Nonsuch Book

the short of it

So many items in social media right now are selling us on summer reading that it all becomes white noise after a while. Overwhelming and informed by too many widely divergent standards of taste. But "Nabokov on Inspiration and the Six Short Stories Everyone Should Read" at Brain Pickings sent me ordering Strong Opinions and looking through the shelves for the following short stories:

1 - John Cheever’s “The Country Husband” (“Jupiter [a black retriever] crashed through the tomato vines with the remains of a felt hat in his mouth.” The story is really a miniature novel beautifully traced, so that the impression of there being a little too many things happening in it is completely redeemed by the satisfying coherence of its thematic interlacings.)

2 -John Updike’s “The Happiest I’ve Been” (“The important thing, rather than the subject, was the conversation itself, the quick agreements, the slow nods, the weave of different memories; it was like one of these Panama baskets shaped underwater around a worthless stone.” I like so many of Updike’s stories that it was difficult to choose one for demonstration and even more difficult to settle upon its most inspired bit.)

3 - J. D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (“Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle . . .” This is a great story, too famous and fragile to be measured here by a casual conchometrist.)

4 - Herbert Gold’s “Death in Miami Beach” (“Finally we die, opposable thumbs and all.” Or to do even better justice to this admirable piece; “Barbados turtles as large as children . . . crucified like thieves . . . the tough leather of their skin does not disguise their present helplessness and pain.”)

5 - John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” (“What is the story’s point? Ambrose is ill. He perspires in the dark passages; candied apples-on-a-stick, delicious-looking, disappointing to eat. Funhouses need men’s and ladies’ rooms at interval.” I had some trouble in pinning down what I needed amidst the lovely swift speckled imagery.)

6 - Delmore Schwartz’s “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” (“. . . and the fatal merciless passionate ocean.” Although there are several other divine vibrations in this story that so miraculously blends an old cinema film with a personal past, the quoted phrase wins its citation for power and impeccable rhythm.)

So random reading, six short stories (I found them all) and a glimpse into Nabokov's convictions. This will be my summer reading.

borges and bolano and the gaucho

 

Ever since contemplating that list back in March of what Bolano read, I have been waiting to see where Borges fits in. Bolano lists not one work by the Argentine master but the complete works of Jorge Luis Borges. This week Richard's Borges short works fun has brought me to a direct convergence of their paths as we read "The South" by Borges. I read it and then immediately starting flapping my hands about in an omg embrace of the obvious in that this syncs with the Bolano short story I read sometime back, "The Insufferable Gaucho." 

Soooo..... anyone reading "The South" or "El Sur" for this Friday, and wishing to also read its offspring, "The Insufferable Gaucho" by Roberto Bolano, just click to this link from the New Yorker for free access. This may be a "duh" moment for quite a few of you, but I was so proud of myself so shhh! and please don't spoil it for me.

short story sunday: "don't prey for me" from we are the friction

 

Wrote about this book of short stories some weeks back when it was merely an object of book lust. And now that I own it and have read it cover to cover, more than once, it is now an object of print junkie porn. Allow me to explain. 

Jez Burrows and Lizzy Stewart of Sing Statistics paired twelve writers with twelve illustrators: "published and unpublished, established and emerging." Half of the participants took part in a "stories from illustrations" exercise and the other half in an "illustrations from stories" exercise. The breadth of narrative here is mind-blowing. The invitation to engage either one piece or the other of each pair and decide how you might have tackled the assignment is irresistible (and time-consuming, I warn you). It is also difficult to focus on just one piece here because they are all worthy of mention, but let me draw your attention to "Don't Prey for Me" written by Caren Beilin from an illustration by Verity Keniger.

 

If you click on the image above, you should see a larger version. You will probably even be able to read the entire text. The imagine is evocative, prompting the question of whether the leaves are adhering to the blank canvas of what is intended to be a tiger or if the tiger is shedding its ill-suited garb where one might have expected stripes. And then you turn to the text, and confront defied expectations.

"I have not even dreamed. And I do not watch those specials on TV. I have not read that poem by Blake and have not myself wondered at its spirited mechanisms. Its lungs like dark bells clanging death to deer. A woodshark. Its teeth unfurled from its heart. Its muscles full of dark, of violet drink that pumps demonology into its head. A woodgod."

Now imagine an entire book filled with such captivating pairings. That may be enjoyed outright for their craftsmanship or explored in depth as a reflection of process for both author and illustrator. Art informing art. The possibilities are stunning.

 

One thousand produced. I own #641. The website indicates that there are still some available, and there is time to meet the shipping deadlines before Christmas. But time and books are limited if this catches your fancy or if you know a print or design junkie that needs some holiday love. Addictive. Gorgeous. Will prompt glorious flights of imagination and will potentially exceed the power of the internet to command one's attention and time for a spell. Imagine that.

 

short story sunday: "love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice" by nam le

 

Other friends were more forthright: "I'm sick of ethnic lit," one said. "It's full of descriptions of exotic food." Or: "You can't tell if the language is spare because the author intended it that way, or because he didn't have the vocab." 

I was told about a friend of a friend, a Harvard graduate from Washington, D.C., who had posed in traditional Nigerian garb for his book-jacket photo. I pictured myself standing in a rice paddy, wearing a straw conical hat. Then I pictured my father in the same field, wearing his threadbare fatigues, young and hard-eyed. 

"It's a license to bore," my friend said. We were drunk and walking our bikes because both of us, separately, had punctured our tires on the way to the party. 

 "The characters are always flat, generic. As long as a Chinese writer writes about Chinese people, or a Peruvian writer about Peruvians, or a Russian writer about Russians ..." he said, as though reciting children's doggerel, then stopped, losing his train of thought. His mouth turned up into a doubtful grin. I could tell he was angry about something. 

 "You could totally exploit the Vietnamese thing. But instead, you choose to write about lesbian vampires and Colombian assassins, and Hiroshima orphans — and New York painters with hemorrhoids." 

All the best of 2009 lists started popping up recently, and although I usually eschew the whole list-making thing, it did set me thinking about my best reads this year. My top four came to mind instantly, but then I had to pause. Unlike many bloggers, I do not keep spreadsheets or review every book I read so I do not really have a reliable record upon which to look back. So I headed to the shelves. And there it was, loved but inexplicably forgotten - The Boat by Nam Le.

This collection of seven short stories is masterful in both its range of subject matter and the author's ability to adapt his prose to that specific subject. As if the words originate not from an individual authorial voice but from the story itself. Each piece in the book seems to warrant a new style of expression. The author's approach is hinted at in the shiniest short story in the book, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice" in which a Vietnamese student at the Iowa Writer's Workshop is urged by his friends to mine his personal experience as refugee for writing material.

The clever thing about having this particular story open the collection is that has some obvious autobiographical elements (the author and protagonist share a first name, same background as Vietnamese emigre turned lawyer turned writing student), and so it provides a novel framework upon which Le can introduce his own philosophy about the craft. 

As protagonist Nam wrestles with whether or not to exploit his background for material, his father arrives for a visit, and the quiet conflicts between the two highlight the choice in front of Nam as a writer. Does he embrace the static as exemplified by his father's love of the proverb or does he create something new? The humor shown in the quote above quietly slips away as the relationship between father and son rises to the fore as they seek to define both personal relationship and the ties that bind them to their birth home. Personal story and story about the craft of writing merge in a dramatic and satisfying ending.

The six remaining stories are set in Iowa City, the slums of Colombia, Manhattan, coastal Australia, Hiroshima, Iran and the South China Sea with characters as far afield as these locales. All memorable. Great emotional impact without sentimentality. Filtered through the individual. Lending credence to the belief that great literature often represents the voice of one rather than many. Delivered with such confidence as to propel a reader through the whole book in one fluid, easy movement. Loved it.

Check out the book's site for more details.

the mailman brought me lydia davis

And I love him for it. Uninspiring and unworthy of its contents cover design aside, I am Christmas morning excited over this. Will be dipping in all fall. Beyond words. Please read following publisher release while I stare lovingly at the ugly salmon dust jacket.

"Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers. She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories will be collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. 

 The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters."

Release date next Tuesday, September 29.

short story sunday: the book bag by w. somerset maugham

"Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe."

So begins "The Book Bag" by W. Somerset Maugham as the author equates the need for books to the addict's need for drugs. The narrator especially cannot conceive of why a traveler might venture out without a large supply of reading material at the ready. Having learned his lesson once while imprisoned by illness in a hill-town in Java without enough to read, he now carries a giant laundry bag of books with him everywhere in his travels through colonial outposts. Without that book bag, he would "never had heard the singular history of Olive Hardy."

Wandering about Malaya, the narrator receives an invitation  to attend a water festival and stay at the residence of a man he previously knew only by name, Mark Featherstone. The peripatetic writer thus joins the Resident of Tenggarah for an unsettling stay. From the outset, there is something oddly reserved and unsettled about the host that the narrator simply dismisses as the discomfort of a professional man around the oddity of a writer. The excursion to Featherstone's club is without incident, like any other night in any other outpost except perhaps for the slight and unexplained discomfort of playing bridge with a man named Hardy.

That night at Featherstone's house, after dinner and drinks, the host stops by the writer's room and asks if he has anything to read that he might borrow. He picks a biography of Lord Byron from the large assortment of the book bag. After a stilted conversation about Hardy, and the host's assertion that Hardy would be alone anywhere he went, the day closes. Achingly normal aside from the part of the host viewed as "shuttered" from his guest. But the next day brings Featherstone's anxious and awkward questions about Lord Byron's relationship with his sister Aurora Leigh from which point unfolds the disturbing story of Tim Hardy and his sister, Olive. You may guess from this the nature of the story, but I won't reveal the details so you can enjoy it yourself.

The name of the story and the descriptions of the contents of the book bag would have been enough to leave me entranced here but there is so much more. This is classic Maugham where the English exist in the "other" of colonialism and travel, where they enjoy the exhilaration of the exotic at the same time they attempt to impose the comforts of the familiar upon the unknown elements of their travel destinations. The narrator enjoys the English symmetry and design of Featherstone's gardens at the same time he can see them framed by the encroaching wildness of the natural landscape. Featherstone describes how wonderful the Hardy drawing room was, how English when so many residences contained the terrible furnishings of the locals complete with tiger skins, gimcrack furniture, and silver ornaments. The private dining clubs in these outposts are also designed to resemble their equivalents from home in England with the exception of the native help.

The theme of loneliness also resonates strongly here. Again, another classic Maugham idea of how one may pursue or endure a solitary existence amidst the multitudes, never "seen."

" 'Seeing' has an active side and a passive one. Most people we run across mean so little to us that we never bestir ourselves to look at them. We just suffer the impression they make on us."

This short story also reflects how ethnocentrism forces these feelings of loneliness as the English cannot feel truly engaged by anyone or any place outside of England.

Maugham "saw" people and characters in the most lucid and occasionally invasive manner as he also saw the imperialist experiences of his countrymen. His unflinching treatment of even the most sensitive or taboo topics reveal the genius of his writing.

the curious case of benjamin button

This always struck me as the most unusual of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories - a curious idea that the author puts out there simply and matter-of-factly. It travels the whole of human experience with a small share of words. As most of you know by now because of recent press for the upcoming movie, Benjamin Button is born an old man and lives his life backward eventually returning to infancy where he simply fades from existence. "Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind." 

This is really a beautiful and touching story of the pain we suffer because of the impermanence of the human condition. When you read the short story, the emotion attached to the events will be your own as Fitzgerald tells us right from the beginning - "I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself." However, the movie trailers I have seen are quite touching. Can't wait to see this. 

Curious to read the story before you see it? You can read the entire text on line from the University of Virginia.

and the short story is...

... that there are no real short stories.

My book club has decided that they love short story collections. They love them for practical reasons - there is no time in the day but I can give one short story my full attention before sleep. They love the variety of subject matter that may be addressed in just one volume. But sometimes I suspect the real reason that they  are attracted to a collection of short stories is because they all appreciate a well-composed snapshot of life. We are all at a place in our lives where we have dismissed the necessity of a beginning, a middle and an end. The essence will do, revealed in a single moment, a single choice, a single action, a single word. The short story well-told will never deliver the whole story in the sense a novel may satisfy our linear lust. Would you want it to?

This month we all picked up Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff. One third new stories and the rest previously published over a broad span of his career. These stories come to the reader in such lean prose that one thinks one can't possibly miss a point because all is laid bare, but miss things we did. As we pooled our collective impressions, we saw how deceptive simplicity can be. It left me wondering if the author's straightforward approach was intentionally deceptive. This inkling was reinforced by the fact that the theme of truth runs throughout all the stories, often in the most off-handed way. We see this in how easily we lie to ourselves, how easily a well-guarded truth is easily accessed from the most well hidden depths by the most unlikely source, how boring the truth may be in the instances in which a lie is told simply to amuse the self when reality is depressingly uninspiring.

The stories in this collection cover a broad section of American history, and offer up not just insights into individual characters but also insights into American identity. Almost too easy to visit the idea of the nature of truth in the present Bush era, but the topic might provide fodder for conversation for your group if you lean that way. Finally, and I hesitate before writing this, Wolff's stories are sometimes hilarious to me. I told someone else who read the collection that the piece about the hunters getting their friend to the hospital had me laughing out loud. Received blank look colored a little by baffled eyes. Checked a bunch of reviews. Did not find the word funny anywhere. Perhaps I am the sick puppy here.