Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Cleansing the Literary Palate


Sometimes after having read a book, I find it difficult to start the next one. For some reason it just doesn't seem to grab me the way it should. I've even tried starting six different books in a row and having to put them all aside.

The longer it takes for me to find a book that I really want to read the more frustrated I become. Therefore I've been forced to devise a way of changing this, and what I came up with is that I have to cleanse my literary palate. This may sound like a weird concept, but bear with me.

The most import part of the process is that it's not possible to cleanse the palate with a work of fiction. If I have reached the point where I'm stuck, a novel won't help. Non-fiction is therefore the way to go. The language and purpose of non-fiction books is so different from fiction, that it provides just the kind of diversion that will reset the brain and make you ready for another novel.

Then comes choosing the subject. It seems obvious that the focus of the book should be something that really interests you. Don't pick a book on fly fishing if you hate nature and quiet moments of solitude. You'll never get through the book and it will only end up aggravating you even more. Personally I've found that books on literature, film or music really help me out.



Take your time. It will not do any good to rush through the non-fiction to get back to the fiction. Enjoy it! Notice how your brain opens up again, and the stumbling block is removed. The process is actually quite fascinating, and I have often found that I'm ready for fiction again after only 30-40 pages. Don't stop here, though, you run the risk of having to start the process all over again.

When you're done cleansing choose your first novel wisely. Don't let the first book be something that's stopped you in your tracks many times before. Go with something that you are fairly certain you will like. If you've tried reading James Joyce's Ulysses a million times don't make the mistake of thinking that this is the perfect time for giving it another shot. Save something like Ulysses or In Search of Lost Time for a period where you feel like you’re on a roll with your fiction reading, and are hungry for more.

Finally it is important to have a nice large selection of non-fiction books to choose from. You never know when you might need another one. The next blog will focus on some great works of non-fiction.

Friday, May 11, 2012

To Kindle or Not to Kindle

I've had my Kindle for more than 2 years now, and I'm still struggling with what books I should purchase as physical objects and which I should get as E-books from the Kindle store. To most people this decision sounds like an easy one, but to me, it's something that can actually stall me for days.

In the beginning I was filling it up with stuff from the Gutenberg online library. Mostly philosophy, some poetry and a wide selection of classics. But that left me with no contemporary literature at all, and although I enjoy a classic novel just as much as the next guy, I also like to read new books. So I started going through the Kindle store with the intent of shopping lots of great books. Here's the kicker: They're not that cheap yet. Sometimes the difference between buying the paperback version or the Kindle E-book is as little as 3-4 dollars, and if you're willing to buy used books, the printed version might actually be far cheaper.


What then should be the reason to buy the digital version? The most often heard response is space. I've heard of people who've completely removed their physical book collections and replaced them with a kindle library. With more than 1500 books in my collection, this doesn't seem plausible. Or affordable. Then there's the whole question of illustrated books, art books, books on film and so on, they're not exactly designed for the E Ink technology. Of course there's the Kindle app in color and the Kindle Fire is another alternative.


The fact is that I love books. Not just reading them, but feeling them, leafing through them, smelling the ink and the paper. A company like McSweeney's publish books that no Kindle, color or not, would ever be able to do justice. What to do then? For the moment I've decided to only buy books on my Kindle that I don't find it absolutely necessary to put on my shelf. Books I would label entertainment. If something qualifies as great literature, I want it on my shelf. Another option I've considered is buying both, having the books on the shelf, and in the Kindle, but my economic situation right now won't allow it. I have to put a book in storage every time I buy a new one. All my shelves are overflowing and that doesn't seem fair to my girlfriend who also needs space in our apartment.

I feel stuck between the analog and the digital world. As if I have one foot in each, and I am therefore unable to move forward. I don't know if I'll ever be able to let go of my obsession with having art physically present, I've never bought music or films in digital forms either, but sooner or later I'll have to find a system for what I need physically, and what I can live with owning in a digital form.

...Or get a bigger apartment.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Review: Hope: A Tragedy

  SHALOM AUSLANDER: HOPE: A TRAGEDY
Depending on your outlook, life can seem a wonderful gift or a cruel joke. Solomon Kugel, the main character in Shalom Auslander’s latest novel, definitely belongs to the latter category.

Kugel is married to Bree and they have a son, Jonah. Kugel has moved his family, including his mother, to the small town Stockton. Kugel wants to live a place where nothing happens, or has ever happened. Just such a town is Stockton, and that is the only reason Kugel has chosen it for his family’s new home.

He’s very concerned with death, dying words, and epitaphs. A natural result of his mother’s obsession with the Holocaust. She talks and acts as if she has experienced horrible things, and lost most of her family to the concentration camps. This is to say the least a moderation of the truth, which is that most of the Kugel family has been living in America, safely, for generations.

To make things worse, Kugel finds a filthy and slightly crazy looking camp survivor who’s been living in the attic. She insists that she’s Anne Frank, and now he can’t bring himself to throw her out. Slowly his life begins to rip at the seams.

There is certainly a lot going on in Auslander’s novel. Both thematically and story wise. Dark humor permeates the text throughout:

Mother was alive if she sounded like she was dying; if she sounded like she was peacefully sleeping, then she was probably dead.

Kugel’s observations are funny and sad at the same time. In many ways he’s a gray and broken man. He indulges his mother’s constant lies and accepts the fact that his life’s been one long marathon of suffering. A childhood consisting of a constant barrage of books and documentaries on the Holocaust and the camps. When his sister inadvertently reveals a truth about their father he gives up the argument without much fight. His behavior is infuriating and hilarious at the same time.

Auslander is a brave man in his tackling of subjects that in many ways are taboo in the Jewish community. The comparisons of suffering is a theme that goes back to old Yiddish jokes and folk tales. It is a part of the Jewish self-perception in many ways, and the way it occurs in this novel is both poignant and a scathing satire at the same time.

Guilt is another important component of the novel and Kugel sees the birth of his son as one of his biggest transgressions. His descriptions of the guilt he feels are heartbreaking in their revelation of his worldview. They are also quite humorous.

Jonah was beautiful and innocent and pure, so Kugel felt terrible guilt for bringing him into this world. To father a child was a horribly selfish act, a felony, in fact - everyone here in this world is a kidnap victim from some better place, or no place at all, and Jonah had been dragged here, by Kugel and Bree, against his will, without provocation, without consent, without any good goddamned reason whatsoever beyond their own selfish desires.


The title of the novel is tied to Kugel’s behavior throughout the novel. The consequences of the human race having hope is given a unique and interesting perspective in the sessions Kugel has with his psychiatrist Professor Jove.

We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.

Jove goes on to describe Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot as hopeful persons that took their hope to the most extreme and thereby caused catastrophes for the many people of their time.

Auslander’s writing both in style and subject matter is very reminiscent of the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. Auslander seems to be echoing and taking inspiration from his Studies in Pessimism in particular, a brilliant collection of essays that are available on Project Gutenberg for free. Penguins has also released a short collection of his writings in the Great Ideas series called On the Suffering of the World.

Auslander succeeds in placing himself in a long line of distinguished Jewish authors. There are lines to be drawn to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Aleichem and many others. At the same time he manages to write a novel bursting with originality, and a worldview one seldom encounters in modern literature. The honesty and bravery with which Auslander describes life is a testament to his unique abilities as a storyteller.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Review: Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue

MARK KURLANSKY: BOGALOO ON 2ND AVENUE

So it's been more than 5 years since I bought this book and now I've finally gotten around to reading it.

Mark Kurlansky has primarily done non-fiction books prior to this, his first adult novel. His focus in his books have been on food.

He opens the book with an Irving Berlin quote that sets the tone for the book and its theme. The main character is not a person but New York in the 1980's.

Nathan Seltzer is married to Sonia and they have a daughter Sarah. Nathan owns a copyshop in one of his father Harry's buildings. The Seltzer's aren't good businessmen. Nathan barely scrapes by, giving his customers way too good deals. Harry is bad at collecting rent and really considers himself an impresario, having represented Chow Mein Vega, a musician that invented the meshugaloo - a combination of Jewish and Latin American music.

""It's a cross between meshugenah and bogaloo. If you think about it, it is a meshugenah boogaloo."
"But what does that mean?"
"Meshugenah, you know, means meshugenah."
"Yes."
"You know, crazy. And boogaloo...boogaloo means everything. It is a fusion. A rhythm-and-blues beat with a Latin twist. It is very elusive, you know. A cha-cha-cha has that three-beat, and a salsa - let's face it, you have to have form for salsa and mambo. But with boogaloo you can do anything. Wave your arms. You can wiggle your hips. You are in tempo. Boogaloo means everything and yet it means nothing. Es gornisht pero todo. You know what I'm saying. That's its appeal. It's very heavy duty. Boogaloo - ahhhh! Forget it!""


A homicidal robber is terrorizing the neighborhood making everyone scared and on their toes. Nathan can't stop thinking about Karoline, a pastry maker whose German parents might have been nazis. Then there's Nathan's uncle Nusan who survived the Holocaust and has a fixation with baseball and classical music. Preferably at the same time.

While describing the plot my major problem with the book becomes obvious. It's very episodic in its structure. This is not necessarily a bad thing, if there is a strong and clear thread tying the episodes together.

Kurlansky clearly has a great love for food, music and New York. This is very admirable but in the case of this book it's not enough. All the pieces are there but Kurlansky doesn't seem to fully be able to fit them together. There are long passages that work, but other parts get monotonous and slow down the flow of the story.

"'"There are only four things in the filling, so they must be in perfect balance. There are always these things, that have to be balanced. The flavor, the texture, the sweetness, the richness. This filling is chocolate, which is the flavor. Chocolate is so strong that you cannot bear it by itself - strong and dark and almost overwhelming. So you add sugar to weaken it to the point where we can taste it. But just enough to taste the chocolate, not the sugar. Then you melt this with the cream. The cream gives richness, smoothness. And it also holds the air. If you have too much cream, it dilutes the chocolate. It becomes boring.""


This passage would have been fine if the book wasn't filled with them. It gets to be quite repetitive.

Kurlansky definitely has the chops. He just tries a little bit to hard. He manages to conjure up New York of the past, but the characters need more work.

The book is also illustrated with Kurlansky's black and white paintings. They are nice but rather redundant.

The biggest problem might be that Kurlansky has so great a love for his old neighborhood that he treats it with too much reverence. Maybe in his later books he will find the right balance. Because who doesn't love a great New York story?

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Short Review: Everything Matters!

Another tiny review. This time I've chosen one of the books that had a huge impact on me last year.



RON CURRIE, JR.: EVERYTHING MATTERS!
This is one of those books that seem indescribable. It would only ruin the experience if I tried to put into words what this book is truly about. Therefore I'll stick to a tagline-like description of the plot. Junior Thibodeau is born into the world with very exact knowledge of when and how the world will end. This is of course a heavy burden to bear for a child and it influences his life greatly.

I know this doesn't sound like much. It might even seem trivial or cheap. So you'll just have to trust me on this one when I say that it's not. Throughout the book Currie, Jr. changes narrator in what might be one of the most elegant ways I've ever read. It opens up the story in the most profound way and is a stroke of genius.  The different narrators have their own distinct voice and when the story changes perspective it always does so for important reasons that drive the plot forward. Currie, Jr. also switches between first-person and third-person for reasons that slowly reveal themselves as the story progresses.

Everything Matters! is a literary work of art. This is the only way I find suffices when trying to convey why you should read this book.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Short Review: The Brief History of the Dead

So 2011 wasn’t a great blogging year for me. I'll chalk it up to a combination of finishing my education and just plain laziness. 2012 is of course going to be completely different. Now I'll (hopefully) be more consistent. I'll start out by writing small reviews of books that I read, and enjoyed in 2011. Here's the first one:



KEVIN BROCKMEIER: THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD
I had never heard of Brockmeier when I stumbled onto The Brief History of the Dead. The cover drew me in, then there was the snow and a plot description that really peaked my interest. In this world when people die they go to another plane of existence much like the previous one. Here they go on existing as long as there is still someone alive who remembers them. This might be family, but could also be a doorman who held the door open. When there is no more people alive who's been touched by that person's existence, they disappear from that plane. No one knows where to. The book follows several people both on this other plane and live ones. When an epidemic starts decimating the Earth's population, people start disappearing from the next plane at alarming rates leaving empty houses everywhere.

This is really a philosophical pondering wrapped in a beautifully written story. By far one of the most compelling concepts of an afterlife I've encountered. Brockmeier is in complete command of his ideas and the best way in which to present them. It is also important to point out that this does not feel like a religious book. The afterlife presented here bears no resemblance to the religious concepts from the Bible. This is just a magnificent theory of what might happen.

The characters are well defined and all seem very real and true to a core that might not be completely laid bare in the text but must be so in Brockmeier's imagination. When things start progressing and the catastrophe on Earth unfolds there's a true sense of danger not only for the living but for the already dead.

The pace of the book is very calm and not at any point veering towards the sensational or corny. This is moody, and sometimes heartbreaking storytelling at its very finest.