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After releasing their 100 notable books of 2007 recently, the New York Times recently pared that list down to their top ten books of the year.
They all seem like great books, but Denis Johnson’s National Book Award Winning novel Tree of Smoke seems to be the must-read book of the year. Every critic I know called it a masterpiece. Christmas present anyone?
Just in time for Christmas, the The New York Times released their 100 notable books of 2007. It includes many of the usual suspects, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth and Michael Chabon, but it also makes many unexpected but great selections.
For example, the Times had the wherewithal to choose Adriane Tomine’s Shortcomings, an impressive graphic novel previously reviewed by myself on this blog. Who knew the it could be so progressive with its choices?
Also, I was shocked to learn that I had actually read 3 of the notable books– Shortcomings, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Imperial Life in The Emerald City. But there are 97 other books I still haven’t read yet. So I say to the 4 or 5 friends and relatives who read my blog, I’ll take any of those as a present for Christmas and be happy.
Textual Flavors– i.e. Kate and I– would like to wish everyone a Happy Thankgiving.
Best Thanksgiving book ever written: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving of course.
Norman Mailer, maybe the most famous American writer of the past 50 years, died on Saturday. He was 84.
During his storied career, Mailer won two Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, helped found the Village Voice and along with Truman Capote was responsible for making the nonfiction novel into an art form. Not too shabby…
Haven’t read Moby Dick? Never managed to get through On the Road because you thought the writing kind of sucked? Never read anything by Tolstoy because reading a 1,000 page book just seemed to daunting? Well, you’re not alone. Recently Slate.com surveyed several contemporary authors about which of the “great” books they haven’t read. So if you never managed to read Ulysses, don’t fret. You’re in good company.
Great novel that I’ve never read but really should: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I’ve never made it past page 5. It’s sad really considering how much I loved Mrs. Dalloway. (I believe my blog partner in crime, Kate, said she would include any of the great Russian novels, like Crime & Punishment & Anna Karenina, on her list.)
Now I throw the question out to any of you who may read this: what great books haven’t you read?
The Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac
About halfway through The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac’s charismatic and meandering 1958 adventure novel, Ray Smith, Japhy Ryder and Henry Morley sit around a fire on top of Matterhorn Peak. As they discuss their day climbing the mountain, Ryder, based on the poet Gary Snyder, begins to speak excitedly about Walt Whitman,
“I’ve been reading Whitman, know what he says, Cheer up salves, and horrify foreign despots, he means that’s the attitude for the bard, the Zen Lunacy bards or old desert paths, see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume. I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.”
The speech is a wonder. Yes, it rambles; but it’s also passionate and thoughtful, and may be the best example of why so many love Kerouac and the Beats. Like many young people, Kerouac saw the so called “real world” and it didn’t make sense him. What he saw was a spiritually empty world. A culture that valued “all that crap they didn’t really want anyway” but didn’t value anything of importance like love. He saw most people were “imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume” for stuff “you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway.” What Kerouac valued above all else was freedom, and the world of his parents was slavery. And through his new found faith in Zen Buddhism infused with some regular guilt-laden Catholicism, Kerouac gives us glimpse of freedom that many of us never see. It is this spirit that permeates throughout The Dharma Bums and makes it an important book.
The novel, however, is not without its problems. Plot was unimportant for Kerouac, and it shows in The Dharma Bums, as it essentially recycles the plot of On the Road, his most famous novel. Like On the Road, the main character Ray Smith, a thinly veiled cover for Kerouac, travels the country back and forth through the country in search of life and adventure. Early on he meets Japhy Ryder, the great Zen Buddhist poet, and Smith idolizes him throughout Dharma Bums, just like Kerouac worships Dean Moriarity in On the Road. The pair drink, climb mountains, enjoy a Buddhist orgy called “Yab-Yum” and generally have a great time. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that passages become predictable in their unpredictability. (You mean the characters drank a whole lot of booze, rambled about life and tried to hit on girls all in the same night? I thought I read this book already?)
And like the On the Road, there are long, sprawling passages about nature, life, hitchhiking and women, which never fly by so quickly that the reader barely takes a breath; they are beautifully written and whisk you into unknown worlds and scenes as we get a taste of life through the prism of Beat-style Zen Buddhism. But these passages often go on too long, leaving me bored at times and wishing that Kerouac had just listened to a real editor.
And lastly— and this may just reflect how square I’ve become to the Beats message— but at times while reading The Dharma Bums, a thought would occur me: To Kerouac freedom and irresponsibility are the same thing. (There were times I wanted to yell “get a job, you hippie.”) It seems to me a real spiritualist believes quite the opposite. The poet understands that freedom doesn’t come in adventure and drinking but comes with seeing the beauty in the mundane and everyday. There is no doubt Rilke understood this as he once said “If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches.” And there are times Kerouac seems to understand this too. But most of the time Kerouac’s version of freedom just seems like a child’s fantasy, the wishful hopes of a lost soul.
Checkout this interview Kerouac gave to Steven Allen in 1958:
As much as I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, I didn’t want to get involved in the announcement that famed Harry Potter wizard Dumbledore is gay because the whole thing seemed much ado about nothing. (He’s not real, people!)But of course now it’s a political issue and the Christian right has stepped in:
“Roberta Combs, president of the 2.5 million strong Christian Coalition of America, said she was disappointed that Rowling chose to label Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as gay.
‘It’s not a good example for our children, who really like the books and the movies. I think it encourages homosexuality,’ said Combs, who has called for a ban on the seven-book series.
‘I would never allow my own children or grandchildren to read the books or watch the movies, and other parents should do so too,’ she added, according to the U.K.-based Daily Mail newspaper.”
Just like most Christian thoughts on homosexuality, these comments are just intolerant, stupid and unnecessary. Do they really think a children’s book will do that much damage? I’d argue that the Bible has been far more harmful to the world– from the Crusades to the justification of slavery– than Harry Potter ever will be.
The Gathering, a novel by Irish writer Anne Enright, won the Booker Prize last week. (The Washington Post calls The Gathering “the Dubliners of the new millennium.”)
Each year the Booker Prize is awarded to the best English language novel in the United Kingdom commonwealth and Ireland, so obviously it’s a huge honor. Estimated month and year I will read The Gathering after I get through my current to-read list: June 2012.
Shortcomings
Adrian Tomine
If you asked me if the graphic novel was literature a few years ago, I might have said, “don’t be ridiculous.” (I may or may not have sounded like Balki Bartokamus.) But like most stupid and ignorant opinions, my view would have been based on prejudices and not actually experience.
My opinion began to change after reading The Watchmen by Alan Moore. Considered by many to be the greatest graphic novel, The Watchmen turned the superhero myth on its head with its multi-layered storytelling and dissection of the usual comic book good vs. evil paradigm. Although still dealing with costumed superheroes, only one of the characters had actual superpowers, making each of the main characters as frail and flawed as any regular joe. To call The Watchmen a comic book doesn’t do it justice. It is literature through and through.
But could a graphic novel escape the superhero genre? I wasn’t sure. That was until I discovered Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware. Innovative, funny and yet tragic, the novel tells the story of a hopelessly awkward and lonely man who is reunited with his long-lost dad. Confronting family, history and despair with humor and unwitting honesty, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth manages to be as complex and poignant as a great prose novel. Oh yeah, the art is beautiful too.
My latest foray into graphic novel genre is Adriane Tomine’s Shortcomings. Set in the San Francisco Bay Area (where I coincidentally grew up), Shortcomings follows the life of Asian-American Ben Tanaka, a negative, self-absorbed slacker who has a thing for white girls. Not exactly your usual comic book material.
Ben’s relationship with girlfriend Miko is falling apart. They argue constantly. In fact most of the novel’s first half is focused on this doomed relationship. Tomine manages to get these scenes just right. Each line of dialogue feels painstakingly real (believe me I know), but what makes these just about perfect is the art. It’s beautifully drawn and real to life. Tomine manages to accomplish in one frame what might take a prose write two pages to accomplish.
As the story moves forward and Ben’s life falls apart, Tomine’s characters become fully formed and earn a note of dignity; despite their shortcomings, each takes on an air of individuality that avoids any Asian American clichés. You won’t find any engineers here. In fact Ben runs a movie theater. That’s pretty unambitious for anyone. And Alice, his Korean best friend, is the Don Juan of lesbians. She hits on anything that moves. (Isn’t that awesome?)
In the end as the story moves to New York City and a climax and Ben’s whiteboy rival pulls out some kung fu moves, I couldn’t decide how to feel about Ben’s absurd plight– should I laugh, cry, pity him or watch with judgment as Ben’s fate became sealed by his own flaws. But one thing was clear to me: without any seeming effort, Adrian Tomine has taken the graphic novel and made it something very personal and original. Like the best literature, Shortcomings is not only great storytelling but has the themes to match; few novels ruminate on the unseen power of race and love with as much humor and dramatic grace as Tomine’s wonderful work.
I found this interesting article today on npr.com, discussing why women read more than men. Not only that, the article mentions “that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all.”
You have to wonder why this is. My feeling is that our lives are busier than ever and sitting by yourself reading a book doesn’t feel like the best way to utilize free time for many people. They’d rather do something social like watch a movie with friends, play video games or go to a bar and get hammered.
So why should anyone read? Well, people who read a lot are generally smarter, more empathetic and more in tune with the world around them. Not buying that argument? People who read a lot generally make more money too.
However, more important than any of that: unlike the more technologically advanced forms of entertainment, which favor superficial instant gratification, reading’s patient pleasures are far more satisfying. (There’s a reason why books are almost always better than their movie counterpart.) It’s the difference between swigging from a great bottle of wine or savoring each flavor. They both get you drunk, but only one gets to enjoy it on another level.
