A Compendium of Literary Links

1. Publish or Perish — Did you see this fantastic article in The New Yorker by Ken Auletta about the e-book landscape and how iPad began changing it well before the first geeks even got in line at the Apple Store last month?  The piece describes the often contentious relationship between publishers, retailers and readers, and the reasons for those bad feelings. About midway through, Auletta provides a breakdown of a publisher's approximate cost on a per-book basis. This really gives you a sense of how thin margins are, and why publishers are a strange mix of terrified and magnificently furious at amazon, who seems to have designs on eliminating publishers from the book business altogether. There's an interesting tidbit of news near the end of the article: Google is starting its own e-book store this summer called Google Editions. Publishers will set the price for Google Editions purchases, which can be used on any e-reader device.

2. The Reading Ape on Auletta — For an incredibly well-written exegesis of Auletta's piece, check out this point-by-point dissection by the Reading Ape. I didn't have as near a clear understanding of the article until I read this. Highly recommended!

3. The 2010 Pulitzer for Fiction — What's even more perplexing than the fact that I somehow missed this announcement (but please cut me some slack, I was stuck in Germany on an unplanned "volcation") is the actual choice for the book itself: Tinkers, by Paul Harding. Haven't read it, never even HEARD of it. Apparently, it came out more than a year ago. Has anyone out there made their way through this book? What can you tell us about it? 

4. Book Recommendations via IM — Bored at work and itchin' to chat with someone about what your next read should be? The good folks who run the used book store arm of a Chicago literacy campaign called Open Books are offering to talk with anyone via instant messenger about book recommendations, or presumably anything book-related else you'd care to chat them up about. Having spent several hours at Open Books shelving their newly donated books, I can tell you from firsthand experience that these guys know their literature. So sign on and have at it! 

5. With Reverent Hands — Today, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to participate in a weekly feature called With Reverent Hands at Aarti's BOOKLUST blog. The idea of the weekly posts is to get exposure for obscure books that deserve a wider readership. My post today is about The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay. I'm grateful to Aarti for the chance to further explain a fantastic book I touched on briefly in a post the other day. Also, I'd encourage you to follow Aarti's blog and browse her past posts — she reads and reviews a wide range of books, and is a dynamic and fun-to-read writer. Not surprisingly, she has quite a following, so the comments section of her posts is always robust and very interesting, as well.

Any literary links you'd like to share?

Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

Right off the bat, let me apologize to my readers for this too-long and rather narrow post, subjectwise  — I fully realize that this post and the book it's describing won't appeal to anyone who hasn't read Infinite Jest or who doesn't care about David Foster Wallace. But I loved reading "Becoming Yourself" and wanted to write about it in some detail in case someone out there is a DFW fan and hasn't come across it yet.

And but so, if you ARE as big a fan of David Foster Wallace's writing as I am, then reading this book may be as difficult as it is illuminating. The reason: How do you square the light-hearted, good-natured writer that splashes jokes and humor throughout these pages with the man who suffered from a crushing depression and hung himself 12 years later? It's truly tragic, and while I loved reading this, it made me immensely sad a lot of the time, too.

But let me back up for a second: The story behind this book, for those unfamiliar, is that in early 1996 at the height of David Foster Wallace's newfound Infinite Jest-resultant fame (and he was quite the literary rock star!), Rolling Stone sent reporter David Lipsky to follow him around on the last leg of his book tour. The article was never published, but the result instead is this barely edited transcript of their conversations about life, literature (both traditional and avant garde), television and film, dogs, drugs, depression and dozens of other topics over the course of five days.

Several themes emerge from the conversations:
1) DFW was hyper self-aware, but also almost painfully shy and self-conscious and always self-deprecating — Almost every important answer DFW gives is couched with a sort of disclaimer that he's aware how what he's saying could be misinterpreted in print. He's constantly asking Lipsky to be nice and portray him positively in the article — which is one of the reasons why Lipsky is terrified to actually write the piece (thankfully for Lipsky, RS canceled the article). One of the best parts of the book is near the end of their time together when Lipsky asks him about his "act" of appearing as a normal person, when everyone knows he's so much smarter than everyone else. This is one of the questions (along with questions about his past drug use) that really rubs DFW the wrong way, because DFW insists that he's been nothing but genuine throughout. He's not posturing or being anyone but himself. It's easy to understand Lipsky's skepticism, because it's amazing to think that someone who was as smart as DFW was really can come off as a guy you'd love to have some beers with — making jokes about being disappointed that his fame hasn't gotten him laid, discussing music and movies, or warning Lipsky about using the bathroom 'cause he "just wreaked a little havoc."

2) DFW was uncomfortable with his meteoric rise to fame, especially after a somewhat pockmarked past, including a stay in suicide-watch ward in the late 1980s  — He really had no idea how Infinite Jest would be received. He knew he'd written a good book, because he'd worked so hard on it, and at that level he was satisfied and proud. Finishing that book was his personal justification (even with two other published books under his belt) that he was truly a writer. His reaction to the critical acclaim and massive attention as almost a pop culture icon (every girl wanted to date him, every guy wanted to be him) was only that it would erode his credibility as a serious writer, both in his own mind in the mind of his readers. In fact, his biggest concern was that the fame would affect his writing — that he would be so worried about making his follow-up as impressive and worthy-of-attention as Infinite Jest, that he'd get bogged down in a loop of perfectionism. Here's how he puts it: "I have an enormous ambition to be centered...I mean this stuff, it's really scary...I'm now so scared of having the ambition to be regarded well by other people."

3) DFW was as incredibly smart and incredibly funny in person as he is in his writing — In the introduction, Lipsky describes DFW's voice as a writer as "the best friend you'd ever have, spotting everything, whispering jokes, sweeping you past what was irritating or boring or awful in humane style." I couldn't agree more, and DFW's wit, charm and intelligence is best illustrated with some quotes from the book: 
— On reading vs. TV (and DFW LOVED TV): "...a book has to teach a reader how to read it. You teach the reader that he's way smarter than he thought was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb." Later, when they're talking about why books are losing ground to other mediums (and remember this was 1996!), DFW argues the reason is that reading requires its consumer to do work, whereas TV doesn't — it's incredibly passive, and Americans are incredibly lazy.
— In response to a flight attendant who has announced that "Smoking only is permitted outdoors." DFW: "Permitted only outdoors. It's not the only thing that's permitted outdoors." Lipsky adds: "Irritated as a grammarian and as a smoker."
— NPR radio guy prior to interview DFW: "We're gonna record digitially. I hope that's okay." DFW: "So, only yes and no answers?"
— On being a writer: "I don't think writers are smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion."
— "Although of course you end up becoming yourself" — DFW is talking about the influences of your parents, but then, of course, at some point you diverge and forge your own identity.

The one thing that bothered me as I read this book (other than the fact that Lipsky seems to be constantly trying to prove how smart he is to DFW, and thus inserting himself quite frequently into the narrative) is something I read in a recent interview. Lipsky said he never talked to DFW again after the time they spent together, and I wondered why. The two have such a great rapport, and admit to each other that they think of each other as friends after the time spent together. So what happened? 

It's worth noting that Lipsky did eventually use the material for an article —  a wonderfully moving tribute piece to DFW soon after he died, which RS, dickily, seems to have removed from their site (or at least you can't get to it anymore without jumping through an unreasonable number of hoops), but you can read it here. If you're a DFW fan and haven't read this piece yet, clear your schedule for the next hour, and do it now. Finally, here's my blog in which I chronicled my own battle with and victory over Infinite Jest.

The Shadow of the Wind: Literary Labyrinth of Character Connections

Carlos Ruiz Zafon makes an at-first perplexing choice regarding the structure of his novel The Shadow of the Wind. The plot of this mystery novel has two separate strands; the first is the present-day (well, present-day is 1950s Barcelona) story of Daniel Sempere and his quest to track down the author of the first book he's truly loved. The second is the story of what actually happened to that dashing young novelist named Julian Carax about 30 years before.

Instead of telling his story as two separate alternating narratives, he tells Daniel's story in the present in first person and the rest of the story in flashback or other non-in-scene devices.

So as I traversed the first several hundred pages, I was annoyed — I'm not a fan of the flashback device anyway, and I was dreading another 400 pages of backwards-looking storytelling. What's more, as I was still meeting the characters, it was hard to know what was truly important and what was just background info. For instance, in the first 100 pages, Daniel falls in love with a blind woman named Clara — but then Clara quickly exits the novel. And the reader is left to wonder if she's a significant character for something later on or is she only serving as a sort of cautionary tale of unrequited love? Additionally, one of the first flashbacks tells the story of how Julian's parents met, and the early days of their marriage. Important, or not? I had no idea.

What does emerge as the novel progresses, though, is a complex tangle of character relationships and plot twists in both the present and past. But the story is complex in the sense that it's fun to try to do the detective work yourself and make the connections before Zafon makes them clear. It's not complex in the sense that it's at all difficult to understand what's happening. As you learn more about the twists that explain how the characters are connected (and there are some shocking ones!), the novel becomes more and more difficult to put down.

Frankly, I struggled through the first couple hundred pages for the reasons mentioned above, as well as the fact that, at first, the prose is a bit clunky and it does take some getting used to. And there are several strange translation decisions (or maybe just funny typos — "the dice [sic] had been cast", for example) and some anachronistic prose ("Young man, you're a bit slow on the uptake, aren't you?" — in 1950s Barcelona?). But by about the midpoint of the novel, the translation hits its stride, and the reader is treated to some wonderfully atmospheric and beautiful writing. In fact, for a novel in translation, for the most part, the narration and story-telling is surprisingly smooth and easy-to-read.

So even though this novel violates one of my all-time literary pet peeves — telling story through flashback — (and yeah, like Zafon cares about MY pet peeves!) I will still begrudgingly admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it, because I understand now why Zafon made the choices he did.

(One piece of advice if you decide to pick up this novel: Don't read the cover and inside blurbs. They do the novel itself a vast disservice.)

Have You Ever Heard Of: A Post About Obscure Favorites

In my mind, there's only one thing worse than the "what's your favorite book?" question. It's when you actually answer that near-impossible question and get stares so blank you wonder if you'd just been speaking Sanskrit. What? You've never heard of one of my favorite books of all time? What in the name of Edward Bulwer-Lytton is wrong with you? 

Surely, most literary nuts have a book or two on their favorites list that no one else in their literary circles has read, or even heard of. If you love an obscure book, you've probably deluded yourself into believing that it's not as obscure as you might think. Either that, or you take pride in the fact that one of your favorites IS obscure. Of course, what "obscurity" means is as relative and fluid as the "favorite book" question itself. So sometimes it's fun to stick a toe in the literary waters and find out how obscure your obscure favorites really are.

For me, the obscure book and my answer to the dreaded "favorite book" situation above was The Power of One, by Bryce Courtney. This inspirational coming-of-age story about young boxer Peekay is set in appatheid-era South Africa. It's probably better known for its (AWFUL) movie version, but the book is absolutely mesmerizing. Even if you hate boxing, you'll be glued to the pages. It's just a heart-wrenching, beautiful novel.

Another of my favorite obscure novels (though not necessarily favorite overall) is Gospel, by Wilton Barhardt. This long adventure novel about a graduate student's modern-day quest to find a lost gospel is just simply lots of fun. There are also a few scenes that poke subtle fun at fundamentalist Christian doctrine, so if you're into that, you'll probably laugh out loud. I read Gospel soon after I read The Da Vinci Code, and actually liked it much more. But, here's how obsure this one is: It's out of print. If you're interested, though, I've seen it frequently at used book stores.

So what are your favorite obscure novels? Why do you like them? 

The Postmodern Conundrum

During one memorable episode of The Simpsons, Moe the Bartender revamps his tired dive bar to keep up with the times.When Homer swings by his favorite watering hole, he's confused by the upside down bar stools bolted to the ceiling and the televisions showing only a blinking eye. He asks Moe to explain. Moe (enthusiastically): It's PoMo. (Homer: Blank stare.) Moe: You know, postmodern. (Homer: More silent confusion.) Moe: It's weird for the sake of weird. (Homer: Ohhh, I get it.)

I'd be willing to bet that "weird for the sake of weird" is how many people view postmodern literature as well. In fact, most people (me included) don't really understand exactly what postmodern literature really is. It's certainly one of those overused phrases often bandied about by faux intellectual hipsters trying to appear more intelligent than they really might be.

There are a few writers usually mentioned as the prototypical postmodernists: Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Jorge Luis Borges and Don DeLillo. But that doesn't really answer the question of what postmodern literature is, or what all those writers have in common. In my mind, in a word, postmodern literature is complex -- often needlessly so, a general reader would say. Wikipedia helpfully supplements that notion by telling us that postmodern literature relies heavily on "fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc."

That's still pretty general, but in my limited experience with postmodern literature (mainly, DFW's Infinite Jest), that description hits the nail on the head. And I bring this up now because I'm still grappling mightily with Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. It is really, really difficult, and saying I'm enjoying it wouldn't be precisely accurate, but I am enjoying parts of it. When I put in the necessary work to understand a passage, and come out on the other side with a sense that I really get what Pynchon is trying to do, I'm elated. I feel like the hard work is worth it. But there are other times when I read a passage, reread it, reread it again and just have to put the book down, throw up my hands, and send some expletives Mr. Pynchon's way. I guess what this boils down to is that I really have to be in the right frame of mind to truly enjoy the novel. When I get it, I love it, but when I don't, I'm really frustrated.

So what's your take? What's your sense of what "postmodern literature" really is? Are you a fan?  Why or why not?