two umbrellas

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve even debated whether or not I should continue this blog but I’ve have twoumbrellas for five years now and I just can’t part with it. Besides I really like writing my thoughts down about the books I’ve read and (as I’ve said many times before) I’m forgetful – sometimes even forgetting what I’ve read over the last few months. So on that note, here’s a list of my reading over the past few months (which may or may not be complete):

• Netherland – Joseph O’Neill
• Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
• The Hospital for Bad Poets – J.C. Hallman
• Look At Me – Jennifer Egan
• Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
• Tender Is the Night* – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Road* – Cormac McCarthy
• Love and Obstacles* – Aleksandar Hemon
• The Master Bedroom* – Tessa Hadley
• The Other City – Michal Ajvaz
• What the World Will Be Like When All the Water Leaves Us – Laura van den Berg
• The Interrogative Mood – Padgett Powell

*unfinished. Seeing that this list has four books that I did not finish, it hasn’t been the most productive few months in reading. I can list excuses: moving across the country, being pregnant, renewing a hobby, and freelance work – but they would just be excuses.

I really wish I would have kept up with writing about each of these individually. There is much to say about all of them – even the ones I haven’t (or won’t finish). I will say that my favorite (surprisingly) was The Other City but I think that has to do with my mood. Moving to Seattle, while being pregnant, has become quite an experience – generally positive, sometimes surreal, and utterly different – I’m continually amazed how much the East Coast is ingrained in my psyche. I am constantly evaluating my perspective and The Other City somehow captured these feelings. It was the right book at the right time, as they say.

So I am hoping to get back on track with my current read (Rabbit, Run) and stay that way. I miss writing about reading; in fact, I miss writing in general.

I picked up The Other City by Michal Ajvaz on a whim from my awesome library and discovered in this book a strange, mysterious, yet uncannily accurate description of my ongoing adaptation to west coast living. Here’s long excerpt:

Can there really exist a world in such close proximity to our own, one that seethes with such strange life, one that was possibly here before our own city and yet we know absolutely nothing about it? The more I pondered on it, the more I was inclined to think that it was indeed quite possible, that it corresponded to our lifestyle, to the way we lived in circumscribed spaces that we are afraid to leave. We are troubled by the dark music heard from over the border, which undermines our order. We fear what looms in the twilit corners; we don’t know whether they are broken or disintegrating shapes of our world, or the embryos of a new fauna, which will one day transform the city into its hunting ground – the vanguard of an army of monsters slowly lurking its way through our apartments. That is why we prefer not to see shapes that came into existence on the other side and we don’t hear sounds emitted at night beyond the walls. We truly acknowledge only what has taken root in our world, what is connected with the other things and events of those few games repeat monotonously, and we speak of their internal relationships as if they were the cause the reason, the meaning. These games that form the tissue of our world are no less strange or horrifying that the nocturnal revelries of the glass statues. And if someone looks from the other side, such as through the gaps between the books in our bookshelf, they must experience the same feelings of unsettling amazement at the fascinating and oppressive rituality, which I experienced when I watched the fish pageant from the colonnade. ‘What fantastic monsters!’ they whisper as they watch us with dread and gloomy admiration.

And yet the world we have confined ourselves in is so narrow. Even inside the space we regard as our property there are places that lie beyond our power, lairs inhabited by creatures whose home is over the border. We are familiar with the strange queasiness we feel when we encounter the reverse side of things and their inner cavities, which refuse to take part in our game: when she shove aside a cabinet during spring-cleaning and suddenly find ourselves looking the ironically impassive face of its reverse side, which stares into the dark chambers that are mirrored on its surface, when we unscrew the back of the television set and run our fingers over the tangle of wires, when we crawl under the bed for a pencil that rolled away and we suddenly find ourselves in a mysterious cavern, whose walls are covered in magical, trembling wisps of dust, a cavern in which something evil is slowly maturing until one quiet afternoon it will emerge into the light. All that exists for us is what forms part of the games we play: it is not surprising that we know nothing about the world that lies beyond the territory of these games; we probably wouldn’t notice it even it held its celebrations right in the middle of our daily bustle.

For many years I have called Philadelphia my home. I fell in love in Philly; went to grad school in Philly; had my baby girl in Philly; it is where I lived. In just about a week, my family and I are leaving our home to create a new one in Seattle. There is so much happening now: so much to coordinate with a cross-country move. (The picture above was taken on our one-day – and unsuccessful – house hunting trip.) We’ll be taking a one-year-old and two cats on a one-way plane ride to temporary housing (fortunately arranged by my husband’s new employer).

I’ve only been to Seattle once, for the aforementioned house hunting trip, so I am eager to explore the new city. Philadelphia and Seattle are quite different based on my short first-impression; but, it’s hard to say or understand what these differences are just yet. I’m sure I’ll be drinking a lot of coffee and eating a lot of fish instead of drinking a little coffee and eating a lot of pasta and gravy.

I cannot wait to discover the bookstores of Seattle. Surprisingly, I’ve been able to keep on reading during this month of chaos. I’m hoping to eventually post about my latest reads:

• The Hospital for Bad Poets by J.C. Hallman
• Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
• Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

There is so much more to say but for now I’ll keep this short because I’m tired and there is a lot more to do before I leave Philly for the last time on Monday morning. So, good-bye for now…

I can’t believe after writing 17 (!) books, I had never read Percival Everett. Where have I been?? What else have I been reading?? And why?? I know I’ve taken myself somewhat out of the literary loop, but, I was really embarrassed to not have read any of his books or, worse, had ever heard (gasp)* of him. Shameful, yes, I know. Fortunately, after reading I Am Not Sydney Poitier I no longer have to admit that.

I Am Not Sydney Poitier tells the story of a boy named Not Sydney Poitier who just happens to look a lot like Sydney Poitier. When his mother dies, he goes to live with Ted Turner and has to struggle with his identity of being Not Sydney**. While I Am Not Sydney Poitier is about Not Sydney’s coming of age, it’s also about race and class, which transcends it from being considered a ‘coming-of-age’ novel.

The best part about this book was that it made me laugh. It’s been a while since a book made me laugh out loud. A few times, I thought to myself: Should I be laughing at this? Everett’s pointed satire always seemed to answer Yes! Here’s a bit of a conversation between Ted Turner and Not Sydney (who Ted Turner calls Nu’ott):

‘You know where the name of the Ouija Board comes from, Nu’ott?’ Ted asked. ‘It’s from the French and German words for yes. Could have easily been called the non-nein. Of course that just one theory. There are probably many. I find it simply strange that the skin they pack sausages in is edible. Edgar Cayce thought they were dangerous.’

‘Sausages?’

‘No, Ouija Boards. Why would Edgar Cayce care about sausages? Maybe he did. He was a weird dude. And sausages are everywhere.’ Ted looked at his bare feet at the end of his chinos. ‘Let me ask it a question. Why can’t the Democrats come up with decent slogans?’

‘I think that might be a long answer,’ I said.

‘My point exactly. Republicans run around chanting ‘America, love it or leave it’ and ‘Freedom isn’t free.’ ‘

‘The board can’t handle that,’ I said.

‘We ought to market a better one. Pigs are really smart, you know.’

The dialogue made this book phenomenal and perhaps I was so taken by it because dialogue is something that I have trouble writing; but, Everett captures idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, which seem accentuated around the unsure Not Sydney, who often just flows along with the strong personalities that surround him.

Everett’s characters stand out. Since this is the first book I’ve read of Everett’s, I don’t know if that’s his style – to create strong characters and let them carry the book – but it works brilliantly. Not surprisingly, Not Sydney is not the most interesting character. The supporting cast: his late mother and his guardian, Ted Turner, and a Percival Everett makes a cameo, too, help to define Not Sydney by being, well, what he is not. Of course, that may be obvious when the main character is trying to make an identity for himself; but, I rarely felt attached to Not Sydney but I was able to completely sympathize with him.

*That is certainly enough parenthetical exclamations for one post.

**Having a strange name is something I can relate to. With a name like Season, it is easy to feel how much simple words can be part of an identity – there are too many associations. When your name is a noun, like mine, you have to compete with those associations, particularly at introductions. I have often wished for a more common name but then realized I couldn’t be named anything else. It’s who I am.

Guernica has an interview with Junot Diaz:

Well, I mean, I’m writing about the Caribbean. The reason we’re all in the Caribbean is because bodies were enslaved and bodies were made into machines and bodies were made into incubators and bodies were turned into permanent—at least for people who were living in the moment’bodies were turned into permanent destiny. Our bodies were used to enslave us and were reason to slay us. And I think that the way that the body has worked in the Caribbean is very important historically. I mean, for God’s sake, it was a matter of life and death, beyond just what it normally is every day. If you woke up and you suddenly had black skin, that meant that that was your fate for the rest of your life and it would be to your death, in some ways still. But you know I was also interested in the object, the deep historical thing, that we’re talking about a place where in the local culture, in certain sectors of the local culture, people are embodied in really weird ways. You know, it’s like, every time you hear anyone talk about the Caribbean, whether it’s Caribbeans themselves or people outside, there’s always talk about women’s bodies. Talk about this voluptuousness, this kind of stereotype of what a Caribbean person is. And I think these are stereotypes that even people inside the culture, we actually sometimes claim them and we’re very proud. And look, nothing reminds us—beyond just any Caribbean nonsense and any sort of old ancient history nonsense—the body is what reminds us on a daily basis that we’re human. The body defies us, it betrays us, we have to struggle with it, you know. And it reveals in curious and in abiding ways how we are not perfect. I think that if you’re writing about the human condition, my God, you’ve got to start at base: point zero, point one, is the body.

It is rare when a book affects me. Yes, each book I read is an experience, per se; there is a relationship between two sensibilities. Often, that relationship fades as time passes as new books are read and new voices heard and some are just, well, forgettable. However, reading William T Vollmann’s Poor People was like getting a good slap in the face. I had a previous experience with Vollmann’s writing before with Rainbow Stories and was not expecting to be this moved.

Before I can even begin about the content, I must address Vollmann’s writing and voice. (I don’t know much about him although I’ve been reading some interviews now that Imperial is out.) WTV pulls you in with his sincerity, keeps you there with his eye for raw subject matter, and then leaves it up to you to judge – if you must. Something seems soft and quiet, even when he’s describing the homeless people that use his building as a toilet or a town – once beautiful and handcrafted with pride – that is soon to be demolished:

“Under the road, where time is slower and cheaper, not only does the division of labor sometimes insist less on itself, but so does the division between labor and art. Well, goodbye, goodbye! Simple, crownlike flowers on short-plucked diagonal stems spread their angled wings and hovered darkly on a house’s pale wall, under-the-road blossoms awaiting the happy day when oil’s thoroughfare, preceded by its herald, the wrecking ball, would uplift everybody into superior normality.”

His ability to juxtapose this soft sincerity with the harsh realities of poor people’s lives paradoxically takes WTV himself off of the page and yet makes it strikingly personal: Will it be a ‘happy day when oil’s thoroughfare, preceded by its herald, the wrecking ball, would uplift everybody into superior normality“? It depends on who you ask.

I almost forgot Poor People is a very long essay. It doesn’t feel like editorializing but that’s what it is. He deftly states: here is the situation and (with paragraphs like the one above) subtly asks: now what do you think of that? However, there is never a time when he asks: what are you going to do about it? In fact, he states that he is not writing to tell people how to fix the problem of poverty. He is writing to tell you about poverty and what makes someone poor.

WTV chooses to write about poverty that most people never see and rarely understand. If you know WTV’s writing, then you know the prostitutes, the drug addicts, the downtrodden, the drunks, the sick, the forgotten. Somehow, in Poor People he is also able to find compelling stories – but, then, with this subject matter, maybe they all are. I can’t help but think he finds the compelling stories because he seems to look for them without fear. In Japan, he searches for the elusive and extremely dangerous Snakeheads (people involved in human trafficking), knowing that knocking on certain doors could get him killed – fortunately, and even he recognizes this, these doors are not answered. There is story of the Thai woman who works to get drunk and take care of her daughter. There is the story of the two beggars in Russia: one an epileptic and one who is in her eighties, supporting her family. (I found this story amazing: the son-in-law was sent to work to clean up Chernobyl – when he started they were initially only allowed to work 5 seconds a day due to the radiation. Now he is too sick to work. His exposure was so great he has the potential to make the rest of his family sick by being around them – his two daughters rarely leave the house due to illness.) There is the story of the oil town in Kazakhstan whose town officials are ordering everyone to move – there are rumors that the refinery is making everyone sick and that the entire town has anemia. There are the stories of Afghan women who are poor but invisible under the strong arm of the Taliban (it is illegal for women to beg, among many other things). So many stories. So much poverty.

The beauty of WTV’s book is that I didn’t find myself pitying these people. He was able to make them human. Of course, they are human! However, I find that often when people write about these kinds of stories they patronize and pity to the point where these stories become sentimental simulacra of themselves – almost cartoonish, as if it couldn’t/doesn’t really happen. (The best example I can think of is most of the Katrina coverage.) WTV writes in such away that you don’t want to turn away, you are not embarrassed, or nervous, or scared of (most of) these people. Some are just like us. Just poorer. A lot poorer.

But are they? That is, I think, what WTV really wanted to know. What makes someone poor? Is it how much they have? How much money they have? Or is it something else? For each person it is different, a different story, a different sadness, a different hope. And hope is what WTV thinks is the best thing you can give these people. Let them drink, smoke, do drugs, as long as it gives them hope and makes their lives a little better. I am not sure I agree with this at all times, especially when the behavior can affect others. But, hope, in itself, I can believe in.

happening at the FLP coming up and into the fall:

• Ralph Nadar
• Lorrie Moore
• Marjane Satrapi
• Howard Dean
• Richard Russo
• Richard Dawkins
• Jeanette Walls
• Jonathan Safran Foer
• Lydia Davis
• Lydia Bastianich

If you’re in Philadelphia, be sure to check out the calendar. Where ever you are be sure to support your local library!

I spend a lot of time reading. I love to read. In fact, when I was thinking about a career for myself, I would think, “What job could I have that would allow me to read all of the time?” Often, some sort of night-watchman would always seem dangerously appealing for a little, bookish lady. So, I thought again, and decided a high-school English teacher could work. And did – for a few years, at least. Then, I went into publishing, where, sadly, I had little time for actual reading – though, in its defense, I was working with words. When I became a full-time mama, I had some free time to read and thought, “There must be something I could do with that.” So I decided that I would review books. Fortunately, someone was willing to let me.

It was a nice (albeit non-paying) gig. I could review any new or recent fiction or non-fiction that I wanted. What a great idea! I could read whatever I wanted, write about it, someone would publish it, and possibly someone would read it. Amazing. I started scouring my wonderful S Philly branch of the FLP. I tried keeping up with blogs and new titles. I even received a free review copy. I had made it! I was a reviewer. But something just didn’t feel right about it. (Not receiving the free book – that was great and I loved the book and tried to write as glowing of a review as possible for it because everyone should read What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going by Damion Searls.)

First, I started reading books differently. I started reading them analytically. I began to seek out specifics in the books: reasons for people to like or dislike it, good quotes, etc. rather than letting myself experience the book as a whole. My reading experience was getting so lost in my concerns for the article that I was starting to resent reading. Even though I could have read just about anything I wanted to, I felt paradoxically constrained by the obligation to review. Since my reading time has been limited with the Parasol running around, that time has become more and more valuable. Somehow, now, I felt pressure to read certain books and felt I couldn’t read what I wanted. Though I could. I know – a bit neurotic.

Second, I found writing reviews to be hard. That sounds like an excuse – and maybe it is – but it was challenging. I would think about the reviews I liked to read and found that that was part of the problem. When I do read book reviews, I often read the ones for books that I probably won’t read. Often, if I read reviews for books that I actually want to read then I learn too much about the book (usually there’s too much plot synopsis), so much so that it takes something away from my reading experience. That experience, for me, is something personal, a discovery, of sorts, of how I react to the words on the page. If I know too much beforehand that sense of discovery is tainted. For example, I just picked up Colum McCann’s new novel, Let The Great World Spin, from the library. NYTBR had a review, which I started to read. The first paragraph was okay: a little plot summary that I already knew. And then out of nowhere the author writes (and I’m paraphrasing) that this was one of the best books he’d read. Great! Thanks a lot! I stopped reading. I don’t remember who the reviewer was so I don’t remember if I trusted him or not. But I knew that the review would be biased and tell me way too much, considering there was a whole page left. I already had high expectations for the book since I like Colum McCann; but, I didn’t want a one page version of the novel or a one page sales pitch. Let me decide.

So if I didn’t want too much plot or too much opinion from a book review, what, then, was I supposed to give my audience? I don’t know. I still don’t know. How is it different writing this blog than writing for a publication? The main reason is voice. On twoumbrellas, I don’t have to develop a voice – I already have one. I write this blog for me. It started because I have a terrible memory. I write about books so I can remember them: remember how I felt, remember what they were about, and use it as a guide – for myself – of the narrative of my reading (and sometimes writing) life. I post about other things, too, but mostly what I read and what I think about it. Why then couldn’t I transfer it to this other publication? Most likely a personal hang-up of my own but I think that has to do with the editorial slant of the magazine. I just didn’t fit in. I thought I could fake it but I couldn’t keep that up. It just wasn’t me. It didn’t feel right.

So I stopped writing reviews (officially). I still write them here because this is my little space to do it and I still have a terrible memory, in fact, it’s getting worse.

But as I write this, I am trying to figure out why I read book reviews? What do I want to get out of them: recommendations? book choice affirmation? Probably a little of both. Often, I read reviews after I’ve read a book to get a different perspective. I think I read them just because I like to hear/read/discuss about books. Not sure. But, I will continue to read them but more often than not I won’t finish them.

A while back I was doing some book reviewing* and I had heard some buzz about Jesse Ball’s The Way Through Doors (who knows from where at this point) and so I thought I’d put it on the list of books to review. A friend of mine happened to have it so I moved it way up the list and borrowed it. Truthfully, I didn’t know much about it other than the word ’storyteller’ had been used often and positively. I usually prefer my books to be written by a good storyteller so I was certainly excited.

From the start, I was pulled in. Yes, they were right, he is a storyteller. This is different, I thought; something new from what I have been reading, refreshing, but only at first. In short, it felt a little like this: Did you ever have a dream that seemed to last all night? Each moment something new, somehow related to the previous moment, yet almost painfully familiar. You then wake up trying to remember all of the details – how was it all connected? Then, after a few minutes of trying to remember, you then wonder what you were doing wasting all that time trying to remember those details. They don’t matter! And really, in the end, you’re glad that the dream is finally over.

The premise is intriguing and seemingly simple enough: a young pamphleteer gets a job at the request of his uncle at the office of the Seventh Ministry as a Municipal Inspector, who’s “authority is both unlimited and nonexistent”; meaning, he can do whatever he wants, which becomes quite convenient. Things are going well for Selah. Then he witnesses a woman being hit by a taxi and takes her to the hospital. She has amnesia and Selah spends the rest of the novel trying to help her discover who she is. Simple, right? Sort of. Ball throws the reader into the story, swiftly and deftly; it isn’t necessary to understand why Selah helps this woman and why he goes through so much trouble to do so. However, it is important to know that most of the events happening in the novel are actually stories that Selah is telling this mystery woman to help discover her identity and help her regain her memory. A clever trick that is not easily deduced (unless, of course, you read the synopsis on the back of the book).

These stories’ plot twists and turns pull the reader along through a maze of tall tales and yarns. At first, I went willingly: I gladly closed my eyes and let Ball lead me through. But it didn’t take long for that trick to get tiring. I felt like each page was another way for me to be shown that Ball is a great storyteller – what could he think of next! Something new is added: another ancient tale, another door, another thinly veiled postmodern attempt at being a traditional story. It gets even more gimmicky: there are no page numbers, just line numbers but they don’t correspond, e.g. lines 560 through 570 could have been 30 lines. Why should any boundaries exist in Ball’s storytelling? Unfortunately, he created his own boundaries by the limits of his storytelling abilities. Each new tale had hints of the previous to the point where, shall I dare say, it became formulaic.

My dislike for The Way Through Doors may seem like traditionalism but I was willing to follow Ball through his doors. I was just more interested in where the doors would lead than who my guide was.

*more on that later…

It’s been awhile since I’ve read some non-fiction until I recently read Mary Roach’s Bonk. Well, I shouldn’t say ‘read’ because I didn’t finish it. This was a recent find at my local library and I thought, “What the hell. I’ve heard of Mary Roach. I like sex. This could be interesting.” I realized three library renewals into it that I was then saying, “What the hell was I thinking?!?” After the ‘Penis’ chapter, I called it quits.

This book has so much potential: “The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex” reads the subtitle. I am a curious person. I enjoy sex. Maybe I could enjoy it on another, possibly objective, level. Not that I had any great expectations – I wasn’t expecting Anais Nin or anything – there would be science involved after all. However, I was not expecting to be grossed out (and I do not consider myself a prude). Nor was I expecting to feel like Roach was at my bedside.

I think it was the aforementioned ‘Penis’ chapter that did me in. I wish I had quotes (I’ve long since returned the book to the library) but, really, on second thought it’s probably better that I didn’t. Let’s just say she witnesses a penile implant and let’s also just say I’m so glad I don’t have a penis. (To be fair, I didn’t read the ‘Vagina’ chapter so maybe I wouldn’t want to have one of those either.) I now know too much how penile implants work and the how much physical agony those guys have to go through to get one.

I’ll admit there were some interesting bits. There is still a stigma attached to doing sex research, even in this Cialis-in-the-tub age. There are often lots of euphemisms used in presenting research topics for grant moneys and to universities. I guess there can be a fine line between objective and perverted (think Kinsey – also very interesting). However, these few gems were intruded by footnotes and asides that constantly took me away from the original topic – usually something tangentially related to the main text. This happened so often that I felt I was reading two books: the one Roach was writing and the one with random factoids that Roach wanted to write. 

Needless to say that science plus sex should not be disappointing. Roach’s voice is jovial, like a friend is telling you something funny that she read in the tabloids in the grocery line. But I don’t want to constantly read about the boy who was born a bat. I don’t need to be shocked to be entertained – even only mildly. Roach started out with a great topic but didn’t realize that you can have too much of a good thing.