This afternoon I read Richard Price's The Wanderers (1974) and really enjoyed it. It is about a gang in the North Bronx (my old neighborhood) in 1962 and how they slowly drift apart as they grow older. I enjoyed it partly because of its depiction of the Bronx, including businesses I would go to like the White Castle on Allerton Avenue and Alexander's on Fordham Road, partly because of Price's gift for description (there isn't much food in the book, but it made me hungry every time it was mentioned), and partly because Price makes the reader care about the characters even though most of them are hoodlums.
The novel depicts the desperation felt by young Americans at the beginning of the 1960s that led to the societal tumult at the end of the decade in a heartwrenching, mesmerizing way. I couldn't put the book down. I don't feel very articulate about it yet because I am still processing it in quiet awe. It put David Bowie's "Star" in my head, mostly for the understated, needy, defeated mood of the music, but also because of the lyrics: "Tony went to fight in Belfast / Rudi stayed at home to starve / I could make it all worthwhile as a rock & roll star." The characters in The Wanderers all want to do something to break out of their routine, soul-crushing lives. If they could just find that one thing to make it "worthwhile" for themselves and the ones they care about...
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Foer's Tree of Codes
I just finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes and it is amazing! To create it, he cut holes in a copy of Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles so that a new narrative is created, partly from the words remaining on each page, and partly from the resulting combination of words on the page one is reading and later pages that one can see via the holes cut in each page. It is postmodern fiction at its best: a text that questions the concept of the book itself while still being a beautiful work of art that affirms the necessity of narrative for human existence.
It is only 134 pages long, and reads more like a long poem that consists of page-long, haiku-like poems than like prose. There is a basic narrative present, but it is secondary to the physical form of the book, which is just as much a piece of plastic art as it is a piece of literature. It is more empty space than text, and some pages (e.g., 60) are virtually all open space.
Here are three of my favorite page-poems (a full list would be about a third of the book's pages):
"Apart from them, mother and I ambled, guiding our shadows over a keyboard of paving stones. we passed the chemist's large jar of pain. we passed houses," 10
"her boundaries held only loosely, ready to scatter as if smoke. all her complaints, all her worries her no purpose, her eyes reflected the garden" 17
"he spoke almost incoherently. he blinked in the light, spilled darkness at each flutter of the lids. he said he had lost the way and hardly knew how to get back. perhaps the city had ceased to exist" 106
But it is difficult to get the full power of these fragments just from reading them; their physical manifestation is just as important.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is its inclusion of various metafictional statements that reaffirm the slipperiness of what the reader experiences:
"It was a dialogue" 29
"our creations will be temporary" 51
"tree of codes suddenly appears: one can see" 94
"nothing can reach a definite conclusion" 95
"The tree of codes was better than a paper imitation" 96
"Perhaps the spaces suggested by the mind did not exist?" 107 (this one is especially true, as the book is so well-constructed that it is often difficult to discern whether what one is reading is on the current page or a following page)
"The interior formed itself into the panorama of a landscape" 117
Tree of Codes is well worth its $40 cover price (amazon.com has it for $26); it is an essential text. I can't wait to teach it sometime!
It is only 134 pages long, and reads more like a long poem that consists of page-long, haiku-like poems than like prose. There is a basic narrative present, but it is secondary to the physical form of the book, which is just as much a piece of plastic art as it is a piece of literature. It is more empty space than text, and some pages (e.g., 60) are virtually all open space.
Here are three of my favorite page-poems (a full list would be about a third of the book's pages):
"Apart from them, mother and I ambled, guiding our shadows over a keyboard of paving stones. we passed the chemist's large jar of pain. we passed houses," 10
"her boundaries held only loosely, ready to scatter as if smoke. all her complaints, all her worries her no purpose, her eyes reflected the garden" 17
"he spoke almost incoherently. he blinked in the light, spilled darkness at each flutter of the lids. he said he had lost the way and hardly knew how to get back. perhaps the city had ceased to exist" 106
But it is difficult to get the full power of these fragments just from reading them; their physical manifestation is just as important.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is its inclusion of various metafictional statements that reaffirm the slipperiness of what the reader experiences:
"It was a dialogue" 29
"our creations will be temporary" 51
"tree of codes suddenly appears: one can see" 94
"nothing can reach a definite conclusion" 95
"The tree of codes was better than a paper imitation" 96
"Perhaps the spaces suggested by the mind did not exist?" 107 (this one is especially true, as the book is so well-constructed that it is often difficult to discern whether what one is reading is on the current page or a following page)
"The interior formed itself into the panorama of a landscape" 117
Tree of Codes is well worth its $40 cover price (amazon.com has it for $26); it is an essential text. I can't wait to teach it sometime!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Books Acquired Recently
Books Acquired Recently
Beachy, Kirsten Eve, ed. Tongue Screws and Testimonies: Poems Stories, and Essays Inspired by the Martyrs Mirror. Scottdale: Herald, 2010.
I've been meaning to buy this for a while. The Martyrs Mirror is a compilation of Anabaptist martyr stories first published in 1660. It is traditionally given as a wedding or graduation gift by Mennonites as a way of passing down Mennonite values to younger generations. I received it as a Christmas present when I was 16 and read my way through it over several years (it is 1300 folio-sized pages long). I have always been fascinated by it; I think an anthology of literature inspired by people's interactions with it is an excellent idea, and I know several of the contributors, so I am very excited to read it.
Brandt, Di. Walking to Mojacar. Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2010.
Brandt is one of my favorite poets. Her language crackles with energy, and her poems are unashamedly activist while at the same time being beautifully crafted. Unfortunately, as a Canadian, she is not well-known in the U.S., which is a failing of the American English teaching community. There is generally not an institutional space for Canadian literature to get taught in the U.S. because most departments are too small to offer courses in it (and there might not be student interest, but it is our job as teachers/critics to build this interest), and Canadian writers tend to get ignored in postcolonial literature courses. As a result, it is virtually impossible for Canadian writers to gain any traction in the U.S. unless they are lucky enough to be published in high-profile venues such as the New Yorker, as is the case with Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.
Schakel, Peter, and Jack Ridl, eds. 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
I ordered this as a desk copy because I will be using it in my Introduction to Literature course this coming semester. It has a nice selection of poems from the Renaissance throught the twenty-first century, a range that is difficult to find. Incidentally, Jack Ridl gave a reading at my alma mater, Goshen College, my last year there. I enjoyed his work.
Beachy, Kirsten Eve, ed. Tongue Screws and Testimonies: Poems Stories, and Essays Inspired by the Martyrs Mirror. Scottdale: Herald, 2010.
I've been meaning to buy this for a while. The Martyrs Mirror is a compilation of Anabaptist martyr stories first published in 1660. It is traditionally given as a wedding or graduation gift by Mennonites as a way of passing down Mennonite values to younger generations. I received it as a Christmas present when I was 16 and read my way through it over several years (it is 1300 folio-sized pages long). I have always been fascinated by it; I think an anthology of literature inspired by people's interactions with it is an excellent idea, and I know several of the contributors, so I am very excited to read it.
Brandt, Di. Walking to Mojacar. Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2010.
Brandt is one of my favorite poets. Her language crackles with energy, and her poems are unashamedly activist while at the same time being beautifully crafted. Unfortunately, as a Canadian, she is not well-known in the U.S., which is a failing of the American English teaching community. There is generally not an institutional space for Canadian literature to get taught in the U.S. because most departments are too small to offer courses in it (and there might not be student interest, but it is our job as teachers/critics to build this interest), and Canadian writers tend to get ignored in postcolonial literature courses. As a result, it is virtually impossible for Canadian writers to gain any traction in the U.S. unless they are lucky enough to be published in high-profile venues such as the New Yorker, as is the case with Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.
Schakel, Peter, and Jack Ridl, eds. 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
I ordered this as a desk copy because I will be using it in my Introduction to Literature course this coming semester. It has a nice selection of poems from the Renaissance throught the twenty-first century, a range that is difficult to find. Incidentally, Jack Ridl gave a reading at my alma mater, Goshen College, my last year there. I enjoyed his work.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Book Recently Acquired
Book Recently Acquired
Cooke, Joanne, Charlotte Bunch-Weeks, and Robin Morgan, eds. The New Women: An Anthology of Women's Liberation. 1970. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1971.
I picked this up used from the free book table at school. I love old anthologies like this (especially from the various liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s) because of their value as historical texts. I like to see what people were thinking, who was thinking it, how many of the thinkers are still relevant (or, at least, have kept publishing their thoughts [a crasser way of putting this is "who have I heard of, and what are the reasons I haven't heard of the others?"]) today? I have only heard of a few of the authors--Cynthia Ozick, Diane Di Prima, Rita Mae Brown, and Robin Morgan--but the questions listed on the back cover that the anthology addresses are still relevant today: "Why are we intimidated by the fashion and beauty industries? Why do we have to get married? Why do we have to have children? Why are we paid lower wages for doing the same work as men?" and so on. It is always nice to be reminded of the concrete issues and demands raised by second-wave feminism every once in a while even though I am more of a third-wave thinker.
There is also an essay by W.I.T.C.H (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell). I love the old collectives from those days and wish more activists/writers would adopt the model. I am a sucker for manifestos, and collectives are usually the best sources of them. I especially appreciate the effort to come up with an organizational name that results in a meaningful acronym.
Cooke, Joanne, Charlotte Bunch-Weeks, and Robin Morgan, eds. The New Women: An Anthology of Women's Liberation. 1970. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1971.
I picked this up used from the free book table at school. I love old anthologies like this (especially from the various liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s) because of their value as historical texts. I like to see what people were thinking, who was thinking it, how many of the thinkers are still relevant (or, at least, have kept publishing their thoughts [a crasser way of putting this is "who have I heard of, and what are the reasons I haven't heard of the others?"]) today? I have only heard of a few of the authors--Cynthia Ozick, Diane Di Prima, Rita Mae Brown, and Robin Morgan--but the questions listed on the back cover that the anthology addresses are still relevant today: "Why are we intimidated by the fashion and beauty industries? Why do we have to get married? Why do we have to have children? Why are we paid lower wages for doing the same work as men?" and so on. It is always nice to be reminded of the concrete issues and demands raised by second-wave feminism every once in a while even though I am more of a third-wave thinker.
There is also an essay by W.I.T.C.H (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell). I love the old collectives from those days and wish more activists/writers would adopt the model. I am a sucker for manifestos, and collectives are usually the best sources of them. I especially appreciate the effort to come up with an organizational name that results in a meaningful acronym.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Man in the High Castle
Yesterday evening I read Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. It turned out to be the perfect text for me at the moment. The characters' shared questioning of human existence and their understanding that one can never truly know the right way for sure, but must do one's best to find direction and just enjoy the ride was a message I needed to hear. I would love to teach it in a Literature and Religion course.
On a more concrete level, I enjoyed the novel's depiction of collectors because I love to collect things (especially books!). It is the best fictional portrayal of collectors/of the feel of collecting--the passion, the obsession, the tactile joy of the experience--that I have read, better than Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man. I freely admit that I sometimes seek solace from life's difficulties in material culture, and the book does an excellent job of portraying collecting's function as a form of (sometimes necessary) escapism. I also loved the book's consideration of "place," both as a geographical entity and as an expression of one's status within society. Place is a desperately important concept, but too few people realize this. The book's metafictional aspects (it revolves around a novel that is its exact opposite) are also delightful, an early example of American postmodernism. Well done.
On a more concrete level, I enjoyed the novel's depiction of collectors because I love to collect things (especially books!). It is the best fictional portrayal of collectors/of the feel of collecting--the passion, the obsession, the tactile joy of the experience--that I have read, better than Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man. I freely admit that I sometimes seek solace from life's difficulties in material culture, and the book does an excellent job of portraying collecting's function as a form of (sometimes necessary) escapism. I also loved the book's consideration of "place," both as a geographical entity and as an expression of one's status within society. Place is a desperately important concept, but too few people realize this. The book's metafictional aspects (it revolves around a novel that is its exact opposite) are also delightful, an early example of American postmodernism. Well done.
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Flying Troutmans
I just finished reading Miriam Toews's novel The Flying Troutmans, and quite enjoyed it. The plot is not especially fascinating (it's a typical "road trip" narrative), but the characters are fantastic. The 11-year-old girl Phebes is especially good. She is a precocious child similar to Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (her talents are artistic rather than scientific, though). Her adult-like persona is almost unrealistic at times, but Toews does a good job of mixing in enough childishness to make her believable. Phebes's brother Logan's single-minded devotion to basketball is also well-done, and is somewhat humorous because he's Canadian (Steve Nash notwithstanding).
The pastiche of pop culture references that Toews mixes in is also entertaining because of its highly eclectic nature. It includes Fight Club (109), the Bible (83), Sylvia Plath (167), Scrabble (63), David Bowie (125), the Beatles (83), and James Bond (116) among others. The novel has a postmodern feel despite its realist chronological narrative, in part because of its pastichiness and in part because of its continued emphasis that hoping for centers in human existence is futile: nothing is universal or infallible. It manages to convey this somber message in an enjoyable, often humorous way, though.
The pastiche of pop culture references that Toews mixes in is also entertaining because of its highly eclectic nature. It includes Fight Club (109), the Bible (83), Sylvia Plath (167), Scrabble (63), David Bowie (125), the Beatles (83), and James Bond (116) among others. The novel has a postmodern feel despite its realist chronological narrative, in part because of its pastichiness and in part because of its continued emphasis that hoping for centers in human existence is futile: nothing is universal or infallible. It manages to convey this somber message in an enjoyable, often humorous way, though.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Books Acquired Recently
Books Acquired Recently
I received a $50.00 giftcard to Barnes & Noble from a friend this past weekend and finally got a chance to spend it tonight. My philosophy in such situations is to spend the giftcard in the store rather than online (where I buy the large majority of my books [in part because DeKalb doesn't have any good bookstores]) in order to periodically get the satisfying experience of browsing in a bookstore without a specific goal for what I will purchase. Unfortunately, my library is extensive enough that it can be difficult to find desirable books that I don't already own at chain bookstores. I am happy with what I found this evening, but what I bought was all that I found--slim pickings.
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text. Ed. James Grauerholz and Barry Miles. 1959. New York: Grove, 2001.
I've been meaning to read this for a while. It's a little embarrassing that I haven't gotten around to it yet. I looked for it every time I have been in a used bookstore for the past year or so and didn't find a copy, which could indicate that those who own it are loathe to part with it, a good sign (I had the same experience with Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club for about five years, and finally broke down and bought it new several months ago).
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle. 1962. New York: Vintage, 1992.
Dick is another author I've been meaning to read for a while. I have almost bought the Library of America's first collection of his work several times because their editions are so aesthetically pleasing, but haven't been able to find it for a good price ($35.00 is a bit steep for an author I've never read before and am not obligated to be familiar with for scholarly reasons). After reading the section on Dick in Thomas Disch's The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, I decided that The Man in the High Castle sounded fascinating, but the rest of his work did not, thus I decided to buy the single volume tonight rather than the collection.
When I had a vasectomy six years ago, the doctor knew that I studied literature, and he mentioned that he enjoyed reading Dick and then proceeded to make jokes about him throughout the procedure: "I love Dick," "I'm a big Dick fan," et cetera. One of the most bizarre experiences of my life.
Reed, Ishmael, ed. From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003.
I am obsessed with poetry anthologies in part because of their role in canon formation and in part because they serve as intriguing historical documents once they get old because of all of the writers included in them who then fade away. This one looked exciting on the shelf: an editor whose work I love and parameters (both in terms of ethnicity/nationality and genre--I am a big supporter of the recent trend in studying music lyrics, especially rap lyrics, as poetry) that are not repeated by any of the other anthologies I own. I've been reading much more poetry in the last six months than I had for at least five years, really craving it again, which has been quite enjoyable.
I received a $50.00 giftcard to Barnes & Noble from a friend this past weekend and finally got a chance to spend it tonight. My philosophy in such situations is to spend the giftcard in the store rather than online (where I buy the large majority of my books [in part because DeKalb doesn't have any good bookstores]) in order to periodically get the satisfying experience of browsing in a bookstore without a specific goal for what I will purchase. Unfortunately, my library is extensive enough that it can be difficult to find desirable books that I don't already own at chain bookstores. I am happy with what I found this evening, but what I bought was all that I found--slim pickings.
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text. Ed. James Grauerholz and Barry Miles. 1959. New York: Grove, 2001.
I've been meaning to read this for a while. It's a little embarrassing that I haven't gotten around to it yet. I looked for it every time I have been in a used bookstore for the past year or so and didn't find a copy, which could indicate that those who own it are loathe to part with it, a good sign (I had the same experience with Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club for about five years, and finally broke down and bought it new several months ago).
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle. 1962. New York: Vintage, 1992.
Dick is another author I've been meaning to read for a while. I have almost bought the Library of America's first collection of his work several times because their editions are so aesthetically pleasing, but haven't been able to find it for a good price ($35.00 is a bit steep for an author I've never read before and am not obligated to be familiar with for scholarly reasons). After reading the section on Dick in Thomas Disch's The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, I decided that The Man in the High Castle sounded fascinating, but the rest of his work did not, thus I decided to buy the single volume tonight rather than the collection.
When I had a vasectomy six years ago, the doctor knew that I studied literature, and he mentioned that he enjoyed reading Dick and then proceeded to make jokes about him throughout the procedure: "I love Dick," "I'm a big Dick fan," et cetera. One of the most bizarre experiences of my life.
Reed, Ishmael, ed. From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003.
I am obsessed with poetry anthologies in part because of their role in canon formation and in part because they serve as intriguing historical documents once they get old because of all of the writers included in them who then fade away. This one looked exciting on the shelf: an editor whose work I love and parameters (both in terms of ethnicity/nationality and genre--I am a big supporter of the recent trend in studying music lyrics, especially rap lyrics, as poetry) that are not repeated by any of the other anthologies I own. I've been reading much more poetry in the last six months than I had for at least five years, really craving it again, which has been quite enjoyable.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Roth's The Humbling
I just finished reading Philip Roth's The Humbling. Generally I have enjoyed his recent fiction (especially Exit Ghost) and been impressed with the continuing high quality of his work in his 70s, but even so I was surprised with how good The Humbling is both in terms of aesthetic quality and plot (i.e., the enjoyable quality of the story--it's a good yarn). The protagonist Simon's story ends up being the traditional Roth plot of a megalomaniacal man who is incapable of seeing other peoples' actions as anything other than slights against him (though this time he's not a self-hating Jew), but with the twist (for Roth) thrown in that the woman he desires and seduces is a lesbian.
This is where the book becomes problematic. Virtually all of Roth's protagonists are horribly misogynist, but their idiocy is clear to readers: their anti-women feelings are so intense that the characters become caricatures (as Roth intends) and we know to disagree with them. However, The Humbling's treatment of lesbianism (not to mention its flat, stereotypical, oppressive treatment of transgendered persons) is much more muddied. Simon's love interest, Pegeen, has just been jilted by her lover and now views lesbianism as a "seventeen-year mistake" (61). So of course she follows the stereotypical questioning lesbian narrative of "let's find a penis to help me through my problems; being heteronormative is obviously what I need to help me through my life issues." (This narrative is also evident most recently in Julianne Moore's character from the film The Kids Are All Right.) When she and Simon first have sex, she tells him that his penis "fills you up [...] the way dildos and fingers don't" (92). At this point the dialogue resembles badly written pornography for straight men.
Pegeen leaves Simon at the end of the book, which would seem to reject her previous rejection of lesbianism, but we are not told what happens to her once she leaves. She might go back to women or she might not. Roth has, of course, made a career of writing troubling texts that readers are nevertheless unable to put down, and The Humbling is no different in this regard. But this is the first time that I have been unable to simply laugh it off afterward, and I am still trying to figure out how I feel about that.
This is where the book becomes problematic. Virtually all of Roth's protagonists are horribly misogynist, but their idiocy is clear to readers: their anti-women feelings are so intense that the characters become caricatures (as Roth intends) and we know to disagree with them. However, The Humbling's treatment of lesbianism (not to mention its flat, stereotypical, oppressive treatment of transgendered persons) is much more muddied. Simon's love interest, Pegeen, has just been jilted by her lover and now views lesbianism as a "seventeen-year mistake" (61). So of course she follows the stereotypical questioning lesbian narrative of "let's find a penis to help me through my problems; being heteronormative is obviously what I need to help me through my life issues." (This narrative is also evident most recently in Julianne Moore's character from the film The Kids Are All Right.) When she and Simon first have sex, she tells him that his penis "fills you up [...] the way dildos and fingers don't" (92). At this point the dialogue resembles badly written pornography for straight men.
Pegeen leaves Simon at the end of the book, which would seem to reject her previous rejection of lesbianism, but we are not told what happens to her once she leaves. She might go back to women or she might not. Roth has, of course, made a career of writing troubling texts that readers are nevertheless unable to put down, and The Humbling is no different in this regard. But this is the first time that I have been unable to simply laugh it off afterward, and I am still trying to figure out how I feel about that.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
A Miscellany
The combination of blogger.com being down for a few days last week and a very busy weekend hosting family has led to me not posting for nearly a week, so today's entry is wide-ranging.
I was listening a bit to the Rolling Stones the other day and was struck by the oddness of "Mother's Little Helper." What possessed Mick Jagger to write this song? Why did he, the epitome of (packaged, mainstream) nonconformity and a heavy drug user, feel the need to sing about the dangers of housewives abusing drugs and the rise of pre-packaged food products? It's bizarre.
Manchester United's clinching of their 19th league championship (12 in the Premiership and seven in the old First Division) on Saturday was incredibly satisfying. I fancy their chances of winning the Champions League final against Barcelona more than most (and not just because I am a United fan). All of the pressure will be on Barcelona, and the final is at Wembley! Don't underestimate the "home" advantage for United, as well as all of the ghosts from their 1968 European Cup win, also at Wembley. Plus the revenge factor from losing to Barcelona in the 2009 final. United have all of the intangibles on their side, and they have shown throughout Sir Alex Ferguson's tenure that they know how to use intangibles to their utmost advantage.
I just finished reading Nnedi Okorafor's novel Who Fears Death, a science fiction/fantasy narrative that is a pastiche of themes from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Dave Eggers's What is the What. It does not explicitly acknowledge that it is an allegory of the genocide in Sudan until the very end, though this correlation is obvious from the very beginning. It was a fun read, not especially accomplished technically, but interesting as a fictionalized response to real-world catastrophe, which is an area of scholarly interest for me.
Books Acquired Recently
Dlugos, Tim. A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos. Ed. David Trinidad. Callicoon: Nightboat, 2011.
I wrote last month about how I enjoy Dlugos because of his similarity to Frank O'Hara, and sure enough, the first blurb on the back of the book is Ted Berrigan calling Dlugos "the Frank O'Hara of his generation." The back cover also claims that Dlugos is "a major American poet," which at this point is just wishful thinking, but it is a statement that deserves to be true. It also calls him the "seminal poet of the AIDS epidemic," ha ha.
Toews, Miriam. The Flying Troutmans. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008.
I've been meaning to read this for a while. I really enjoyed Toews's previous novel, A Complicated Kindness, and am interested to see what she does with characters that (as far as I can tell from reading about the book) are not Mennonite. Toews is also excellent as Esther in the film Silent Light, which is probably the best movie about Mennonites/Amish, beating both Witness and Hazel's People.
I was listening a bit to the Rolling Stones the other day and was struck by the oddness of "Mother's Little Helper." What possessed Mick Jagger to write this song? Why did he, the epitome of (packaged, mainstream) nonconformity and a heavy drug user, feel the need to sing about the dangers of housewives abusing drugs and the rise of pre-packaged food products? It's bizarre.
Manchester United's clinching of their 19th league championship (12 in the Premiership and seven in the old First Division) on Saturday was incredibly satisfying. I fancy their chances of winning the Champions League final against Barcelona more than most (and not just because I am a United fan). All of the pressure will be on Barcelona, and the final is at Wembley! Don't underestimate the "home" advantage for United, as well as all of the ghosts from their 1968 European Cup win, also at Wembley. Plus the revenge factor from losing to Barcelona in the 2009 final. United have all of the intangibles on their side, and they have shown throughout Sir Alex Ferguson's tenure that they know how to use intangibles to their utmost advantage.
I just finished reading Nnedi Okorafor's novel Who Fears Death, a science fiction/fantasy narrative that is a pastiche of themes from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Dave Eggers's What is the What. It does not explicitly acknowledge that it is an allegory of the genocide in Sudan until the very end, though this correlation is obvious from the very beginning. It was a fun read, not especially accomplished technically, but interesting as a fictionalized response to real-world catastrophe, which is an area of scholarly interest for me.
Books Acquired Recently
Dlugos, Tim. A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos. Ed. David Trinidad. Callicoon: Nightboat, 2011.
I wrote last month about how I enjoy Dlugos because of his similarity to Frank O'Hara, and sure enough, the first blurb on the back of the book is Ted Berrigan calling Dlugos "the Frank O'Hara of his generation." The back cover also claims that Dlugos is "a major American poet," which at this point is just wishful thinking, but it is a statement that deserves to be true. It also calls him the "seminal poet of the AIDS epidemic," ha ha.
Toews, Miriam. The Flying Troutmans. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008.
I've been meaning to read this for a while. I really enjoyed Toews's previous novel, A Complicated Kindness, and am interested to see what she does with characters that (as far as I can tell from reading about the book) are not Mennonite. Toews is also excellent as Esther in the film Silent Light, which is probably the best movie about Mennonites/Amish, beating both Witness and Hazel's People.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Books Acquired Recently (continued)
As I was writing the previous post this morning, the mailman (gendered term used intentionally because it actually was a man today) delivered three more book packages that I didn't have time to open until this evening:
Fox, Robert Elliot. Conscientious Sorcerers: The Black Postmodernist Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel R. Delany. Westport: Greenwood, 1987.
I used this book a lot during my dissertation and decided to buy my own copy because Fox is one of the few critics to examine Delany's The Tides of Lust in-depth, which is one of the novels that I will study in my next book.
Sallis, James, ed. Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1996.
Another book that was helpful for the Delany chapter of my dissertation and will also come in handy for my next project.
Weedman, Jane Branham. Samuel R. Delany. Mercer Island: Starmont, 1982.
Rounding out my collection of Delany criticism.
Fox, Robert Elliot. Conscientious Sorcerers: The Black Postmodernist Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel R. Delany. Westport: Greenwood, 1987.
I used this book a lot during my dissertation and decided to buy my own copy because Fox is one of the few critics to examine Delany's The Tides of Lust in-depth, which is one of the novels that I will study in my next book.
Sallis, James, ed. Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1996.
Another book that was helpful for the Delany chapter of my dissertation and will also come in handy for my next project.
Weedman, Jane Branham. Samuel R. Delany. Mercer Island: Starmont, 1982.
Rounding out my collection of Delany criticism.
Books Acquired Recently
Books Acquired Recently:
I've gone a little crazy buying books in the past few weeks. Not all of them have even arrived yet! These are the ones I've received so far.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. Ed. Elizabeth Alexander. New York: Library of America, 2005.
I would love to teach Brooks extensively sometime rather than just a few poems from an anthology, but her Selected Poems does not include any of her work from the Black Arts Movement, which is what I am most interested in, so I ordered this collection to see if it would be suitable to use instead because it covers her entire career.
Germano, William. From Dissertation to Book. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
My big writing project this summer is to revise my dissertation into book form so that I can begin submitting book proposals to publishers. I read Germano's book last night and it was quite helpful in giving me a map for going about my revisions.
Johnson, E. Patrick, and Mae G. Henderson, eds. Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. Durham: Duke UP, 2005.
Amazon recommended this to me, and it looks interesting. African American literature and LGBT studies are my two scholarly foci these days, so this should be a helpful resource.
Koch, Kenneth. Kenneth Koch: Selected Poems. Ed. Ron Padgett. New York: Library of America, 2007.
I've been meaning to read Koch for years because of his close friendship with my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara. There have been numerous times in the past few years when I've almost bought this collection, but then didn't. Labyrinth Books had it on sale for $6.00 new, so I decided now was the time.
McEvoy, Seth. Samuel R. Delany. New York: Ungar, 1984.
My next book project is on Delany, so last week I ordered copies of all of the books on him that I didn't already own. Delany says in About Writing that McEvoy's book is the worst one about his work, so I won't use it much (if at all), but I like to be throrough. There is little enough criticism on Delany that one can't be choosy.
Moore, Honor, ed. Poems From the Women's Movement. New York: Library of America, 2009.
This looked really interesting when I saw it in the Labyrinth Books catalogue, and it was only $6.00. It might be fun to teach in a Rhetoric course. I am a total sucker for Library of America books because they are so aesthetically pleasing.
Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.
Amazon recommended this to me after I ordered Johnson and Henderson's anthology. I am very much interested in the literature of terrorism and more broadly the continuing after-effects of 9/11, so Puar's book sounds very interesting to me, though I probably won't have time to read it for a while.
Stine, Jean Marie. Season of the Witch. 1968. San Francisco: Eros, 2011.
I read about Stine's book in Thomas Disch's The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of, and it sounded interesting. I am constantly looking for examples of transgender fiction, and they are few and far between, so Stine helps fill the gap.
I've gone a little crazy buying books in the past few weeks. Not all of them have even arrived yet! These are the ones I've received so far.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. Ed. Elizabeth Alexander. New York: Library of America, 2005.
I would love to teach Brooks extensively sometime rather than just a few poems from an anthology, but her Selected Poems does not include any of her work from the Black Arts Movement, which is what I am most interested in, so I ordered this collection to see if it would be suitable to use instead because it covers her entire career.
Germano, William. From Dissertation to Book. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
My big writing project this summer is to revise my dissertation into book form so that I can begin submitting book proposals to publishers. I read Germano's book last night and it was quite helpful in giving me a map for going about my revisions.
Johnson, E. Patrick, and Mae G. Henderson, eds. Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. Durham: Duke UP, 2005.
Amazon recommended this to me, and it looks interesting. African American literature and LGBT studies are my two scholarly foci these days, so this should be a helpful resource.
Koch, Kenneth. Kenneth Koch: Selected Poems. Ed. Ron Padgett. New York: Library of America, 2007.
I've been meaning to read Koch for years because of his close friendship with my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara. There have been numerous times in the past few years when I've almost bought this collection, but then didn't. Labyrinth Books had it on sale for $6.00 new, so I decided now was the time.
McEvoy, Seth. Samuel R. Delany. New York: Ungar, 1984.
My next book project is on Delany, so last week I ordered copies of all of the books on him that I didn't already own. Delany says in About Writing that McEvoy's book is the worst one about his work, so I won't use it much (if at all), but I like to be throrough. There is little enough criticism on Delany that one can't be choosy.
Moore, Honor, ed. Poems From the Women's Movement. New York: Library of America, 2009.
This looked really interesting when I saw it in the Labyrinth Books catalogue, and it was only $6.00. It might be fun to teach in a Rhetoric course. I am a total sucker for Library of America books because they are so aesthetically pleasing.
Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.
Amazon recommended this to me after I ordered Johnson and Henderson's anthology. I am very much interested in the literature of terrorism and more broadly the continuing after-effects of 9/11, so Puar's book sounds very interesting to me, though I probably won't have time to read it for a while.
Stine, Jean Marie. Season of the Witch. 1968. San Francisco: Eros, 2011.
I read about Stine's book in Thomas Disch's The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of, and it sounded interesting. I am constantly looking for examples of transgender fiction, and they are few and far between, so Stine helps fill the gap.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Planning
I am thinking about my syllabi for next semester. I have two sections of Introduction to Literature and one of Composition and Research. Both reading lists are basically set (especially the Intro to Lit), but until I actually send in the book order there is always a wonderful feeling of excitement, of promise, of potential knowing that I could teach ANYTHING within the parameters of the course (which, in the case of Intro to Lit, is almost literally anything). It's always a little sad once a course gets set in stone, even when I like the reading list and am looking forward to teaching it, because that potential disappears until the next semester.
This is an issue that I have been thinking about a lot lately as far as my own life goes. I am 31 now, and the many potential lives that were available to live when I graduated college at 22 are quickly dwindling. I graduate with my Ph.D. in a little more than a week and have my first full-time teaching job set up, so my (first?) career is moving full steam ahead. I am really excited to finally be a professional scholar rather than a student, but at the same time it is terribly scary that a large part of my identity is set, and that if for some reason it does not go well I will be stuck. Getting old is a constantly perplexing process even when it is enjoyable.
This is an issue that I have been thinking about a lot lately as far as my own life goes. I am 31 now, and the many potential lives that were available to live when I graduated college at 22 are quickly dwindling. I graduate with my Ph.D. in a little more than a week and have my first full-time teaching job set up, so my (first?) career is moving full steam ahead. I am really excited to finally be a professional scholar rather than a student, but at the same time it is terribly scary that a large part of my identity is set, and that if for some reason it does not go well I will be stuck. Getting old is a constantly perplexing process even when it is enjoyable.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Starboard Wine and Samuel R. Delany's Canonicity
I've spent the last hour or so online looking to buy a copy of Samuel R. Delany's Starboard Wine (1984). It is the only volume of his nonfiction that I do not own. My search has thus far been unsuccessful, as it was when I undertook it at the end of December. I am so used to finding whatever book I want on amazon.com (and almost always for reasonable prices) that it is a disconcerting feeling when this process fails. I had seen a copy in fair condition for around $55.00 on amazon last summer and decided not to get it then because I didn't need it for my research at the time and thought I would wait until I had some extra money around, but now I am kicking myself for passing up the chance.
I did find that apparently Wesleyan University Press, which has published/re-printed most of Delany's nonfiction and several of his novels, was planning on issuing a new edition back in 1997, but it never came to fruition. It scares me that Delany has such a difficult time keeping his work in print (and had a tough time finding a publisher for his new novel, which is finally coming out in October after its original publisher, Alyson Books, went bankrupt earlier this year) because he is a tremendously important author, not only for the queer and African American communities, but for America in general. I focus on him in my criticism in order to keep him on the canonical radar, where he is already on the margins at best. He is too important to let fade into obscurity after his death (he turns 70 next year, so who knows how much time he has left?).
I did find that apparently Wesleyan University Press, which has published/re-printed most of Delany's nonfiction and several of his novels, was planning on issuing a new edition back in 1997, but it never came to fruition. It scares me that Delany has such a difficult time keeping his work in print (and had a tough time finding a publisher for his new novel, which is finally coming out in October after its original publisher, Alyson Books, went bankrupt earlier this year) because he is a tremendously important author, not only for the queer and African American communities, but for America in general. I focus on him in my criticism in order to keep him on the canonical radar, where he is already on the margins at best. He is too important to let fade into obscurity after his death (he turns 70 next year, so who knows how much time he has left?).
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thoughts on Cavafy
This evening I've been reading in The Complete Poems of [Constantine] Cavafy (the 1976 Rae Dalven translation) in between innings of the Mets-Nationals game. I first encountered his poetry in J.D. McClatchy's anthology Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems and enjoyed it enough to desire more.
Cavafy's poems are almost all either love poems (the majority of them clearly homoerotic) or retellings of ancient Greek myths or history. The latter are not very good (compared, for instance, with the skillful way in which H.D. writes about the same subject matter), but the love poems are excellent. They tend to be short vignettes, beautifully crafted, about brief liaisons and the former lovers of the speaker's youth.
"On Painting" especially stands out to me:
I attend to my work and I love it.
But today the languor of composition disheartens me.
The day has affected me. Its face
is deepening dark. It continues to blow and rain.
I would sooner see than speak.
In this painting now, I am looking at
a beautiful lad who is stretched out
near the fountain, probably worn out from running.
What a beautiful child; what a divine noon
has now overtaken him to lull him to sleep.--
I sit and look so for a long time.
And again it is in art that I rest from its toil.
That last line is spectacular: the idea that the turmoil caused by the struggle to create beauty ("the languor of composition disheartens me") can only be assuaged by beauty's calming influence.
I love the depiction of visual art in poetry. Cavafy describes the path to the sublime that the best paintings reveal to viewers in a way that is reminiscent of Frank O'Hara's poem "Why I am Not a Painter," which also speaks of the mysterious beauty of painting from a sideways angle, using a painting as an illustration of this beauty rather than attempting a straightforward description of its essence.
Cavafy's poems are almost all either love poems (the majority of them clearly homoerotic) or retellings of ancient Greek myths or history. The latter are not very good (compared, for instance, with the skillful way in which H.D. writes about the same subject matter), but the love poems are excellent. They tend to be short vignettes, beautifully crafted, about brief liaisons and the former lovers of the speaker's youth.
"On Painting" especially stands out to me:
I attend to my work and I love it.
But today the languor of composition disheartens me.
The day has affected me. Its face
is deepening dark. It continues to blow and rain.
I would sooner see than speak.
In this painting now, I am looking at
a beautiful lad who is stretched out
near the fountain, probably worn out from running.
What a beautiful child; what a divine noon
has now overtaken him to lull him to sleep.--
I sit and look so for a long time.
And again it is in art that I rest from its toil.
That last line is spectacular: the idea that the turmoil caused by the struggle to create beauty ("the languor of composition disheartens me") can only be assuaged by beauty's calming influence.
I love the depiction of visual art in poetry. Cavafy describes the path to the sublime that the best paintings reveal to viewers in a way that is reminiscent of Frank O'Hara's poem "Why I am Not a Painter," which also speaks of the mysterious beauty of painting from a sideways angle, using a painting as an illustration of this beauty rather than attempting a straightforward description of its essence.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"We would have been safe" (and game six)
I just finished re-reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close to teach it tomorrow, and even though this was the sixth or seventh time I have read it, the last quarter of the book still makes me cry. It concludes about as happily as it possibly can--Oskar's father is still dead (no magical realism here), but he solves the mystery of the key, he and his mother are reconciled, and he realizes he has to/will be able to move on with his life--though the actual ending is heartwrenching. Oskar's final words, "We would have been safe" (326), signify the final loss of his childhood innocence, which is normally a healthy, important moment of growth. Foer does such a good job of making readers care about Oskar, though, that we hope he can just stay protected and happy forever. Oskar grows up instead, and we are left with the fact that for all of our childhood nostalgia, we live in a world where, as Abby Black says, "people hurt each other" for no good reason, even when we try our best not to (290).
Oskar's last sentence, coupled with the flipbook that shows a body falling back up into the World Trade Center, is also a public lament for Americans' pre-9/11 hopeful naivete that we were somehow in the violent, messy world, but not of it. We all share that desire for safety, but as Oskar says, "In the end, everyone loses everyone" (74), so we must confront the danger and live our lives to the fullest.
Anyway, to cheer myself up I watched the tenth inning of game six from the 1986 World Series. It still always amazes me that the Mets win; I get nervous every time I watch it.
Today I watched both halves of the inning (usually I just watch the bottom half), and it was shocking how much it looks like Boston is destined to win. I can't imagine having watched it as a Red Sox fan. Just before Dave Henderson hits a home run to put Boston ahead, NBC replayed his home run from game five of the ALCS, so it plays like he was pre-ordained to hit another one. Shortly thereafter, there is a shot of Henderson and Bill Buckner with their arms around one another in the dugout, laughing. Later in the inning, Buckner comes up with a runner in scoring position and Rick Aguilera hits him. Buckner glares out toward the mound and the home plate umpire has to get in front of him and guide him toward first base. This reaction is completely ridiculous on Buckner's part because there is no way Aguilera would be throwing at him intentionally. It is like the baseball gods punish Buckner for his reaction in the bottom half of the inning. As gods are wont to do, their punishment far outweighs the crime.
My favorite part of the bottom half of the inning* is Ray Knight screaming with joy to the heavens (I use this term intentionally--Knight explicitly thanks "the good Lord" in his post-game interview with Marv Albert [so does Mookie Wilson]) as his teammates mob him after he scores the winning run. It looks like he is barely able to breathe, like he is drowning in a sea of Mets. It is also wonderful how once the run crosses the plate Vin Scully stops talking and just lets the crowd noise and the camera shots speak for themselves.
* For those of you unfamiliar with the bottom half of the inning, here's a re-creation of it using the old Nintendo game RBI Baseball with the original NBC audio:
Oskar's last sentence, coupled with the flipbook that shows a body falling back up into the World Trade Center, is also a public lament for Americans' pre-9/11 hopeful naivete that we were somehow in the violent, messy world, but not of it. We all share that desire for safety, but as Oskar says, "In the end, everyone loses everyone" (74), so we must confront the danger and live our lives to the fullest.
Anyway, to cheer myself up I watched the tenth inning of game six from the 1986 World Series. It still always amazes me that the Mets win; I get nervous every time I watch it.
Today I watched both halves of the inning (usually I just watch the bottom half), and it was shocking how much it looks like Boston is destined to win. I can't imagine having watched it as a Red Sox fan. Just before Dave Henderson hits a home run to put Boston ahead, NBC replayed his home run from game five of the ALCS, so it plays like he was pre-ordained to hit another one. Shortly thereafter, there is a shot of Henderson and Bill Buckner with their arms around one another in the dugout, laughing. Later in the inning, Buckner comes up with a runner in scoring position and Rick Aguilera hits him. Buckner glares out toward the mound and the home plate umpire has to get in front of him and guide him toward first base. This reaction is completely ridiculous on Buckner's part because there is no way Aguilera would be throwing at him intentionally. It is like the baseball gods punish Buckner for his reaction in the bottom half of the inning. As gods are wont to do, their punishment far outweighs the crime.
My favorite part of the bottom half of the inning* is Ray Knight screaming with joy to the heavens (I use this term intentionally--Knight explicitly thanks "the good Lord" in his post-game interview with Marv Albert [so does Mookie Wilson]) as his teammates mob him after he scores the winning run. It looks like he is barely able to breathe, like he is drowning in a sea of Mets. It is also wonderful how once the run crosses the plate Vin Scully stops talking and just lets the crowd noise and the camera shots speak for themselves.
* For those of you unfamiliar with the bottom half of the inning, here's a re-creation of it using the old Nintendo game RBI Baseball with the original NBC audio:
Monday, April 25, 2011
Books Acquired Recently
Books Acquired Recently (in the order I acquired them):
Disch, Thomas M. The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. 1998. New York: Touchstone, 2000.
A friend who knows that in the past several years I've been beginning to explore the world of science fiction (mostly as a result of reading Samuel R. Delany) gave this to me. It looks pretty interesting, though I have a rather sizeable stack of other things to read first, including the rest of the books mentioned in this post. I've read Disch's Camp Concentration and generally liked it as an anti-war statement/indictment of the American police state, though it wasn't spectacular aesthetically.
Humphreys, Laud. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. 2nd ed. 1975. New Brunswick: AldineTransaction, 2009.
I first read this during my senior year of college, and it changed my life. The model of non-monogamous, anonymous sex it documents was completely new to me at the time, and it helped to open my eyes to just how important-while-being-commonplace sex is. It also helped me in my long journey to acknowledge that my sexual attraction to men is legitimate. Furthermore, the book prepared a conceptual framework which gave me a base from which to encounter and appreciate writers such as Delany and John Rechy, who have become essential for me.
Delany, Samuel R. Trouble on Triton. 1976. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1996.
I'm re-reading this for a paper that I am working on, so I decided to get the edition that is currently in print rather than using my old Bantam edition. I am also thinking about teaching it next year. Usually when I teach Delany's science fiction I teach Babel-17, but I am getting a little tired of it. My problem is that the Delany novels I love the most and/or find the most interesting (e.g., in no particular order, The Mad Man, Dhalgren, Equinox, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals) are generally either too explicit or too complicated/long (or all three) to teach to undergraduates. Trouble on Triton might be an acceptable compromise.
Tucker, Jeffrey Allen. A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2004.
This is also for the paper I am writing. I read pieces of it while researching my dissertation, but am now ready to interact with it fully.
Disch, Thomas M. The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. 1998. New York: Touchstone, 2000.
A friend who knows that in the past several years I've been beginning to explore the world of science fiction (mostly as a result of reading Samuel R. Delany) gave this to me. It looks pretty interesting, though I have a rather sizeable stack of other things to read first, including the rest of the books mentioned in this post. I've read Disch's Camp Concentration and generally liked it as an anti-war statement/indictment of the American police state, though it wasn't spectacular aesthetically.
Humphreys, Laud. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. 2nd ed. 1975. New Brunswick: AldineTransaction, 2009.
I first read this during my senior year of college, and it changed my life. The model of non-monogamous, anonymous sex it documents was completely new to me at the time, and it helped to open my eyes to just how important-while-being-commonplace sex is. It also helped me in my long journey to acknowledge that my sexual attraction to men is legitimate. Furthermore, the book prepared a conceptual framework which gave me a base from which to encounter and appreciate writers such as Delany and John Rechy, who have become essential for me.
Delany, Samuel R. Trouble on Triton. 1976. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1996.
I'm re-reading this for a paper that I am working on, so I decided to get the edition that is currently in print rather than using my old Bantam edition. I am also thinking about teaching it next year. Usually when I teach Delany's science fiction I teach Babel-17, but I am getting a little tired of it. My problem is that the Delany novels I love the most and/or find the most interesting (e.g., in no particular order, The Mad Man, Dhalgren, Equinox, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals) are generally either too explicit or too complicated/long (or all three) to teach to undergraduates. Trouble on Triton might be an acceptable compromise.
Tucker, Jeffrey Allen. A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2004.
This is also for the paper I am writing. I read pieces of it while researching my dissertation, but am now ready to interact with it fully.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tim Dlugos Lives!
I just found out today that Tim Dlugos's Collected Poems is coming out next month, edited by David Trinidad. Dlugos died of AIDS in 1990 just as he was becoming established as a significant poetic voice not only in the gay literary community, but in the wider poetry community as well. Since then he's been virtually ignored by anthologists and critics with the exception of a few short articles by Trinidad.
I was introduced to Dlugos's work when a professor of mine suggested I do a paper on him about five years ago (I have been remiss in failing to either revise it for publication or at least present it at a conference, but will have to revisit it once the new book is released). I love his poems because they have a vitality to them that is Frank O'Hara-esque. O'Hara is my favorite poet; thus that is one of the highest compliments I can pay another writer.
For instance, here is "Not Stravinsky" in full:
Dark-eyed boy in tight designer jeans and sneakers on your way from basketball practice at Bishop Somebody High, I
don't know what you're playing on your Walkman but it probably is not Stravinsky. (Powerless 46)
I love the Whitman-esque long lines (the poem is only two lines long even though each line is long enough to take up two lines of print) and subject matter. The same-sex desire expressed in the poem is beautiful, a fleeting moment of both enjoyment and sadness (the desire going completely unrequited) for the speaker (presumably Dlugos), the knowledge that all the two will ever share is a fleeting moment in passing that isn't even recognized by the boy, but is striking enough for Dlugos to commemorate in a poem. We see here the immediacy of O'Hara's "I do this I do that" poems, that urgency to get an experience down on paper before one moves on with the day, with the rest of life. Dlugos's "On This Train Are People Who Resemble" is also in this vein, an everyday list poem colored by the New York City vibe and references to pop culture. In fact, one could pass it off as a lost O'Hara poem to readers unfamiliar with Dlugos's work.
Hopefully this new collection will put Dlugos back on readers' radar because his work is too good to disappear outside the boundaries of the canon, which, for all its problematic characteristics, is useful for keeping essential literature in print. The best-case scenario would be for Dlugos's Collected Poems to do for his critical reputation what O'Hara's did for his when it was first published in 1971 (O'Hara was more well-known then than Dlugos is now among poetry lovers, but not yet among critics from the academy). Dlugos's Powerless: Selected Poems 1973-1990 (New York: High Risk Books, 1996, also edited by Trinidad), which is an excellent, concise collection, unfortunately did little to stir interest in his work.
I was introduced to Dlugos's work when a professor of mine suggested I do a paper on him about five years ago (I have been remiss in failing to either revise it for publication or at least present it at a conference, but will have to revisit it once the new book is released). I love his poems because they have a vitality to them that is Frank O'Hara-esque. O'Hara is my favorite poet; thus that is one of the highest compliments I can pay another writer.
For instance, here is "Not Stravinsky" in full:
Dark-eyed boy in tight designer jeans and sneakers on your way from basketball practice at Bishop Somebody High, I
don't know what you're playing on your Walkman but it probably is not Stravinsky. (Powerless 46)
I love the Whitman-esque long lines (the poem is only two lines long even though each line is long enough to take up two lines of print) and subject matter. The same-sex desire expressed in the poem is beautiful, a fleeting moment of both enjoyment and sadness (the desire going completely unrequited) for the speaker (presumably Dlugos), the knowledge that all the two will ever share is a fleeting moment in passing that isn't even recognized by the boy, but is striking enough for Dlugos to commemorate in a poem. We see here the immediacy of O'Hara's "I do this I do that" poems, that urgency to get an experience down on paper before one moves on with the day, with the rest of life. Dlugos's "On This Train Are People Who Resemble" is also in this vein, an everyday list poem colored by the New York City vibe and references to pop culture. In fact, one could pass it off as a lost O'Hara poem to readers unfamiliar with Dlugos's work.
Hopefully this new collection will put Dlugos back on readers' radar because his work is too good to disappear outside the boundaries of the canon, which, for all its problematic characteristics, is useful for keeping essential literature in print. The best-case scenario would be for Dlugos's Collected Poems to do for his critical reputation what O'Hara's did for his when it was first published in 1971 (O'Hara was more well-known then than Dlugos is now among poetry lovers, but not yet among critics from the academy). Dlugos's Powerless: Selected Poems 1973-1990 (New York: High Risk Books, 1996, also edited by Trinidad), which is an excellent, concise collection, unfortunately did little to stir interest in his work.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Thoughts on Re-Reading
Later this afternoon I am going to begin re-reading Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses for the first time since I bought it at the Strand (12th and Broadway in NYC) in summer 2003. I claim Rushdie as one of my favorite authors, but I haven't actually read any of his work since reading Midnight's Children in late 2005. Thus I am excited to get back to him.
I have done hardly any re-reading over the past seven years while I've been in graduate school (except in those instances where a book was assigned in several of my classes or I assigned a book to my classes multiple times [e.g., Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close], and also when studying for my Ph.D. exams) because I have not had the time. This is a practice that I miss, because I almost always find that I gain new insights into a text the second (or third, etc.) time around. I like the idea of having a set of texts that one returns to for sustenance throughout one's life as reminders for who one is and where one finds beauty in the world. Religious persons would use the term "sacred texts" to label what I am describing, and I like this term even though I am not religious and don't really care whether a "God" exists (actions are what is important, not whether some unprovable supernatural being is out there or not) because it signifies the idea that some texts help us experience the sublime, the beauty of the world (which are both important concepts for secular folks to claim) better than others.
Texts that have played this "sacred" role for me in the past and that I wish I had time now to re-read, but do not, include Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, Rudy Wiebe's The Blue Mountains of China, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Di Brandt's poetry. Two authors that I have been able to re-read and continue to re-read as I have the time are Walt Whitman and Samuel R. Delany, both of whom I try to teach whenever possible. In Whitman's case, it's much easier to find time to re-read a poem or two (or a section of "Song of Myself" as the case may be) than a novel.
Part of what makes it so difficult to re-read is that I am always finding new books to read as well. I have at least a dozen new books on my shelf (mostly novels) waiting for me. Certainly my book-buying addiction does not lend itself to contemplative returns to old friends.
Also, sometimes I love parentheses a little too much.
I have done hardly any re-reading over the past seven years while I've been in graduate school (except in those instances where a book was assigned in several of my classes or I assigned a book to my classes multiple times [e.g., Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close], and also when studying for my Ph.D. exams) because I have not had the time. This is a practice that I miss, because I almost always find that I gain new insights into a text the second (or third, etc.) time around. I like the idea of having a set of texts that one returns to for sustenance throughout one's life as reminders for who one is and where one finds beauty in the world. Religious persons would use the term "sacred texts" to label what I am describing, and I like this term even though I am not religious and don't really care whether a "God" exists (actions are what is important, not whether some unprovable supernatural being is out there or not) because it signifies the idea that some texts help us experience the sublime, the beauty of the world (which are both important concepts for secular folks to claim) better than others.
Texts that have played this "sacred" role for me in the past and that I wish I had time now to re-read, but do not, include Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, Rudy Wiebe's The Blue Mountains of China, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Di Brandt's poetry. Two authors that I have been able to re-read and continue to re-read as I have the time are Walt Whitman and Samuel R. Delany, both of whom I try to teach whenever possible. In Whitman's case, it's much easier to find time to re-read a poem or two (or a section of "Song of Myself" as the case may be) than a novel.
Part of what makes it so difficult to re-read is that I am always finding new books to read as well. I have at least a dozen new books on my shelf (mostly novels) waiting for me. Certainly my book-buying addiction does not lend itself to contemplative returns to old friends.
Also, sometimes I love parentheses a little too much.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Beatles and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
One of my favorite aspects about Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is his love for the Beatles, which I share. Oskar randomly mentions Beatles songs throughout the narrative (including some fairly obscure ones), but there are two that are especially important for understanding his mental state througout the book (as opposed to, say, "Yellow Submarine" [1]). They occur in the same sentence, just before Oskar checks the phone messages on 9/11 that have been left by his soon-to-be-dead father (14).
The first song is "Fixing a Hole" (off of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, probably the least well-known song Oskar references--one has to be familiar with the album to know it). This one is rather obvious: throughout the novel Oskar is attempting to "fix the hole" left inside of him after his father's death so he can move on with his life. The song itself is a rather hopeful one because the speaker is having success fixing the hole, but Oskar has no idea how to begin this process. He simply falls into it once he discovers the key in his father's closet and begins searching for its lock.
The second song is "I Want to Tell You" (off of Revolver, an underrated album as far as it is possible for Beatles albums to be underrated). Oskar desperately needs someone to talk to, he "wants to tell" someone about his pain, and he does so to the reader in his rapid-fire almost stream-of-consciousness narration, but what he really wants is to be able to talk with his dead father, and, since that is impossible, to his mother, from whom he feels alienated. But "When [she's] here / All those words, they seem to slip away." He doesn't know how to break down the barrier between them, and she doesn't either. It is not until the end of the book that they slowly begin to communicate again.
The first song is "Fixing a Hole" (off of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, probably the least well-known song Oskar references--one has to be familiar with the album to know it). This one is rather obvious: throughout the novel Oskar is attempting to "fix the hole" left inside of him after his father's death so he can move on with his life. The song itself is a rather hopeful one because the speaker is having success fixing the hole, but Oskar has no idea how to begin this process. He simply falls into it once he discovers the key in his father's closet and begins searching for its lock.
The second song is "I Want to Tell You" (off of Revolver, an underrated album as far as it is possible for Beatles albums to be underrated). Oskar desperately needs someone to talk to, he "wants to tell" someone about his pain, and he does so to the reader in his rapid-fire almost stream-of-consciousness narration, but what he really wants is to be able to talk with his dead father, and, since that is impossible, to his mother, from whom he feels alienated. But "When [she's] here / All those words, they seem to slip away." He doesn't know how to break down the barrier between them, and she doesn't either. It is not until the end of the book that they slowly begin to communicate again.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Being Scholarly
Today has been an excellent, well-rounded day of scholarly activity. I taught the first quarter of my favorite book, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, in my Masterpieces of American Literature course, read some early Allen Ginsberg poems in preparation for a lecture on him that I am attending tomorrow, and wrote an abstract on the role of nudity in Samuel R. Delany’s work for a queer studies conference next October. Ginsberg and Delany are two of the inspirations for my beard (Walt Whitman is the third); it was a happy coincidence that they both played a role in my day. Writing the abstract was my favorite part of the day because it came so easily. It was one of those rare writing experiences where I can barely type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. This was in part because Delany is consistently very open about his body in his nonfiction and about his characters’ bodies in his fiction, so there is a lot of material to write about, but also because now that I have a job for next year I can focus on my scholarship again, which I have missed deeply. It feels good to get the creative juices flowing, to be reminded that I can still think in a scholarly way after not having done so since November, really.
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