Chirstmas Lists

What writers want to give and get.

Includes authors such as Jan Karon, Leonard Maltin and Chang-rae Lee

Seamus Heaney

A New Poem.

I owe someone credit for this, but I've been reading so quickly and calling up links from any number of places all in tabs.  My sincere apologies.  If I happen back over the place where I got this link, I'll make certain to correct my oversight.

Bruno Schulz e-text

Not an author I was familiar with Nigeness provides this link to a e-text of Cinnamon Shops.

This link is to a larger collection of translated works.

But be certain to read Nigeness's recommendations and background first.

The Highly Prestigious Bad Sex Writing Awards

Available here

Not surprisingly, considering his literary obsession with the subject, Philip Roth's The Humbling is a contender.

100 Best Books of the Decade

Is led up by Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Certainly a deserving choice and one that would be very high on my list of the best of recent date.  Find the full list here.

List courtesy of Reading Matters.

Wow!  I should warn you that the list contains Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code relatively high up  (above McEwan's Atonement).  I think this tells us something about how to regard the list. Unlike most Catholic bloggers I'm aware of, I'm not a Dan Brown detractor.  On the other hand, worse prose is really hard to come by--one needs to deliberately seek it out.  But I do love the puzzles--even if some of them betray a suprising ignorance of settled fact--(thinking here of the pope that doesn't have to be Catholic--according to Brown.)

Later:  They have been redeemed by this list of the five worst books of the decade.  Dan Brown's DVC makes both lists, an interesting trick.

National Book Award Winners

And the winner for fiction is Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin.  I can only hope that this book gets better as one continues to read it, because so far, I'm not particularly impressed.

Poetry--Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy

Gore Vidal was awarded the medal for distinguished contribution and Dave Eggers took the 2009 Literarian Award.

As you can see I left non-fiction for last, as I've placed these roughly in the order of interest (poetry and fiction being somewhat at the same level): T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

National Book Award Site--includes interviews with some of the nominees

Center for Fiction Prize to Woodsburner

Has awarded the prize for best first novel.  And it does look like one that would be most interesting to read.

I have one of the nominee's (Yiyun Li) novels on my short "to read list" based on the magnificent collection of short stories A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.

More About Portia and Daphne

Just a little later in the book, giving you a sense of the humor present.

from The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

" And also, Portia comes from abroad."

"Oh! And what do you think of our English policemen, then?"

"Daphne, don't always joke, dear. Be a good girl and tell Doris to clear tea."

Dphne put her head back and bellowed, "Doris!" and Doris gave her a look as she nimbled in with the tray. Portia realised later that that tomblike hush of Smoot's library, where she had to sit all day, dealing out hated books, was not only antipathetic but even dangerous to Daphne. So, once home, she kept fit by making a loud noise. Daphne never simply touched objects, she slapped down her hand on them, she made up her mouth the gesture of someone cutting their throat. Even when the wireless was not on full blast, Daphne often shouted as though it were. So. when Daphne's homecoming step was heard on the esplanade, Mrs. Heccomb had learned to draw a shutter over her nerves. So much of her own working life had been spent in intercepting noise that might annoy others, in saying "Qiuetly, please, dear," to young people, that she may even have got a sort of holiday pleasure from letting Daphne rip. The degree of blare and glare she permitted Daphne may even have been Mrs. Heccomb's own tribute to the life force it had for so long been her buiness to check.  So much did she identify noise with Dapthne's presence that if the wireless stopped or there were a pause in the shouting, Mrs. Heccomb would get up from her painting and either close a window or poke the fire--any lack felt by any one of her senses always made her imagine she felt cold.

Flaubert to De Maupassant

I saw the essence of this at another blog yesterday, but as I tend to be shy of vulgar language (a post about that to come) I didn't link to either the blog that originally presented or the original of the post.  However, if you look at the last entry in this post you'll find some wonderful advice from Flaubert to de Maupassant regarding the writer and writing.

He's Rapidly Becoming a Favorite Writer

I continue to read, very slowly, through M. Le Clézio's collection The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts.  It is a collection to be read slowly.  I think rapid reading would tend to be overwhelming.  Each story needs to be given its breathing space, time to grow, expand, and form in imagination.

from "Ariadne"
in The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts
J. M. G. Le Clézio

On the banks of the dry riverbed stands the high-rise project. It is a city in its own right, with scores of apartment buildings--great gray concrete cliffs standing upright on the level asphalt grounds, surrounded by a sweeping landscape of rubble hills, highways, bridges, the river's dusty shingle bed, and the incinerator plant trailing its acrid, heavy cloud over the valley. Here, it's quite a distance to the sea, quite a distance to the town, quite a distance to freedom, quite a distance from simple fresh air on account of the smoke from the incinerator plant, and quite a distance from human contact, for the project looks like an abandoned town. Perhaps there really is no one there -- no one in the tall gray buildings with thousands of rectangualr windows, no one in the stairwells, in the elevators, and still no one in the great parking lots where the cars are parked. Perhaps all the doors and windows have been bricked up, blinded, and no one can escape from within the walls, the apartments, the basements. An[d] yet aren't the  people moving around between the great gray walls -- the men, the women, the children, even the dogs occasionally -- rather like shadowless ghosts, disembodied, intangible, blank-eyed beings lost in lifeless space? And they can never meet one another, never find one another. As if they had no names.

From time to time, a shadow slips by, fleeing between the white walls. Sometimes one can get a glimpse of the sky, despite the haze, despite the heavy cloud drifting down from the chimney of the incinerator plant in the west. You see airplanes too, having torn free of the clouds for an instant, drawn long, cottony filaments behind their shimmering wings.

M. Le Clézio obviously loves language and winds words out in long and sinuous streams, beautifully formed sentences and thoughts that burst with life. The images dazzle and disorient. Despite the fact that much of what he writes about is depressed and potentially depressing, there is a power, life, vibrancy to the prose (at last in these stories) that is extremely attractive.  He creates a mirage in his writing and creates a world unique in present literature.  I must say that some elements of his writing remind of elements of Albert Camus, but M. Le Clézio is a distinctive and enticing voice.  You know, sometimes it's good to be led to a voice worthy of our attention.  So perhaps we shouldn't be quite so much in arms when the Nobel Committee names someone we've never heard of.  As I've said elsewhere--it shouldn't be a surprize if someone unknown to us is named.

For Christie Fan's--Her Notebooks

Commented on here.

Young, Orphaned, and Left on One's Own

Elizabeth Bowen has a knack for creating moments.  And in this book they are moments with largely unlikeable characters, though I must admit, I haven't seen enough of Daphne to know what to make of her.

from The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

As Portia came round the curtain Daphne did not look at her, but with unnerving politeness switched the wireless off. It snapped off at the height of a roar and Mrs. Heccomb looked up. Daphne popped the last piece of macaroon into her mouth, wiped her fingers correctly on a crêpe-de-chine handkerchief and shook hands, though still without saying anything. She gave the impression that she would not speak till she had thought of something striking to say.

I must say that the world would probably be a good deal better off if more of us adopted the assumed attitude of Daphne in that last sentence.

What It Means To Be Upper Class and Bored

Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart was on one of many lists of the best books of the twentieth century.  I have been attempting to read it for some time, but because of my multitasking reading and the relatively low interest I have in the book (not that it isn't good), it keeps getting moved further down the list.

The passage below is one reason why I shouldn't allow it to continue to slip.

from The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

The most stubbornly or darkly drawn-in man has moments when he likes to impose himself, to emerge and be a bully. The diversion of a raindrop from its course down the pane, the frustration of a pet animal's will in some small way all at once becomes imperative, if the nature is to fulfil itself. Thomas took pleasure in thrusting Portia into the study away from Eddie, to talk to Major Brutt. A hand on her shoulder-blade, he pushed her ahead of him with colourless, unadmitted cruelty. Eddie, dogged, determined to be as much de trop as he could be, followed along behind.

One would think from this passage that Eddie is some sort of benefactor or hero, but so far, that is not the picture one has formed of him.  We'll have to see how it all plays out.  Unfortunately for Portia, the title of the novel does not bode well for any within.

Fear and Trembling--Amélie Nothomb

I first encountered the name Amélie Nothomb at Tony's Book World and given the high recommendation there and elsewhere concluded that I had better get cracking.Given my fondness for all things Japanese, Fear and Trembling seemed like a good place to start.

Fear and Trembling is the story of a young woman of European ancestry who has spent a great deal of time in East Asia applying for and receiving a job with the Japanese firm.  The story centers around her progressive discovery of the sense of Japanese Business culture and her attempts to accomodate it. No matter what she does to please her supervisors, most of them come back with insults and criticisms of her work. 

This sets the mood and the tone of the book:

from Fear and Trembling
Amélie Nothomb

Mister Haneda was seion to Mister Omochi, who was senior to Mister Saito, who was senior to Miss Mori, who was senior to me. I was senior to no one.

You could put this another way. I took orders from Miss Mori, who took orders from Mister Saito, and so on up the ladder; of course, orders that came down could jump a level or two.

And so it was that, within the import-export division of the Yumimoto Corporation, I took orders from everyone.

And so it starts.  Throughout we meet people, both kind and unconscionably viscious.  We learn that envy is an admired trait amongst Japanese Business people and humilation of others is a consistent and highly admired goal.

The book is long on acid humor and short on really likeable characters; although, without saying anything more, that is subject to change rapidly in the book.

The book is sufficiently well-written, detailed, and amusing to encourage me to seek out more of the same.  Ms. Nothomb is no waster of words, and her novels tend to be the length of longish stories and so three or four of these could pass easily in the frame of an evening.  And so, I must go seeking three or four bon-bons for some future evening's entertainment.

***** Recommended

The Robert Louis Stevenson Archive

can be found here.

The Family Man--Elinor Lipman

I found The Family Man on one of the endless lists of "best ofs" that the web seems so populated by. (Although, I think this list may have been in Bookmarks.  This after I had read numerous reviews of Elinor Lipman being the new Jane Austen, writing the comedies of manners of our times.

Perhaps.  But then we know all such comparisons and reviews are prone to hyperbole.  So let me indulge in another.  I would probably compare Elinor Lipman to Thorne Smith without most of the fantastic elements.  Ms. Lipman produces fine characters and (if this book is any indication) intricate plots with many twists and turns.  Often referred to as screwball comedy, I had to agree with this evaluation as the plots seem to update Bringing up Baby, The Lady Eve, and other such fare of the thirties and forties.

The Family Man--what can I say about it that doesn't give away one feature or another of this incredibly intricate plot? Well, I can say what happens on the first two pages as a gay lawyer reengages with his ex-wife after the funeral of her second, third husband as a result of writing her a condolence note.  This wife is one with whom he does not wish to reengage; however, once the note is written, the ex-wife is impossible to shake. Add into that a step-daughter that he hasn't seen in years and who is the source of one of his deepest regrets in life, and you have a full-charged screwball comedy situation.

And, for the most part, Ms. Lipman manages to pull it all off.  What was fascinating and wonderful to me was the way in which every person in the story is engaging. It isn't often that one reads serious fiction that is also upbeat and positive about people.  And the fact of the matters is that it is possible to have both serious treatment and a more positive attitude.  But as with the nightly news--trauma tend to make a better story.

So, in her handling of intricate plotting, likeable characters, and believable interactions, Ms. Lipman has shown herself, in this book, as one likely to join the ranks of Thorne Smith, Angela Thirkell, and other such purveyors of buoyant and yet sharp observations of humanity.

**** Recommended.

15 Authors Name Neglected Masterpieces

Here.

via Neglected Books

An Amusing Moment in an Amusing Book

Listed in Bookmarks as one of the Best Books of 2009--I picked it up and it had a light touch, something I needed after a steady diet of things seeming very heavy.

from The Family Man
Elinor Lipman

"For better or worse," says Henry, "Denise took an instant dislike to Leif based on the most superficial reasons---"

"His looks," says Todd. "Whereas Henry delved below the surface to the man's undetectable personality."

"Either way, nothing fuels a daughter's interest like a parent's disapproval, " says Henry.

Revisiting "The Escapee"

I know there is a point at which one tires of hiring about any enthusiasm, and I'm afraid that I may try the patience of what few regulars may visit this place as I continue to mine the slender volume I'm reading for wonderful glimpses into language and other realities--reallities that it behooves us to be better aware of.  Nevertheless, I would be remiss if I didn't share what I thought was the best of the best, and so here is another small excerpt from an amazing story.

from "The Escapee"
in The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts
J. M. G. Le Clézio

The stars come out very faintly, then grow brighter and brighter. Never had they shone so brightly before. Resting his head on the grass, Tayar watches them in delight. Just as he had the night before he recognizes them. He finds their positions in the sky, the patterns they make, right down to the very smallest ones that barely glimmer, so low and close to the earth.  Tonight, there is something different about them, as though they carried a hidden mesage. A sort of music that goes straight to the very core of his being and makes him restless. Tayar watches the path of stars flowing across the black sky; he listens to their shrill buoyant song scattering into the void. The sky is all encompassing; it covers everything, and below it, time is eradicated in a multiple vortex. Endlessly, new patterns, new stars appear. Tayer is aware that he no longer has a face or a body but that he's become a steady pinpoint in the night, there, upon the cold earth. Without closing his eyes, he slips, leaden, into an ice-cold sleep that slows his heartbeat and respiration.  Above him, the stars are quick and intense with life, dazzlingly bright, their strident songs interweaving in the night, like the calls of insects.

Do yourself a favor and give this wonderful writer a chance.  I suspect that you will be glad that you did.

Why "A Momentary Taste of Being?"

from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
tr. Edward Fitzgerald

XL

A Moment's Halt -- a momentary taste

Of Being from the Well amid the Waste --
And Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from -- Oh, make haste!

 I have read much recently, and grown quite tired of the current academic emphasis on the unreality of everything that is read. I suppose it is something like a new toy, shiny and appealing, but nothing more than a rattle, spinning and humming the same tune, saying the same thing time and again.  Perhaps it's just a spin-off of the wonder at a preoccupation of so many people--"if it's not real, why do so many people spend so much of their time engaged in it?"  I suppose I tire of it because it is so obvious, but it is so inflated with the notions of those savvy young children who really want to show how-in-the know they are by tellling us all there is no Santa Claus and all magic is merely a set of tricks done by the magician.  Even if true, the jaded nature of the truth isn't really all that appealing.  It is axiomatic that the reality of the content of books or any writing is entirely in the head of the reader.  We're done with that.

As with any art, the art of writing is about stripping away the unnecessary and show the essential--it is about form and order, even when it seems to be about the opposite,  it is about choice and detail.  In short, writing, like all the arts is a lie that tells the truth.  (Sorry for the cliché, but it works well here.)  When I take time to step into the world of a book, I'm stepping into a highly artificial, highly purposeful created world--the world is not formed of paint, plaster, and marble, even less of the dust and grit of the street I walk through every day.  Rather it is a world formed by well-chosen words--words chosen for the artist's purpose, which, is not fully knowable by anyone--and in this, I include the artist.  There is certainly conscious intent and motive, but there is also something that drives one to write that cannot be fully grasped or defined.  Why do millions of people spend hours of our days crafting words for blogs read by, perhaps, twenty, twenty-five people?  I can't tell you why life is better--lived life that is, when I spend time each day writing.  But it is, and it is so for many of us.  Perhaps because we spend time constructing our sense of things as they are and resolve momentary doubts.

Stepping into literature is, for me, exactly as described above.  It is a momentary and raw taste of being.  I am reminded of Keats's hyperexultation in the real:

from "To Autumn"
John Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 

An indulgence in literature is a moment at the cider-press of all that is real.  In quaffing its sweet and mellow brew, we stand open to what is at the core of all that is. It is a taste of being at its core because everything extraneous has been stripped away. It is not real, and yet it pierces straight to the heart of the real--and only the unreal can do this because the real world is too complex to reveal meaning. We live in it as high-functioning autistics--filtering and making sense of what we can, but rarely touching whatever may lay underneath.

This little manifesto, you can see, gives glimpse of one writer's highly supernatural weltanschauung.  Reality is reality--large, menacing, llife-giving, complex beyond even momentary comprehension.  But literature, writing, while never denying that complexity, strips away layers to reveal a core.  The worlds of literature may be unreal, but what we learn from them and take into the world, is highly real.  One stands in wonder when one hears a child justify his or her actions, appropriately taken in defending one weaker and less popular by saying that "there comes a time when one must choose between what is right and what is easy."  Literature, at very least in its cinematic form, has entered into and shaped reality.  And in a very real way, the fundamentals of our world are based on the realities of the "unreal world" of literature.  Withou the calculus of Leibniz and Newton, (an understanding of the real conveyed only through the medium of words and numbers) we do not have the marvelous inventions and constant innovations of our day.  Calculus is not something that could easily be conveyed in an oral tradition seeking to preserve reality.  So too with the complexities that drive the complexities of our lived existence.  Without literature we do not learn to build and maintain houses, energy-generating plants, airplanes, paved roads. Without the instruction and the shaping of reality that we take from literature, we lose much that we have come to value and cherish.  We lose the ability to make medical innovations because we lose the ability to record knowledge.  Literature, in this broad sense, stands at the base of the complexity of modern life.  It is the well amid the waste, it is the foundation of things as they are, but not of reality itself.  Despite its irreality, it is a fundamental shaping influence.

As we read, we train ourselves and shape ourselves to be a type of moral person in the world.  What we read influences this, perhaps not as much as other forms of experience, but certainly to a great degree. 

In sum, a dip into literature is a dip into the momentary taste of being--a sensation that you can finally come to terms with one small thing, you have finally constructed enough of the reality around it for it to be meaningful.  Literature itself is "the well amid the waste," the life-giving water, the ordering, that helps makes sense of the desert of our pilgrimage.  And doesn't the "return to reality" often feel like "the phantom caravan has reach'd/ the nothing it set out from?"  Isn't there a slow dying away of the euphoria of the other as we once again rejoin the living and the "real." 

Hence--"A momentary taste of being."  I hope that you have enjoyed what I've shared so far and what I will continue to share--those "moments of being" brought to the fore by a work well-wrought.  Not real, and yet, in some ways more real than the swirl of sensation that tugs at us every which way.

Apples

This just struck my fancy--words and images--I especially liked the image of the basket of apples that sums things up.