The Literary Link List

Links to pieces, old and new, on literature:

• Five Favorite Literature Themed Coffee Shops over at Quirk Books  (I am absolutely making it a priority to visit D'Espresso)
• The Origins of Sex: How the First Sexual Revolution Shaped Modern Society over at Brain Pickings
• Also at Brain Pickings, Sylvia Plath's Drawings
• Crime and Punishment as a Pie Chart over at PWxyz
• Ummmm, ewww!  Erotic retelling of Jane Eyre from Pan Macmillian called "Jane Eyre Laid Bare" over at The Bookseller (seriously?  when is this Fifty Shades/poorly written erotica/awful fan fiction trend going to be over???  What's next?  Pride, Prejudice, and Penetration?  Leave your best suggestions for titles of classics that could be on deck for a sensual retelling).

(image via Huff Post Books)

Review: Desperate Characters by Paula Fox

title:  Desperate Characters [purchase here]

author:  Paula Fox

genre: literary fiction

pages: 156

published: 1970

source:  New York Public Library

"Monday had always been a terrible trouble--once she had tried to stay awake all Sunday night to forestall her mother's grim and unforgiving presence in her doorway--but she had fallen asleep just before dawn, to be awakened two hours later by her mother clapping her hands relentlessly over the bed, her face shining from her morning scrub, dressed in a starched house dress, saying over and over, "Early risers are the winners."  It had been thirty years since Sophie had been roused by that derisive applause; she had not yet discovered the nature of the prize her mother's words had once led her to believe existed.  Perhaps winning had simply meant the tyranny of waking others."  (p. 147)

Some authors are amazing at creating a compelling story.  Others, at creating compelling, realistically-rendered characters.  Few are adept at both.  Paula Fox's Desperate Characters places her firmly in the character-development camp, and inhabits a place in the spectrum somewhere between Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, a novel that is super character-driven but where a ton happens, and Teju Cole's Open City, which is almost entirely character-driven and very little happens.  

As I read this book, the opening line from Anna Karenina kept popping into my head ("All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."). Jonathan Franzen loves Desperate Characters, and its influence on his writing is obvious.  Franzen is the patron saint of unhappy-middle-class-white-families, and often his characters are so intricately and realistically rendered that they're often polarizingly (I like to turn things into adverbs) unlikable.  In fact, I know of more people who stopped reading The Corrections because they hated everyone in it, than I know people who finished it.  All of Fox's characters that make up Desperate Characters' unhappy-middle-class-white-family are fairly self-involved, which, at least for me, created enough space that I found it hard to empathize with them.  Usually, self-absorbed characters can be a turn off for me, but Fox's skill was so evident that, for once, surprisingly, it didn't matter.  

The story follows Sophie and Otto, a middle-aged married couple, who are each unhappy in their own way. I would argue that it's not that they're unhappily married; it's that they're unhappy, and also married.  Their unhappiness seems to go beyond how they feel about the other.  In the first few pages of the story, Sophie, the main character, is bit by a stray cat.  The entirety of the action takes place over the course of several days, during which the bite swells and everyone and their mother tries to persuade her to get it checked out by a doctor, an idea Sophie staunchly resists.  At the same time, Otto, a lawyer, has parted ways with his longtime legal partner, Charlie, and Charlie isn't taking the separation well (i.e. he gets drunk. And makes creepy phone calls).  For such a short span of time and only 156 pages, a lot happens.  Otto and Sophie attend a party.  Charlie gets bombed and shows up on their doorstep in the middle of the night.  Sophie has lunch with an old friend who has one of the most dysfunctional, codependent divorce situations I've ever encountered in literature.  They catch the stray cat.  No one gets much sleep.  


As I mentioned, I struggled to like both Sophie and Otto.  Sophie, through her persistent passivity, seems to be her own worst enemy.  Otto is all opinions all the time, though he doesn't come across as the most reflective person.  But even for their unattractive qualities, both were wholly presented and developed over the course of the narrative; even if I didn't like them per se, I still found them compelling.  I wanted to see what happened to them next, not because I cared about them, but because I wanted to follow Fox where she was going.  I can see why Franzen returns to this piece again and again.


Also, in terms of craft, Fox is a technically astounding:

"Sophie stood motionless in the hall.  The living room looked smudged, flat.  Objects, their outlines beginning to harden in the growing light, had a shadowy, totemic menace.  Chairs, tables, and lamps seemed to have only just assumed their accustomed positions.  There was an echo in the air, a peculiar pulsation as of interrupted motion." (p. 47)

I mean, damn.  What an image!


Rubric rating:  7.5.  Strong.  I'll definitely pick up more by Fox in the future.

From page to film: thoughts?

Two new trailers have hit the web over the past couple weeks, one for Baz Lurhmann's re-imagining (??) of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and the other for Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  My thoughts, and each trailer, just in case you haven't seen them yet:

Even if you watch the trailer with no sound, it's clearly textbook Lurhmann:  the man knows how to shoot a gorgeous looking party.  But dear lord, autotune????  Seriously???  So we couldn't procure the rights to any era-appropriate music???  I love Gatsby.  It's one of my favorite of Fitzgerald's works and the thought of it being turned into a coke/ecstasy-fueled debauched romp just breaks my heart a bit.  Luhrmann tends to favor spectacle over story, and if what he did to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is any indication of how he'll treat Gatsby...count me out.  

Gah.  I *hate* this new trend of letting celebrities sing for themselves.  If Anne Hathaway wasn't Anne Hathaway, would anyone really want to hear her warble?  I mean, she's not terrible, and I love Anne Hathaway (she's come a long way since The Princess Diaries and girl can act!) and I get that casting big name actors and actresses fills seats in the theater...but man.  There have been so many super talented women who've played Fantine over the years who can SING.  Visually, the movie looks stunning, but since the last time I read Les Mis was in, oh, fourth grade, I'll have to revisit it before seeing it...which will probably be On Demand...next summer... 

So what are your thoughts on these two trailers?  Excited?  Terrified?  Will you see either of the movies?

Speculative Review of the Week: Before the World Intrudes by Michele Rosenthal

As a reviewer, I'm constantly receiving emails from all over the place with requests to review a variety of books...and I've noticed a trend:  the vast majority of the requests I get are to review the most tragic looking memoirs. 


Now, I love me a well-written memoir, where the memoirist has experienced something unique or has something compelling to share.  Examples of awesome memoirs:

1.  Dry by Augusten Burroughs
2. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
4. The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
5.  Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood by Julie Gregory 
6. Oh The Glory Of It All by Sean Wilsey
7.  Oh The Hell Of It All by Pat Montadon 
(I haven't had a chance to read this one yet, but I'm looking forward to Wilsey's mother's rebuttal to Wilsey's version of his childhood!)

I've noticed a trend in the many press releases that flood my inbox.  I like to call this trend "shock and schlock." The adversity faced by the memoirist is pitched as "shocking" and "tragic," and the contents of the press release are thoroughly schlocky, relying too heavily on cheap emotional pandering.   So I've decided to go out on a limb and write a speculative review of some of the memoirs sent my way based on cover art and pitch letters.

Up first:  Before the World Intrudes:  Conquering the Past and Creating the Future by Michele Rosenthal

Title:  +1 (for the subtitle) and -1 (for use of the phrase "conquering the past." Ick.)  

Cover art: +10.  Well played.  I like beaches.  I like zebras.  I'm confused as to why the zebra is on the beach, and what that has to do with the title (is the beach the world and the zebra the symbolic intrusion? or am I over-thinking this?) but that would make me stop in a bookstore and pick up the book to read the summary, which is half the battle in the over-saturated memoir market.  

Writerly chops/street cred:  -5.  Also the author of, I shit you not, Rock Rules! The Ultimate Rock Band Book.  (Korn?!?  Seriously?!?) That, understandably, was not highlighted in the press release. This, unfortunately, negates the points I was going to award for her having an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College.

Shock: How adverse the adversity?  +9.5. On an adversity scale with one being occasional eczema and a ten being HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD?!?!?, Rosenthal scores a solid 9.5.  From the press release: 

"In 1981 Michele Rosenthal was given a popular antibiotic to cure a common infection. What happened next was anything but common: due to an undiscovered allergy Michele developed Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Syndrome (TENS), an illness that essentially turned her into a full-body burn victim. Michele lost 100% of her epidermis. Unable to face or integrate the memories of her illness, Michele embarked on a journey to move into the future and forget about her past. Instead, she found herself plagued by anxiety, fear, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, post-traumatic stress and frequent health problems."

Rosenthal lost her skin.  LOST. HER. SKIN.  AH! The only way she could have possibly earned more points was if she managed to write the memoir while still skinless a la Jean-Dominique Bauby penning his memoir by BLINKING HIS LEFT EYE, but she was thirteen at the time.  Still...no skin.  None.   That's some adverse adversity.  

Schlock: How triumphal the triumph?   +8.  Rosenthal has recovered from her PTSD (and, spoiler alert, judging by her author photo, her skin has grown back) and is now, predictably, a post-trauma coach, motivational key-note speaker, poet and radio show host, helping others, and I quote, "make the transition from powerless to powerful."  A bit emotionally loaded in terms of language (smacks of self-help-y rhetoric and as a poet, I would hope she could find a better way of expressing such trite sentiment), but you know what?  If I was given an antibiotic and my SKIN BURNED OFF, I can only imagine I'd develop post-traumatic stress disorder, too.  I think the situation calls for a little self-help-y rhetoric.

God factor: -.5 for only one light religious referencing of healing her soul (Just a matter of personal taste, I like my memoirs light on the preaching and relatively Jesus free).  

Alternate title:  Thank Goodness for Therapy and Cellular Regeneration: One Woman's Triumph over LOSING ALL HER SKIN.

Highly scientific speculative tolerablility rating: 22

The Literary Link List

Links to pieces, old and new, on literature:

• The Most Cryptic Titles in Literature (And What They Mean) over at Flavorwire
• Nine Writers and Publicists Tell All About Readings and Book Tours over at The Awl 
• The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do over at McSweeney's Internet Tendency
• "Suicide is Preferable":  Ralph Waldo Emerson on Jane Austen over at Book Riot
• Even David Foster Wallace Nods over at The Millions ( I LOVE the back and forth in the comments over whether or not my beloved DFW did or did not use a not-right-enough word).

Review: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (subtitled: I absolutely overuse parentheticals).

title: Brideshead Revisited [purchase here]

author: Evelyn Waugh

genre: fiction

pages: 315

published: 1944

source:  New York Public Library

GENERAL SPOILER ALERT:  If you've never read Brideshead Revisited, and would like to discover it with no previous knowledge of the plot, I suggest you stop here.  Since it was published in 1944, I'm writing with the assumption that I'm the one late to the party and many of you lovers of literary fiction have probably either read it already or are super familiar with the plot.  So, if not, stop.  Now.  You've been warned.  

Confession time:  Until a few years ago, I thought Evelyn Waugh's name was pronounced Eh-vah-lynn Wow, and that he was a she.  I wish I were kidding.  One of the great epic fails in book snobbery.  Regardless, every time I passed the "W" section at the bookstore or library, I'd see her his titles with their gorgeous cover art...but upon reading the back summary and coming to the words "set against the backdrop of World War II," I usually put the book back on the shelf.  With few exceptions, I love historical fiction...as long as the book doesn't take place entirely in the trenches. Before you yell, please note that I'm sure my bias has kept me from discovering a great many tomes. I just have a hard time getting into several hundred pages of war and destruction and blood and death and politics and guns and moral turmoil and brotherly bonding/bromance, etc.  I know full well that there are many notable works of literature (mostly by dead white dudes) with fabulous plot lines and gorgeous prose (A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls...well, just Hemingway in general, War and Peace,  All Quiet on the Western Front), and I'm sure I'll slug through a few of them for the general-betterment-of-self/expansion-of-overall-cultural-literacy at some point...it's just not my favorite.  

BUT a few months ago, I DVR'd (yes, I still DVR) Brideshead Revisited when it aired on Ovation and fell in love with the story.  And when Waugh's name came up again in the Mitford biography I'm reading (he was friends with Nancy Mitford and is said to have taken inspiration from the Mitford kids among other Bright Young Things of the era), I read up on him and decided to add this and Vile Bodies to my 30-before-30 literary bucket list.

Brideshead Revisited is, in fact, set in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the years leading up to World War II, though only the prologue takes us anywhere near the trenches (phew!).  Charles Ryder, our narrator, and his unit are stationed at Brideshead, which serves as catalyst for Charles to reflect on how he came to know the house and to tell the story of his two great loves who grew up there: Sebastian and Julia Flyte. 

I know there's debate as to whether the nature of the deep relationship between Charles and Sebastian had a sexual aspect....in my opinion, Charles' love for Sebastian (and vice versa) was absolutely romantic (see the definition), in terms of their relationship being imbued with their desire for adventure and their idealization of and total dependence on the other, often steeped in a reality exclusively their own.  Also, I think they probably had sex at one point. Or at more than one point.  Or at least fooled around.  It was an era of experimentation (booze!  jazz!), and it wasn't super uncommon for young men to experiment that way in boarding school or when away at college, or because they were, in fact, gay or bisexual, etc.  (n.b. Tom Mitford, brother of Nancy Mitford et al, for example, is thought to have had at least one homosexual relationship in his youth and according to this Telegraph UK article, Waugh may or may not have been involved at one point with a gentlemen who has been said to have inspired Sebastian). I loved the contrast Waugh was able to strike between the love shared by Charles and Sebastian and the love shared by Charles and Julia.  Charles and Sebastian's relationship imploded because, in a way, they preferred to cling to the idealized version of the other (it's hard to live in the reality where the person you feel closest to is an alcoholic with some fairly deep emotional problems.  I think, in many ways, Sebastian's flight to Morocco, etc. occurred out of love for Charles, to protect Charles from destructive force he knew he had become.  Maybe on some level, Charles understood it as the gift of a unmarred, idyllic past, as he says on page 203 "These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me.").  Charles and Julia's romance imploded because they failed to move beyond the reality of their situation (i.e. Julia's deeply entrenched Catholic belief system was a tad restrictive, and then there was her nagging insistence upon avoiding eternal damnation...a bit prohibitive to a divorce/second marriage to another divorcee who also happens to be an agnostic).  It's a book as much about denial as it is about desire, and how both can be acts of love.  

My favorite character by far was Cordelia, Sebastian Flyte's young sister, and I died laughing at scene where she talks Catholicism with Charles upon their first meeting:

"[Cordelia says] 'D'you know, if you weren't an agnostic, I should ask you for five shillings to buy a black god-daughter.'

[Charles] 'Nothing will surprise me about your religion.'

[Cordelia] 'It's a new thing a missionary priest started last term.  You send five bob to some nuns in Africa and they christen a baby and name her after you.  I've got six black Cordelias already.  Isn't it lovely?' "(p. 82)

She's so precocious, and fancies herself to be so forward thinking, yet she acts almost as a mirror against which Waugh is able to reflect back everything he saw wrong with the Catholic church at the time (and possibly with religion in general, but given that he and I never discussed the matter, this is purely conjecture), but she's also such a likable character due to her youth and wit.  Through Cordelia especially, Waugh shows us how no person is only one thing; that no thing is either solely good or bad.  

Waugh was such a dynamic and flexible writer.  He possessed such a gift for characterization and voice! I wish I had even a fraction of his stylistic dexterity!  (Just a fraction! I'm not greedy!)  Even at the most tragic moments, Waugh's wit (I can't help noting these observational zingers as evocative of Oscar Wilde at his best in The Picture of Dorian Gray) shines through.  For example, when Lord Marchmain is dying, his mistress Cara says this of his condition:  "His heart; some long word at the heart.  He is dying of a long word."  (p. 288)

Rubric rating: 8.5.  I need to read a few more titles by him before I definitively and officially induct him into the personal pantheon, but DAMN was he talented!

Update:  I've now finished 3 of the 30 titles (27 to go!) on my 30-before-30 literary bucket list, with three more in progress.

Classics:  
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald **
Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger **
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy **
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Pale Fire by Vladmir Nabokov


Contemporary:  
Arcadia by Lauren Groff  (in progress)
Celebrity Chekhov by Ben Greenman
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe
Blindness by Jose Saramago **
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruiki Murakami
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart 
Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Men in the Off Hours by Anne Carson
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson **
The Descent of Alette by Alice Notely **
Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky
The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
The Old Child and Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck (in progress)

Spirit Seizures by Melissa Pritchard

Nonfiction/Essays: 
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell 

(in progress) 

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Possessed by Elif Batuman
Zona by Geoff Dyer
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford


** rereading

Birds of Lace reading at the Mustard Beak

Friday night, feminist press Birds of Lace sponsored a reading at Queens art space Mustard Beak featuring the work of Gina Abelkop, Carrie Murphy, Rohin Guha, Jason Helm,  and Niina Pollari.  

A few words on the Mustard Beak art space:  it's located off the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop of the L on Gates Ave in the basement of an apartment building.  Now, to enter the space, you have to descend the absolute scariest concrete stairs I've ever used:  uneven, of drastically different heights and widths, covered in broken glass and trash...if I had known I'd be straight up urban hiking, I would have worn slightly more appropriate footwear (i.e. not my new amazing wedges!  The way back up after several Yuenglings was equally treacherous, if not more so. You have been warned!).  

That said, what a great art space!  Spare and intimate, with Christmas lights strung along the pipes and a pleasant note of incense in the air (politely and effectively disguising the typical musty basement smell), it was perfectly suited to hold the 20-30 people in attendance.  Ideal for the starving artist on a budget.

I'm a big fan of small, independent presses.  I feel like, more often than not, major publishing houses, in the interest of profit, either publish authors they feel like may bring major literary accolades OR writers who they can acquire for cheap and publish at a profit, which leaves a lot of young talent in the lurch (i.e. a writer working out of the box, or who has created something a bit more innovative might not sell as well as a, say, poorly written YA paranormal romance novel about chaste teenage love).  I am continually delighted by work that I stumble upon coming out of some of the small presses.  

A few highlights from the readings:

Gina Abelkop

Gina read from her poem collection Darling Beastlettes, which is now taking up residence in my to-read pile.  Full disclosure:  I don't know a ton about poetry in terms of what makes a poem technically "good," BUT I know what I like.  Abelkop is really adept at creating interesting and lyrical images, which she reads beautifully. I'm really looking forward to curling up with her collection!

Carrie Murphy

I went to high school with Carrie, and am so proud of all she's accomplished.  She recently completed her MFA at New Mexico State University, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011 for her poem "Ocean City" by NAP magazine, and her first full-length collection of poems is available NOW from Keyhole Press.  Buy it here!  Loved the pieces she shared and I can't wait to get my hands on my own copy of Pretty Tilt.

In other news, I got a new Flaubert inspired tattoo!  Pics coming soon, once it's healed a bit more :)

How To Books I can't imagine anyone needs

Thursday, the Huffington Post posted a slide show of the most absurdly niche-specific how-to books I've seen yet.  I'm sure they've each sold tens of copies.  A few of my favorites:

Oddly enough, not the only book on this topic.  I have a vivid memory of my mother and I, when I was a teenager, coming across a book at the Baltimore County Public Library dedicated to collecting your pet's hair to make yarn and dying laughing at the premise/instructions.  

Oh yeah. Cheap plastic with DIY wiring in my lady region sounds like a GREAT idea. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Also by this author:  The Distracted Cowboy's Guide to Common Equestrian Injuries

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe presents GEEK WEEK

Now, to be clear:  I'm a book nerd, not a "geek" per say (to be specific with our terms of dork-ery), but I thought this was pretty clever marketing.  If they had a "literary snob" week, I'd be ALL OVER THAT.

Salon on the death (??) of chick lit

Is chick lit finally over???? I sure as hell hope so...

Review: The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

title: The Lake [purchase here]

author: Banana Yoshimoto

genre: fiction

pages: 188

source:  New York Public Library

It was this blurb on The Millions about Yoshimoto's The Lake being shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize that prompted me to pick it up:

"The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto: She’s big in Japan, inspiring a cult following and selling upwards of six million novels, but Banana Yoshimoto will always polarise opinion. Critics may be tempted to call her Murakami-lite, given her fondness for the same kind of broad subjects as her heavyweight compatriot – ultra-modern and slightly otherworldy paeans to urban restlessness. But that comparison probably doesn’t do Yoshimoto too much justice. Certainly, Murakami could learn from her brevity. The Lake revolves around the relationship between two fragile students, Chihiro and Nakajima. Nakajima bears the scars of a terrible past, and the plot – such as it is – concerns Chihiro’s attempts to figure him out (complete with a visit to a couple of Nakajima’s mysterious old friends who live in a run-down shack by the side of a conveniently misty lake). It has its moments, and her champions – of whom there are many – will doubtless shout her claims from the rooftops. But if this was the best book to come out of Asia this year then I’m – well – a Banana."

After reading The Lake, I'm planting myself firmly on Team "Murakami-lite."  I'd even argue that although 1Q84 could have done with a bit of editing, Yoshimoto has far more to learn from Murakami in terms of character development and literary language.  Yoshimoto's narrative is spare, almost arid.  I had expected her style to be simple, but not barren. What drew me to the book was all the buzz I'd read about the story.  The story was supposed to be so compelling, so mysterious...I just didn't find it so.  I just don't get what all the fuss is about.  

Back when I was a teacher, one of the teaching points we spent a lot of time on during the Writer's Workshop was the concept of "show not tell" when developing a character.  Granted, I was teaching first and second grade, where "show not tell" was incredibly basic (read: instead of telling me you felt sad, show me what you said and did and looked like that would let your reader know that you felt sad).  Yoshimoto could brush up a bit on her "show not tell" technique.  The story is written in first person from the perspective of Chihiro, an artist who starts a relationship with a young man who lives across the street.  Instead of letting the reader infer how Chihiro is feeling or evolving over the course of the story, nine times out of ten Yoshimoto has Chihiro just tell us in a super straightforward manner, which seems a bit elementary.  Maybe it was an intentional stylistic decision, but for me, it felt too easy. 

Rubric rating:  4. If this was the best book to come out of Asia this year then I'm--well--stunned.  

Late to the Party...

My daily email blast from Publisher's Weekly today highlighted some of the most popular book-related memes of 2011.  I'm sure many of you are familiar with the abundance of Ryan Gosling related tumblrs out there. Perhaps I'm behind on my non-Gosling related literary humor, but this made me chuckle so I had to share.  It appealed to my inner book snob ;)


Ladies and gentlemen: Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich


A few of my personal favorites: