A Future for Fragile Books

My last post, on Google adding maps to its Google Books pages, generated some interesting discussion about digitizing books in the comments. I can think of many reasons why digitizing books is a good thing, while the motivations of the publishing houses and the Authors Guild in suing Google seem confused at best and craven at worst.

One of the reasons why digitizing books is important is that it preserves the knowledge contained between the covers. Our libraries are filled with fragile books that require tremendous upkeep and are not as useful to students, scholars, and readers as they could be. This rationale is behind a new $2 million digitizing program at the Library of Congress that will focus on "brittle books." Among the books slated to be digitized are "American history volumes, U.S. genealogy and regimental histories that hold personal collections from the Civil War period, and six collections of rare books including the Benjamin Franklin Collection."

Some may argue that this is apples and oranges, that publishers and Authors Guild are only interested protecting writers working now, but the lawsuits have in fact targeted the Google Books Library Project, not the Google Books Partner Program, which they are largely on board with. Those attacking Google charge that the company is running afoul of copyright law by scanning library books in their entirety even if Google only makes snippets of them available to the public, and, as Jeffrey Toobin's insightful article in the New Yorker makes clear, these suits threaten to cause a ripple effect that might not be in the public's best interest. Whatever the outcome of these suits, let's at least hope that our most fragile books get saved for posterity.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:15 PM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Maps Added to Google Books

The result isn't that flashy, but Google's addition of Maps to its Google Book Search points to the promise of digitizing books. As we have seen with the layers of data that Amazon has added to its database - things like Statistically Improbable Phrases and Capitalized Phrases - digitization of books makes it easy for people to draw connections between books. But digitization also allows for layers of explanatory and reference data to be made easily accessible.

Of course, there have long been annotated editions of many books, but in those cases we are limited by the editors' decisions on what material deserves greater explanation and what material stands on its own. With the Internet placing a universe of information at our fingertips, it is now easy for readers and scholars (especially those with access to library databases) to supplement their reading with background information and to find related texts. But sites like Google Books promise to make this process even easier and more fruitful by allowing the books themselves, in their digitized form, to be analyzed and enhanced.

In its own modest way, adding Maps to Google Books is an example of this. Have a look at the Google Books page for Around the World in 80 Days (scroll down to see the map). Having the map there adds something to the experience of this geography-centric novel, and it's not much of leap to wonder if a similar system might be able to pull in related images (say, hot air balloons of that era) or contemporary newspaper reviews of the book. The possibilities are almost endless, and, though one must always make the point that such technology is meant to enhance and not replace our beloved paper books, further exploration down this road would be a great thing for literature and learning.

On the subject of maps, specifically, as a map lover, I'm excited to see Google trying this out because, like Jerome Weeks, I believe that nearly every book would benefit from the addition of a map or two.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:49 AM ~ comments: 8 ~ Links to this post

 

Demon Theory Week at the LBC

Over at the LBC, this week's topic of discussion is Stephen Graham Jones' post-modern horror novel Demon Theory. It's a must read for anyone who likes footnotes with their hockey masks and chainsaws.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:42 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Weird Tales of the Unexplained...

Buzz Poole's Madonna of the Toast documents the mysterious appearance of icons sacred and profane, in rock formations, housewares, and foodstuffs the world over. A potato chip shaped like Bob Hope? It's here. Vladimir Lenin on a shower curtain? Likewise. And it wouldn't very well be Madonna of the Toast without the titular grilled cheese, which - you guessed it - NEVER GOES BAD.

Poole has launched a blog where observers of related paranormal phenomena can document their encounters. If you've recently run across a Charlotte Bronte-shaped underarm stain, or a puddle that looks like William Shatner, we can only suggest you head over to the blog and share your experience... Inquiring minds, after all, want to know.

- Garth Risk Hallberg @ 5:31 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Four-Star Films

Fire up your Netflix queue. The blog Chewing Pixels has compiled a list of all the films ever given four stars by the vaunted Halliwell's Film Guides. According to Chewing Pixels:

By Halliwell's standard, all films by default receive a zero star rating. Only exceptionally interesting and important films manage to receive a one or two star rating with a tiny handful (just over 1%) of the 23,000-odd films covered receiving the maximum recommendation of Four Stars.

Interestingly, as one can see by visiting the Amazon pages for the Guide's 2006 and 2007 editions, Halliwell's, once considered the gold standard of film guides, has fallen out of favor with some cinephiles since the death of Leslie Halliwell in 1989. The user reviews on the Amazon pages discuss how, in recent editions, new editor John Walker has "tampered" with Halliwell's ratings, removing and adding stars in reviews for various films. Meanwhile, the ratings of films since 1989 are objects of scorn. An example: "Virtually every entry is vastly over-rated, with no glimmer of thought behind the utterly one-dimensional wording. Every dumb-ass movie, all those passing fads of the last 15 years has been evaluated & given merit way beyond their value."

Nonetheless, for a lover of lists (or movies), the Halliwell's four-star films are worth a look.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:56 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Fabulist: Ryszard Kapuscinski

At Slate, media critic Jack Shafer cuts through the effusive eulogizing of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski (here at The Millions and elsewhere) to point out that it was "widely conceded that Kapuscinski routinely made up things in his books." As a trained journalist, I recognize and respect Shafer's insistence on this point (though the essay's incendiary headline might have been a step too far.) And as such, I'm happy to concede to Shafer's wish that we not use the same yardstick to compare Kapuscinski and contemporary foreign correspondents like Anthony Shadid who put their lives on the line to deliver reports on Iraq and other war-torn places.

However, one shouldn't take Shafer's discomfort as a condemnation of Kapuscinski's work. I think it's telling that Shafer mentions Truman Capote and Joseph Mitchell, two masters of so-called narrative non-fiction, as others who "straddle the wall between fiction and nonfiction." And yet I'm glad to have read these writers' work. Even James Frey's now infamous memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was considered by many to be a great read, and had it not been for the Oprah factor and Frey's irritating arrogance, the reaction to the fabrications it contained would likely not have been as severe. To define these books as journalism (or memoir, or "truth") exclusively does a disservice to journalism - offering a context within which this work fits, or even a disclaimer, is more appropriate - but to suggest that there isn't a place for writing and books like these does a disservice to readers. (Thanks to Brian for sending the Slate piece my way.)

- C. Max Magee @ 12:06 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Trillin On Parking

Millions contributor Garth pointed me to a funny little piece by Calvin Trillin in the New York Times in which the New Yorker writer is asked to test out the new Lexus "Advanced Parking Guidance System." Perhaps you've heard of this; it supposedly enables the car to park itself. Trillin, as he indicates, believes that he has been asked to try this newfangled technology out because he was the author of Tepper Isn't Going Out, "which is considered by most scholars to have been the first parking novel" and because in 1964 he was the founding co-editor of Beautiful Spot: A Magazine of Parking, which, Trillin says, "I've seen referred to as a one-issue publication even though we prefer to say that the second issue hasn't come out yet." Indeed, Trillin views himself as something of a parking expert:

If I were asked to name my talent - talent, that is, in the way the Miss America pageant uses the word talent, as in "Miss West Virginia will now do her talent" - I would say "parallel parking." For the second issue of Beautiful Spot: A Magazine of Parking, I've been preparing an article on how I came up with the term "slicing the bread" to describe maneuvering into a spot that leaves only the width of a bread slice between your bumpers and the bumpers of the cars ahead of and behind you. In a later issue, I intend to discuss "breaking the matzo" - getting into a spot so small that a matzo would crack if you tried to place it between the relevant bumpers. Just for the record, the last time I broke a matzo was May 1994, on Riverside Drive, between 83rd and 84th; unfortunately, there were no witnesses.

Good stuff.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:42 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Let's hope the publishing industry doesn't get any ideas

Soon after learning that books are, quite literally, cool, we now find that reading may become a more popular pastime in Thailand, but not because of a sudden interest in all things literary.

Bomb worries help book sales: After New Years Eve bomb blasts put Bangkok on edge, "Thailand's book market looks likely to grow by 10% this year, partly thanks to the new-found preference of many to stay at home rather than going out."

Reading: a good way to pass the time in the bomb shelter.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:42 PM ~ comments: 3 ~ Links to this post

 

Thursday Links

• Mr. Sarvas aka TEV takes another turn in the limelight, this time in the Jewish Journal.
• Of course this story comes from a local TV news site: Pornographic comic books sold on Wal-Mart, Target web sites. Film at 11!
• Five things about children's book awards from a Michigan point of view.
• "Digital textbooks can save college students hundreds of dollars every semester, but the market is off to an unimpressive start."
• A charming remembrance of Ryszard Kapuscinski by writer Andrew Nagorski.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:24 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Goings on at the LBC

The winter round of the LBC is now underway. This week, Valerie Trueblood's Seven Loves is being discussed. Trueblood herself made an appearance today. Good stuff.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:57 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Reporter: Ryszard Kapuscinski

Reading the books of Ryszard Kapuscinski, it sometimes seemed to me that he had he had slept on a dirt floor in a hut in every dusty village in the forgotten corners of the world. He brought us with him to peer at the world's unknown "little" wars. There are many who, in the last few decades, have taken up this sort of reporting, people like Jon Lee Anderson, William Langewiesche, and Mark Bowden, but none possess the sympathetic eye of Kapuscinski.

In his book Imperium, Kapuscinski chronicles the invasion of Poland by the Soviets in 1939, which he witnessed as a boy, and one can see how being one of history's forgotten people shaped his view of the world. Kapuscinski's writing is notable as much for what is there as for what it lacks, namely a Western perspective and the presumption and detachment that comes with it, which even the best Western reporters are rarely able to avoid. Living much of his life behind the Iron Curtain, he could write about oppressed people from the point of view of the oppressed, but from enough distance to eschew any of the ideologies involved. He had a gentle eye for details and always satisfied by being just as incredulous, weary, and terrified as I would have been had I somehow found myself in the astonishing situations he sometimes ended up in. No tough guy swagger for Kapuscinki.

And those moments, they were incredible: Kapuscinski, out of bribe money watching his driver plow though flaming roadblocks in the Yoruba country of Nigeria in The Soccer War; arriving in Monrovia, Liberia, where his vaccination records, passport, and return ticket are promptly snatched from his hands the moment he steps off the plane in The Shadow of the Sun; stuck for days in a stifling, crowded airport in Yakutsk with little hope of getting a plane out of there in Imperium.

But Kapuscinski does not assume he is the only one with a story to tell. For entire books - Shah of Shahs about the abuses of the Shah of Iran and The Emperor about the mad Ethiopian king Haile Selassie - he turns his pen over to the people who were there. Those two books fit into the now familiar genre of "oral history," and they provide an invaluable look into the lives of the oppressed.

Kapuscinski's singular point of view is perhaps best summed up by what he wrote in a section of The Soccer War about his time in Ghana: "The so-called exotic has never fascinated me, even though I came to spend more than a dozen years in a world that is exotic by definition. I did not write about hunting crocodiles or head-hunters, although I admit they are interesting subjects. I discovered instead a different reality, one that attracted me more than expeditions to the villages of witch doctors or wild animal reserves."

Kapuscinski brought that different reality to his readers, and in doing so helped shed light on the forgotten corners of the world.

Kapuscinski died on Tuesday, the PAP news agency said. He was 74. The AP obit.

Some Links:

• New work from Kapuscinski
• My review of Shah of Shahs
• A bit on Imperium (scroll down)
• A bit on The Shadow of the Sun (scroll down)
• Excerpt from Imperium
• Excerpt from Shah of Shahs
• Excerpt from The Emperor
• Excerpt from The Soccer War
• Excerpt from The Shadow of the Sun
• Excerpt from Another Day of Life
• Wikipedia bio
• Kapuscinski's writing in Granta
• Bill Buford interviews Kapuscinski

- C. Max Magee @ 8:30 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

All That's Missing is the "Screenplay"

With the announcement this morning of the Academy Award nominations, I looked to see which films were nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. None of the nominees are all that shocking. The contenders for Best Picture are all up for awards in their respective screenplay categories (which means Supreme Hack Paul Haggis is nominated once again. Terrific.)

The most interesting nomination by far is for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, not so much because it is a comedy (after all, Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy), and not because it is offensive (frankly, so was last year's Best Picture winner). What's compelling to me about this particular nod is that, well, there was no script for Borat. According to the filmmakers, there was an outline, but then they let Borat loose and filmed what happened. Almost everything in the film is improvised. As Slate points out, we can't blame the Academy for this one, as the Writers' Guild actually nominated Borat for Best Adapted Screenplay and United 93, Paul Greengrass' brilliant portrayal of the doomed 9/11 flight, for Best Original Screenplay. Why would the Writers' Guild nominate two films that don't have scripts? It has something to do with "America's Next Top Model":

It might seem that members of a writers guild would recoil from screenplay-free movies. But the guild is trying to expand its jurisdiction to reality shows. The production companies say those shows have no writers but the guild counters that those who shape the stories are in fact writers and deserve to be compensated as such. So, perhaps Fox should demand that Cohen withdraw Borat from consideration. Accepting a writing award for a film that is made for "an age in which reality and entertainment have become increasingly intertwined" might suggest that the guild's argument has merit after all.

All of this further calls into question the Academy's division of the screenplay category into only two parts. It seems obvious that the Academy believes original scripts are a slightly different animal from those adapted from an existing source, but do they feel that something like Borat is really comparable to more traditional literary adaptations like Children of Men and Little Children (It was a good year for films with "Children" in the title)? I'm not sure there's an easy answer. With the immense financial success of heavily improvised films like Borat, United 93, and the Jackass movies, it seems we will be seeing more of this style of narrative. Can the Academy adapt?

- Patrick Brown @ 8:04 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Book vs. Movie

Hollywood has always poached stories from the republic of letters (not to mention Broadway and, increasingly, Nick at Nite), and some of the greatest movies of all time have started out as novels. Still, this year seems notable for the number of literary adaptations coming to the screen (see our earlier post). It strikes me that movies made from books can disappoint in two ways: first, by hewing too closely to the source material, and, second, by venturing too far afield from it. Either way, one's reading of a book can be spoiled by seeing a movie first. Instead of E.L. Doctorow's Dutch Schulz, one sees... Dustin Hoffmann. And then one has to live with an ugly paperback edition of Billy Bathgate, whose cover is basically a movie poster.

The most successful adaptations, I think, take on a life of their own, using the source material as a springboard. And any time previews lead me to believe that one of these adaptations is in the offing, I try to read the book in a hurry, before heading to the theater.

My strategy has been paying handsome dividends lately. First, I bumped Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men to the head of the reading queue, and discovered one of my favorite books of all time. So much of what makes this novel great - its voice - seems unlikely to translate to the screen, and so I've elected to skip the recent movie version, starring Sean (no relation) Penn. Even if the DVD is on your Netflix queue... read this book first!

Less likely to stand the test of time, but still a wicked-fun read, was Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal. This book, too, was voice-driven, introducing me to the nasty wit and sly machinations of schoolmarm Barbara Covett. The movie version, with Dame Judi Dench in the Covett role, wisely eschews some of the book's narrative elements, finding cinematic equivalents instead. Through a masterful Dench performance and some judicious voice-over, the movie manages to convey much of the ironic tenor of Barbara's internal monologue, while giving us more insight into Cate Blanchett's character than Heller does in the book. Still, I'd recommend the novel Notes on a Scandal to anyone looking for a literary page-turner.

This month's Bookforum offers insight on yet another movie adaptation: that of Patrick Suskind's Perfume. This bestselling German novel from the 80s features an antihero who relates to the world entirely through his olfactory glands, and would thus seem to be unfilmable. In their Bookforum interview, director Tom Tykwer and producer Bernd Eichinger discuss the difficulties of adaptation. "You cannot really put this novel into an existing structure for a film," Eichinger says. "It's not a genre movie, not a thriller, not a horror, not a love story. It's truly bizarre and original." Which is a fair description of Suskind's novel, the story of an 18th-century murderer.

- Garth Risk Hallberg @ 12:54 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Inflated Adjectives

I myself prefer only to read books that have been described as "unputdownable," but Joe Queenan has his own preferred adjective which appears to be serving him well:

Several years ago, overwhelmed by the flood of material unleashed annually by the publishing industry, I decided to establish a screening program by purchasing only books that at least one reviewer had described as "astonishing."

Previously, I had limited my purchases to merchandise deemed "luminous" or "incandescent," but this meant I ended up with an awful lot of novels about bees, Provence or Vermeer.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:26 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Indelible Doubt - Class Trip & The Mustache by Emmanuel Carrere

A man shaves off his mustache and, consequently, his life. A boy gets lost within his dilemmas and insecurities, echoing downfalls of a mature man. Where does Emmanuel Carrere want the reader to end up? I'm unsure, but you can read Class Trip & The Mustache for yourself and try to figure it out.

Both stories are unforgiving, that is for sure. The reader faces two dilemmas (which I will attempt to convey in reverse order, having read The Mustache first). There is a man. He is convinced that he had a mustache for years. He jokes about shaving it off. And, in the first five pages of the short novel, he shaves off the mustache. And with it, his life - or what one can only presume to be his life.

Next, the reader is entangled in a series of existentialist debates. Did the unnamed protagonist really have a mustache? (OK, that one is a bit practical, but bear with me.) If yes, what does it mean - in terms of character - that he shaved it? If not, then what fuels his obsession with the belief?

Carrere takes the reader through an unsolvable quest of insecurities in The Mustache. The distinct, single-voice narrative - which is definitive of the author's voice in Class Trip as well - runs, simultaneously, through both the protagonist's and the reader's mind. One cannot disconnect from the voice.

The narrative constitutes an integral part of Carrere's mission: to draw the reader in to the story. One has the opportunity to see all the wrong turns the protagonist takes, yet the reader is helpless in dissociating with the narrative. Hence, it is easy to sympathize with the protagonist, his search of peace of mind, his comfort in the repetitive, and his focus on the mundane - even if he does it just to get grounded.

Class Trip presents much of the same dilemmas. Despite its publication nine years after The Mustache, the story carries and presents the same self-centered debates. Nicholas - a protected, shy middle-school student who still wets his bed, is enamored with his father, and has considerable paranoid tendencies - goes off to the ski school with all of his classmates.

The plague sets in at the get go: his father refuses to let Nicholas ride in the school bus due to safety concerns; once Nicholas arrives at the chalet the father forgets to unload his bag; and the kid becomes the laughing stock of his class because someone refusing to lend him pajamas makes the comment that "he'll pee in them."

Events lead Nicholas to form a bond with the class bully, Hodkann, and the charismatic instructor, Patrick. The latter accentuates Nicholas's hopes and bright side. Hodkann only contributes to Nicholas' insecurities and wish to prove himself, however. Nicholas' life at the chalet gets darker as events unfold, and he succeeds in daydreaming certain sequences that even a most paranoid person would have a hard time imagining.

What is fascinating about Carrere's two novels is that despite the unforgiving self pity and pain the protagonists and readers endure - not to mention obvious salvations presented in both stories, which both the protagonists and reader avoid - and the parallel frustrations put forth (and lived through), the characters are very real. And they represent a part of everyone's dark, self-doubting, paranoid side.

Note: If you have read either novel, or do end up reading them, and want to get into discussions as to WTF it all means, please leave a comment or email me. I am looking, desperately, for answers.

- Emre Peker @ 7:22 AM ~ comments: 4 ~ Links to this post

 

Book Critics' Nominees Unveiled

The National Book Critics Circle announced the nominees for its annual best of the year awards over the weekend. Ed has stepped up to call the fiction selections in particular "safer than a dinner for four at the Olive Garden." The relative safety of the books aside, my understanding was that this award was meant to be given to the books that the nation's critics believe are of the highest quality, regardless of how well known or how obscure they are.

While it might have been more interesting to for us to discuss five relatively unknown and incredibly challenging novels, I think that such a slate would have been intellectually dishonest when the critics are charged with picking the books they think are the best. Let us not forget 2004, when the five National Book Award nominees in fiction were basically unknowns across the board. The people behind the Award that year were roundly derided for their selections and those nominees were anything but safe. In that case, and in looking at this year's NBCC nominees, I would suggest that we debate the books' quality rather than whether they are too "predictable," which strikes me as an even more slippery qualifier.

For more on how the NBCC makes its picks, check out TEV's interview with NBCC president John Freeman. Here are this year's nominees in fiction and nonfiction along with excerpts where available (nominees in other categories can be found at the NBCC site):

Fiction:

• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (excerpt, an Emerging Writers best of the year)
• The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (excerpt)
• What is the What by Dave Eggers (excerpt, Garth's review)
• The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (excerpt, Noah's review)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Nonfiction:

• The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn (One of Cockburn's Iraq diaries in the LRB)
• The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade by Anne Fessler (NYT review)
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (Patrick's review)
• Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama (excerpt)
• The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan (excerpt)

- C. Max Magee @ 7:08 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Allow Me to Bore You with This Fake Novel about Myself

It's either a sign of the impending apocalypse or an easy out for all those aspiring writers trying get their first book written. A business called "Book by You" lets you...

Enjoy the adventure of starring in your very own personalized novel! You co-author our books by providing the names, features and places to include in your personalized novel. These novels are full-length, 100 to 199-page books that look and feel just like a classic paperback novel.

The fact that this business exists pains me on many levels. (via Sean)

- C. Max Magee @ 9:47 PM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

"That's Totally Book!"

If you hear kids throwing the word "book" around a lot more than you're used to, don't assume that a new literary craze is sweeping the land. According to some cultural observers, "book" is becoming a substitute for "cool" thanks to the pervasive influence of text messaging.

As some of you are no doubt aware, when the "T9" predictive text function is activated your cell phone will try to guess the word you're typing as you key it in on those frustrating number keypads. As it turns out, when you try to type in "cool" - that is, 2-6-6-5 - phones will, by default, suggest "book," and, according to some, the kids are running with it, and "book" has become another word for "cool." So, all you teachers out there, your work is officially done. Books are now cool, literally. (via Zorn)

- C. Max Magee @ 9:26 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 48th in a Series (Earth's Children Finale)

Pam writes in asking when the final book in a long running series will be published:

Do you have any information as to when the sixth (and I believe final) volume in Jean Auel's Earth's Children series is due for publication?

Auel's series about a group of prehistoric people was launched in 1980 with the wildly successful Clan of the Cave Bear. Since then, an additional four books in the series have been published, most recently, Shelters of Stone in 2002. According to the ECfans.com Auel fansite, Auel is currently writing the sixth book in the series, but considering that there was a twelve year layoff between Shelters of Stone and its predecessor, Plains of Passage, it should come as no surprise that neither a title or release date has been announced, and it may be several years before Auel completes her series.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:22 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Myth of the "R-Rated" Book

Want to sound out of touch? Start describing things by using movie ratings. That's what school board member Wendy Day does in an opinion piece in the Detroit News as she tries to convince readers to back her in her effort to pull a book from school curriculum that she and some parents deem "inappropriate." The book in question? The Freedom Writers Diary, which chronicles the story of a group of "at risk" students who, using Anne Frank as inspiration, write their own diaries, excerpts of which are strung together to make this book.

Day says of the book, "A movie that included drug abuse, clear depictions of oral sex and repeated profanity would earn an 'R' rating... Put this same content in a book, and any objection to it is seen as censorship." But she fails, as do many who attempt to ban books, to recognize the context in which this "questionable" content is delivered. In this case, the context - some rough-around-the-edges teenagers describing their own lives - renders Day's concerns absurd.

We rate and restrict movies because they are so much more likely to have different motives. Actions depicted on the screen are orders of magnitude more shocking than those written on the page (this is why laws restricting content on TV and radio have always been far more restrictive than what is permissible in print. See, for example, George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television"). To say that everything that would garner an "R" rating from our notoriously inconsistent movie censors deserves to be equally restricted when described in print strikes me as a sloppy blanket statement that is likely trotted out by many a would be book-banner.

Moving back to Freedom Writers, though, this case, perhaps more so than others, illuminates how out of touch schools can become with those they are trying to teach. If the students in the Howell School district embarked on a similar project, keeping diaries as they learned, would it be so different from what appears in Freedom Writers? Not likely, even if parents would like to think that their children have nothing in common with a mix of struggling Asian, Hispanic and African American students. And when then message of Freedom Writers is not to glorify the bad things those students have done but to try to convey an authentic good message about personal growth and understanding, attempts to ban it based on perceived naughtiness show little respect for students who are no doubt old enough to appreciate that message. There is a reason we don't have, and never will have, a rating system for books like the one we have for movies, and those who understand that should protect books from those who don't.

Backstory: The book was OK'd by the board earlier this month over Day's and some parents' objections. A Michigander explains why he thinks students should read the book. A letter from a local points out that Day is wrong in passing judgment on a book she has never read. Freedom Writers is currently a major motion picture.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:36 AM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

McEwan's Long Lost Brother

It's the stuff of fiction. Ian McEwan's mother had an affair with an army officer and became pregnant while her husband was away fighting in World War II. She ended up giving away the baby via a newspaper ad saying "Wanted, home for baby boy aged one month: complete surrender." After her husband was killed in the war, however, she married the baby's father and went on to have Ian, who didn't know about his long lost brother until recently. According to an article in The Independent, McEwan's brother David Sharp is turning the story into a book.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:38 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Cookbook with Staying Power

Nearly three years ago, I mentioned the El Bulli cookbook, which contains the mad scientist recipes of the famous Catalan chef Ferran Adria. At his restaurant, El Bulli, Adria popularized techniques like creating foams and gelatins using unexpected ingredients and layering flavors and temperatures in his dishes in disconcerting ways. In keeping with what some might call the inaccessibility of his cuisine, his cookbook is large, expensive, and pretty hard to get a hold of. A new edition out in 2005 made it a little easier to take a peak at Adria's recipes, though, even on sale at Amazon, it'll still set you back almost $200. This hasn't kept chefs from coveting the book, according to a recent article in the Contra Costa Times. With Adria's mystique, and the book's steep price tag, El Bulli would likely be a jewel in any cookbook collection.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:15 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 47th in a Series (When a Writer Comes to Town)

Denise writes in asking how best to find out when authors are visiting her town:

I was perusing your blog and thought you might know how I can get advance info on book tours. I have been to different publisher Web sites and sent in faxes per their requests, and I never get a response. Book tour info, like for Khaled Hosseini's new book coming up in May, would be helpful for those of us that live in places like Montana. NO ONE comes to Montana!!!! At least, not willingly, or unless they already live here. I get it, but it makes it tough to get signed books by our favorite authors, like Hosseini. I'd love to get my copy of Kite Runner signed if he passes though promoting his new book. Do you have any tricks up your sleeve you can share?

For music and movies there are exhaustive databases available online that are rich with details on musicians, actors, directors, albums, and films. Want to know when your favorite semi-obscure band is going to be an tour? Check Pollstar. Want to know what movies your favorite actor has on the way? Check IMDb. Want to see the full discography of a band you just found out about? Check allmusic. With Amazon and publisher Web sites, one can cobble together something like this, but these sites are for shoppers, not enthusiasts and so don't offer quite the same experience.

So, the best advice I can offer is to mostly do what you've done already, with a few additional steps. Out of the possible places to find book tour info, publisher sites, for whatever reason, are typically the least helpful. Hosseini's new book A Thousand Splendid Suns is being put out by Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin. The Penguin site doesn't yet have the new book listed and the Riverhead site is even less helpful (warning: the Riverhead site annoyingly generates a pop-up and resizes your browser.) Publisher Web sites have gotten better, but they are rarely the repositories of information about their authors and books that they could be.

Author Web sites are often better, probably because there are less people involved. There are many, many authors who do a great job of communicating through their Web sites, updating readers about book tours and the like. Some are even prodigious bloggers. Khaled Hosseini's site, unfortunately, appears to have not gotten all that much attention over the last year or so - no mention of the new book even, as of this writing, though you may want to sign up for his mailing list to see if he prefers to get the word out that way.

The best way, though, to find out about author events in your area is to get schedules from the venues. Bookstores and libraries typically are shouldered with most of the burden of publicizing author appearances, and so they do the best job of getting the word out, often posting notices of upcoming events well in advance. So my advice would be to locate the venues nearby that would be most likely to host Hosseini and ask them if he'll be appearing and sign up for their mailing lists so you can see who else is coming your way.

Returning to an earlier point, though, I've often wondered why there isn't a better repository for literary information online. I've seen a few half-hearted attempts over the years, but none of them have approached the comprehensive experience offered by movie and music sites. Still, I think the opportunity is there. It's even possible that existing "user-powered" sites like Wikipedia or LibraryThing could, with some effort by active contributors, offer what Denise is looking for and more.

Anybody else have site recommendations or other thoughts on the topic?

- C. Max Magee @ 7:48 PM ~ comments: 3 ~ Links to this post

 

Tuesday Links

• The LBC has named its next pick. It's a fantastic, epic, funny book. Visit the blog for all the details.
• Forbes rounds up the most expensive books sold at auction in 2006. The top ten include five atlases, but according to the slide show that accompanies the story, a Shakespeare First Folio brought in the most: $5.1 million.
• Darby's blog turns two and he cleverly uses this fact as an excuse to link to some Swedish librarians.
• "Which f**king road would you live on?"
• So sad. A spelling bee training book with typos.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:33 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Parsing Press Freedoms -- Reckless Disregard by Renata Adler

Journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth. Accordingly, most reporters and editors would like to think, or believe, that they successfully fulfill that duty. In Reckless Disregard, Renata Adler demonstrates that a news organization's commitment to proving the veracity of a story runs the risk of covering the truth and justifying falsehoods, however.

In fall 1982 and summer 1983 two lawsuits filed in the Southern District of New York tested the nerves of both plaintiffs and defendants - in these instances news organizations Time Magazine and CBS. Adler meticulously chronicled the cases of Sharon v. Time and Westmoreland v. CBS for the New Yorker, and then compiled her reporting - with additional passages and a scathing Coda (epilogue) - in Reckless Disregard.

The "actual malice" standard, established by Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), is the cornerstone of libel suits against the press/media. A libel plaintiff in the U.S. faces an uphill battle and bears the burden of proof; i.e., the defendant does not have to prove innocence. Instead the plaintiff has to prove with clear and convincing evidence that the published "statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false."

Israeli Minister Ariel Sharon, therefore, had to prove that the Time's article, "The Verdict is Guilty," which suggested that he was responsible for the massacres carried out by Phalangist soldiers on September 17-19, 1982, in Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon, were published despite contrary information available to the magazine's reporters.

General William Westmoreland, the commander in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, carried the burden of showing that CBS had libeled him in the documentary "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception" by knowingly ignoring hours of interviews and extensive information which demonstrated that, unlike the program's assertion, he had not tempered with the Order of Battle to draw an optimistic view of the war, hence conspire to trick the government and the people.

Adler raises important questions in Reckless Disregard: is actual malice, originally intended to protect the press' First Amendment rights, used to justify publishing falsities? What do Time and CBS' all-out-litigation-war strategy - conducted by the prestigious, aggressive law firm Cravath - say about the truthfulness of their reporting? Who, really, is the victim in these cases - the media or the plaintiffs?

Reckless Disregard presents to the reader, in a matter-of-fact manner, how both cases unfolded, albeit being slightly sympathetic towards the plaintiffs. The record, as presented by Adler, indicates that news organizations can be slanted, that they might have an agenda, or theory, which they believe merits advancing, and that they might drift away from the facts to create more scandalous news/documentaries.

This is all sad, of course, especially to an aspiring journalist. But if you are interested in law, reporting and David-vs.-Goliath scenarios you should consider Reckless Disregard. Adler sure succeeds in showing that a supposed victim (Time and CBS and, consequently, the media's First Amendment rights) might actually be the aggressor (merciless litigation that resulted in Sharon and Westmoreland to lose credible libel cases). Her narrative of the cases was deemed threatening - to the point that CBS and Cravath tried to intimidate the author and Knopf, her publisher, and stop the publication of Reckless Disregard. Adler seems to have hit the right chords after all.

- Emre Peker @ 8:13 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Grim and the Dead -- Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala

On the handsome cover jacket of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation it says 'a novel' but at just over 140 pages, Beasts is more of a novella. Whatever the classification, the book is Iweala's debut effort. From the inner jacket, the reader is informed that Iweala, whose parents are Nigerian, was born in 1982 and went to Harvard, where he won numerous writing awards.

Iweala's impressive pedigree heightened my interest, and my expectations, when I dug in. Beasts of No Nation is that kind of book: you have to dig in, stiffen the upper lip, and brace yourself because the narrative is unrelenting. Set in an unnamed west African nation embroiled in civil war, the story is told by a young boy called Agu. Separated from his mother and sister, Agu witnesses the killing of his father as rebel fighters descend on his village. He is left for dead but is discovered by a rebel outfit, thus beginning a new life as an orphan and a conscript in the same loosely organized army that is responsible for the death of his family and fellow villagers. Thus also begins his life as a beast.

The first thing one notices reading Beasts is the distinctive style in which it is written. Iweala crafts the narrative using the voice of Agu, English that is subtly Africanized, replete with quirks of tense and cadence: "One day one soldier from our group is jumping off tall rock because he is saying he is finding heaven in all of the tree. I am thinking that he was madding in the head." The use of present tense throughout gives the narration an immediacy that heightens the impact of the language and the urgency of the story. It took me all of about a page to get accustomed to this style, and I never sensed that the writing intruded on the story.

Agu's voice is not just distinctly African, it is the voice of a young person, and this aspect of the narrative is essential to the success of the story. Agu describes the horrors to which he is subjected in straightforward, unflinching language. His youth, the nakedness of his feelings, give his words added power and the story more credibility. Agu is caught up in things which he does not understand, adult things like war, killing, and depravity, but we never feel that he is part of that world, even though he is forced to participate in it. The writing, while straightforward, is not devoid of lyricism: there is a richness to the descriptions, especially when Iweala tackles the points of the story that are most disturbing. In this passage, Agu is forced to kill for the first time:

It is like the world is moving slowly and I am seeing each drop of blood and each drop of sweat flying here and there. I am hearing the bird flapping their wing as they are leaving all the tree. It is sounding like thunder. I am hearing the mosquito buzzing in my ear so loud and I am feeling how the blood is just wetting on my leg and my face. The enemy's body is having deep red cut everywhere and his forehead is looking just crushed so his whole face is not even looking like face because his head is broken everywhere and there is just blood, blood, blood... I am hearing hammer knocking in my head and chest. My nose and mouth is itching. I am seeing all the color everywhere and my belly is feeling empty. I am growing hard between my legs. Is this like falling in love?

The last line of the passage refers to the words of the Commandant, as he is called, the leader of the rebel militia group who gives Agu the fateful choice of kill or be killed. The Commandant says that killing is "like falling in love." This character becomes the face of the insane brutality of the war, the personification of the forces that drive Agu and the rest of the "soldiers" to commit violent acts. Iweala does not let up for an instant in casting this perverse relationship: in addition to his psychological control, the Commandant exerts real physical control over Agu, not only forcing Agu to kill, but also to submit to his sexual appetites.

It all adds up to a grim existence for Agu, and one to which the reader can quickly become desensitized. It is horrible to read about such a profound disintegration of society, where children must become warriors and killers of the innocent, and not feel a hopelessness knowing that the story has played out in real life many times before, in places like Sierra Leone and the Sudan. But while it is true that the characters and the narrative are drawn in very broad strokes, Iweala is able to save his book from becoming mere social commentary, something you might see on the U.N.'s required reading list but not on the bookshelf of your average book lover. Iweala accomplishes this by focusing the story not on the horrors of war, and the way in which the men and boys involved are made beastly, but on Agu's inner struggle to maintain a sense of who he is and where he came from. Agu does not give himself over to the beast within; he maintains a sense of his own humanity even in the face of such senseless cruelty.

In this context, Iweala's decision to begin Beasts of No Nation with a quote from Une Saison en Enfer by Rimbaud is revealing. I admit, I had to brush up on the life of this great, tortured French writer of the 19th century, but I discovered that Rimbaud's life in some ways paralleled that of Agu: orphaned in wartime, caught up in a rebel movement, but most importantly, a person who in his writing constantly struggled to reconcile his bad acts with an enduring sense of his own humanity (it's no coincidence that the character in Beasts who ultimately assumes control of the rebel group and leads them away from the field of battle is called "Rambo"). In drawing this parallel, Iweala quietly demands that his story not be confined to Africa or the modern problem of child warriors there. It is his depiction of Agu's psychological conflict, a theme as old as literature, that imbues Iweala's work with literary clout beyond its modern subject matter, and gives shape and nuance to what otherwise would be little more than an exploration into the depths of human depravity.

- Noah Deutsch @ 8:19 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Tasty Morsels: The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is raw, silly, funny, delicate and unedited. And so is his latest book The Nasty Bits, a collection of three-to-five-page shorts - with a few longer exceptions. The collection does not come close to the revealing, unique and intriguing Kitchen Confidential (Emre's review). It is still a good read that furthers the reader's appetite for the unknown and reveals the idiosyncrasies of a celebrity chef, however.

The Nasty Bits is a good, short escape if you are trapped in a fast-paced environment. Last fall I lacked time to enjoy a long novel that would require a certain level of attention. Bourdain's writing proved to be loyal friend that left my taste buds wondering and my mind revisiting restaurants in New York. The Nasty Bits also provided for some hearty laughter.

Bourdain's style does not waver much. He sticks to a familiar, day-to-day usage of language, which makes the stories engaging monologues. The Nasty Bits provides some useful insight, as did Kitchen Confidential, into the restaurant industry. One practice I can claim prior to reading the collection is being nice to your waiter/waitress.

The stories are more about Bourdain's new found leisure activities and privileges as a celebrity chef. While it may not be as interesting as the misadventures of a drug addict and alcoholic in the New York restaurant world, Bourdain's honest admission to reaping the benefits of his status and bashing of the new industry that enables him to take a break from breaking his back at Les Halles in New York are still interesting.

The author's misadventures in The Nasty Bits take the reader to some of the world's best restaurants (Thomas Keller's Bouchon, Ferran Adria's El Bulli and many more), a love boat trip much resisted by Mrs. Bourdain (who I assume to be Buddha-like when it comes to putting up with Bourdain's antics) and on the road with his TV show "No Reservations" (Vietnam, Las Vegas, Italy, etc.).

Bourdain also fires salvos at U.S. food industry (for limiting people to McDonald's and making them obese), Woody Harrelson (for maintaining a diet of "raw fruits and vegetables") and dress codes (advocating a no-shoes policy). There is also his familiar theory for providing green cards to everyone south of the border to save the restaurant industry (I concur). Lastly, the author provides book suggestions to cooks, an unasked for commencement address to culinary school grads, and opinions on how chefs handle celebrity.

The Nasty Bits is Bourdain, through and through. It is honest, entertaining and quick. The collection might not be as fascinating as Kitchen Confidential, but it is still worth your consideration - especially on your bedside table, coffee table or in your bathroom (that is, if you do not have qualms about reading about food while in the toilet).

- Emre Peker @ 9:18 AM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Art Garfunkel is a Voracious Reader

A perfect post to leave you with as we head into the long weekend. Perhaps, like many people, you've been wondering what Art Garfunkel's been reading for... oh... the last 39 years, give or take. Luckily, he's been keeping track.

As a result, perusing through the nearly 1,000 books he's read in that time, I now know that:

• When I was born, Art Garfunkel was reading Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur.
• When I graduated high school, he was reading "Our Crowd" by Stephen Birmingham.
• When I graduated college, he was reading Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
• And when I got married, he was reading Love, Groucho, the letters of Groucho Marx.

What was Art Garfunkel reading on the important dates in your life? (Thanks to John for sending that brilliant link my way)

- C. Max Magee @ 5:39 PM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

HarperCollins Inks Deal with Digital Book Firm

One of last year's big stories, the publishers' battle with Google over control of digitized books, has been on the back burner in recent months, but an aggressive move by HarperCollins is pushing it back into the spotlight

In late 2005, Harper, already vocal about its displeasure with Google over the search engine giant's digital book initiative, announced that it would take its own separate approach, building its own little island, as I wrote at the time.

Since then, we haven't gotten too many updates on Harper's progress. On Thursday, however, the publisher announced that it would partner with LibreDigital, a division of newspaper digitizing firm NewsStand, while also making a "strategic investment" in NewsStand, with Harper president Brian Murray joining NewsStand's board of directors.

We also got an update on how far Harper has progressed over the last year in its efforts to digitize its books. The company's press release announcing the deal indicates that it has digitized "more than 10,000 books and has enabled the 'Browse Inside' application for several thousand." The WSJ in its writeup (Sub. Req.) puts that total number of books digitized at 12,000, with 2,000 of those being online now. Based on these numbers, the publisher is making progress, if not at the pace of Google, which based on its contract with the California state university library system could be capable of scanning as many as 3,000 books a day. Harper has a backlist of 20,000 books, with 3,500 new titles published each year, and this new effort will likely enable the publisher to finish its digitizing efforts sooner than it would have otherwise. In addition, LibreDigital's technology will better enable Harper to store and manage these digital editions.

In spite of being at odds with one another, to a certain extent the intentions and efforts of Google and the publishers don't entirely overlap. As the technology has evolved to facilitate the scanning of large quantities of books, Harper and other publishers are desperate to exert control over the digital versions of their books, allowing them to add value to their catalog by either selling digital books or by using those digital books to entice readers to buy the hard copies. The publishers' biggest fear is that Google will cannibalize their sales by giving the goods away for free.

Google, meanwhile, is more interested in providing as complete a record of the world's published work as possible. To be sure, there is a profit motive here - Google has made its billions by helping us navigate the information it organizes for us - but the upside, for readers (and society, even) would be the vast store of human knowledge at our fingertips. The fact that a number of university libraries have cooperated with Google (for the Library Project portion of Google Book Search) would seem to indicate that librarians, who know a thing or two about making information accessible, are enthusiastic about Google's plan. And, as such, its fairly easy to argue that Google's book scanning efforts would hurt publishers little more than libraries do. As exciting as Google's book initiatives could be (and they certainly are pretty good already), it appears as though the dream of a universally accessible online library will be forever hamstrung by publishing companies and copyright law.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:47 AM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Remembering Tillie Olsen

The recent death of Tillie Olsen (1912-2007) reminds us that the value of a piece of literature is not quantifiable - not by word count, not by books sold - but, rather, resides in a black box between writer and reader, in a transaction that defies easy explanation. Olsen's writing was not prodigal - she only published one complete book of fiction - but was, in its artistry and its impact, prodigious.

Tell Me a Riddle (1961), a collection of four stories, drew on activist sensibilities forged in the 1920s and 30s and on Olsen's innate poetic gifts. It consciously reclaimed the lives of minorities, of immigrants, of working-class people, and, especially, of women, as worthy of fictional examination. In so doing, it anticipated much of the finest literature published since.

It seems that Olsen was as inspiring in person as she was on the page. Her great-nephew Matt Osypowski, himself a fiction writer, recently told The Millions:

I started a novel (unfinished) in her apartment when I was eight or nine years old. Something about her presence made me want to do what she did, to master the language in the way that she had. She would send me the most beautiful birthday cards - short notes of pure music. Her partner, Jack, was deeply involved in labor politics in San Francisco, as was my grandfather. Their work was steeped in conflict, ideology, and mass movements... There was a beautiful contrast between their work and Tillie's, the big picture on their end and on hers all the small pictures that make the big picture matter. Her work can make me so sad, but it's never an impotent sadness - beneath it lie all her hopes for a better world, hopes that she wrote for, fought for, and helped all of us in the family share and understand.

Another fond remembrance, by John Leonard, is posted at The Nation (via The Mumpsimus).

- Garth Risk Hallberg @ 12:41 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Starbucks Skips the Saccharine

Fresh off of shilling the latest feel good tome from Mitch Albom in its thousands of locations, Starbucks has taken a more serious turn with its follow up selection. Soon to appear at the many Starbucks undoubtedly near you is a memoir by a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. According to the AP's Hillel Italie, Starbucks sold nearly 100,000 copies of Albom's book, meaning that this selection represents a huge windfall for both Beah and his publisher FSG.

Interestingly, the book's selection continues a mini-trend in the popularity of books about or based on the tragic lives of child soldiers in Africa, including Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala and What is the What by Dave Eggers (reviewed recently by Garth). Starbucks is also, of course, part of the larger trend, several years old now, whereby entities outside of the book industry bestow bestseller status upon a book, and publishers and authors all wrangle to, in effect, win the lottery. At least in this case the lottery is being won by an unknown rather than an overexposed bestselling author like Albom. Meanwhile, the ultimate king-maker, Oprah, will later this month be making her first new book club selection in more than a year.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:02 AM ~ comments: 4 ~ Links to this post

 

Costa (Whitbread) Goes to Boyd

This year's Costa (renamed from the Whitbread thanks to a change in sponsorship) Award winners have been named in several categories. The prize typically plays second fiddle to the heavyweight Booker, but some might appreciate its refreshing lack of fanfare, drama, and controversy (which seem to accompany the Booker and which some consider part of its charm). Still, the Costa consistently comes up with solid winners, and its "first novel" category is good at "discovering" new writers. This year's winners across five categories are:

• Novel: Restless by William Boyd
• First Novel: The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
• Children's Book: Set in Stone by Linda Newbery
• Poetry: Letter to Patience by John Haynes
• Biography: Keeping Mum: A Wartime Childhood by Brian Thompson

- C. Max Magee @ 7:40 AM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Gay Penguins Cause Trouble in North Carolina

Book bannings at elementary school libraries are so commonplace as to barely be newsworthy it seems, but I did find the furor over gay penguins in North Carolina to be amusing. The fuss is over a book called And Tango Makes Three about a pair of male penguins at a zoo in (where else) New York City, who adopt a baby penguin.

"My Two Dads" this is not, however, as some felt it promoted homosexuality. So much so, according to the AP story, that school officials jumped the gun and removed the book from shelves without putting it through the formal review process, which must be triggered by parents actually requesting that the book be removed. I can just imagine school officials checking their watches glumly, wondering when the parents will finally arrive with their pitchforks and torches. My favorite part of the story, though, is that the AP calls the tale of this penguin family a "controversial but true story," as if it's so outrageous (gay penguins!?) that some nefarious person must have made it up.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:26 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Mostly, the Voice: A Review of Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children

What is the source of Edward P. Jones' magic? If you had asked me a month ago, I might have mentioned: plot, social importance, sweep. These were the Tolstoyan qualities I admired so much in 2003's The Known World, surely one of the finest first novels published by an American in the last half century. "In the Blink of God's Eye," the first story in Jones' new collection, Aunt Hagar's Children seemed to confirm my intuitions, with its finely-etched rotogravure of African-American urbanization in the late 19th century. But, having just reached the end of the book, I am forced to reconsider. Some of Jones' finest stories are as contemporary, elliptical, and personal as anything Alice Munro or my beloved Deborah Eisenberg has done. And, like Munro and Eisenberg, the man has taken the venerable short-story form and somehow made it his own. I mean he is a master. The source of his magic? A mystery. Well, no, that's not quite accurate. What this book does share with The Known World is the Voice. That Edward P. Jones Omniscient Voice, detached yet curiously intimate, plainspoken, quiet, given to sudden, lurching glimpses forward and backward in time. Less James Earl Jones than Jeffrey Wright. The Voice wraps itself around characters, good guys, bad guys, men, women, and children, and loves those characters, and makes them live.

Wyatt Mason has pointed out, in Harper's, the way the characters in All Aunt Hagar's Children gesture back to Jones' first collection, Lost in the City (though one need not have read one to enjoy the other). They are grandchildren, cousins, neighbors of those characters; sometimes they are even the same characters. In lesser hands, this pattern could easily decay into a schematic, but Jones uses these connections as keyholes into his characters' souls. For him, history is destiny.

Take "Old Boys, Old Girls," for example. Here Caesar Matthews, of the earlier story "Young Lions," has landed in prison (where he was headed when last we saw him). Jones' depiction of the social dynamics of prisons is as wrenching as it is understated. But Caesar's past - his love life, his family - more than his experiences "on the yard," shape his future. We are given the details in quick strokes:

He was not insane, but he was three doors from it, which was how an old girlfriend, Yvonne Miller, would now and again playfully refer to his behavior. Who the fuck is this Antwoine bitch? Caesar sometimes thought during the trial. And where is Percy? It was only after the judge sentenced him to seven years in Lorton, D.C.'s prison in Virginia, that matters became somewhat clear again, and in those last moments before they took him away, he saw Antwoine spread out on the ground outside the Prime Property nightclub, blood spurting out of his chest like oil from a bountiful well.

Note the characteristic way Jones stitches a single, anchoring present - the trial - to the past (a girlfriend, a murder) and the future ("those last moments before they took him away") Note the sublime contrast between the fuzzy "somewhat clear" and the precise image of the bloody well. Every element of this passage will take on an added resonance in the story's haunting denouement. Like "In the Blink of God's Eye," "Old Boys, Old Girls" is one of the best stories in the book. Also noteworthy are "Bad Neighbors," "A Rich Man," "Tapestry," and "Common Law." As with Lost in the City, we come to know the streets of Washington D.C. as if they were the streets of our own city and their residents as if they were our own neighbors.

One senses that some of Jones' mid-90s efforts have found their way into this collection, too, and they seem to be lumped together in the book's middle section. "Resurrecting Methuselah," "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of Downtown Peru," "Root Worker," and "The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River" find the author struggling with problems of diction, syntax, and plot we know he solved in "The Known World." The latter three handle the supernatural less assuredly and vividly than Jones usually does, and traces of sentimentalism have not been entirely expunged from this quartet. Whether or not these stories are indeed products of Jones' literary apprenticeship, the collection might have been just as strong without them.

Still, it is difficult to find fault with All Aunt Hagar's Children; at 400 pages, it is a massive and mature accomplishment. Claudia, the heroine of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, once chastised her community for confusing aggression with strength, license with freedom, politeness with compassion, comportment with virtue. Edward P. Jones' omniscient narrators rarely render such judgments, but throughout All Aunt Hagar's Children, we can feel him leading by example. This is writing that is not only beautiful, but strong, compassionate, good, and free. Which is what we mean when we use the term "literature" - or anyway, should be.

- Garth Risk Hallberg @ 7:16 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

The Most Anticipated Literary Adaptations of 2007

Since several others have covered the most anticipated books of 2007, I thought I'd fill everybody in on which of their favorite books are going to be ruined by Hollywood in the coming year. Since almost every movie made is based on some previously existing material (can we count Spider Man 3 as an adaptation?), I thought I'd separate the kids movies and the horror/comic adaptations from the "literary" adaptations. Feel free to point out the movies I missed.

Kids flicks. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (IMDb) will dominate the box office in July. The latest installment of the juggernaut will feature a script by Michael Goldenberg (who is also penning the adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are (IMDb)) and direction by David Yates, who is best known for his HBO movie The Girl in the Cafe. I've never read a Harry Potter book, and I've never seen any of the movies either. It's safe to say the phenomenon has completely passed me by, so I leave it to you to decide whether this movie will be better than the ones that Chris Columbus directed.

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (IMDb), which has been discussed before on this blog, will no doubt own the holiday season. After some turbulence during development and production, the first part of Phillip Pullman's trilogy will hit theaters on December 7.

Finally, Bridge to Terabithia (IMDb) will get a new coat of paint, courtesy of Rugrats veteran Gabor Csupo. It's a live action version of the book, starring Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick, and a bunch of child actors with whom I am not familiar. No telling whether this will replace the vaunted 1985 TV adaptation as the definitive Terabithia for the screen.

Gore filled fun-fests. Dominic West, better known as hard-drinking detective Jimmy McNulty on the greatest show ever to air on television, has a hand in two bloody adaptations this year. In Hannibal Rising (IMDb), he'll be playing Inspector. I can only assume that this Inspector is a hard-drinking Eastern European detective, but not having read the book, I can't say. The folks over at Slow Match are debating the merits of Thomas Harris' latest this month. Maybe they have the answer.

In 300 (IMDb), adapted from a Frank Miller graphic novel, West will play Theron, the hard-drinking Spartan warrior. I wasn't that excited about either of these films before I found out West was in them. Now I'm planning on camping out, Star Wars-style for tickets.

Mainstream Literary Adaptations. Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake (IMDb), directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair) will debut in March. Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle fame, has the lead role. Here's hoping he has more lines than he did in Superman Returns.

April will bring us showers, a new baseball season, and The Nanny Diaries (IMDb), starring Scarlett Johanson, Laura Linney, and Paul Giamatti. I'm sure the studio is hoping to hit the same market that made The Devil Wears Prada a huge success, but I'm skeptical. DWP had a tour de force performance from Meryl Streep (Don't you just get the feeling she's going to get snubbed for the Oscar, by the way?) and a generally likable cast. The Nanny Diaries has ScarJo, who I detest. Tough call.

Also in April comes Atonement (IMDb). Directed by Joe Wright, whose version of Pride & Prejudice was almost universally lauded, Atonement features a bit of controversial casting. Yes, traditional English heavyweights Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave have parts, but the lead role of Cecilia will be played by the skeletal remains of Keira Knightly. Fans of the book are less than pleased.

In September, I will certainly be seeing Feast of Love (IMDb), adapted from the Charles Baxter novel. The cast features Selma Blair, Morgan Freeman, and Greg Kinnear (Tangent: Isn't Greg Kinnear having one of the most sneaky-successful careers of the last ten years? Who would've predicted it during his "Talk Soup" days?). It's an odd choice for an adaption. I've read the book, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn't strike me as terribly cinematic.

November will see John Burnham Schwartz's novel Reservation Road (IMDb) adapted starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. This is the prototypical small-ish novel adaptation, along the lines of The Ice Storm. It could go either way, turning into another In the Bedroom or another We Don't Live Here Anymore.

Also in November comes the granddaddy of all literary adaptations, Beowolf (IMDb). Robert Zemeckis directs a script from Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery. Beowolf features my favorite bit of casting for the year - Crispin Glover as Grendel. How perfect is that?

And finally, in late D