Books from the week: war, mud & more
July 16, 2010
I recently contributed a guest post to the National Book Critics Circle blog, Critical Mass, on the topic “How do you decide what to read next?” In writing about my ongoing hunt for books and where that hunt takes me, it occurred to me to share on TLC some of what I encounter along the way. Books that catch my eye. Books I may acknowledge, but then move on. They could be from reviews or an auction of rare books or a reference in another book I’m reading. And so, a few from this week:
On the Spartacus Road: A Journey Through Ancient Italy by Peter Stothard
From the publisher’s website: “He was the Thracian gladiator who rose up from slavery in 73 B.C. to defeat every Roman army sent to destroy him—before his defeat and crucifixion. Trained at the gladiatorial school, Spartacus escaped. Joined by approximately seventy followers, his army increased to allegedly 140,000 slaves.” In a recent All Things Considered interview, host Guy Raz talks with Stothard about his battle with cancer and how it lead him to write about this slave uprising over 2,000 years ago.
Other People’s Rejection Letters: Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You’ll Be Glad You Didn’t Receive by Bill Shapiro
Published in May this year, Shapiro’s collection of rejection letters come from all sides of life. Check out the preview on the publisher’s website (turn off your pop-up blocker) or the “see inside” from online sellers to get an idea of the book. While this may be a collection of dreaded nasty-grams, Shapiro’s outlook from what he learned is uplifting: “I saw all these people taking beautiful chances with their lives.”
In Parenthesis by David Jones
Originally published in 1937, this prose/poetry work is currently in print thanks to the New York Review of Books Classics editions. From the NYRB website: “… a work that is among the most powerful imaginative efforts to grapple with the carnage of the First World War, a book celebrated by W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot as one of the masterpieces of modern literature. Fusing poetry and prose, gutter talk and high music, wartime terror and ancient myth, Jones, who served as an infantryman on the Western Front, presents a picture at once panoramic and intimate of a world of interminable waiting and unforeseen death.”
Edward II by J.R.S. Phillips
Published this year by Yale University Press, a biography of this King of England who “was the object of ignominy during his lifetime and calumny since it.” The book’s website also says the biography ”tackles the contentious issue of whether Edward II did not die in 1327, murdered under barbaric circumstances, but lived on as a captive in England and then a wanderer on the Continent.” Part of Yale’s English Monarchs Series.
Mud: Stories of Sex and Love by Michèle Roberts
A paperback published this year by Virago in the U.K. From the June 25, 2010 print Times Literary Supplement: “The power of these short stories lies in the moments where they describe distress. Michele Roberts draws emotional pain with precision, describing confusion with a limpid finesse. As stories about women in love, they have a refreshingly broad sense of what that can mean.”
From The Guardian June 26,2010: “The short story is an intimate, subtle and enigmatic form: Michèle Roberts reminds us in this virtuoso collection that she is one of our foremost practitioners of the art.”
I discovered Wakoski’s “Greed”
June 16, 2010
Oh that great American pastime. What The New Oxford American Dictionary defines as an intense and selfish desire for something. We usually associate greed with money and the things that money buys, but when I discovered Diane Wakoski’s take on this component of the seven deadly sins, I found a definition I couldn’t forget. In her series of poems The Collected Greed: Parts 1 – 13 Wakoski casts a broad net that catches all of us:
“Greed, I keep reminding you,
is the failure to choose. The unwillingness to pick one thing over
another. Wealth or simplicity; you cannot have both. Accord,
agreement, harmonious relations with others or your honesty; you
cannot have both. The
telling of the truth
is not beautiful; does not make people feel good.
I do not think any alternative is absolutely right or wrong.
I do know that it is absolutely wrong not to commit yourself
to one alternative or the other.”
Wakoski started her Greed poetry series in 1968 and then added to it through the years. Number 13 was completed in 1984. (She has since published #14 in 2000 within another collection, The Butcher’s Apron.) The poems read like diary entries, confessional, complaining, judging and, for the most part, laying out in plain, unmistakable view what we chose to ignore – that which motivates our desires. Her rants and raves are refreshingly honest and come from the poetry confessions of the 1960s and early ’70s (à la Anne Sexton), a time when poets expressed confessional anger, angst and sin way before writers began dumping them into memoirs. You can hear Wakoski’s unique strong and plaintive voice in these poems, and I relished all of her emotions about self and others because they felt alive and real.
She’s been writing for decades — her first poetry book published in 1962 — and there are many poetry books to show for it. Along with the Greed collection, I’ve read the slim volume/poem Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons (1969), a signed copy published by Perishable Press in 1969 (see below) that I purchased at an antiquarian book fair. (You can read the poem here.) It’s more of that unforgettable autobiographical voice and a beautiful poem, and it later became part of Wakoski’s well-known collection, The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems (1971).
That’s where I am with Wakoski — in discovery. All of her books except for three new collections, published during the last 10 years, are out of print, and I like finding them by chance in used bookshops and at antiquarian fairs. I’ve purchased Cap of Darkness (1980) and Waiting for the King of Spain (1976), two collections sitting on the bookshelf for someday reading. I must get ahold of those motorcycle betrayals.
Mary Oliver at the public podium
April 14, 2010
You can spot the book collectors at an author’s reading. They’re the ones carrying not just one or two but a stack of books to be signed. At last night’s poetry reading by Mary Oliver in Cleveland, my friend LS and I were the only two with those stacks, and Ms. Oliver’s efficient handler didn’t appreciate them. When I approached the signing table, she grimaced and barked a firm NO at the sight of my handful and instructed “only two.” (I handed over three.) She wouldn’t allow me to take a photo, either, so what you see here is Mary Oliver in a 2008 magazine article taped to my office bookshelf.
Such was the tone for this event, a show handled well. It took place in downtown Cleveland’s Ohio Theatre Playhouse Square. I must admit, I was surprised to see such a crowd for a poetry reading; however, it was Mary Oliver, a very accessible poet who through the ages has spoken to many about life’s meaning and beauty, asking urgent questions in her poems, such as, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?” Indeed, the young man introducing Ms. Oliver described her work as accessible, poignant and transformational, teaching us to slow down and make decisions with greater care.
I also was surprised by Mary Oliver’s humor. This was not the inspirational Mary Oliver whose poems I’d read all these years, a humble poet who never gave interviews, letting her work stand for whatever needed to be said. This was not the contemplative poet who through her poems speaks thoughtfully, reverentially, spiritually about our connection to nature, lifting our weaknesses into light. Instead, Mary Oliver at the podium was a delightful, funny woman entertaining us. She was downright jocular. Her salty, endearing, unorganized self kept the crowd laughing ,and then she’d read a poem and they’d sigh. Or maybe they’d laugh again.
Yes, it was all very entertaining, but who is Mary Oliver? Why is she, in her 70s, on the road and funny at the podium? All that humor cadenced between the reading of random poems unsettled me. I wanted to experience her passion. I wanted to hear her story. She told little about herself that would provide context for her poems, such as growing up in Maple Heights, Ohio, or living her adult years by the ocean in Provincetown, Mass.
During the question and answer period — questions asked about her writing and life — she remarked, “Doesn’t anyone have funny questions?” And so we got them. “Do you have a sweet tooth? What do you wear on your feet during your strolls?” When asked what books she read as a child, she quipped, “I’m still a child.” Everyone loved that. It allowed her then to answer, “Harry Potter.” Everyone loved that, too, and while I laughed right along, I yearned for the real answer.
“What does it mean that the world is beautiful?” someone asked. Ms. Oliver replied loosely, saying, essentially,that it means everything. I just wish the in-depth answer had been more present last night, elaborate and giving as I have known that answer to be in her books on my bookshelf, three of them now signed.
Poets as literary heroes
April 6, 2010
I like stories about unsung heroes who win the spotlight. In the book world, that would be the literary authors and poets who persistently produce exquisite work that typically falls into the remainder bins and obscurity but then, finally, gets big recognition. Such success happened for Christopher Reid, author of A Scattering. The poetry collection had sold less than 1,000 copies when it won the 2009 Costa Book Award in Britain. This was not a poetry award — A Scattering won Costa’s “book of the year” award. Rarely does poetry trump fiction.
Several weeks ago on TLC, I complained about spending money on poetry collections that ended up unread on my bookshelf, due to a poor fit with what I like to read in poetry. A Scattering shortly after came to my attention, a deeply satisfying discovery. Dedicated to Reid’s wife, Lucinda, the poems mourn her death in 2005. It’s not a plaintive collection of elegiac sadness, rather an admirable rendering of loss and grief.
A Scattering is told in four sequences that begin with a vacation in Crete, when they are aware of her illness, and then Lucinda’s time in hospice, Reid’s identity as a widow and finally reflections about “Lucinda’s Way.” Reid speaks to his wife in these verses, processing his experience. One cannot help but be drawn into this profoundly moving intimacy.
Having had the good fortune to live in the roman fleuve
of your life, my darling,
playing no small part, but — that’s not my name on the cover –
second always to you, the dashing heroine,
I have hesitated, havered too long, to compose
this necessary footnote.
You would have understood why.
(Read the rest of the poem here.)
BTW, a reminder that April is National Poetry Month. It’s a good time to support these heroes of literature. Regarding A Scattering, I don’t see evidence of U.S. publication; however, you can read more about the book on The Guardian’s website and purchase it from their bookshop, or from dealers on AbeBooks.com.
Hilary Mantel wins again with “Wolf Hall”
March 11, 2010
The National Book Critics Circle tonight gave their 2009 fiction award to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The historical novel set in 1520s England about Thomas Cromwell won Britain’s coveted Booker Prize last fall.
I’m disappointed Bonnie Jo Campbell didn’t win for American Salvage (Wayne State University Press), but what great praise to have been a finalist not only for this award in fiction but also the 2009 National Book Award. As posted on TLC last November: “…American Salvage seemed to come out of nowhere. And so I discovered the work of a talented writer who can take readers into jobless, drug-addicted fictional lives with narrative intimacy and beauty without ignoring or simplifying the ugliness.”
Here are the National Book Critics Circle award winners in all the categories.
- The fiction award went to Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall (Henry Holt).
- The nonfiction award went to Richard Holmes for The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (Pantheon).
- The autobiography award went to Diana Athill for Somewhere Towards the End (W. W. Norton). See the March 8 TLC post.
- The biography award went to Blake Bailey for Cheever: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf).
- The criticism award went to Eula Biss for Notes From No Man’s Land: American Essays (Graywolf Press).
- The poetry award went to Rae Armantrout for Versed (Wesleyan University Press).
Risky poetry purchases
February 15, 2010
So many times I buy a new book of poetry only to find I don’t relate to or understand the poems. The collection may be award-winning and acclaimed by critics but, for me, reading the verses feels like chewing wood. Case in point is Chronic by D. A. Powell.
It’s a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. Also, a few weeks ago, it won the prestigious $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. That got my attention. Then I read the following about Powell from a 2001 poetry award, and I eagerly drove to The Book Loft to buy Chronic, Powell’s newest and fourth collection of poems.
“His seems a vision born less of suffering than of an understanding of suffering’s place within the natural order, and the result is a voice that can say, believably, ‘the way to haven seems interminable,’ that can knowingly ask ‘am I not dust?’—without seeming to seek pity.”
You probably know where this is going. Ten poems into Chronic I put it aside unmoved. One more book on the poetry shelf that’s not read, sitting beside many of my favorites, ranging from the keenly observant Mary Oliver and Liesel Mueller to the raw offerings of Charles Bukowski and Diane Wakoski.
When I called The Book Loft to find out if they had Chronic in stock, the clerk casually commented — I assumed he was reading his computer screen of inventory — they had one copy that was received in May. That would’ve been 2009 because Chronic was published in February 2009. This told me the book sat on the shelf for ten months until I came along. (The mega-bookstores in town didn’t have Chronic in stock.) And here’s what this all adds up to: People don’t buy poetry like they buy novels or memoirs and because of that bookstores don’t keep a wide selection of new poetry by up-and-coming poets or mid-career poets or established-but-not-popular poets in stock and because of that we don’t have the opportunity to browse for new poetry or discover new poets and make more successful purchases.
I usually read about poetry books and then order them online with my fingers crossed because I assume, from experience, they’re not available at a local store. Chronic was an exception. In hindsight, I should’ve snuck away to a corner and read some of the poems before I opened my wallet.
Maybe it’s a good thing the poets I don’t understand hold space in my library. Tastes change over a lifetime. Someday I may reach for and enjoy them, and then the money won’t have been spent in vain. That’s how I’m choosing to think about Chronic and similar poetry disconnects on my bookshelf. And as I continue to take my chances, I’ll sigh: Oh for bookstores in our cities like The Grolier Poetry Bookshop. Oh for a time when such bookshops could and would thrive everywhere.
Note: This post was updated later in the day, after publication. It was updated again, 3/7/10, correcting 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry to 2009.
The unforgettables: 2009
December 14, 2009
Last Friday, on WOSU 820 AM NPR News All Sides Weekend, we shared the unforgettable books we read in 2009. Because I mentioned most but not all of my unforgettables, I thought I’d offer the complete list here on TLC. But first, what makes these books unforgettable? Lyric prose. Unsettling themes. Hypnotic storytelling. Unique voices and characters. Pure escape. And combinations thereof. More simply put, when thinking back on the reading year, they are the ones that come to mind, like a memorable event.
Classics
Michael Herr’s Dispatches (Herr was a war correspondent during the Vietnam War; this is his incredible report on that experience published in 1977.)
John Fowles’ The Collector (TLC post)
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (TLC post)
Philip Roth’s Good-bye Columbus (Roth’s first work of fiction published in 1959)
Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road (TLC post)
Literary fiction
Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (winner of the 2009 National Book Award in fiction)
A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book (finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize; TLC post)
Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor (TLC post)
David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide (A novella and five stories set primarily in Alaska; the narrator struggles to understand his father’s suicide.)
Empty calories
Josh Bazell’s Beat the Reaper (Bazell’s debut consumed a Saturday afternoon, but I couldn’t for the life of me, a few days later, summarize the plot other than to say the Mafia is involved; a total entertainer.)
Isabel Gilles’ Happens Every Day (A typical divorce memoir told with a Siren-like voice. TLC post)
Important books (both are novels)
Nini Holmqvist’s The Unit (TLC post)
Xiaoda Xiao’s The Cave Man (TLC post)
Memoir
Michael Greenberg’s Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life (TLC post)
Poetry
W. S. Merwin’s The Shadow of Sirius (2009 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; TLC post)
This thanks-giving holiday, thank you
November 25, 2009
Running Press Book Publishers
On Thanksgiving day I’ll be feasting with friends, each bringing to the table interesting home-cooked dishes, a bottle of pinot noir and a poem.
We are to bring (in the words of a participating friend) whatever verse has meaning to us – original, old favorite, modern, ancient, whatever we may find … the fewer parameters, the better … because part of the enjoyment is to experience the reason for the choice, why each person’s verse has personal meaning.
I’ll be sharing W. S. Merwin’s “To the Happy Few.” It’s not available online without cost (unless you subscribe to the NYRB). Since copyright police would frown at posting it in full on TLC without permission, I’ll offer here, as a replacement, another Merwin poem. W. S. Merwin became a favorite of mine this year with The Shadow of Sirius, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Thank you to all who follow TLC. I’m grateful for your reading presence and this blogging adventure. Happy Thanksgiving!
“Thanks” by W. S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you… <read more>
