to keep stopping to explain why your use of UNCINATE or STOURIE is technically correct? Fatsis tries to establish that the senses of community and intellectual sharing are the heart--but the emphasis on words that will never, ever come up outside of a game board is a little off-putting.
While memorizing thousands of words without context is entirely unappealing, I did learn a lot about how to step up my game. I'd like to check out the group at Washington Square, to see if that's still around. And maybe slightly obsessive practice on Facebook, online, and in living rooms from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side, are okay. Or it's all a gateway drug, and I'll be plugging away in some low-level tournament in New Jersey, trying to add a few paltry points to my rating. Whatever.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.
The last Katy-Jacob book club pick for 2007 was Last Exit to Brooklyn. It was also the latest entry in my own reading mini-theme for 2007, "Pre-Giuliani New York was so much more interesting."
The book is a collection of semi-connected stories. The biggest link is the geography: the same rough neighborhood of Brooklyn, 1950s-ish. The other connection is the repetition of certain characters, but the recurring names may be a writerly trick to establish universality--or just the simple fact that Brooklyn used to have an awful lot of Vinnies hanging around. Otherwise, the stories don't have much of a shared theme, other than the unrelenting brutality of the wrong side of the tracks.
The first story is a short one about a fight between wannabe tough guys and local sailors. It's kinda like West Side Story--only Maria is a hooker, and there's 150% more broken teeth and bleeding kidneys.
Next, there's a longer, better story about Georgette, a transvestite who obsesses over a neighborhood guy who treats her like crap. The really fascinating thing is the inversion of gender roles in this one. Georgette (along with her drag queen clique) is a hyperfeminized figure, a wistful man's conception of what a girl should be. But she still acts like a "man," in that she pursues Vinnie. In turn, Vinnie becomes the coquette, suggesting that he'll let Georgette sleep with him for cash. Unusual for the time period, I would think. There's a very laid-back attitude about the gender/sex issues overall. It's never clear whether Vinnie and his friends are merely hard-up for sex, and are willing to play fast and loose with "girl" parts in order to get some; or whether they're really latent homosexuals, and know exactly what they're doing. These technicalities are beyond the main issue, which is the cruel pageantry of sexual attraction. Also, the story taught me that "Miss Thing" has been in use by drag queens far longer than I would have expected. If everyone weren't so horrible and benzadrine-laden, the matter-of-fact sexuality would have been refreshing.
The book's centerpiece is "Strike," which follows union lackey Harry as he pretends to run a factory strike. Really, he's just using the union's petty cash to escape from his unhappy marriage, and to explore his taboo gayness. Again, the sexual roles are very much switched around: Harry's wife is the bedtime aggressor, and he can't handle it. So he gets ill, lashes out physically, and exaggerates his machismo at work. There's also a weird duality about what he wants. He seeks the softness and femininity of a traditional wife, but the fact that he's gay complicates that. So all biological women are "ballbusting [c-bombs]," but the transvestites and effeminate men become ideal partners. You want to feel pity for his trappedness, but the fact that he's a total jerk (and commits an ultimately irredeemable act) makes that impossible. Unfortunately, the story bears little resemblance to Last Exit to Springfield despite the union elements, but maybe that's best for Homer's sake.
"Tralala" is the apex of the sexual violence in the book, but by the time you get there, it's like, "Oh, is there more spunk and blood? No biggie." Basically, it's the story of young Tralala, whose cheery name doesn't stop the cynicism and obsession with petty amounts of cash that lead her down the ol' spiral. You know, in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, I don't remember the scene where soldiers, killing time before they ship out to Europe, lined up in a junkyard to gang rape a strung-out girl who's too far gone to care. Maybe I should go back and check.
The book concludes with "Landsend," which is a smaller nexus of stories about a housing project. While discussing, we tried to figure out whether the poverty of the projects was really worse back then, before welfare reform, or if the drug and gang complications of today make that old-style poverty seem quaint. Hard to tell, because the only remotely decent people in this section are a senile old lady and a woman who thinks the trashiness of her neighbors is contagious. The thread of sexual and social dysfunction from the rest of the book continues here, but seems to have exploded. The anecdotes come together to create a purgatory of poor people and even poorer choices.
When the book ends, it's not because there's any redemptive moment, or even an instance of clear social commentary. It just stops. This is the only justifiable way to end it, but it's hard to take the necessary step back, breathe, and try to process what you've absorbed. I can't help but wonder if the book would have faced the same obscenity trial and villification if it had tried for some (any) moralizing on behalf of the characters. We can handle the Hester Prynnes of the literary world, but what do we do with the Tralalas?
I guess you just try to appreciate the blood and the honesty, and look at the parts that are kinda sweet. Like the small scenes of genuine sensuality that pop up sometimes in all the violent or dirty sex, or the hoped-for romance that Georgette tries so hard to create in an environment that just can't sustain it. Or you wait for Rudy Giuliani to come along and clean it all up.
The book is a collection of semi-connected stories. The biggest link is the geography: the same rough neighborhood of Brooklyn, 1950s-ish. The other connection is the repetition of certain characters, but the recurring names may be a writerly trick to establish universality--or just the simple fact that Brooklyn used to have an awful lot of Vinnies hanging around. Otherwise, the stories don't have much of a shared theme, other than the unrelenting brutality of the wrong side of the tracks. The first story is a short one about a fight between wannabe tough guys and local sailors. It's kinda like West Side Story--only Maria is a hooker, and there's 150% more broken teeth and bleeding kidneys.
Next, there's a longer, better story about Georgette, a transvestite who obsesses over a neighborhood guy who treats her like crap. The really fascinating thing is the inversion of gender roles in this one. Georgette (along with her drag queen clique) is a hyperfeminized figure, a wistful man's conception of what a girl should be. But she still acts like a "man," in that she pursues Vinnie. In turn, Vinnie becomes the coquette, suggesting that he'll let Georgette sleep with him for cash. Unusual for the time period, I would think. There's a very laid-back attitude about the gender/sex issues overall. It's never clear whether Vinnie and his friends are merely hard-up for sex, and are willing to play fast and loose with "girl" parts in order to get some; or whether they're really latent homosexuals, and know exactly what they're doing. These technicalities are beyond the main issue, which is the cruel pageantry of sexual attraction. Also, the story taught me that "Miss Thing" has been in use by drag queens far longer than I would have expected. If everyone weren't so horrible and benzadrine-laden, the matter-of-fact sexuality would have been refreshing.
The book's centerpiece is "Strike," which follows union lackey Harry as he pretends to run a factory strike. Really, he's just using the union's petty cash to escape from his unhappy marriage, and to explore his taboo gayness. Again, the sexual roles are very much switched around: Harry's wife is the bedtime aggressor, and he can't handle it. So he gets ill, lashes out physically, and exaggerates his machismo at work. There's also a weird duality about what he wants. He seeks the softness and femininity of a traditional wife, but the fact that he's gay complicates that. So all biological women are "ballbusting [c-bombs]," but the transvestites and effeminate men become ideal partners. You want to feel pity for his trappedness, but the fact that he's a total jerk (and commits an ultimately irredeemable act) makes that impossible. Unfortunately, the story bears little resemblance to Last Exit to Springfield despite the union elements, but maybe that's best for Homer's sake.
"Tralala" is the apex of the sexual violence in the book, but by the time you get there, it's like, "Oh, is there more spunk and blood? No biggie." Basically, it's the story of young Tralala, whose cheery name doesn't stop the cynicism and obsession with petty amounts of cash that lead her down the ol' spiral. You know, in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, I don't remember the scene where soldiers, killing time before they ship out to Europe, lined up in a junkyard to gang rape a strung-out girl who's too far gone to care. Maybe I should go back and check.
The book concludes with "Landsend," which is a smaller nexus of stories about a housing project. While discussing, we tried to figure out whether the poverty of the projects was really worse back then, before welfare reform, or if the drug and gang complications of today make that old-style poverty seem quaint. Hard to tell, because the only remotely decent people in this section are a senile old lady and a woman who thinks the trashiness of her neighbors is contagious. The thread of sexual and social dysfunction from the rest of the book continues here, but seems to have exploded. The anecdotes come together to create a purgatory of poor people and even poorer choices.
When the book ends, it's not because there's any redemptive moment, or even an instance of clear social commentary. It just stops. This is the only justifiable way to end it, but it's hard to take the necessary step back, breathe, and try to process what you've absorbed. I can't help but wonder if the book would have faced the same obscenity trial and villification if it had tried for some (any) moralizing on behalf of the characters. We can handle the Hester Prynnes of the literary world, but what do we do with the Tralalas?
I guess you just try to appreciate the blood and the honesty, and look at the parts that are kinda sweet. Like the small scenes of genuine sensuality that pop up sometimes in all the violent or dirty sex, or the hoped-for romance that Georgette tries so hard to create in an environment that just can't sustain it. Or you wait for Rudy Giuliani to come along and clean it all up.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 by Dave Eggers et al
The Best American books have become one of the best rackets in publishing. I used to stand in the bookstores at year's end, and be guilted into the idea that I hadn't read nearly enough good essays/sportswriting/short stories throughout the year. Then, when the series grew to about fifty different books every November, I gave up on the guilt-induced buying. Best American Poetry by Monkeys 2007 is just never going to fit into my book budget or my limited fun-reading time. But I do make it a point to pick up Best American Nonrequired Reading each year, mostly because it fills me in on the quirky essays/topical writing that I would have enjoyed reading in the first place. Plus it's got the Eggers/McSweeney's stamp of approval. And what good Park Slope-ite doesn't support her neighbors?
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 was actually better than its lackluster predecessors from the past few years. More brief and funny pieces, fewer wankfest essays from super-literary journals that no one outside of the Iowa Writers' Workshop has heard of. Also, the intro, traditionally from a celebrity who goes out of his way to sound literary, was less boring this year. Sufjan Stevens (whom, admittedly, I know only from recommendations from friends who have much hipper music taste than I) had the honor this year, and he didn't try to be too writerly. He told an entertaining story about growing up in the hippiest of hippie schools in the 1970s--and it could have been the work of any NPR clique member.
One of the things I like best about Nonrequired Reading is that it gives a taste of the genres I can't tolerate in large doses, but should make a nominal effort to know. Like graphic novels. This year's selection is from Fun Home, which was the edgy comic du jour (am I allowed to call it a comic?) about a year ago. I'd avoided it, because it seemed too trendy--but was nicely surprised by the depth of story. I can still look askance at webcomics, though, right?
The cutesy elements get tiring ("Best American Beginnings of Ten Stories About Ponies," "Best American Names of Television Programs Brought to Their Logical Conclusions"), as does the annual segment where scientists are polled about their "dangerous" political ideas. This is the edgy Best American, we get it.
The good parts more than make up for the tedious bits. Scott Carrier's Rock the Junta looks at censorship and rock-and-roll in the uber-repressive Myanmar. Spin sends a writer to cover a goth music fest in the Midwest (three years ago, you know it would have been Chuck Klosterman). Several stories, including a charming one by Miranda July, show why yuppies shouldn't have kids. And the post-Katrina pieces are starting to be less shellshocked and more interesting. Plus, there's a commencement speech from Conan O'Brien that's pure Conantastic joy, especially when you've gone without him for a while (52 days, not that I'm counting).
I don't think I'd trust all (or most) of my reading to a cabal of high schoolers from California, but I'm certainly content to let them weed out some of the wit and grit from the year's literary morass.
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 was actually better than its lackluster predecessors from the past few years. More brief and funny pieces, fewer wankfest essays from super-literary journals that no one outside of the Iowa Writers' Workshop has heard of. Also, the intro, traditionally from a celebrity who goes out of his way to sound literary, was less boring this year. Sufjan Stevens (whom, admittedly, I know only from recommendations from friends who have much hipper music taste than I) had the honor this year, and he didn't try to be too writerly. He told an entertaining story about growing up in the hippiest of hippie schools in the 1970s--and it could have been the work of any NPR clique member.One of the things I like best about Nonrequired Reading is that it gives a taste of the genres I can't tolerate in large doses, but should make a nominal effort to know. Like graphic novels. This year's selection is from Fun Home, which was the edgy comic du jour (am I allowed to call it a comic?) about a year ago. I'd avoided it, because it seemed too trendy--but was nicely surprised by the depth of story. I can still look askance at webcomics, though, right?
The cutesy elements get tiring ("Best American Beginnings of Ten Stories About Ponies," "Best American Names of Television Programs Brought to Their Logical Conclusions"), as does the annual segment where scientists are polled about their "dangerous" political ideas. This is the edgy Best American, we get it.
The good parts more than make up for the tedious bits. Scott Carrier's Rock the Junta looks at censorship and rock-and-roll in the uber-repressive Myanmar. Spin sends a writer to cover a goth music fest in the Midwest (three years ago, you know it would have been Chuck Klosterman). Several stories, including a charming one by Miranda July, show why yuppies shouldn't have kids. And the post-Katrina pieces are starting to be less shellshocked and more interesting. Plus, there's a commencement speech from Conan O'Brien that's pure Conantastic joy, especially when you've gone without him for a while (52 days, not that I'm counting).
I don't think I'd trust all (or most) of my reading to a cabal of high schoolers from California, but I'm certainly content to let them weed out some of the wit and grit from the year's literary morass.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen
Woody Allen the director makes concessions to modernity. He casts Will Ferrell, has (finally) stopped casting himself as the romantic lead, and seems to have moved beyond the New York of the 1970s. Woody Allen the writer, not so much. Sure, he makes the occasional reference to the internet, or comments on modern food insanity. But for the most part, his prose is pretty much the same it's been since the 60s. Not many contemporary writers could get away with using slang that was first heard in Brooklyn delis in 1956.
In his latest collection, Mere Anarchy, the Woodman does pretty much the same thing he did in Without Feathers and Getting Even--which is to say, he writes a lot of short pieces with hyperactive premises and even speedier language. None of them here captured my heart quite like "The Whore of Mensa" did, but the book was highly readable. It was actually kinda comforting in its familiarity. I was tempted to tag Woody an Endangered Author, merely because of his age and the unevenness of his last five years' worth of films, but he's not really making a last-ditch attempt at anything. He's keepin' it real--1967 or 2007. In fact, I'm not even sure if he was parodying himself, or if he's just perfected the conceit of overwriting on purpose. I guess he's just Woody being Woody.
More importantly, style issues aside, the book is simply entertaining. For every tired borscht belt joke that my eyes slipped over, I found two or three things that made me chuckle out loud on the subway. Some favorite parts:
"To sum up: apart from my own Beyond Good and Evil Flapjacks and Will to Power Salad Dressing, of the truly great recipes that have changed Western ideas Hegel's Chicken Pot Pie was one of the first to employ leftovers with meaningful political implications. Spinoza's Stir-Fried Shrimp and Vegetables can be enjoyed by atheists and agnostics alike, while a little-known recipe of Hobbes's for Barbecued Baby Back Ribs remains an intellectual conundrum. The great thing about the Nietzsche Diet is that once the pounds are shed they stay off--which is not the case with Kant's 'Tractatus on Starches.'"
"Donald lived at Mr. Eisner's home for six months when he and Daisy Duck were separated. Donald had been having an affair with Petunia Pig, Porky Pig's girlfriend. It was a no-no at Disney to socialize with creatures from a competing studio, but in Donald's case Mr. Eisner chose to look the other way, which upset the shareholders."
In his latest collection, Mere Anarchy, the Woodman does pretty much the same thing he did in Without Feathers and Getting Even--which is to say, he writes a lot of short pieces with hyperactive premises and even speedier language. None of them here captured my heart quite like "The Whore of Mensa" did, but the book was highly readable. It was actually kinda comforting in its familiarity. I was tempted to tag Woody an Endangered Author, merely because of his age and the unevenness of his last five years' worth of films, but he's not really making a last-ditch attempt at anything. He's keepin' it real--1967 or 2007. In fact, I'm not even sure if he was parodying himself, or if he's just perfected the conceit of overwriting on purpose. I guess he's just Woody being Woody.More importantly, style issues aside, the book is simply entertaining. For every tired borscht belt joke that my eyes slipped over, I found two or three things that made me chuckle out loud on the subway. Some favorite parts:
"To sum up: apart from my own Beyond Good and Evil Flapjacks and Will to Power Salad Dressing, of the truly great recipes that have changed Western ideas Hegel's Chicken Pot Pie was one of the first to employ leftovers with meaningful political implications. Spinoza's Stir-Fried Shrimp and Vegetables can be enjoyed by atheists and agnostics alike, while a little-known recipe of Hobbes's for Barbecued Baby Back Ribs remains an intellectual conundrum. The great thing about the Nietzsche Diet is that once the pounds are shed they stay off--which is not the case with Kant's 'Tractatus on Starches.'"
"Donald lived at Mr. Eisner's home for six months when he and Daisy Duck were separated. Donald had been having an affair with Petunia Pig, Porky Pig's girlfriend. It was a no-no at Disney to socialize with creatures from a competing studio, but in Donald's case Mr. Eisner chose to look the other way, which upset the shareholders."
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Norman Mailer
"Mailer had always thought it senseless to undertake an attack unless you made certain it was printed, for otherwise you were left with a determined enemy who was an unmarked man, and therefore able to repay you at leisure and by the lift of an eyebrow."
When I saw Norman Mailer speak at Harvard earlier this year, he was awfully frail. When he canceled his scheduled part in October's New Yorker Festival, it seemed ominous. And when Philip Roth's new book suggested that Mailer was next to go, it sounded likely. Well, now it looks like the foreshadowing wasn't just hokum. Mailer's gone, and with him he takes a giant chunk of literary heart.
Whatever his personal flaws were (and there were many, as the ex-wives and various stabbees could tell you), he was always fierce. Self-aggrandizing and obnoxious, sure. But he never shied from doing anything in print that he wanted to do. And up until last February at least, he was still prodding, prodding, prodding, trying to goad people into reacting to him as entertainingly as possible. It's like he never stopped being the Mailer of Armies of the Night (always one of my favorites), pissing off as many people as necessary to get to the exact intersection of politics and literary theater. We're losing the guys willing to do this without publicists, without focus groups. The mid-20th century writers were never meant to keep this energy up forever, but it still hurts to see it all dying, bit by bit.
When I saw Norman Mailer speak at Harvard earlier this year, he was awfully frail. When he canceled his scheduled part in October's New Yorker Festival, it seemed ominous. And when Philip Roth's new book suggested that Mailer was next to go, it sounded likely. Well, now it looks like the foreshadowing wasn't just hokum. Mailer's gone, and with him he takes a giant chunk of literary heart.
Whatever his personal flaws were (and there were many, as the ex-wives and various stabbees could tell you), he was always fierce. Self-aggrandizing and obnoxious, sure. But he never shied from doing anything in print that he wanted to do. And up until last February at least, he was still prodding, prodding, prodding, trying to goad people into reacting to him as entertainingly as possible. It's like he never stopped being the Mailer of Armies of the Night (always one of my favorites), pissing off as many people as necessary to get to the exact intersection of politics and literary theater. We're losing the guys willing to do this without publicists, without focus groups. The mid-20th century writers were never meant to keep this energy up forever, but it still hurts to see it all dying, bit by bit.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Strike, week 2
People have been predicting what the Writers Guild members would do during the strike...humor columns, illicit scripts, blogs. Most of the guesses were jokes, and it looks like that in less than a week, pretty much all were right.
My heart goes out to these guys--especially when Rachel Axler says, "But we’ve given up our salaries and our jobs — easily the only jobs we’re qualified for — to stand outside and yell at people." If I were funnier on the spot, I like to think that I would have tried the TV writing thing. I love publishing, but I'm not sure I'd be in it if I could hack it as a real writer. And I definitely sympathize with the "but this is the only thing I'm good at!" vibe. So this week's project may be doing something nice for the strike people. Something other than avoiding the few reality shows that aren't scripted.
My heart goes out to these guys--especially when Rachel Axler says, "But we’ve given up our salaries and our jobs — easily the only jobs we’re qualified for — to stand outside and yell at people." If I were funnier on the spot, I like to think that I would have tried the TV writing thing. I love publishing, but I'm not sure I'd be in it if I could hack it as a real writer. And I definitely sympathize with the "but this is the only thing I'm good at!" vibe. So this week's project may be doing something nice for the strike people. Something other than avoiding the few reality shows that aren't scripted.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
Junior year of college, I had an American Lit professor who seemed positively insane. He'd rant and rave about the inherent pornography of narrative, and tie everything somehow to sex and primal urges. On the morning of September 11, he kept us cooped up in the TV-less classroom, and railed for an hour about how we (as a generation) had been given an amazing historical opportunity. So yeah. Kinda nuts. But he taught me how to read literature in a much more mature way (my high school self never interpreted The Great Gatsby as a love story between Nick and Gatsby)--and he introduced me to the writing of Philip Roth, whom I've enjoyed quite a bit since that fall. Turns out the professor was a friend and editor of Roth's. After I read a few more of the books, Crazy American Lit Prof made a lot more sense. And I found myself thinking of him often as I read the latest (last?), Exit Ghost.
If Roth and the professor are correct, then life really does come down to the basest of human issues: sex drive and control over one's own body. Exit Ghost is a meditation on the end of both of those--and it's terrifying. It's pretty clearly the end of Nathan Zuckerman, the Roth alter ego from so many of this books. Zuckerman can't pee properly and can't get it up, thanks to a prostatectomy, and this isn't really a problem for him--until it is. The plot is set in motion by his emergence from his self-exile, when he leaves his Berkshires hideaway to get medical treatment in New York. The exhilaration of being back in his old city leads him to answer a home-swapping ad (which resolves my longstanding question of who responds to those strange ads in the back of NYROB); and he becomes involved with a young married couple who ignite his long-dormant alpha male urges. (Zuckerman wants to one-up him and possess her.) The infatuation gets out of hand extremely fast, and he struggles with his total impotence (both physical and game-wise, since he can't elicit more than mild curiosity out of young Jamie). Meanwhile, he's dealing with a minor literary scandal, as an old boyfriend of Jamie's is trying to publish an expose on Zuckerman's former mentor. That's when everything becomes a weird tangle of sublimated urges and frustration.
Roth creates a tangible sense of physical deterioration around Zuckerman, who obsesses over his own state. Zuckerman does it in a curiously detached way, though: while he talks almost incessantly about his incontinence and lack of libido, it takes 162 pages before the word "penis" even shows up. He can't face it directly, so he takes the literary route of describing the hell out of it. He also writes around it, creating a strange play of how things should have gone between himself and Jamie. Since seduction is the one thing he can't do, it becomes the charged focus of their fake flirtation. And it's incredibly sad. He gives "Jamie" all sorts of qualities and expressions he never sees in the real girl--qualities that are suspiciously like his dead mentor's young mistress, who made an incredible impression on him back in the 1950s. Said mistress comes back into Zuckerman's life as well, but as a flawed old woman. The parallel between then and now, as Zuckerman starts to disintegrate in every way possible, is painful to see, but pretty fascinating.
One might argue that this is Zuckerman's swan song, not necessarily Roth's...but the sense of finale is hard to ignore. Roth likes to do books in groups, or arcs--why not finish the same way? The Plot Against America was the end of youth. Everyman was the end of the man (no pun intended). And now Exit Ghost is the end of the creation. I think this might be it for him. There's a section where the line between Zuckerman and Roth becomes especially blurred, when Zuckerman talks about the death of George Plimpton, and the concurrent death of American literature. The parts where Zuckerman derides the upcoming generation of literati are extra steely and angry, even beyond the narrator's usual indignance. It's almost like Roth is daring the reader to compare character and author. Eerie, and yet fitting for a writer who has based so much of his career on daring people to look away--from sex, from class, from politics.
If he is going out, he's going out with some excellent, very Rothian writing. Some passages I liked especially:
"I started toward the subway to take a train downtown to Ground Zero. Begin there, where the biggest thing of all occured; but because I've withdrawn as witness and participant both, I never made it to the subway. That would have been wholly out of character for the character I'd become. Instead, after crossing the park, I found myself in the familiar rooms of the Metropolitan Museum, wiling away the afternoon like someone who had no catching up to do."
"To possess control over one's bladder--who among the whole and healthy ever considers the freedom that bestows or the anxious vulnerability its loss can impose on even the most confident among us? I who'd never thought along these lines before, who from the age of twelve was bent on singularity and welcomed whatever what was unusual in me--I could now be like everyone else.
As though the ever-hovering shadow of humiliation isn't, in fact, what binds one to everyone else."
"The light fading, the room getting smaller, a cab or two going by in the street, the city receding while everything around them becomes close and dark. These two people taking their time with each other, listening to each other. So sexual and so sad. Thick with each of their pasts, though neither knows much of the other's. The pace of it, all that silence and what might be in there. Each of them desperate for entirely different reasons."
"For this wholly unautobiographical writer, blessed with his genius for complete transformation, the choice was almost inevitable. It's what opened his predicament out for him and enabled him to leave the personal behind. Fiction for him was never representation. It was rumination in narrative form."
If Roth and the professor are correct, then life really does come down to the basest of human issues: sex drive and control over one's own body. Exit Ghost is a meditation on the end of both of those--and it's terrifying. It's pretty clearly the end of Nathan Zuckerman, the Roth alter ego from so many of this books. Zuckerman can't pee properly and can't get it up, thanks to a prostatectomy, and this isn't really a problem for him--until it is. The plot is set in motion by his emergence from his self-exile, when he leaves his Berkshires hideaway to get medical treatment in New York. The exhilaration of being back in his old city leads him to answer a home-swapping ad (which resolves my longstanding question of who responds to those strange ads in the back of NYROB); and he becomes involved with a young married couple who ignite his long-dormant alpha male urges. (Zuckerman wants to one-up him and possess her.) The infatuation gets out of hand extremely fast, and he struggles with his total impotence (both physical and game-wise, since he can't elicit more than mild curiosity out of young Jamie). Meanwhile, he's dealing with a minor literary scandal, as an old boyfriend of Jamie's is trying to publish an expose on Zuckerman's former mentor. That's when everything becomes a weird tangle of sublimated urges and frustration. Roth creates a tangible sense of physical deterioration around Zuckerman, who obsesses over his own state. Zuckerman does it in a curiously detached way, though: while he talks almost incessantly about his incontinence and lack of libido, it takes 162 pages before the word "penis" even shows up. He can't face it directly, so he takes the literary route of describing the hell out of it. He also writes around it, creating a strange play of how things should have gone between himself and Jamie. Since seduction is the one thing he can't do, it becomes the charged focus of their fake flirtation. And it's incredibly sad. He gives "Jamie" all sorts of qualities and expressions he never sees in the real girl--qualities that are suspiciously like his dead mentor's young mistress, who made an incredible impression on him back in the 1950s. Said mistress comes back into Zuckerman's life as well, but as a flawed old woman. The parallel between then and now, as Zuckerman starts to disintegrate in every way possible, is painful to see, but pretty fascinating.
One might argue that this is Zuckerman's swan song, not necessarily Roth's...but the sense of finale is hard to ignore. Roth likes to do books in groups, or arcs--why not finish the same way? The Plot Against America was the end of youth. Everyman was the end of the man (no pun intended). And now Exit Ghost is the end of the creation. I think this might be it for him. There's a section where the line between Zuckerman and Roth becomes especially blurred, when Zuckerman talks about the death of George Plimpton, and the concurrent death of American literature. The parts where Zuckerman derides the upcoming generation of literati are extra steely and angry, even beyond the narrator's usual indignance. It's almost like Roth is daring the reader to compare character and author. Eerie, and yet fitting for a writer who has based so much of his career on daring people to look away--from sex, from class, from politics.
If he is going out, he's going out with some excellent, very Rothian writing. Some passages I liked especially:
"I started toward the subway to take a train downtown to Ground Zero. Begin there, where the biggest thing of all occured; but because I've withdrawn as witness and participant both, I never made it to the subway. That would have been wholly out of character for the character I'd become. Instead, after crossing the park, I found myself in the familiar rooms of the Metropolitan Museum, wiling away the afternoon like someone who had no catching up to do."
"To possess control over one's bladder--who among the whole and healthy ever considers the freedom that bestows or the anxious vulnerability its loss can impose on even the most confident among us? I who'd never thought along these lines before, who from the age of twelve was bent on singularity and welcomed whatever what was unusual in me--I could now be like everyone else.
As though the ever-hovering shadow of humiliation isn't, in fact, what binds one to everyone else."
"The light fading, the room getting smaller, a cab or two going by in the street, the city receding while everything around them becomes close and dark. These two people taking their time with each other, listening to each other. So sexual and so sad. Thick with each of their pasts, though neither knows much of the other's. The pace of it, all that silence and what might be in there. Each of them desperate for entirely different reasons."
"For this wholly unautobiographical writer, blessed with his genius for complete transformation, the choice was almost inevitable. It's what opened his predicament out for him and enabled him to leave the personal behind. Fiction for him was never representation. It was rumination in narrative form."
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