The Literary Connections Phenomenon, or Why I May Wind Up On Hoarders

It's a well-known paradox of the literary life: The more you read, the more you realize you haven't read. And, thus, the more you want to read, the more books you seem to acquire (in the immortal words of Homer Simpson: "Damn you, ebay!") and then suddenly you end up with a to-be-read bookcase, or room, or entire strorage facility that's worthy of winning you a spot on the show Hoarders.

Here's how it happens for me: When I like a new book or writer, I find myself spending hours clicking through the the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" sections of Amazon for every novel or novelist remotely related to the book I just discovered. I try to find interviews in which the author talks about his/her influences or books s/he recommends. I look at the author's Web site or that of his/her publisher to try find other connections, no matter how tenuous. And, I scour the blogosphere to find out what book bloggers are saying about the novel and what connections to other books or writers they've made. All this usually yields quite a new list of authors and books, and so I set work on ebay, Better World Books, and many of the fine Chicago used bookstores. 

Oftentimes, these literary connections can open up whole new, unexplored literary landscapes. About five years ago, I took a chance on an obscure book of essays titled Consider the Lobster by some hippie-looking dude with three names. My favorite sports columnist, ESPN's The Sports Guy had recommended it, so I figured it was worth a shot. About halfway through the book, I realized my life had changed. I've since read nearly every word David Foster Wallace has written, tried some of his immediate influences like Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon, and read and loved many of the novelists who DFW has influenced. (Mark Danielewski, Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem.)

By way of further example, last year, after reading Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You, I also found via literary connection Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets and Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper — two of my favorite books so far this year.

But this literary connection phenomenon/book hoarding obsession has a seedy underside, too. About six years ago, after reading The Da Vinci Code, I went temporarily crazy. I got obsessed with the whole religion/science/conspiracy genre thing and started reading connected books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Golden Ratio (which was actually kinda interesting), and one of the lowlights of my reading career, a six-book series titled the Zion Legacy Series. The absolute rock bottom, though, was when I tried Dan Brown's Digital Fortress — to this day, my immediate answer to the question "What's the worst book you've ever read?" My shelves are still littered with the detritus of that temporary insanity — obscure, probably-never-to-be read novels like Charles Palliser's The Quincunx and Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

Anyway...

Are you also obsessed with collecting novels connected to new novels you've loved? What impacting literary connections have you made? Any good stories? 

The New Dork's List of Quotations

Sometimes, losing the forest for the trees is just fine. Sometimes, the trees, individually, can be beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking or downright hilarious. When I'm reading and I find a "tree" I want to remember — a quote, a few sentences, a thought or idea — amidst the forest of a story, I'll stop and add it to what has now become a long document containing all my favorite book quotes.

Looking over my list just now, I figured it might be fun to toss a few of my favorites out your way in the hope that you'll toss a few more back my way. So, what are your favorite quotes from novels you've read?  Here is a smattering of mine:

DFW

It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know.
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery and early death, lest we forget, is the common lot.
— Abraham Verghese, Cutting For Stone

A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as our personal memories.
— John Irving, The World According To Garp

In a head-on collision with Fanatics, the real problem is always the same: how can we possibly behave decently toward people so arrogantly ignorant that they believe, first, that they possess Christ’s power to bestow salvation, second, that forcing us to memorize and regurgitate a few of their favorite Bible phrases and attend their church is that salvation, and third, that any discomfort, frustration, anger or disagreement we express in the face of their moronic barrages is due not to their astounding effrontery but to our sinfulness.
— David James Duncan, The Brothers K

Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he’s either naïve or insane.
— Leon Uris,  Mitla Pass

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Franzen

I suppose that a country that teaches creationism in its schools may be forgiven for believing that baseball does not derive from cricket.
— Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
 
The world belongs to those who can describe it.
— Serge Bramly, Leonardo: The Artist and the Man

Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does.
— Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.
—Graham Green, The Heart of the Matter

Until you become yourself, what benefit can you be to others?
— Harold Bloom, How To Read and Why

Knowledge of the past gives men courage to face the future.
 — James A. Michener, Caribbean

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
— Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
— Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

July's Compendium of Literary Links

The dog days of summer always seem to slow life down a bit, don't they? Similarly, compelling book-related news stories and/or content seem to have dwindled to a trickle as well. But I managed to find a few items of interest, so to continue what has become a monthly feature at The New Dork Review of Books, here's a short list of recent literary "things" in the news

1. The Millions' Future Releases List — There's so much to look forward to the rest of 2010! I mean, the new Franzen by itself makes me squirm with anticipation. But new books from Sara Gruen, Nicole Krauss, Philip Roth, and Tom Clancy (yeah, I sorta like Jack Ryan...) all make me wonder how in the name of Neal Stephenson I'm going to do all this reading. Which on this list are you looking forward to? (Also, in case you're tempted to bail out before the end of the post, the last item provides some info about David Foster Wallace's last novel — The Pale King. That just makes me giddy.)

2. E-books Sales Beat Hardcovers — Depending upon your e-book persuasion, Amazon's announcement that it sold more e-books than hardcovers in the second quarter of this year is either terrifying or exciting. Amazon says it sold 143 e-books for every 100 hardbacks in the second quarter, a rate which accelerated to 180 to every 100 in the past month, according to this article in Wired. It'd be easy to be skeptical about these numbers since Amazon is always so secretive and shady about its sales. But Publisher's Weekly reports that publishers are backing the numbers. And as an addendum to this, Amazon also acquired the e-book rights to a few titles by Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Vladimir Nabokov and John Updike, among others.

3. McEwan Whines — Have you read Solar?  I didn't think it was horrible, but it definitely wasn't McEwan's best effort. McEwan, however, defends his satire from the chilly reception by readers and critics in the U.S. by explaining that Americans are "profoundly bored" with climate change. From where I'm sitting, this couldn't be further from the truth. As the wonderful blogger "Jane Doe" at Dead White Guys tweeted this week, "Or maybe, McEwan, your book just sucks." Indeed. 

4. Frank, You're A Long Way From Ireland — Lindsay at Not-So-Gentle Reader just discovered the joys and wonders of Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes (as I did last fall). But instead of being cliche and writing a gushing review — since we already all know the book is amazing — Lindsay recorded this video blog of herself singing a tribute to McCourt and his memoir. Really good stuff!

Any literary items I've missed? What's caught your eye?

Arthur Phillips Gets a Bum Rap

I really like Arthur Phillips. It's too bad not too many other people seem to. The two novels I've read of his (The Song Is You, Prague) hit the dead center of the sweet spot regarding  why I love reading. Phillips's prose is a nice blend of erudite and low-brow humor, which as a reader, makes you alternate between contemplating his profundity and laughing out loud at what amounts to the literary version of fart jokes. His characters leap off the page, people you want to meet and have a beer with. And his stories are smart, often intense, and, for the most part, just a joy to read.

But for whatever reason, Phillips prose, stories, and/or characters seems to rub many other readers the wrong way. He's dull, he's an elitist, he's creepy, he's just not a good storyteller, they say. I disagree. And, if you'll permit me, here is a moderately impassioned defense of why I like Phillips in general and The Song Is You and Prague specifically: 

The Song Is You
If we'd met around this time last year, you'd probably already be annoyed with me for talking near-constantly about The Song Is You. It was one of my favorite novels of last year. When I finished it, I wrote in my "reading log" the day after finishing it that "I absolutely loved this novel — in fact, I don't think I've read a novel in a long, long time I enjoyed reading as much as this one."

The novel is about a middle-aged man named Julian and a young, beautiful singer named Cait O'Dwyer who is on the cusp of fame. The two sort of circle each other in a strange muse/artist dance in which Julian really toes the line between adoring fan and stalker. In fact, many of the women who read the novel didn't like it because they say they felt Julian does cross that line. I liked it precisely because I didn't think he did.

The novel also includes an absolutely hysterical set piece regarding Julian's brother and an "incident" that includes an unintentional racial slur while a contestant on Jeopardy. You just have to read this yourself for the full effect. Phillips himself was a five-time champion on Jeopardy in 1997 (when he was only 28 years old). Here's my full review on amazon, if you're interested. It provides more detail and a much more impassioned defense.

Prague
Prague isn't as easily defensible, but I still really liked it. I wrote, after finishing it, "I'm not really sure what to make of this novel — I definitely LOVE Phillips' style (sarcasm, humor, irony, beautiful sentences, cerebral descriptions, wonderful metaphors), and there were parts of the novel that had me fully engrossed, but other parts in which I found myself skimming or blanking out." Since writing that after I read the novel last summer, though, the story has really grown on me — and stayed with me, which is surely one of the measures the efficacy of a novel, right? 

The novel, Phillips 2002 debut, is about a group of ex-pats living in Budapest in the early 90s. Many people didn't much like this novel at all. It only averages 2.5 stars for the 159 reviews on amazon — which, to me, is WAY too low. I'd give it four, probably — just for the prose, and the fact that the point of the story (about authenticity) is profound and thought-provoking. The book actually sold pretty well when it first came out, and most critics liked it — Janet Maslin of the NY Times called it an "ingenious debut novel."

I haven't read Phillips's other two novels: The Egyptologist, which is a convoluted mystery tale of archaeology told through letters, and Angelica, a commercial flop (it's #455,554 on amazon right now!) which tells the same ghost story from four different perspectives, insisting that the reader determine what really happened. I have both of these on my shelf, just haven't gotten to them yet.
So, have you read Arthur Phillips? Like him or loathe him? Any feedback on his novels? 

(Side note that has very little to do with any of this: Last summer, I was on my way to meet Arthur Phillips at a reading/signing, and got a flat tire, so I never made it — as if the universe was trying to tell me something. I don't know what. Just something.)

A Multimedia Review: Kapitoil, by Teddy Wayne

1. Podcast — Interview With Teddy Wayne 
Click "play" below to hear Teddy Wayne and I discuss his debut novel Kapitoil. The novel is about a computer program named Karim Issar, haling from the country Qatar, who comes to New York in the fall of 1999 to help his company Schrub Equities deal with the Y2K bug. Along the way, he writes a program that can accurately predict oil futures. Hilarity, and a huge moral dilemma, ensue.

2. My Kapitoil Review
Kapitoil, by Teddy Wayne


You might expect a character like Karim Issar, who corrects others' grammar, who doesn't get humor, whose language is sprinkled with techno-financial business geek speak, and who lays out his decision-making processes in painstaking, ultra-logical detail, to not be the most likable fellow you've ever read. But you'd be wrong — Karim is actually a wonderfully sympathetic, interesting character. And his story is equally sympathetic, interesting, and fun.

Karim's story begins in the fall of 1999 with a cross-Atlantic flight, during which he makes up math problems to amuse himself. Karim is coming to American to work on the Y2K problem in the New York office of the investment company he'd worked for in Doha, Qatar. After a co-worker steals credit for a profitable program he develops, he's more cautious with his next endeavor: The Kapitoil program, which accurately predicts oil futures and makes his struggling company a crapload of cash.

Meanwhile, Karim also explores the nightlife of New York, heading out to clubs, museums and parties with his clownish co-workers. Through an often painful (but fun to read) trial-and-error process, he slowly learns American etiquette on everything from one-night stands to interoffice crushes. Soon, circumstances force Karim into a tough choice regarding Kapitoil, and his traditional Qatari values collide with the possibility to make a ton of money for himself — but at a pretty hefty moral cost.

It's a straightforward narrative, but Karim's voice and Wayne's writing are anything but. Karim's voice, as Wayne explains in the podcast above, is the result of Wayne's desire to write a novel with an idiosyncratic voice guiding the narrative as well as his want to use language to be disruptive— but in a good way, because Karim's false starts with language and violations of American etiquette make you cringe and laugh at the same time. And as Karim begins learning the ways of New York, the novel begins to move from a laugh-at-Karim, to now laughing-with-Karim dynamic. He slowly begins to "get it" and as his moral dilemma arrives, you're confident he's now equipped with the tools to make the right decision. But will he? 

If you're a fan hip, urban fiction, you'll dig this.  If you enjoyed the way Jonathan Safran Foer wrote his character Alex in Everything is Illuminated — stilted, just-a-bit-off-English — you'll really enjoy Karim specifically but also the novel on the whole. It's a quick read and definitely one worth checking out, especially if you're someone (like me) who enjoys "getting in on the ground floor" of talented new novelists, like Mr. Wayne. But this isn't just some obscure novel from a writer you'll never hear from again — Teddy Wayne writes frequently for the New York Times (and many other pubs) and Kapitoil was blurbed by Jonathan Franzen and given a coveted "starred review" by both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist.


3. Book Trailer



(Disclaimer: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not compensated for this review. That would've been nice, though.)