Yeah, I know it's already April, and many of the titles listed in The Millions' most anticipated books of 2010 are already out. But now's a good chance to catch up on those major releases that came out in January and February that you missed. And to see what's still to come.
Doing some Internet research for author website links (I've just redone all my links -- Look, just to the right there. Yes, that's it. Those.), what caught my eye was a new novel due in August from Jonathan Franzen called Freedom. Nine years after The Corrections, one of my favorite books from the last ten years. I wasn't impressed by his lastest story published in the New Yorker, Good Neighbors, supposedly an excerpt from Freedom. Too much tell, almost no show--more a synopsis of a novel then a short story. Regardless, few writers elicit my can't-wait-to-read dar.
Also in 2010, lots more newly translated material from Robert Bolaño. Four new books out this year, including Monsieur Pain (January), Antwerp (April), The Return (July), and The Insufferable Gaucho (August). While the New Yorker still can't get enough of postumous Bolaño -- see William Burns, from last February -- they're also questioning how much is too much of a good thing by calling attention to the backlash. I'm still working my way through 2666. The part about the crimes. So I'll stay out of it, thanks all the same.
Interested in knowing what other books are on the horizon? Check out this list at amazon.
This end-of-year post isn't late, just well thought-out. What follows are synopses of books and graphic novels read and TV shows discovered in 2009. (Stay tuned for part 2: music and movies, and stuff that made me go Meh.)
Books The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Many of the comic and gaming culture references leaped over my head, but Junot Diaz' story of a depressed, bull-headed, outcast who finds love with the very woman he should run from, is a sumptuous, heady look at one of the most unusual but vivid characters introduced in the aughts.
Mohawk. Richard Russo's tender, tough, surprising first novel vivisects the underpinnings and undoings of a small upper New York town at the end of its industrial era. A fading town, seething secrets, longing, and lust. Half-way through Russo tosses his characters in a cup, shakes them up, then jumps them a couple years ahead. I never knew what was coming, and that's all you can ask of a good read. The prose sometimes smacks of mid-80s work shopping, but is never dull.
Lost City Radio. A thinly-veiled look at contemporary Peru filtered through the story of an unnamed South American city. Daniel Alarcon's odyssey follows Norma, host of a radio program called Lost City Radio, who helps citizens find their relatives lost to jungle wars and political unrest. When her own husband goes missing, boy comes into her life who she thinks can help her uncover the truth. Harrowing, tender, and unforgettable.
2666. The paperback came out in 2009, although I already had the boxed set from 2008. I’m only partially through book four of six, the part about the crimes, but already 2666 is the opus that everyone claims. Richer and looser than The Savage Detectives, Bolano, in his final written work, leads the reader through hundreds of vignettes to shape a tapestry of yearning, forward motion, and loss.
The bravado of the prose is so grounded it keeps you reading even through descriptions of dozens of murders of women in the fictional northern Mexican city of Santa Teresa. And who is this mysterious writer named Archimboldi that a passel of critics are trying to track down? And why does his trail lead them to Santa Teresa?
Revolutionary Road. Stark, honest, naked, vicious. With this portrait of a young couple in the New York suburbs, Richard Yates rewrote the rules for how married characters think and act in literature. A glorious achievement that I will probably reread every few years to remind myself what writers are capable of. A template for how to construct a novel, and how to reveal layers.
Last Night at the Lobster. Stewart O'Nan's portrait of a snow-bound Red Lobster franchise during its last shift before shutting down. The day evolves in crisp detail through the point of view of Manny, the 35 year old restaurant manager. It's a novella, so there's no time for back story or flashbacks. This book doesn't need them. O'Nan clearly presents Manny's longing for a coworker while he simultaneously struggles to buy the perfect Christmas gift for his girlfriend. Quietly hopeful, and full of longing, small betrayals, and loves, this little Lobster delivers big (pull-quote of the year folks! I got a million of 'em).
Graphic Novels Noir. An anthology of illustrated crime stories in stark but effective black and white, Noir brings together many wonderful contemporary storytellers working different angles of noir. Contributors include Ed Brubaker, Kano, David Lapham, Ken Lizzi, and novelist Chris Offutt. Here we have straight up crime stories of hitmen, kidnappings, robberies, and other shady dealings. Entertaining and thrilling, Noir packs small, lethal punches.
Filthy Rich. Set in 1960s New Jersey and Manhattan, Filthy Rich is a story of how an ex high school football star nicknamed Junk becomes the bodyguard/chaperone to the daughter of a powerful Jersey used car dealer. An assignment for which nothing good can come. Written by Brian Azzarello (also a contributor to Noir) with art by Victor Santos, Filthy Rich is a frenetic, sometimes elliptical tale supported by stylized black and white illustrations of tough brutes with square jaws, hot dames with soft lines, hard hearts, and big boobs. Nice retro feel to the dialogue and characterizations. One hitch to full enjoyment is how Santos' busy frames and fussy lines make many of the male characters look confusingly similar, and the smaller trade paperback-sized format hinders a full appreciation of each panel.
TV I finally allowed myself to get sucked into the wonderful world of Mad Men, that retro look at the workplace of mid-town Manhattan in the early 60s. Where men were encouraged to smoke, drink, and treat women like objects. And women were only beginning to find ways out of this trap. Mad Men avoids repetition with strong characterization, writing, and stories that never stray far from the strong atmosphere of an advertising company.
Something happened on Wednesday nights that I can’t quite explain: I became a fan of Cougar Town starring Courtney Cox as randy, goofy, selfish, charming real estate agent Jules. It’s a breezy show; each week the story lines concern nothing more than Jules worrying about crow's feet, looking younger, and hanging with her neighbors in a cozy Florida cul-de-sac where everybody has a swimming pool and it’s always sunny! Always! Courtney is gloriously game, and her comic timing, honed from years on Friends, runs circles around the rest of the very funny and believable cast.
What are some of the books you discovered last year? What TV shows can't you live without?
Gifts from my family of readers and writers. There have been more books coming into the house than going out. I cannot possibly read fast enough. On my shelves currently are books that will take a literal decade to read. But, read them I will. I'm not quite ready for 2666, but should begin Junot Díaz after I finish Memorial (by Bruce Wagner), which is another of his scathing, hilarious looks at fucked up L.A. denizens. Bret Lott: had heard of him for years but had never read him. The first story is surreal, which must set the tone for the other stories. Bird By Bird starts off with an excellent intro, and looks to be a great read on the craft of writing. John McDonald is a Maine humorist. First story deals with the hilarious situation of a man waking to his wife dead in bed next to him. Hmm, Maine has an interesting idea about what's funny, but I'll give Mr. McDonald another whirl one of these days.
Winter Listening
The Pavement is a gift. The other stuff I bought recently on impulse. I guess it's finally happened: my musical tastes are living in the past. Can you blame me? How can the emo/electroclash/folk/thrash ramblings of a twenty-year-old hold my interest? Been there, heard that. It's all derivative of the stuff I've been listening to for years anyway. It's just shiny new and digital. With better hair. So, I love digging into the past few decades to see what I missed or to buy stuff like this Pavement reissue or Boston's own Big Dipper anthology, Supercluster. These lovingly restored releases come with bonus tracks, live stuff, unreleased tracks, and demo versions. It's like discovering the same music all over again. The Boo Radleys disc is from 1992 and is entirely influenced by the shoegazer sound of the time. Also sounds nothing like their later very British pop releases.
It exhibited all of Anderson’s worst storytelling tendencies, such as dropping a tragedy into the middle of the movie as a kind of trick to make the audience feel sympathetic for rather shallow, surly characters. Also, there is no real dramatic tension. The only scene that truly comes alive (aside from the gorgeous prelude section called Hotel Chevalier) is a flashback where the three main brother characters meet in Manhattan to deal with their newly dead father's car (if I remember correctly).
Part 1 of Hotel Chevalier (FYI: rated R, ya'll):
He's in preproduction now on The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The IMDB synopsis says it's about "Angry farmers, tired of sharing their chickens with a sly fox, look to get rid of their opponent and his family."
So Bottle Rocket will help pass the time until Anderson's next flick makes it to the big screen.
I’m not sure I can stand to look at another photo of David Foster Wallace. The one that especially kills me is the one where he’s outside, in shadows, staring down. He looks like he can’t wait to do what he finally did in September of this year: hang himself. He was 46.
I can name a dozen writers, purveyors of bad writing all, I wish would also follow through on this solipsistic death wish, but don’t. (Not yet anyway). And then there’s DFW, who did. He was a manic depressive and fought this most of his life. He went off his meds, from what I can tell, and was never able to live life in any way that could fulfill him and make him happy. He never thought he was good enough. Even though he was more than good enough in his students’ eyes and for his devoted readers.
The end of a year brings reflection for what has come in the last 300 fifty whatever days. Only because magazines and newspapers make us reflect. Because they have to fill in the few weeks at the end of the year with fodder that can be written ahead of time while the staff takes the holidays off. But, I’d be lying if I said I don’t read over the top ten lists and the notable deaths with interest.
Mixing all of this (deaths, top ten lists, writers) comes Roberto Bolaño and his latest posthumously translated novel 2666 (mentioned three times now in the past month on this blog). Bolaño didn’t kill himself. At least, not intentionally. But he died young. At age 50. In 2002. He did not live to see the translation of 2666 reach the American bestseller lists and numerous top ten best of end-of-year greatest-thing-ever until-next-year award mention notice countdown.
DFW and RB are dead. But they have more in common than being praised, lauded writers who died young. They both wrote at least one behemoth novel that scraped at greatness, whether by design or marketing savvy. 2666 is over 900 pages long, published simultaneously in hardcover and in a set of three paperbacks. DFW was in his 30s when his doorstop of a book, Infinite Jest, was published.
Over a thousand pages long, with almost two hundred more pages of end notes, the thing was a brilliant mash-up mess of meta entertainment and faux history (and it took place in Massachusetts. Bonus!). Well, that’s what I hear anyway. I didn’t actually read it. I got to about page 150 while trying to keep up with all the end note references (the only book I’ve read necessitating two bookmarks working simultaneously). I eventually traded it in for credit at some used book store that is probably closed now. I caught up with his work when I read his wonderful collection of essays, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” Where DFW goes on a cruise and to a state fair and does nothing more, and nothing less, than write about his experiences. Along with maybe some relevant history and research. Entertaining and enlightening. Maybe everything he ever wanted to be, he was already.
And so then I went on two Internet dates in the late nineties with a grad student who had been a student teacher at the same school where DFW taught writing in the mid-nineties. She said he was a nice guy who was attracted to gregarious women because he was basically shy and introverted (Really? A writer who’s introverted?). She described witnessing women (or overhearing about? Or possibly trying herself?) crowbar-ing their way into his life, trying to grab his attention in the most ‘outgoing’ ways. One woman climbed his fire escape and threw dog shit through his window to get his attention. It worked and he let her in. I tell this story for no reason but to show that the celebrity of a writer, the cult of a writer, has nothing (should have nothing) to do with his writing. The writer should be invisible and the writing should stand up for itself. I avoid looking at author photos. It deflates the experience of reading a book even before I’ve read the first line. I don’t really want to know what the writer looks like, where he lives, where he went to school, how many publishing credits he has to his name, and how many years younger he is.
DFW was already pretty famous before he died. Bolaño has become relatively famous in American in part because he’s dead, and dead writers (especially dangerous Chilean writers with an abundant, posthumously translated back catalog) hold an undeniable mystique that all the Oprah and NYT bestseller list appearances can’t assuage. But in death, both writers are being canonized, lionized, lovingly glanced at over the shoulders of bestselling, genre writers by an adoring reading public that includes gregarious flirty girls, readers who connect on some generational level with these authors, lovers of damn good writing, and the curious who have come to these writers after the fact, either to chase the ambulance or to see what all the literary fuss is about.
If nobody knew about DFW and RB, would their deaths matter so much now? I guess if I follow my own theory, my own sick logic, then the only thing that matters is the writing, the work, and the author can kill himself ten times over while the writing stands on its own merits. But I know what both writers look like, I’ve seen the author photos, the dust jackets depicting their tragic, elegiac images at different ages and times, and I know how each died (Bolaño died of liver failure, possibly deriving from complications of early heroin use) and all I can say now is I wish both were still alive to feed us hungry readers, us craving fans, just a bit more of that sweet great good writing.
Benjamin Button So, there I was last night, doing some online banking or something, and Liz was fast forwarding some commercials to get to the meat of the latest John Stewart (we videotape the previous night’s shows—no tivo for us) when she stops at a commercial. The commercial quick cuts to some pop song I’ve never heard and features more production value than your average Coke commercial (although you’d be shocked at the price tags for those babies). I sit mesmerized at the breadth of the thing. What the hell is…oh, it’s a preview for Benjamin Button, the new David Fincher movie. Or the new Brad Pitt movie, depending on your preference. It’s based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, of all things. But the trailer makes it look grandiose, epic.
Here's another trailer to the movie (not the one I caught on TV):
I used to go see every movie that came out. Every Friday night I’d head over to the Orleans Cinema on the Cape and check out the latest lame-brained comedy, monster movie, or thriller, no matter what it was. I may not have even heard of the movie, the reviews not having made my little outlying burg two hours from the nearest major city. Today I just can’t see every movie that comes out. Physically or fiscally. There are too many movies. Too few art house cinemas. Just too much product.
So, I’m admittedly intrigued by this Benjamin Button movie, based on a few things. No, I won’t see a movie based solely on a trailer. But, it will focus my attention to take a closer look. As a filmmaker, David Fincher has a singular style and is drawn to particular types of material that often align with my interests as a movie goer. His movies are always beautifully rendered slabs of celluloid magic. His attention for detail and for the craft of storytelling is pretty enviable. So, you sort of know what you’re in for when you see his movies. I will probably go see this movie. I’ve read an early review (Variety is a good source) and it was mainly positive. I don’t go to a movie based solely in a positive review either, but when there are so many movies to choose from, yes, a litany of predominantly good reviews may send me to a movie faster than an army of bad ones.
Benjamin Button comes out Christmas Day. I’ll let you know what I think. Maybe I’ll even read the Fitzgerald story, too.
2666 on Bestseller List. Savage Sold Out. With Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 perched on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller lists (33 the last I checked) it is apparently affecting sales of his other work, specifically the already successful The Savage Detectives. Frequenting bookstores this past weekend, I discovered that at least two book stores were sold out of the title. You’d think these savvy booksellers would have seen the interest in ancillary Bolaño some distance off and made preparations. Note to booksellers: Get Bolaño savvy. It just makes good business sense.
Harvard Book Store Warehouse Discount bookstores must be the shit these days. I visited my third one in the past month or so. Sunday I drove into Somerville in not-so-bad holiday shopping traffic to brave the Harvard Book Store Warehouse. Harvard Book Store is wonderful independently-owned bookstore in Harvard Square, not affiliated with the university as far as I know. They carry new and used books along with an impressive, thoughtful selection of remainders.
The warehouse version of their store has remainders of every stripe (including some great deals on art and photography books), plus stacks upon rows upon more stacks of used books, including dollar aisles and rare used books. I admit I only bought one book. A gift. For 50 cents. I was ashamed to check out with one piddly book, but the checkout girl told me she and her cohorts had been reading the book out loud all morning and deemed it hilarious. Also, a bell should ring every time somebody buys the book. She thought. That made me feel better.
Note: this may have been a special event. Not sure their warehouse is open to the public on a regular basis. In case you were ready to run off to Porter Square to track them down.
Here's a shot of their Harvard Square location: Miss Lonelyhearts Pays a Visit I know there are millions of blogs all over this series of tubes and wires. But I’d like to take this opportunity to interrupt your busy holiday shopping schedule to tout a new voice on the scene. A new prolific blogger whose insight into the daily plights of the average (and maybe in his case, not so average--I mean this in a good way) college student is cast in bold, shiny relief for all to witness. When you need a smile, when you need proof that kids these days aren’t just gun toting, drug-snorting thugs, cleavage-baring billboards of vapidity, or super-nerd video game txting fools, tune in to the gentle musings of one Neil Everett and his Miss Lonelyhearts Pays a Visit. Sure he’s my nephew, but I think you’ll agree that his daily epistles will wrest a smile from your weary mug or make you mist up reading his cutting, spot-on insight into life’s bittersweet moments that maybe only a kid today can make you feel nostalgic for.
A few months ago I finished reading the English translation of Roberto Bolaño’sThe Savage Detectives. I’m a slow reader, plus I read more than one book at a time, but the time expense was worth the enviously dizzying, meandering, and generally satisfying result. The Savage Detectives doesn’t feature any detectives in the classic Merriam-Webster definition. Instead its pages are populated by hundreds of Latin American poets, wannabes, groupies, and hangers on. This mammoth book’s plot, if you can call it that, is a fractured, voluminous story of renegade Chilean poets who start an extremist poetry movement. These are young men and women using poetry to rebel and grow up and run off and make love and slowly or quickly die. The book reads like a progression of short stories, all connected, sometimes tenuously, by a core of poets that realizes the only way to speak out against repression in 1970s Central America is to kick in the teeth of established literary greats like Pablo Neruda.
The Savage Detectives shouts to the rooftops in a style that reminds me of sitting around a huge campfire with a hundred guests telling their stories of events surrounding the core poets. Imagine writing a book with a hundred different voices, spanning decades, and covering thousands of miles. Bolaño wrote like a man on fire. Which he sort of was: he died in 2003 at age 50. In the 1990s he knew he was a goner and he pushed his poetry aside and feverishly ground out short stories and novels. English translators are still catching up.
Just before he died, Bolaño completed what many critics are calling his greatest accomplishment, 2666, a novel published this week in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I don't have my copy yet, but it sounds sprawling, split into five sections that, from what I’ve read, could be five separate novels and is “…based in part on the still unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, in the Sonora desert near the Texas border.” It also no doubt touches upon many themes struck in Detectives (and it should be said, his short stories and other novels): literature as journey, as country, as a political ideal; sex and violence; spiritual longing; the search for home/country.
Adding to the mystique is that, while getting a proper release in hardback, it’s also being published concurrently as a set of three paperbacks. In a sleeve!
I love packaging: if the book looks unique, I’ll consider buying it based on physical merits. Plus 2666 is big. 900 pages big. I love big books. Well, the idea of them. I love picking them up and walking around the bookstore with them. And if I buy them I will certain start them and maybe the story will hold my interest enough to get to the end (often by page 200 you pretty much get the idea of any novel) and then I can let it sit like a trophy on my shelf. That’s what happened with DFW’s Infinite Jest; I never got past page 200. But I will come back to that one day. Promise.
2666 sounds irresistibly nuts and maybe groundbreaking and possibly disappointing and wonderfully huge. It’s one book, it’s three books, it’s one book. I guess the idea is to read it and find out. Coming so fresh off of The Savage Detectives I’m not sure I’m ready for another heady, heavy dose of Bolaño. But one thing is certain; I won’t be able to stay away for long.
