two umbrellas

For some reason I have avoided reading John Updike. I don’t have any real reason other than it just seemed so obvious to read him, like reading Joyce Carol Oates (another confession, I’ve only ever read her essays in the New York Review of Books and none of her fiction for similar reasons: I’m sure she’s good and I’ll get to it someday, maybe). At any rate, I had been realizing how many books on my bookshelves that I haven’t read (I used to be a compulsive buyer; now, I’m a compulsive library patron) and Rabbit, Run was one of them. I have read some of Updike’s short stories but not many and that was quite some time ago. I guess it was time to read something more substantial and I was in the mood for a novel, plain and simple.

I can’t help but talk about where it takes place, the fictional town of Brewer, which was based on Reading, PA. I grew up in Wyomissing, PA, a small suburb about five minutes outside of Reading and a beautiful bike trail away from Updike’s hometown of Shillington, and had family that still lived in the city. I have visited places where many books have taken place but there was something eerily familial about reading Rabbit, Run. I can only imagine how New Yorkers and Londonders feel to have their hometowns constantly immortalized. Reading, PA is no NYC or London; in fact, it’s anywhere (or nowhere), really, as it probably felt to Updike then.

It’s hard to tell whether or not Brewer had a strong influence on Rabbit. It felt that Updike spent a lot of time describing places: the streets – even street/road/route names (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven Rt. 422 to and from Philadelphia), Mt. Judge (or, Mt. Penn, if you could really must call it a mountain – it’s more like a hill, which is a lot easier for me to say now that I have views of both the Cascade and Olympic Mountain Ranges), the golf course, the Pinnacle Hotel, etc.; but, it could have felt that way to me because I have such a strong connection to them. I will admit I was looking for the bits and pieces about my hometown, which certainly put place as a literary function in my reading, but I do believe that a lot of the detail of place was intentional. Rabbit seemed like a man who was caught in the ‘big fish – little pond’ syndrome’: stuck in the past, no real future, hoping the familiar will carry him to a good life. It doesn’t and he gets caught and needs to run. I can appreciate that feeling – the feeling that in order to improve, one must leave and start over.

It is easy for me to say that I didn’t like Rabbit. He was immature, irrational, and simple. I found it hard to sympathize with him but willingly accepted his discontent.There was an intimacy with the characters that I haven’t read in a while – and something I greatly appreciated. It could have been very easy to attempt to elicit pity but I never felt that way. Somehow Updike was able to create enough distance, through intimacy, that I felt no obligation to the characters – even when they needed it the most. I will never forget when Janice gets drunk after she gives birth and she ‘knows that the worst thing that has ever happened to any woman in the world has happened to her.’ How simply put. How tragic.

I find that often intellectual simplicity appeals to my reading sensibility. While Rabbit seems like an immature and simple man, Updike does not tell the story that way. He doesn’t try to capture the moment of what it’s like to be a restless, married, twenty-something, small-town man, which I find plagues some contemporary writing. He attempts to capture how Rabbit is a restless, married, twenty-something, small-town man. I am not sure why I’ve held out on Updike’s novels before because I was truly amazed at how well he framed his characters.

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 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.

My review of Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun at When Falls the Coliseum is up. Here’s a bit:

There are so many things that could be potentially cliche about Nami Mun’s Miles from Nowhere: the title, the cover, the characters, the plot — just about everything. The main character, Joon, runs away from home when she is twelve. Her father has left the family, which drives her mother to insanity. After leaving her mother, Joon goes down the inevitable path of drugs and prostitution as she copes on the streets of New York City. But there is something keeping this novel from falling into the trap: Nami Mun’s writing.

My ‘New Lit’ column will appear the first Wednesday of each month. Check it out…

With having the Parasol around, I find my personal time has become somewhat limited. So I decided to divide my time a little further by creating another blog: feeding claire that’s dedicated to feeding my daughter, of course, but also my adventures in being a new mom. If you’re interested in food and have kids, feel free to give it a look-see…

On a previous post I lamented my deluge of reading material, especially magazine subscriptions. Too much input! I was starting to feel guilty that I couldn’t read all of the articles and yet still feeling guilty that I didn’t subscribe to more. (Oh the reading paradox!) But the recession has hit – I have let most of my subscriptions lapse and I am starting to feel a drought. I am left with the following:

• Bookforum I know I can get this free online but I just love having the printed version.
• N+1 Truthfully, I have no idea when this subscription runs out. I don’t remember the last time I paid for it; but it still comes in the mail (albeit infrequently).
• Bon Appetit It’s super cheap.
• and Playboy Hmmm, I’m not quite sure why this magazine still arrives – I may have to talk to mr. twoumbrellas about that.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to let some excellent magazines go: Harper’s and I am missing Granta very, very much. The NYRB is just too expensive. I can’t spend $70 for a magazine subscription. I know that can be spread out throughout the year but it’s not worth it since I only read half of the articles (I can’t keep up when it comes every two weeks) and many of the articles are political, which I can only appreciate to an extent.

While my magazine reading is feeling the pinch, so are my bookshelves. I’ve put a moratorium on purchasing books, with the exception of books for the Parasol. I am so fortunate that I have a library, albeit with a mediocre selection of new fiction, two blocks from my house. The FLP has a decent online library system where I can search for books at any branch and hold them with my online account. (If you live in Philly – or anywhere for that matter – please remember to support your local library. In some areas they are desperately needed community centers.*) I have used my library more than ever in the last few months and I am enjoying the freedom of reading for free.

I do miss having new books on my shelf. However, I have 182 books on my many, many shelves that I have not read yet (some of them I purchased in grade school). My habit used to be to buy books much faster than I could read them. This moratorium will give me a chance to get through some of those.

aside I have my opinions about libraries becoming community centers but at a time of economic crisis and people’s desperate need for support from their communities, libraries should be commended for what they do.

I can’t believe she’s almost seven months old already!

Oh so long ago now, I started a project where I intended to read all of William Faulkner’s novels in chronological order. I have had my ups and downs with this project, a few pit stops, but I have soldiered on. My intention was to attempt to get inside the writing: hear the voice, feel the rhythms and cadences, understand the sense of place and belonging that I felt in his work. I am not sure why I am surprised that the opposite happened.

The other night I woke up in the middle of the night in a state of shock. Before bed I had been reading A Light in August, a book that I have read at least twice already. It was towards the end when the reader learns how Joe Christmas becomes an orphan. It is an uncomfortable section of the book, though many sections have that feel. I didn’t think too much of it, so when I got sleepy enough, I closed the book, thought nothing more of it, and fell asleep. When I woke I was paralyzed with fear. I had the worst nightmare I have EVER had. I won’t – no, I can’t – relay its contents in writing. I didn’t know what to do. I did not move for what seemed like hours trying to decide if I should wake mr. twoumbrellas to tell him. I didn’t know if I could repeat it. The rational part of my brain was trying to take over, telling me that it wasn’t real but there’s that other part, the part that dreamed this horror – how could I even think such things! – that kept reminding me what happened in an awful Clockwork Orange kind of way. Somehow, mr. twoumbrellas woke up and I told him I had a terrible dream and broke down in tears. When I told him what happened, I think even he was a little shocked. As I was recounting the nightmare, I realized straight away it was because of William Faulkner. He has the ability to write about humanity’s evils (even uses the word evil over and over again in Light in August, which in itself becomes a mantra of terror) where you are compelled, forced, intrigued, and disgusted to continue reading because you must, must go on and somehow the writing is still beautiful (see also in Sanctuary).

Instead of me getting inside the work of Faulkner, he was able to get inside my head and thoroughly fuck with it.

I needed a break. As soon as I finished it, I took the Parasol to the library to find something new, light, possibly even funny. I found Then We Came to the End (which doesn’t sound very funny – and wasn’t as funny as I hoped) and The Lazarus Project (which is next).

Something will draw me back. I know it will. I can’t give up on this project yet. I’ve been so committed until now. I just need some time off to recover.