Reading is sexy XLVII

(image by Mladen Penev)
Goodness. From reading this blog, you would think that I have given up on the pastime of reading. I haven't posted a thing since August. Usually, I aim for 50 and hit about 40 books in a year. This year, I'm nowhere near that. Though, on the other hand, I've read a couple of epic books, which probably should count for at least three normal books (and in fact, one of them does, in the original Japanese). The trouble though, with not posting promptly, is that it is less fresh in my mind. In fact, I might omit an entire book! Ah well...

17. Too much happiness by Alice Munro. This is an excellent collection of short stories and the titular novella. (It won the 2009 Man Booker International Prize). I sought it out because I am interested in Sophie Kovaleskaya (there are various spellings and means of transliterating from Cyrillic characters, Со́фья Васи́льевна Ковале́вская) the nineteenth century master of mathematics and literature, and first female university professor in Northern Europe. Like the other (fictional) characters in these stories, her real life and marriage was complex, and she sought love in the wrong places. The stories have stayed with me; the people seem real, with faults and virtues, interacting in ways they don't foresee any more than the reader would. Several stories are overshadowed by violence, or the threat thereof. The collection is capped with the novella based on the facts of Kovaleskaya's turbulent life (her nursery wallpapered with her father's old calculus notes, her introduction to nihilism, her initially sham marriage as a means to escape Russia and pursue a higher eduction, her fight to study mathematics and her relationship with her thesis supervisor Karl Weierstrass, her return to Russia, the birth of her daughter, the complexity and end of her marriage, her writing, her life and professorship in Sweden, her lover, her premature death) and her ironic last words, 'Too much happiness.' Beautifully crafted and plotted stories.

18. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. I managed to read another Pynchon novel, but this early one is a mere 126 pages. Though, he packs those pages with more life, conspiracy, insanity, radio DJs, dead millionaires, secret codes, illegal underground mail systems, engineer bars complete with Lissajous figures on an oscilloscope for a sign, dive motels, psychiatrists doling out LSD to housewives, skeletons, a teenage band called the Paranoids, clues in bloody Jacobean Revenge Plays, stamp collecting, and one sex scene of more slapstick hilarity than can be imagined without reading the book. Oedipa Maas gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to be the executor of her former lover's estate.

19. Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster. Well, if I can read one book with a complicated relationship to reality as we know it, why not two? Mr. Blank, an old man, awakes each day in a simple room: door, window, bed, desk and chair, but no memory or understanding of where he is or why he's there. He doesn't know if he is being imprisoned or is free to leave. A couple of people visit him, and he is given some clues to understand his fate. This odd, post-modern yet grounded, novel feels like one of the parables of José Saramago. It is a game between the author and the reader and the characters, but it is not only a game. It will be more rewarding if you read the New York Trilogy first.

20. The Woodcut Artist's Handbook by George A. Walker This was a thorough and enjoyable resource on 'everything you wanted to know about relief printing'. I've had it for some time and am glad I finally read it. Though intended to serve as a textbook or reference for printmaking students, it is very readable - especially since it includes a large collection of illustrations of relief prints from many artists, most of whom are also quoted describing their own techniques and preferences.* In terms of woodcut, he focuses on Western methods of engraving and woodblock printing, which is useful to me, in that I've only studied Japanese moku hanga methods. Though, that would be the one criticism; to be truly comprehensive, the book might have included more on Japanese and Chinese approaches to relief prints.

21. ghost by Alan Lightman. I've read a few of physicist-turned-novelist Alan Lightman's books and articles. I really enjoyed Einstein's Dreams, which was genuinely new and innovative. I have found some of his writing less to my taste. I wasn't sure what I was getting into with ghost. As it turns out, it's compelling and subtle novel about a man struggling to cope with something that defies characterization. David was always smart, but did not finish law school. He finds himself, divorced from a wife he adored and mystified how he lost his job at the bank. He takes a job at a mortuary, temporarily he thinks, because he needs a salary. There, in the resting room, he sees something. That is where his problems begin. How does he process what he's seen? What should he say or not say to the people in his life (his girlfriend, the people in his apartment building, his colleagues, and ultimately, the press and scientists who become embroiled in the story). This is a very earnest character-driven story, and the relationships between the characters are quite something. It's also a meditation on knowledge, the bounds of knowledge and superstition.

22. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I am a huge fan of Muraki; I've read every book which has appeared in translation: novels, short stories, non-fiction, even anthologies he's edited and a book about him by Jay Rubin (one of his main two translators into English).

1Q84 did not disappoint me; this is the hard-boiled, fantastic, supernatural Japan full of high and low culture (from ad slogans, to under-appreciated jazz clarinettists, to fashion, to cooking and to Proust and Chekov) like only he can write. The title is a play on words. In Japanese, 9 is kyu, and the title alludes to Orwell's 1984 and the setting, a strange version of 1984 Japan, where our heroine Aomame (literally her family name means 'green peas') finds more and more things are not what they were. She begins the novel stuck in traffic on an elevated expressway, to the sounds of Janáček's Sinfonietta, and her cabbie informs her that she could only make her meeting if she takes the unusual move of abandoning the cab, and climbing down the emergency staircase (in her designer suit and heels). He warns however, that things may change, and that there is only one reality. Not really remarking on his words, she takes the staircase to her important meeting, and finds herself in a different version of 1984, which she dubs 1Q84. The police have new uniforms and guns, since breakfast. She was somehow unaware of a big news story: a shootout between a militant faction of an organic-farm-cum-religious cult Sakigake and the police. Most damning, the moon now has a new smaller, greenish companion moon. Aomame's story is interwoven with that of Tengo Kawana, mathematics cram school teacher and budding novelist. Tengo is convinced to take part in a shady scheme to act as ghostwriter, for a strange 17 year old girl Fuka-Eri's stranger story 'Air Chrysalis'. As the novel unfolds we learn of the bond between Tengo and Aomame, though separated for 20 years, they fell in love at 10, before either really knew what that meant. Though Tengo excels in school and sports, he has an unhappy boyhood with his undemonstrative, demanding father who drags him door to door while he collects fees for the national NHK TV broadcaster. Aomame is likewise dragged door-to-door in the hopes of using guilt to get better treatment, by her mother, a devout follower of the Society of Witnesses. They intuitively recognize their akinness as children they spend the rest of the novel increasing seeking each other out.

This is a dark novel for Murakami. Though previous novels included occasional graphic violence or the terrors of war, this novel focuses more attention on domestic and sexual violence and abuse. Aomame goes from fitness and self-defense instructor to becoming involved in vigilante assassinations. There are a series of suicides, and several murders in this novel. Murakami is also investigating the nature of the religious cult in this fiction (after his extensive non-fiction investigation of members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult following their notorious sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995). Fuka-Eri, it turns out, based her 'Air Chrysalis' on her childhood experiences in the Sakigake compound. This being a Murakami novel, involves a dead, blind goat, the Little People and an air chrysalis, doppelgangers/alter egos and running away. Soon in Aomame's parallel story, she too finds herself embroiled with Sakigake. The 925-page novel (published as 3 books in Japanese) drags the reader into the 1Q84 otherworld. It is compelling, exciting, moving, disturbing, sad and hopeful. I couldn't put it down.**

I certainly recommend this novel; it is quite amazing. However, if you haven't previously read Murakami, start with A Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World or A Wild Sheep-Chase. I do think a caveat is necessary; this is a darker and more violent novel than his others. It also features various depictions of sex and sexuality (though the violence is mercifully 'off-stage'). It isn't a book for young people. I read three articles in The New York Times about it. One was a wide-eyed sort of interview, marveling at the inventiveness, strangeness and scope of the novel. The other was a mixed review, which criticized the moral ambivalence (after all, sexual abuse isn't a metaphor) but conceded that this book made the reviewer think much more than most. I think in some ways the lack of moralism is a strength because it forces the reader to grapple with hard questions (what is the solution to domestic violence, is vigilante justice warranted, what can and cannot be allowed as part of religion, what is evil). So I enjoyed the novel more than she, but her criticism seems just. The third article is a poor review, but someone with little patience for loose ends is perhaps reading the wrong novelist. I think this book is amazing, but I do recognize that it won't appeal to all.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL,XLI, XLII, XLIII,
XLIV, XLV, XLVI}

*Because the world is very small, amongst the artists is 's father.
**If you wondered where I was last week, my world was coping with an ear infection and 1Q84.

Reading is sexy XLIII

(image by Sophie Blackall from her 'Missed Connections' series)

The connections I notice between the three first novels I read in 2011 are the manuscript within the novel, family, love between siblings, a quest for a father, video games, creative use of fonts, and visceral, unexpected violence. Don't say I didn't tell you.

1. Invisible by Paul Auster. Like his in New York trilogy, a manuscript, or in fact two, play a vital roll in this novel - providing a voice from the past, or even the dead. It begins with the engaging story of a young poet and Columbia student, named Adam Walker in 1967, whose life changes when he makes the acquaintance of a French political science professor named Rudolf Born and his intriguing girl friend Margot. Before long Adam find his life enmeshed with theirs. By the end of the first section of the novel, a shocking event draws the reader in. I was riveted. The novel proceeds in three more sections, with other voices, spanning the rest of 1967, and subsequent events up to 2007, in New York, Paris and a remote island in the Caribbean. The book is about love, lust, family, mourning, justice, war, violence, the value of life and how a single event can change a life. Read it.

2. Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie. This is a sequel (though it can be read separately) to the marvellous, or rather fabulous in every sense, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This story is about the second son of storyteller Rashid Khalifa and his wife Soraya - Luka, who is born 14 years after Haroun. Luka has a dog named Bear and a bear named Dog, who are refugees from a circus where they were mistreated. Luka cursed the ringmaster, Captain Aag, aka Grandmaster Flame, upon learning about the state of the circus. The animals adopt his family when the circus subsequently burns down, and provide extra entertainment when his father is story telling. Luka, and Bear and Dog, get an adventure of their own, when his father falls into a deep, unrelenting sleep, and he inadvertently takes a step to the right to the World of Magic. There he meets Nobodaddy, who is Nobody, but looks like a ghost of Rashid, and who would reap his father's soul upon his death, unless Luka can steal the Fire of Life. From there, the novel proceeds like a fairytale quest, with Luka meeting various challenges and fabulous characters along the way including the elephant-headed ducks on the River of Time, the fearlessly rude Insultana of Ott, various Respecto-Rats, and other stealers of fire like Coyote or 'the Old Boy', Prometheus himself. There is all the wonderful wordplay you would expect from Rushdie, somewhat veiled political satire for the grown-ups, and a well-crafted tale for all, but the way the story is written to mimic a video game (à la 'Scott Pilgrim versus the Whole World'), complete with multiple lives and a counter that is the corner of Luka's field of view, did not resonate with me. Also, I love typography, so I think I am the sort who might appreciate the typographical games he plays with some of his gods and other mythological creatures. However, I thought having Ra the Supreme speak in Wingdings was a bit weak. The SPEdessa font employed for the 'Sumerian' dialogue of Anzu was better, as it was less recognizable and more plausible as cuneiform. However, I think that today, especially if one happens to be Salman Rushdie, and thus in the position to ask his publishers to humour him, one could have made the effort to actually print hieroglyphs, or at bare minimum, avoid characters which are so obviously unrelated to ancient Egypt (including icons for pencils or bombs and so forth). So, of the two novels which he has written more as fairy tales for children, I prefer Haroun and the Sea of Stories, but there is plenty to appreciate and enjoy here as well.

3. number9dream by David Mitchell. number9dream is also a quest for a father, but in this instance, 19 year old Eiji Miyake has come to Tokyo from his small, southern, island town, to find the father he has never met. As the story unfolds we learn how he and his twin sister Anju, were left by his ill-prepared mother to be raised by his grandmother and various uncles. His mother had escaped small town life to work as a 'hostess' in Tokyo, and became the mistress of a clearly powerful man, who anonymously paid support for his offspring. Eiji begins his quest by staking out the Panopticon building -where his father's lawyer keeps his identity- from the Jupiter Café, where he first spies the waitress with the perfect neck. He soon finds that discovering his father's identity will not be easy, but he makes connections with people who prove invaluable. The novel seamlessly combines reality, fantasy, dreams, video games, surreal cinema, past and present including WWII tales of an ancestor and a manuscript of fairy tales. The structure keeps you on your toes. The characters are excellent. Eiji Miyake will be with me for a long while; forthright, unworldly, brave and forgiving. The depiction of Tokyo, from capsule apartment, to Ueno train station Lost and Found, to love hotels, to computer hackers, to a harrowing yakuza underworld, is striking and vivid. It's excellent.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL,XLI, XLII}

Reading is sexy XL

(image by Iker Ayestaran)

I'm not really feeling very well today. I have this threatening tickle in my throat and cotton wool in my brain, so instead of writing the @%&# report version 3.∞ I thought I'd catch up on some outstanding blogging. I realize I haven't mentioned any books read since July, and though I've been busy, that's just wrong. I started this post, in fact, July 31.

Next, I read the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

IF ANYONE WANTS TO READ THIS BOOK AS A SIMPLE MYSTERY NOVEL, THAT'S HIS BUSINESS. - Rudolfo Walsh

27. City of Glass by Paul Auster "It was a wrong number that started it," the mystery in which our protagonist Daniel Quinn finds himself. Quinn lives a life of relative leisure, easily publishing one detective novel under the pseudonym William Wilson, about gumshoe Max Work, every year. The rest of the time he is free to read, or roam the streets of New York city. His wife and son have died, and he lives a quiet, solitary existence. A series of telephone calls from a strange, somewhat mechanical voice, asking to speak with the detective 'Paul Auster' changes everything for him. Years of writing detective novels have made him intrigued about his own abilities to be a detective, and he eventually agrees to meet Peter Stillman, the man who is convinced he is 'Paul Auster' the best detective in town. It turns out that Peter Stillman has been the victim of a very strange experiment. His father was a theologist who wrote about the myth of Paradise and the myth of Babel. His thesis was about Milton's (apparent) secretary, Henry Dark, who allegedly conceived the idea that an infant, without the influence of people to teach it the languages humanity uses since the fall of the Tower of Babel, would naturally speak God's own tongue and be a link back to Paradise. So Stillman locked up his son Peter in isolation, in the dark, for 9 long years. There was a fire, which lead to Peter's release. Eventually the police, confronted with the barely-verbal young Peter deduce what his mad father has done, and the father is imprisoned. Peter spends years in a hospital, being rehabilitated, and eventually marries his nurse. Peter has called Quinn ('Paul Auster') because his father is being released from prison and he is terrified. 'Paul Auster' should tail Stillman senior and warn, Peter and his wife, if he intends Peter any harm. The wife, Virginia, has stepped straight out of a noir film. She is more care-giver than wife, and makes a pass at Quinn. Soon Quinn finds himself at Grand Central Station, awaiting Stillman senior, and then following his bizzare tramp-like life. Stillman lives in a rooming house-style hotel, and roams a certain set range of New York, on particular paths (which may have meaning) gathering innocuous things - urban debris. There is a wonderful interplay between levels of identity: Quinn as the author William Wilson, Quinn playing the role of Max Work, Quinn playing the role of 'Paul Auster' - and then one day, it occurs him to look in the phone book and call Paul Auster, whom he meets and learns is an author. Auster is writing an essay about Don Quixote (another D.Q.) and levels of meaning and identity, questions of who is the author and how this can be, and how can a person become the character in the sort of literature which obsesses them. This is an incredible book. On one level it is a detective story (though I felt compelled to look through my Paco Ignacio Taibo II novels to find the Walsh quotation above). It's also about the romance of New York, and literature, identity, meaning, loss, homelessness - and baseball, specifically the Mets. There's a real humanity here, as well as a love of history, literature and myth. It felt like Auster's New York has something in common with Haruki Murakami's Tokyo. The streets also have echos of the literary giants past who have made it their home. It's quite amazing to read something magic, and moving, with such a spectacular structure and so rich in allusions to literature.

28. Ghosts by Paul Auster It's the late 40's. Blue has learned the ropes of how to be a good detective from Brown, now retired. White hires Blue, over the phone, to trail a man named Black. He's rented the apartment across the street from Black, and supplied it with all Blue needs to surveil Black indefinitely - without explaining why. Blue accepts the easy, paying job. Blue calls his sweetheart and warns her he's going undercover, and moves into the apartment and begins the process of watching Black. The less Black does - and he does very little - the deeper Blue slips into obsession.

The entire novel is a sort of metaphor, as clarified by the third in the trilogy.

29. The Locked Room by Paul Auster A "locked room" mystery is usually a classic sort of murder mystery in which a body is found in a locked room (think Poe, Christie or Conan Doyle, why yes, I did take a course in Detective Fiction, why do you ask?), but in this case, and in this context, it is, of course, about a book, or several. Our unnamed protagonist, a writer and critic, receives a letter from a childhood friend named Fanshawe with whom he has lost touch. He soon learns that Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving a trove of unpublished novels, letters, and stories, and a young, beautiful wife and child. He is enlisted to help get the undiscovered literary genius Fanshawe published, but soon he falls into his role - husband and father in his small family. Despite some unresolved jealously of Fanshawe, and the reality of being suspected of being Fanshawe and merely pretending to be his childhood friend, life is good in a loving relationship and with a steady source of income from editing and publishing Fanshawe, until Fanshawe writes our protagonist a letter. Fanshawe is distinctly not dead, nor ignorant of our protagonist's new role, and in fact, appears to have orchestrated it all. Our protagonist is left fearful of confessing this to his wife, and feeling like a puppet. Our protagonist needs to hunt down Fanshawe.

Of the three, the first in the Trilogy is the most compelling, and the most able to stand on its own, but by the end of the third, the view of the over-arching structure of the entire trilogy is breath-taking.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX}