Double Feature: Francine Prose's Blue Angel; 100 Manly Books

Feature #1:

By all appearances, Theodore "Ted" Swenson is living the sweet life. He's a tenured professor at Euston, a bucolic New England college; he's published a well-received novel; and his beautiful wife is smart, warm, and humorous. Ted's even managed to craftily pare down his teaching schedule and office hours to a bare minimum of acceptability. What more could a man wish for?

Of course, small irritations have a way of slowly rubbing the good life raw. Swenson's creative writing students are painfully untalented. How, for instance, can Swenson have any reasonable chance of improving Danny Liebman's tortured short story in which a teenager, drunk and spurned by his girlfriend, indulges in sexual congress with a raw chicken by the light of the family fridge? In addition, Swenson's new novel, "The Black and the Black," seems to be permanently consigned to creative purgatory, and the campus administration's recent obsession with political correctness has been whipped into a frenzy by the Faculty-Student Women's Alliance, a group headed by Swenson's arch enemy, Lauren Healy, who is perpetually offended by Swenson's crime of owning a penis.

When Swenson finally stumbles upon a student with true talent, he can't believe his good fortune. Angela Argo is writing a novel, and it's good -- really good. Angela (an avid fan of Stendahl, of course) is effusive in her praise of Swenson's first novel, and a series of office visits ensue. Thank heaven she's so physically unappealing. Swenson's avoided any scintilla of scandal for twenty years, and this skinny, scab-kneed waif with dirty hair, nose rings, and multiple lip piercings is about as removed from a freshman Lolita as anyone could imagine.

Well, life is full of surprises. The fatuous rationalizations that Swenson manufactures with each escalation of his inappropriate behavior, the predictable reaction of Swenson's "friends" and foes, and the haplessness of the human condition are all exposed with humor and pathos by Ms. Prose. I highly recommend this book.

Feature #2:

Jessica Crispin's recent post in www.bookslut.com notes that The Art of Manliness has compiled a list of 100 books that will turn you into a man. I present it here for your consideration, but beware -- it will put hair on your chest:

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/

Thoughts on "The Age of American Unreason"

I recently finished reading Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason." Her book is superb from start to finish, but one of her talking points struck me as particularly relevant in view of recent events.

In her chapter titled "Public Life: Defining Dumbness Downward," Jacoby laments the current rise of anti-intellectualism in America. She begins by describing a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy after he learned that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. In the speech, Kennedy quoted a line from Aeschylus's Agamemnon, in which the interrelationship of pain and wisdom is examined. Kennedy concluded with the hope that Americans would dedicate themselves "to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." It is important to note that Kennedy's speech was given in Indianapolis, where he had originally intended to give a campaign speech to a predominantly black crowd.

One can only imagine what kind of a reception Hillary or Obama would have received in West Virginia this week if they had quoted any classic work of literature, much less Aeschylus. I can hear the hoots and hollers reverberating from Wheeling to the Big Sandy River Basin. The media would have erupted in an orgy of class-baiting; accusations of "elitism" would have flown through the air like sizzlin' pork rinds.

This is only to be expected in a campaign season in which candidates are scrambling all over themselves to hide any evidence of (gasp! the horror!) higher learning. We have now reached the point at which politicians are more willing to reveal prior drug use than the fact that they took Professor Hillyard's course in comparative literature during their freshman year of college. It is discouraging to watch the future leaders of our country compete with each other in the fine arts of beer swilling, bowling, and gun totin'. Can hog-calling and clogging be far behind? Jacoby points out that John F. Kennedy was notoriously opposed to donning cowboy hats, baseball caps, or any other headgear designed to show that he was just folks. Contrast that with John Kerry, an Ivy-Leaguer who felt compelled to borrow camouflage clothes and a blunderbuss to engage in a faux goose hunt. It's embarrassing.

I don't know about you, but I hope that whoever ends up running this country has more smarts than I do. I hope he or she has traveled to more places and spent more time learning about how other people in the world view us. I hope that he or she has had the advantage of conversing with and learning from the very best minds on matters of the economy, international relations, and social justice. The last eight years have taught us that the "brewski test" isn't just silly -- it's dangerous.

Bibliosomnia

A few days ago I decided to throw caution to the wind and drink a fully-caffeinated vente after 6 p.m. The immediate effect was electrifying in the best sense of the word. The latent effect six hours later was less than pleasant. As I tossed, turned, and periodically checked my bedside clock in a masochistic attempt to confirm the full extent of my self-induced misery, I began to think (always a mistake in the middle of the night) about the many books I have shelved over the years, and gradually the titles of those books began to coalesce into lists and categories. Before I knew it, I was engaged in compulsive list-making, one of the most diabolical agents of insomnia ever devised.

1:20 a.m.: Some book titles can put you off from the get-go, depending on your personal taste and inclinations of the moment. Throughout my teenage years, I avoided books with sobering titles like "The Way of All Flesh," "Of Human Bondage," "The Sound and the Fury," "Of Time and the River," etc. To my young mind, these titles implied a painfully premature inquiry into "the big questions" and radiated a sort of holy heavy-handedness that would suck me down into a state of terminal gravitas. (True confession: I haven't read any of those books in their entirety to this day, although I have since read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" with great pleasure).

1:40 a.m. Other books have tempted me with titles that were so undecipherable that I was compelled to pick the books up and poke around for clues. "The Quincunx" had me totally stymied, as did "Cryptonomicon." While on the topic, is "Tristram Shandy" the name of (a) a village in County Cork (b) a Gaelic wedding jig, (c) a character in "The Rake's Progress," (d) an Irish aperitif, or (e) none of the above. Good luck, unless you've read the book.

2:00 a.m. Some books tempt you to read them by sporting gorgeous titles that roll off the tongue like honey: "The Sheltering Sky," "The Wind in the Willows," "The Wide Sargasso Sea," "Finnegan's Wake," -- the list goes on and on. Other books have overly precious titles that make you dislike the (presumptively precious) author before you have even met him/her: "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," etc. -- You get the drift. (Note -- some of these books can be quite good.)

2:30 There seems to be a trend toward one-word titles, particularly for nonfiction books: "Boom!," "Blink," and "Stiff" come to mind. Mary Roach, the author of the last-mentioned book, appears to have appropriated this particular shtick. She has already written "Stiff" (a nonfiction book about human cadavers), "Spook" (a nonfiction book about the afterlife), and most recently,"Bonk," a book that explores "the curious coupling of science and sex" (presumably this book will be more lively than her previous two volumes, heh).

3:00 a.m. Some books bear a title that contains an eccentric name: "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit," "The Wapshot Chronicles," "The Puttermesser Papers, "Tristram Shandy" (our friend from 1:40 a.m. above), and so on. (It bears mentioning here that Tristram Shandy engages in a romantic entanglement with the Widow Wadman -- it just gets better and better.)

3:20 a.m. Finally, there are books with names that are so intriguing that you can't help but fantasize about having lunch with the author; "I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots," "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," and my favorite title of all time, "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept," fit this category.

3:45 a.m I have to get some sleep. Sleep . . . sleep . . .sleep?? "The Big Sleep," "Some Call It Sleep," "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (Don't, do not, think of this post just before you doze off tonight.)

Adieu to Poetry Month

I want to post a poem before National Poetry Month is over, and I'm in the mood for something frivolous. I wrote this poem several years ago when I became exasperated with the burgeoning bust-enhancement industry in the United States (no pun intended):

GET REAL (NOT)

You can't miss what you've
never had, it's true
That's why I'm sometimes
sad and blue
That I ever laid eyes
on those foreign flicks
that raise false hopes in U.S. chicks
who live in the land of bigger, quicker
(newer, slicker)

The languid lens of Guiles and Sven
takes time to linger on Pia's skin,
her blue-veined throat,
the gentle way her fingers float
as she measure the world with a complex stare
(light on the makeup, clothes, and hair)

Well, fellow pilgrim, think again
before you labor selecting a pin
to clasp that scarf beneath your chin
that brings out the sea color of your eyes --
Get wise!

If you believe that subtle, sotto textures
will stir male viewers to sensate conjectures
or that a splash of Muguet
on the nape of your neck
will float on the breeze and be readily met
by a man of deep feeling,
you seem to forget
that this is the land of the ten-second pitch
The Whopper, the Big Gulp,
The Las Vegas dream
In the land of the chest-beaters, Barbie's the queen.

Sing Me a Short Story

I was busy compiling a CD play list this week when I realized that a high percentage of my favorite songs incorporate narrative lyrics. Apparently, I've been immersed in books for so long that I'm drawn to songs that are, at their heart, gem-like short stories set to music. Consider the following "Short Story Collection," which I recently burned on CD:

1. Magdalene Laundries, lyrics by Joni Mitchell, as sung by Emmylou Harris

This tale is told by a young woman who has been involuntarily committed to the Magdalene Laundry, a convent workhouse in Dublin where "immoral girls" were locked up, forbidden to communicate with each other or the outside world, and forced to work ten hours a day until many of them were driven to death by illness or madness. Listen and weep.

2. Leslie Anne Levine, music and lyrics by The Decemberists

The Decemberists are consummate storytellers, and this narrative, as told by the ghost of a child who was abandoned to die at birth by a young single mother, is a gothic masterpiece.

3. Black Annis, lyrics by Antje Duvekot, as performed by Solas

This song derives its lyrics from a legend out of the British Isles: Annis, a flesh-eating sorceress, would lure unwary children into the mouth of her cave (Black Anna's Bower), from which they never returned. The song's story is told in lush, lyrical prose.

4. The Crane Wife, 1, 2, & 3, music and lyrics by The Decemberists

This 3-part set also derives its lyrics from a legend -- a Japanese folktale about a man who wakes one morning to find an injured crane on his doorstep. After nursing the crane back to health, he releases it and is surprised at the appearance of a beautiful woman on his doorstep several days later. Love, marriage, and a tragic betrayal follow.

5. The River, music and lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

This heartland tale of young love withered by the crush of premature responsibility, financial stress, and lack of opportunity in a dying industrial town is classic Springsteen. He's the blue collar bard of Middle America.

6. Romeo Had Juliette, music and lyrics by Lou Reed

Don't expect a sweet story here -- Romeo Rodriguez' and Juliette Bell's romance is as raw and gritty as the mean NYC streets they inhabit, and yet their awkward attempts at tenderness in the face of societal forces that will inevitably crush them can't help but move you.

7. Chelsea Hotel, music and lyrics by Leonard Cohen

The historic Chelsea Hotel in NYC has housed countless bohemian artists and inspired myriad stories, but Leonard Cohen's song, in which he remembers his times there with former lover Janis Joplin, is one of my favorites.

8. Making Pies, music and lyrics by Patty Griffin

Listen to the middle-aged character in this song tell you the story of her life as she makes pies at the TableTalk cafe. You'll never look at the 50-something waitress at Denny's the same again.

9. Pancho and Lefty, music and lyrics by Townes Van Zandt, as sung by Emmylou Harris

Don't let country music phobia keep you from listening to this classic desperado story from south of the border -- it's like a musical miniature of "Lonesome Dove."

10. Sailing to Philadelphia, music and lyrics by Mark Knopfler

This is the tale of Mason and Dixon, a surveyor and astronomer who came from England to America to determine the southern border of Pennsylvania. James Taylor, as Charles Mason, and Knopfler, as Jeremiah Dixon, bring this historical short story-in-a-song to life.

11. Papa Was a Rodeo, music and lyrics by The Magnetic Fields (Stevin Merritt)

I'm not sure which came first, Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain" or this three-hankie song about a lifelong romance between two cowboys, but they are both superb short stories about the same topic. Stevin (yes, that's how it's spelled) Merritt's voice is perfect for the part.

For $10-$15 dollars and some time logged in with an online music provider, you can make your own musical short story collection. Try it -- it's fun.

Check Out This Poem!

One of the singular powers of poetry is its ability to address the "big questions" of life with dizzying economy. Check out Edward Hirsch's poem, "Self Portrait." You won't be sorry.

Feed Me!

I recently decided I've been frittering away one to two hours every morning glued to the tube, shuttling between CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC, and that a good portion of what I've absorbed during this daily ritual has been crappola.

The tipping point came about two weeks ago, when MSNBC presented a "breaking news story" about a fire in a multi-story nursing home somewhere in the northeast. Smoke poured out of the roof as a fireman slowly hoisted a nightie-clad nonagenarian down a ladder in what appeared to be slow motion, grandma's dangling white legs and unfortunate wedgie there for all the world to see.

No problem, I thought, and I flipped the channel to CNN. Same grandma. Same white legs. Same wedgie. I continued flipping channels and discovered that there was no escaping this news du jour -- regular updates on the situation continued, on national news, throughout the morning. I realize that this coverage was probably of momentous importance to the relatives of the nursing home residents, and it was of no small significance to the local city involved, but if a national news channel can find nothing better to broadcast ad nauseam throughout the day, it has a dearth of real news and a serious oversupply of airtime.

What does any of this have to do with books? I decided to reclaim my wasted mornings by developing an assortment of book-related RSS audio feeds that I could listen to each day in lieu of the tube, and I've stumbled upon some real gems that I'd like to share.

After spending considerable time reviewing the merits of various prose and poetry sites, I narrowed my selections to the following RSS feeds, which currently seem to offer me the most bang for my buck: (1) NPR: Books (2) the New York Times Book Review podcast (3) KCRW's Bookworm, (4) Slate's Audio Book Club , (5) Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day , and (6) Sonibyte's Poem of the Day . Each site provides instructions on how to subscribe to regular podcast feeds.

Here are direct links to some of the best episodes I gathered from these sites over the course of the last two weeks:

1. Excerpts of past interviews with Philip Roth, in honor of his 75th birthday, gleaned from the NPR Books Site.

2. A reading of the first passages of "The Gathering," (winner of the Man Booker Prize 2007) by Ann Enright, courtesy of the KRCW Bookworm site. (one warning -- this podcast always begins with a cheerful "theme song" that will grate on your nerves)

3. A Slate Book Club discussion of "The House of Mirth."

4. A Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day about the persistence of desire.

5. A curiously engaging poem about a snail from Sonibyte Poem of the Day (scroll down to "Considering the Snail)

(Some of these sites may have a limited cyberlife --my apologies if, for some bizarre reason, you are reading this post in the distant future)

Experiment with your own mix of RSS feeds -- you'll enjoy yourself and improve your mind, which is more that can be said about watching minute to minute coverage of a toddler's miraculous rescue from an abandoned well in Scranton.