Author Archives: bookdwarf

In the Fortress of Solitude

Robert Birnbaum posted another of his great interviews over at the Morning News. This time he spoke with Jonathan Lethem, author of the novels Gun with Occasional Music (which I finally read on vacation), Motherless Brooklyn, and most recently The Fortress of Solitude. Mr. Lethem recently won a MacArthur fellowship. Has anyone read Fortress of Solitude? A copy just made its way to my desk and I want to know if it should be added to my TBR pile.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

It’s a cliche I realize, but I find Sarah Waters books immensely readable, meaning that once I start one, I have a hard time putting it down. Fortunately, her new book The Night Watch continues this tradition. She’s made a career writing about sex and love in Victorian era England, but this new book she set in London during the 1940’s and moves backward through time. Beginning in 1947, we move through 1944 and end at the beginning in 1941. It follows 4 Londoners, 3 women and 1 man, whose lives connect in both small and large ways: Kay, an ambulance driver during the war, dresses in mannish clothes. Helen, sweet and honest, harbors a secret. Glamorous Vivian remains loyal to her married soldier lover through hard times. And Vivian’s brother Duncan has his own demons to battle.

The mastery of the settings is one of Sarah Water’s greatest strengths. You can picture and smell the London streets from her descriptions. She also understands the intricacies of relationships–the jealousies, the feelings of unworthiness one can feel, the intensity of a new love. Another strength of this book was her choice of telling the intertwining stories backward. It doesn’t take away from the book, it enhances the stories. While the depth of her main characters strengthen the story, some of the minor characters did not seem developed enough, especially where it might have helped the plot. But even with its flaws, I enjoyed this book immensely.

Richard Yates, You’re Killing Me

Since I liked Revolutionary Road so much while in Spain and having enjoyed his short stories, I grabbed a copy of The Easter Parade by Richard Yates last weekend. This might be the most depressing book I’ve ever read, or at least in the top 5. Here, Yates follows the Grimes sisters for over 40 years from their parent’s divorce in childhood through old age. Younger sister Emily, who searches for happiness through various jobs and men in her peripatetic life, provides the eyes through which we watch them. Sarah, the elder, seems happily married throughout her life, at least to Emily, but all is not as it seems of course. As it turns out, Sarah’s husband, the genial English Tony, beats her. The other major character in EP is their divorced mother “Pookie” who moves them around from house to house as children. Both sister’s resentment for her is palpable and she dies alone in a home, having lost much of her mind to drink.

Why was this book so depressing? Perhaps it’s Emily’s bad relationships that she falls into one after the other. Each man comes with huge problems (who doesn’t?) and none of them seem to see Emily as herself, but as an answer to their troubles. They gravitate to her because she doesn’t know herself and therefore though she appears she’s always listening to them, it’s more that she has nothing to say for herself. In the end, Emily ends up alone and bitter, in the same position she found her mother at the end of her life. Lives never stepped into, that’s what I kept thinking, the constant yearning for something and not even knowing what to look for. I finished this book very late one night and it kept me awake most of the rest of the night.

Catfight!

I love me a catfight on a cold Thursday morning. Steve Almond has written an article all about Mark Sarvas aka TEV and his hatred supposed hatred for Almond. Now, before people start jumping into the comments here and tearing me a new asshole, I am not taking sides in what is clearly a personal fight. I like Mark and his blog. I’ve met him in person and found him perfectly amiable. I’ve also met Almond, as he’s local to these parts. He’s been perfectly nice to me. Of course some are going to rally around Mark.

I do however object to Almond’s dismissal of litblogs, but praising them in an article attacking one wouldn’t have served his purpose I suppose. Not everything he says is wrong. I do read lots of other litblogs and I imagine any audience I have beyond my family is other litbloggers. So what? I like books, I work in books, I like to read about books. I disagree with the statement “few of these lit blogs actually discuss literature in a meaningful way”. I think he’s totally wrong. I read many blogs with “meaningful” discussions about literature. Sure, some days its all poking fun of an author, or hashing out some news. But some days you get in depth analysis of a book or an author. Where else should we go to talk about books? The major reviews all discuss the same books. All the major bookstores seem to be closing, so that’s out. You could take a class, but who has the money! Bookclubs I suppose are one answer. Blogs however are a great forum for this type of discussion. I’ve read some mind-opening essays and dialogues online about books. Maybe Almond is looking in the wrong places (and no, I am certainly not suggesting he look here). Where do you go to talk about books?

What’s with All the Awards?

Tomorrow they announce the Nobel Prize for Literature (I am keeping my fingers crossed for Danielle Steele. It’s her year!) and today the National Book Award announced their finalists (the winner will be announced on November 16th). They are as follows:
Fiction

* The March by E.L. Doctorow (Random House)
* Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (Pantheon)
* Trance by Christopher Sorrentino (FSG)
* Holy Skirts by Rene Steinke (William Morrow)
* Europe Central by William T. Vollmann (Viking)

Nonfiction

* Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan
Burdick (FSG)
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch
(Houghton Mifflin)
* The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf)
* 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside
the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn (Times
Books)
* Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an
Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin)

Poetry

* Where Shall I Wander by John Ashbery (Ecco)
* Star Dust: Poems by Frank Bidart (FSG)
* Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005 by Brendan
Galvin (Louisiana State University Press)
* Migration: New and Selected Poems by W.S. Merwin (Copper
Canyon)
* The Moment’s Equation by Vern Rutsala (Ashland Poetry
Press)

Young People’s Literature

* The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf)
* Where I Want to Be by Adele Griffin (Putnam)
* Inexcusable by Chris Lynch (Atheneum)
* Autobiography of My Dead Brother by Walter Dean Myers
(HarperTempest)
* Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt)

The Quills were announced last night, but I am not bothering with them. Look here for the winners.

Booker Aftermath

Because no prize can be complete without some sort of controversy, here are some articles about the dust John Banville left in his wake after winning the Booker for The Sea:

The chair of the Judging committee’s opinion in the Guardian,

A judge’s opinion,

A dissenter,

And of course the party report.

On a side note, in the last article there, they mention that Banville was scheduled to receive an honorary degree at Skidmore College the next day, which just happens to be my alma mater. How very interesting.

Booker News

You may have heard that John Banville won this years Man Booker prize, which ought to make Mark very happy. Apparently this is quite the “coup” according to the Guardian, who report that the voting was tied until the chairman cast his vote. I love reading about this prize as every year we get to hear about the British odds.

In other prize news, the Nobel prize for Literature should be awarded this Thursday. They’ve gone and surprised everyone by announcing it a week later than the rest of the prizes. Supposedly the controversy has to do with honoring Orhan Pamuk, but I can’t help but feel they are trying to stir up some news about the prize, which usually gets a very tepid response from the media. And a judge has stepped down, declaring giving the prize last year to Elfriede Jelinek has done “irreparable damage to all progressive forces”. Meow.

Happenings Elsewhere

Laila Lalami, author of the wonderful Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and creator of MoorishGirl.com, writes about rich vs. poor in an essay at Powells.com. It’s thought provoking, so read it.

And the Morning News has another long Robert Birnbaum interview up today. This time, Uncle Bob speaks with Stuart Dybek, author of I Sailed with Magellan and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods: Stories.

Sara Ivy interviews Sherwin Nuland, whose new book Maimonides is the second in the Jewish Encounters series, a collaborative effort between Schocken and Nextbook. Sherwin Nuland will be appearing at Harvard Hillel on October 11th at 6:30pm for those interested.

This is What Happens WhenYou Blurb a Book and Don’t Read the Whole Thing

I wrote about this book a few months ago. It’s Doug Psaltis’ memoir about his rise in the food world. I hated it. Psaltis comes across as a complete asshole in my opinion. And apparently, others in the business seem to think the same thing according to this article in the NYT. His book has caused quite a stir, as he criticizes a lot of big time chefs. Even the Jacques Pepin and Mario Batali who both wrote the blurbs that got me to read this book have recanted.