A Literary Life

I like John. I like John a lot. I think John and I could be friends and drink beer at a local pub and jam on each other’s iPods. However, I admit I didn’t RABIDLY enjoy John’s book the way I did immediately take to his personality. I liked the book — especially the fact that it turned me on to a lot of new music — but a dozen pages of footnotes dedicated to how he spends the anniversary of Ian Curtis’s death drones in my eyes and makes me sleepy.

In other words, portions of the book are pure fan-to-fan fiction. If you don’t share the same heartfelt passions for particular gods of indie rock, you won’t truly get what the man is laying down, dig? And given indie fans’ (all music fans?) tendency to bash the well-loved indie bands of others as “too trendy” or “knock-offs” to make their own favorites seem more cool, he alienates a few readers, too. (I mean what’s with the animosity, or perhaps just indifference towards Modest Mouse, Johnny boy? Huh?!)

But I’ll give the man props for this: He made me REALLY listen to the music of The Shins. Outside of the ubiquitous Garden State Soundtrack, that is. While Seller’s prose didn’t disappoint me (let’s get that straight), it didn’t wow me either, but lyrics like this from The Shins (Sleeping Lessons, Wincing the Night Away) do:

Eviscerate your fragile frame
And spill it out on the ragged floor
A thousand different versions of yourself

And if the old guard still offend
They got nothing left on which you depend
So enlist every ounce
Of your bright blood
And off with their heads
Jump from The hook

You’re not obliged to swallow anything you despise
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life

And they got no right
As sure as you have eyes
They got no right

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – Vacation book club selection

Update: I can’t upload the song here, as per The Boyfriend’s little reminder of legality (party pooper!). Check out the link in the comment below for the YouTube video of Sleeping Lessons.

An American woman marries the King of Jordan in the Diana-Charles-style romance of the Arab world. She converts to Islam, aims for peace in the Middle East, starts many charitable organizations, throws herself into her adopted country and pops out quite a few children along the way. She sees peace effort after peace effort fall apart, innocent civilians die at war and homelands stolen. In the end, she must witness her husband’s surrender to cancer.

It’s a great biography that gave me a lot of insight about the country of Jordan and their unique role and perspective in the region, and it also fleshed out and humanized the role of women in politics in the Middle East. While I wouldn’t say Queen Noor (Noor meaning light in Arabic) is a hero of mine or any such thing, I would say her life story is a valuable addition to my view of the world and the people who inhabit it. Oh, and she’s really purdy, too, especially for a woman that’s my mother’s age.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars – Vacation reading

So we all know the Amish, right? (Even if some of us only know them through their association with Harrison Ford) And some of us know the Mennonites. But I for one had never heard of the Hutterites, who live mostly in the northern US (Montana) and Canada, speak German, live communally and wear very distinct and plain clothing. So young Lisa, a teenager in Montana, decided to write a newspaper column for several years about what it means to be a Hutterite: how they don’t shun technology, how they divide labor along gender lines, how they make clothes, ceremonial and holiday traditions, etc.

While she goes into detail about how to make bread for a hundred and her school schedule, even that her brothers hoard John Deere tractor catalogs like other boys do dirty magazines (my words, not hers), she doesn’t really go into the things I want to know. Such as do they talk about the birds and the bees? Is enjoying sex a crime because the act in purely for reproduction? Are there illegal drug rings skulking around the barns in the dead of night? You see, that’s why I couldn’t be a Hutterite, that dirty little mind of mine.

So while I enjoyed the book, I wanted more. I wanted the truth that didn’t have to be read by her mother before it went to press. Also, the narrative style was a bit choppy given that the book is simply a compendium of her previous columns, not a cohesive work. I guess all that bread baking keeps a girl too busy to re-write from scratch. Still, a really fun read. I think I finished the whole book over the course of an airplane trip with a layover.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars – Vacation reading

Not a lot of people outside of obsessive literary circles know who Dorothy Parker was or have read her poetry and short fiction. However, I have always been drawn to her wild and witty personality, her simple and acerbic words and also, I will admit, her artistic and wretched vices — so common among the Literati of the 20s and 30s (She socialized with Faulkner, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fitzgerald and Hemingway to name a few). This biography was reverent and exhaustive in its depiction of the life of this “Celebrated Wit,” and though it was long, I enjoyed most every page of it.

“What fresh hell is this?” Such was the typical, pessimistic attitude of Parker when the doorbell rang or something new happened to interrupt the old. She was known to like you to your face, and rip you to shreds when you back was turned. She had but a few friends, but those loyal, and an on-again-off-again success monetarily. As in the newspapers, gossip columns and magazines of the day — she was one of the first writers, and a continuing one, in The New Yorker magazine — she is still remembered for her biting one-liners. A sampling:

• When told that President Coolidge was dead, she asked, “Well, how can you tell?”
• A friend of Dorothy’s was described as never being able to hurt a fly. She replied, “Not if it was buttoned up.”
• At one of her first literary jobs at Vogue, Dorothy wrote captions for fashion pictures. One, which almost ran before it was caught, read, “From these foundations of the autumn wardrobe, one may learn that brevity is the soul of lingerie.”

But her personal life was turbulent, and included abortion, two divorces, buckets — if not barrels, if not ships — of alcohol, Communism and other then-disdained political choices, and chronic financial neediness thanks to a drive towards charity and the need to spend every penny in her hand, when she had it.

One of my favorite of her magazine poems, many of which she came to think of as vapid and silly in her later life, spoke of marital problems:

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying —
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

It’s a long read (414 pages in my copy), but worth it if you have an urge to find out more about this “Wit.” (I’d like to know, how do you get the title of “Wit” anyway? Is it possible in the 21st century?) However, the story of her life is darker and deeper than her cutting words. The biographer did a great job, but her poetry and short fiction depict her personality, too, in a much more dynamic way… a more true way, from a certain point of view. Besides, it kind of depressing to know that her ashes are still lying unclaimed in some attorney’s office in New York.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is the true story of Ismael Beah, a native of Sierra Leone who was caught up in the violence of the country’s civil war (1991-2002). Separated by a surprise rebel attack from his family, 13-year-old Ishmael runs into the jungle with a few friends. They encounter mostly mistrust, fear and resistance from the villages they pass because the rebels often employ troops of young boys of about the same age. Ironically enough, after surviving in the jungle, wandering a significant way across the country and back, Ishmael encounters a small town defended by the government’s troops.

However, rather than taking the young boys in and shielding them from further involvement in war, these soldiers offer the boys a choice — fight as soldiers by the troop’s side or leave the town into the hands of surrounding rebels, who will likely take them for governmental collaborators. Each boy receives a small dose of training, a large gun and a daily supply of drugs and violence: marijuana, cocaine and a substance they call “brown brown,” a mixture of gunpowder and drugs, plus war movies such as Rambo played on a gasoline-generator-run projector every night.

With plain, simply and un-fussy language, Ishmael tells his whole story. And he doesn’t need any frilly text — his story is so compelling and unbelievable that the reader hangs on every plain and simple word. The book is a journey through the hell of war, about how twisted ideals, adults and circumstances can wrench away childhood, an article that is impossible to regain once lost. This book is about how a human in extraordinary circumstances survived, and how such a person forgives themselves afterwards for how they enacted that survival.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection

Tom Wolfe is known as a journalist and a chronicler of his times, and this book had been on my list for some time because it is one of his best-known works and, frankly, it has a really awesome title. True to the reputation of the novel and its author, it is a creative piece of non-fiction that stays true to its time even after that time has past, recreating the environment and the emotions (the aura, man, do you see the aura?) of that hippie existence so often satirized but so little understood.

Wolfe speaks in this book about Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and one of the founders of the psychedelic movement, and Kesey’s group of friends and fellow travelers who name themselves The Merry Pranksters. They’re the first to travel the country on a magical mystery tour (yes, before the Beatles) and one of the first to try to make acid and the ensuing mental expansion related to the drug a cultural and philosophical movement.

Tune in, drop out. Tune into the wholeness, the interconnected nature of the universe and drop out of square (meaning live to day to day with your head down) society. So long Mom, Dad, John and Jane Doe. Hello the true world, which is more than your parents with their antiquated notions of what is right and wrong, what the future should be, with their stuck-in-a-rut daily lives. In this book, you begin to see the “hippie” notion of expanding yourself rather than fitting into a conformist mold, or seeing the world in a new way, a spiritual journey of discovery rather than an oft-traveled path of marriage, career and death.

The Pranksters spread the message of LSD through parties known as Acid Tests, which in the media, are often thought of as multi-media experiences (think light shows, trippy music and such) that replicate the acid experience without the actual drug. But yeah right, the LSD was there! On the other hand, Wolfe brilliantly recreates the acid mindset, varying his prose and descriptions, making the reader feel as if they truly have the trip without the drugs.

It’s a great history of the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the time period told from the naive point of view of the time period, the perspective that they were doing something that had never been done, feeling emotions that had never been acted upon. And though the world has changed since the time the book was written, that idealism and spirituality shines through. It’s a fun jaunt back in social history, and it’s even more fun now that we are older, wiser and knowledgeable about the effects of the “hippie” movement.

While I didn’t imbibe the LSD, I feel I have learned a small bit of truth about history, about how it felt to be present in a certain time and place in American history. And, most importantly, I have been entertained.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection

You know, it’s strange how life likes to intersects random themes, making it seem as if you see/hear/read/experience one thing over and over over a period of time, as if something is cropping up everywhere all of the sudden where you didn’t see it before. I first remember this happening when I was a kid and a cousin taught me the meaning of the word “porous,” and suddenly it was all over the TV and grown-up speak for a few days or weeks afterwards. Currently, I seem to be stuck in a cycle of homosexuality.

No really. Listen: I recently read a soft-core lesbian romance, some military big wig got in hot water for calling homosexual acts immoral and I recently attended a function where the Colorado Gay and Lesbian Fund was a main sponsor and was honored. There were more instances of homosexuality being hyperactive on my radar, too, that I can’t think of right now.

Anyway, so imagine my sense of coincidence and confluence when I opened this book, which got onto my list thanks to a review in Time magazine. It is the tale of a young girl, a lesbian, coming to grips with herself and her strange, dysfunctional family who happen to run a small-town funeral home. (I know, it’s all very Six Feet Under.) The funeral home = the FUN home. It was just all too ironic given the strange theme of gay-ness permeating my atmosphere recently. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Really.)
There was also something incredibly unique about this book, however: the fact that it is not only words but illustrations. In fact, it reads like a comic book from pane to pane with detailed black and white ink illustrations. I love something that blows my expectations out of the water like that and the technique was a breath of fresh air, as were the drawings, which were neither the overly masculinized comic stereotype (think large breasts, bulging pecs and muzzle flashes) or all sappy and girly comic stereotype (think puppies and Disney cartoons). They were realistic, even lewd or awkward when necessary, and the comic style made the book read incredibly fast.

Allison Bechdel tells a very interesting story using this method, the story of her life in fact. And despite my introduction, homosexuality is not its only theme or value. There’s also the power of family and of genetics, the struggle of the individual to choose and strive toward their own future, the universal themes of literature in everyday life and the struggle to make sense of the past, a struggle that is not as neat and tidy as the frames of a comic book. If your interested in Bechdel, you can check out her work via the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – A book club selection for vacation reading

… as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Whew. That’s a title, alright. It’s also a very good book in the foodie tradition, which I figured I would wallow in for a few more days after finishing Julia Child.

As with quite a few authors of books I enjoy, Buford makes me green with jealousy–In a good way, I promise. He is a writer and former fiction editor of The New Yorker whose life changed when he did a profile on Mario Batali, the Italian-American chef made famous by the Food Network. (Red hair, baggy patterned pants, kitchen clogs, Iron Chef – You know who I’m talking about.) Always a foodie, Bill decided to go undercover to witness the life of a kitchen first hand at Mario’s famous restuarant Babbo’s, where he is so drawn into the culture of food, the chaos of the kitchen, the satisfaction of working with his hands, etc. that he quits the illustrious day job to persue his newfound addiction, to continue his education in the true nature of food.

Hey Ma! Wanna know what I (via Buford) learned?

1. That Mario Batali is quite a party animal (drinking a case of wine in an evening, admiting to partaking in the cocaine explosion of the 1980s, cussing like sailor and making racy comments to women the moment the camera is turned).
2. That you should never order pasta after 10 p.m. (Noodle water is starchy thanks to the pasta, and makes an excellent, flavorful thickener for sauces… and therefore the water doesn’t get changed. Ever. Well, until the next day, after it has acquired a purple hue. Purple?)
3. That random people often stick their fingers in your food before it arrives at your table, and that you should probably thank them for caring so much.
4. That eggs in pasta dough and tomatoes in Italian sauce are historical landmarks in the history of… everything, and that they can be tracked down and footnoted if you care enough. Buford does care enough. Be careful. He’ll make you care, too.
5. That you can buy a whole pig without the USDA getting involved if you buy it while it’s alive.
6. That everyone should drop everything and learn a dying art, reclaim the disappearing past. (And if not that, at least eat those dying arts.)
7. That French food is just ripped-off Italian food, brought over the Alps by that loose-lipped Catherine de Medicis.

And after this journey of a thousand miles, Buford taught me – or at least reiterated my own thoughts on the matter – that:

“For millennia, people have known how to make their food. They have understood animals and what to do with them, having cooked with the seasons and had a farmer’s knowledge of the way the planet works. They have preserved traditions of preparing food down through generations, and have come to know them as expressions of their families. People don’t have this kind of knowledge today, even though it seems as fundamental as the earth, and it’s true, those who do have it tend to be professionals–like chefs. But I didn’t want the knowledge in order to be a professional; just to be more human.”

And no, I don’t think that’s a spoiler. I think it’s good incentive to go pick up a copy.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars – A hardcover book club selection