two umbrellas

Another independent institution, Robin’s Bookstore, will be closing its doors in January 2009. It is a sad day for literary Philadelphia.

I was really excited to read John Barth’s The Development. I haven’t read much of Barth’s work but I loved Lost in the Funhouse and I needed a break from Faulkner. They are completely different stylistically and I thought the short stories would be a good change of pace. (I am not reading Faulkner’s short stories for my project.) These stories are based in a gated community for older adults in the Maryland suburbs. I can’t personally relate but was interested since there seemed to be potential for social commentary. However, I read the first story about the effect that a peeping tom has on the community and I was disappointed. I felt as though I were reading the writing for a very narrow audience and there was no subtlety to the social commentary that I assumed he was trying to make about the lives of the people who live in gated communities. I often feel, in fiction, that more is said when you’re not saying anything at all. I started the second story in the collection to give it a second chance. I did not finish that story nor did I start any others – a disappointment to be sure.

I had high hopes for Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Many people wrote about it and many people had good things to say. I was not disappointed but I wasn’t swept away. I expected to escape to Norway. This feeling was based, of course, upon recommendations. Although I wasn’t disappointed with the book: it was well written (I am often hesitant to judge the writing of a translated work – who would I be criticizing: the writer or the translator?) and the story intriguing (despite the somewhat pedestrian ending), I felt it a bit overhyped. This is one of the reasons that I tend to not read reviews of books that I would be interested in reading. I go in with expectations and usually they are not met – I’m not sure if that is a statement about the quality of reviews or my inability to be objective about them. The most compelling part of the book was the narrative about the main character’s memory of the summer of 1948. That part was framed by the story of him moving to a house in the country for the remainder of his years where he is confronted with the past. While it could have easily become a coming of age story (in fact, it could be said that it is – just not the adolescent age), there is much more depth to the characters and their experiences. Something, though, was missing. I think it was Norway. I love stories with a deep rooted sense of place and I wanted more of the Norwegian experience. That is probably an unreasonable request and despite that I rather enjoyed it.

How fast, how fast they grow…

I am undecided about Sanctuary by William Faulkner. This novel is more plot driven than the other novels of his that I’ve read. It is about a woman who is kidnapped and taken into the Memphis ‘underworld’ and the trial of the man wrongly accused of murdering another man who tried to protect her. It was a little grotesque and a little odd and yet at times, surprisingly, beautiful.

Beneath the bed the dogs made no sound. Temple moved slightly; the dry complaint of mattress and springs died into terrific silence in which they crouched. She thought of them, woolly, shapeless; savage, petulant, spoiled, the flatulent monotony of their sheltered lives snatched up without warning by an incomprehensible moment of terror and fear of bodily annihilation at the very hands which symbolised by ordinary the licensed tranquility of their lives.

I am always impressed by Faulkner’s tendency to blend his descriptions of animals and humans. In this paragraph he is discussing two dogs that are hiding under Temple’s bed but that last sentence could be describing Temple herself before and during her current situation. These passages are a reminder, particularly in this novel – which focuses on human’s more primitive conditions – of our our animal tendencies and that without our moral conscience these animal tendencies can become evil – as illustrated in the character of Popeye.

There were two other things that struck me: the punctuation and the introduction. First, Faulkner really uses the colon in this novel, so much so that I began to recognize when a colon would be approaching. I liked it even if it was overused but it works. Second, the text I read contained the Introduction that Faulkner wrote for the Modern Library edition in 1932. He writes:

I thought again, ‘[Sanctuary] might sell; maybe 10,000 of them will buy it.’ So I tore the galleys down and rewrote the book. It had been already set up once, so I had to pay for the privilege of rewriting it, trying to make out of it something which would not shame The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying too much and I made a fair job and I hope you will buy it and tell your friends and I hope they will buy it too.

The whole Introduction is interesting and entertaining. He discusses how the writing and the attitude towards writing changes when you try to write specifically for money. I was glad I read it last. It helped me understand the direction of the book.

Thank you for showing us hope. Thank you for calling upon us. Thank you for showing us that we can do better – together – as a nation. Thank you for making the future brighter for my daughter. Thank you for today and all of the future tomorrows.

At some point last year I decided that I would read (and in some instances, re-read) William Faulkner’s novels in chronological order. I decided to do this for two reasons. One, I was getting ready for NaNoWriMo and thought immersing myself in an author – one of my favorites – would be an inspirational and motivating endeavor. Two, I felt somewhat obligated, since Faulkner is one of my favorite – if not, favorite – authors, I should at some point have read all of his works. I thought these were valid reasons and reasons enough to keep me going: there are nineteen novels. I wanted to focus on his novels because that’s what I was writing at the time and I had spent the last three years immersed in the short story. But then a few things happened…

First, I got pregnant. A valid excuse – sort of – of why my work began to fall apart. I blame being pregnant for my inability to finish NaNoWriMo (morning sickness for me lasted morning, noon, and night). But then I became focused on what was happening with my body and starting reading books about that. However, I still decided that at the start of the New Year it would be the Winter of Faulkner. Then it somehow stretched itself to the Spring – and then Summer – and now, the Fall – and most likely (if I continue) the Winter (once again) of Faulkner. Since becoming pregnant and then with the arrival of the Parasol, I have used that as an excuse as to why I haven’t finished reading all 19 novels yet. But that’s not quite it. I have read other books in between Faulkner’s novels. I’ve cheated on him. I will not apologize. I have no regrets. I will, however, ask myself: What happened?

I got tired of him. I am still tired of him – or, at least, the thought of reading another Faulkner novel exhausts me. Once I am in a Faulkner novel, I don’t want to get out. There are times, though, when the thought of reading one more just becomes too heavy. The weight of all of his words, paragraphs, and punctuation is sometimes emotionally unbearable. So far, I’ve only read six. I just finished Sanctuary – a book I found to be quite odd and beautiful. As I was getting towards the final chapters, I found myself wandering over to the library (which I recently discovered is only a block and a half from my house) and taking out two books – both written by someone other than William Faulkner. But when I am reading other books, I find that my appreciation of Faulkner only grows and I think, ‘Oh, I am wasting my time. I should be reading Faulkner instead’.

So I always go back to him: he’s just too good. So maybe I am just distracted and am not in the right state of mind for an immersion project. So maybe I should realize that it is no longer a project but a goal. So I will finish – I think.

Etgar Keret + Rivka Galchen will be appearing at the Free Library of Philadelphia on 23 October at 7.30 pm (FREE). This may be the Parasol’s first reading…

I’m still plugging away at the Faulkner Project. The Little Parasol is somewhat enjoying it. She loved As I Lay Dying but is not enjoying Sanctuary as much. Maybe it’s the way that I’m reading it; maybe she already has formed her taste in books…Kundera put her to sleep; but, I’ll admit, the essays can be dense and there were often times when I struggled to keep my eyes open myself.

I still enjoyed As I Lay Dying immensely. I am always surprised to find that I still have trouble reading this book. I often find Vardamen very hard to follow – more so than Benjy. However, I have confirmed my good judgement in not reading while I was pregnant. From Addie’s chapter:

He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill the lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn’t need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear. Cash did not need to say it to me nor I to him, and I would say, Let Anse use it, if he wants to. So that was Anse or love; love or Anse: it didn’t matter.

…My aloneness had been violated and then made whole again by the violation: time, Anse, love, what you will, outside the circle.

Then I realized that I had Darl. At first I would not believe it. Then I believed I would kill Anse. It was as though he had tricked me, hidden within a word like within a paper screen and struck me back through it. But then I realised that I had been tricked by words older than Anse or love, and that the same word had tricked Anse too, and that my revenge would be that he would never know I was taking revenge…

I gave Ande Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die.

I think if I had read that chapter while I was still pregnant I would have cried for days or gone into labor. (Maybe it would have been a good idea since the little Parasol was late.)

Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel has been sitting on my bookshelf for too long. I’m not quite sure why I read The Curtain first. I am always intrigued to read about a writer’s philosophy on writing and Kundera never disappoints. I am surprised how frank he seems to be when writing about his own writing. I feel as though I could read this book over and over again and never fully get out of it all it has to offer. While I often find his writing and writing style to be too technical for my own writing, I find that it in is this contrast that I can learn so much. I have also learned that I should really revisit Kafka.

I’m not sure when I first started reading DFW’s work, but that doesn’t really matter. I do remember how I felt after finishing Infinite Jest. I had been reading Infinite Jest over the course of about a year (I was working on my graduate thesis, forcing me to read other things) and for that year I was continually connected – connected to the idea, the characters, the exploration, and to the novel. Not many other works have done that – maybe only The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I have often said that I have a hard time connecting to contemporary writers, that there is something lacking in their voices (and, I’ll admit, I may not be reading the right contemporary authors); maybe it’s an authenticity, maybe it’s too much of a sense of the present, maybe it’s a simplicity. I was reading Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel” when I learned of DFW’s death and it seemed apropos. To me, IJ is a work of contemporary art – visually and intellectually. From The Art of the Novel”:

The sole raison d’etre of a novel is to discover what only the novel can discover. A novel that does not discover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel’s only morality.

I have thought often about IJ and most often I come back to the idea that it is an continuing exploration of itself for the sake of continued discovery. When I finished IJ, I felt that I had been somewhere else for the course of my reading. There was a connection to the work and the exploration.

I am saddened for the loss of his voice in contemporary literature.

I have found some time to read over these past weeks, despite the lack of posts. I will say that I have gone back to my Faulkner project. Besides, it will be interesting to see if my reading of Faulkner changes as I read the novels out loud to the parasol…

WOW! WOW! WOW! I finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz over a month ago and still – still – all I can muster from my humble mouth is, ‘WOW!’ It has not been since David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas that I have been this jazzed about a contemporary author. There is something about Diaz’s voice that pulls you in and says, I will show you my world and you won’t want to leave because you will feel as though you were there. For me, that is what voice and place should be in writing – not a mechanism, a means to an end, or a literary device. It is what can make writing true art. It is how I feel about Joan Didion’s California or Faulkner’s Mississippi – and now I can add Diaz’s New Jersey.

A few years ago, I started to enjoy reading about food. I think it’s because I started eating better food, or was exposed to better food and how better food is prepared. I am fascinated by the simple and necessary act of eating. I’ll admit I like the drama of it as well and find myself watching the ever-increasingly corny Iron Chef America**. (I started, actually, because I love to watch Mario Batali cook. He’s amazing. It seems to be innate.) Jeffery Steingarten is a regular judge on the show and thought I would read his The Man Who Ate Everything since I appreciated his commentary on the show. Unfortunately, somehow, I missed that they are short essays about anything related – even tangentially – to the food world. Some are a little dated, which can be forgiven of course; but often they are too scientific, taking the food out of food. Fortunately, what kept me going – at least until the half-way point – is that it is obvious that he does love food and enjoys eating – a lot.

**I was happy to see that Philadelphia’s own Jose Garces was on Iron Chef America just this past week and defeated the ubiquitous Bobby Flay. Garces is chef/owner of Amada and Tinto. I have dined at both and I will say that Amada is probably the best restaurant I’ve ever been to – I highly recommend the pernil asado.