I’ve been on the move. Out in LA for 6 days, staying first with Alex and Chrisanne, and then checking into the Hotel California with my mother and two sisters. There was no pink champagne on ice, and we were able to check out any time we liked, just FYI.
We were 4 blocks away from where the asshole with explosives in his car was arrested, so that was unnerving. I’m from New York. I saw a plane fly through the air and crash into a skyscraper. I don’t scare easily. Fuck those people.
I’m broke so the flights I took out and back were arduous and involved, like, a 3.5 hour layover in Detroit, and stuff like that. I read the entire way. I rarely get time to read anymore. Here are the books I’ve been juggling.
— Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
, by John Lahr. The long-awaited second volume of the biography published by Lyle Leverich 20 years ago. Leverich died before he could finish it, and bequeathed all of his research to John Lahr, who has also been writing about Tennessee Williams for the entirety of his career. Leverich is a better writer than John Lahr (I don’t care for Lahr’s writing, in general), but what is so awesome about this book is the sheer AMOUNT of quotation. It’s almost like the text skips and hops from one quote to the next. It’s beautiful. The story is heart-wrenching, though. As always, what I am left with with Williams is drop-dead admiration at how MUCH he could accomplish against such personal odds, including the vicious critical indifference he experienced from the 1960s on (indifference which is a DISGRACE to our culture.) His late plays are some of his best and most daring work. Time has given Tennessee have the last laugh. He was ahead of everybody else’s curve, and still is, in many ways. I finished this one. It made me cry on the plane.
— Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground
, by Robert Kaplan. Kaplan is a favorite author of mine (I’ve written about him extensively), and I have all of his books but he’s so prolific it’s hard to keep up. I read Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond
and this one is sort of the second part of his “investigation” into the US military and how it operates. He’s not an academic. He’s a journalist. He embeds with these men and women, seeing their tasks and talents, talking to them, riding in submarines and on camels, and etc. He doesn’t sit in a study in Boston, writing from afar. Anyway, his stuff is great, and his writing is wonderful. I highly recommend him, in general. An interesting perspective.
— Shakespeare’s Sonnets
, edited by Stephen Booth. This is the edition to get. (I wrote about Stephen Booth and this edition here.) I read one sonnet a morning, and then read Stephen Booth’s extensive footnotes. Which are unlike any other footnotes I have ever seen in my life. He is not concerned with paraphrasing the sonnets, or what they MEAN. He is interested in each word, and its history, and how a Renaissance/Elizabethan reader would have understood it. The puns, and layers, and inferences. Meaning is up to the reader. And each sonnet doesn’t have just one meaning. You have to be open to fluidity and complexity. If you are in any way squeamish about the word “cunt,” (and I get it, although I don’t share the squeamish-ness – that doesn’t mean I want the word thrown my way in emails or on the street, as sometimes happens) then Booth’s footnotes (and the sonnets themselves) will cause a tailspin! But Shakespeare “cunt” puns so often that you get immune to hearing the word. It’s a sexual joke. Shakespeare puns “penis” too. It’s everywhere. Sex is everywhere. Nothing has changed. I find it humorous to hear academics try to be gentlemanly or polite about it. Booth doesn’t have that problem. He’s like: “This word has multiple meanings including the obvious, it sounds a lot like ‘cunt.'” Moving on. I’ve done this chronological sonnet-reading before and I find it very meditative. Just one a day.
— The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May
(finished last month) and The Familiar, Volume 2: Into the Forest
(reading now), by Mark Z. Danielewsk. Huge HUGE fan of his work. His House of Leaves
is the only book that has actually given me nightmares. The Familiar is a three-volume multi-narrator story about … I can’t tell yet. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING AND I CAN’T STOP READING.
The Familiar and House of Leaves look fascinating. I was just looking for something different and dark so thanks for mentioning them.
FWIW, I’m about ⅔ of the way through House of Leaves. It’s excellent: challenging and creepy and engaging. Danielewski is definitely on my “folks to read” list.
Cool! Glad you’re reading him.
I couldn’t get through Only Revolutions – that was too Byzantine even for me – backwards/forwards text, numerical clues, color-coding – all the stuff he’s very into – but too much for me. Maybe I’ll go back to it.
I think, actually, he’s a little bit of a genius.
Paula – House of Leaves is freaky!! There are parts where you need to hold it up to a mirror. Just FYI. There are three separate simultaneous narrators. It’s daunting at first – but eventually the story took hold – and it was tremendously unnerving.
It’s about a house whose dimensions on the inside are larger – way larger – than its outer structure.
Mark D. is also a superb writer. He’s kind of a mimic – he can take on different voices – which he is definitely doing in The Familiar where he believably writes as an 11-year-old girl from LA, a drug addict in Singapore, a Turkish-American LAPD officer, a PhD candidate, a gang member who runs a dog fighting operation … And he’s really really good at this. A very sensitive writer.
But House of Leaves is the one to read. You may curse me later!! :)
You always could check out anytime. You just can never leave.
Why must you continue to deny yourself the pleasure of Rob Lowe’s autobiography?! I guess it looks light next to some of this other stuff, but it’s really not, and it is so freakin’ fun to read.
Safe travels.
I loved Lowe’s book, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, right? Very, very entertaining!
Yes! I have been trying to get Sheila to read it for a while, I know she has a copy!
I’m sure it’s wonderful. Yes I own it but I pick up books at random and Whimsically. The spirit has to move me. This is why when people give me books as a present – and then ask me a month later if I’ve read it yet – I have to be like, “No. That’s not how I read. I’ll get to it!! Thank you for the gift, I’ll get to it!”
I got nothing against “light” stuff. That’s not why I haven’t read it yet.
I get it, no rush! I’m really looking forward to your thoughts on it whenever that may be.
1. A friend of my dad’s whom I barely know SENT ME A COPY because he knew I’d love it. That’s how much he cared about me reading it. hahaha Love that.
2. While filming “my” movie, I bonded with the sweet “makeup girl” who was wonderful – she grew up in Malibu at the same time as Rob Lowe, mentioned his book and said that – in particular – he really expressed the whole “Malibu childhood” thing.
My friend Allison grew up in Malibu. Very specific!!
“That’s not how I read.” Sing it, Sheila. That’s the best answer to that (somewhat annoying) question.
And because of you, I’ve just pulled the Booth book down from my shelves. Look at me, reading at random and whimsically. (*grin*)
Melissa (formerly of Mental multivitamin)
Melissa!! You know, I thought about your (old) site just the other day, and was aware of how much I missed your voice, your opinions, your eclectic posts, and your writing. I am happy to know you have a new site!
Random whimsical reading really works for me. I love seeing a book on my shelf that I’ve owned for years – have had in my mind under the heading “some day I’ll feel like picking that up” – and then – randomly – picking it up and reading it eventually. Eventually being the key.
There are cases where I’ll buy a book and then instantly read it. (I’m doing that now with The Girls – a book I’d been hearing so much about it practically annoyed me – but the subject matter is so up my alley – understatement – that I knew I HAD to read it. It’s pretty great, so far.)
And in re: Booth:
He’s just so wonderful. I like HOW he analyzes. I like his mind a lot. It’s not an “either/or” type mind. It’s a “both/and” mind – and I appreciate that so much.
Really great to hear from you.
RE: The Girls. I was on your site over the weekend looking for your Bugliosi posts. You see, I had swallowed whole Cline’s book and now needed to read Helter Skelter, but I wanted an introduction of sorts (i.e., your posts).
More, twice in my comment to this post, I nearly pressed The Girls on you but decided that the recommendation would work against the “random whimsy” idea. Chuckle. It goes without saying that I look forward to your thoughts on the book.
**Warning: The following may be perceived as slightly spoiler-ish.**
Cline nailed the idea of a girl’s search for self-definition in the measuring looks / glances of others, particularly men. One reviewer took the novelist to task for not immersing Evie in the cult’s horror, but to me, that was the point: Even on the periphery, she was defined by her brief association.
MFS:
In re: The Girls:
I can be a contrarian when it comes to hype – the kind of hype The Girls received before it had even published. I had the same contrarian reaction to the hype that greeted Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers.
In both cases, I finally caved because … I wanted to experience for myself what everyone was talking about.
The Flamethrowers lived up to the hype – have you read that one? Her WRITING … it’s so unique and I still have not been able to describe why.
In re: The Girls – I am only a couple of chapters in. She has seen “the girls” in the park – we are now getting backstory on the relationship with her (pretty lost) mother. Nothing has really happened except a massive supply of texture, atmosphere. Which is huge. And yes, her observations on girls – and how they look to one another for validation – and look AT one another in an assessing manner – and how that keeps girls isolated since it’s all about competing for men … Ugh. It rings so true. And her prose is so simple and clear.
I have a couple of major deadlines in the next couple of weeks so as of now I’m reading it on my commute and lunch “hour” (half-hour) – but it’s gonna be a quick one since already I can’t put it down.
and yes – Helter Skelter!!
Interesting: just recently Leslie Van Houten had a parole hearing where the board actually recommended her for parole for the first time. It’s horrifying. I don’t care that she’s been a model prisoner. I think she still passes the buck. “We were brainwashed.” Oh, please, b**ch. How do you explain Linda Kasabian, who waited in the car, telling Manson, “I’m not a murderer.” AND how do you explain the fact that Manson was like, “Fine.” He didn’t force her.
You CHOSE to stab those innocent people.
I am so glad the Tate family continues to show up at her parole hearings, continues to protest her release.
And don’t even get me started on Patricia Krenwinkle.
At one of her recent parole hearings, she was asked, “Who was most hurt by your actions?”
She replied, “Myself.”
Wrong answer, Krenwinkle. WRONG ANSWER.
//I find it humorous to hear academics try to be gentlemanly or polite about it.//
I will never understand why Shakespeare is taught in high schools (in my experience, anyway) as dryly as it is. Of course I got some of the more obvious sexual jokes when I was in high school, but that was in spite of the way it was taught. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that virtually every line of everything he wrote is innuendo, and not even subtle innuendo. And I mean, if there is ANYTHING that is going to get a teenager interested in anything, it’s sex. Why not play that up in teaching it?
Natalie – right??
I mean, there are entire plays that are one long dick joke! hahaha And yes, once someone points it out to you – then that’s all you can see!
I’ve circled around “House of Leaves” so many times, but never taken the plunge–you’re inspiring me, though, I’ll have to get our copy on hold!
There’s another book you might like to look at–I’m starting to think it might have been inspired by House of Leaves (?), but it is its own thing as well: “S.” by Doug Dorst & J.J. Abrams. I pulled it for a patron just yesterday, who couldn’t find it because the cover looks like one of those old perma-bound library books, and has a different title on the front. Its story is told both in the narrative and in hand-written notes by at least two different people. There’s also ephemera scattered through the text, like maps and some kind of paper compass. Sounds gimicky, I know, but it definitely caught my attention! Imagine just coming across something like this on the library shelves– http://tinyurl.com/zd5ygdy
Barb – House of Leaves is definitely challenging. There are so many footnotes – that you just kind have to go with it – and not look at them as interruptions – they’re just part of the paranoid and frenzied atmosphere of the book. It took me a while to get in the groove with it. It’s unlike any other reading experience. David Foster Wallace comes to mind, with all his footnotes – but this is even denser, with more narrators.
And once the story about the house itself really starts picking up speed … well, that was when I couldn’t put it down.
There are parts of the book you have to hold up to a mirror – parts that you have to turn the book upside down so you can read it – so reading it in a public place makes you look insane!!
Ooh – and “S” sounds right up my alley! Hand-written notes!! Maps?!! I know what you mean about the gimmick nature of some of these tropes – but when they’re done well they can add so much to the texture of a book.
Sheila, I have been a reading fool since school got out (I substitute teach), and my reading has definitely been on the lighter side. Loved Anna Quindlen’s new book, Miller’s Valley-and have been reading lots of books that take place in summer, on the beach. I grew up very close to the shores of Lake Michigan, and I do miss that kind of beach culture-although we have tons of water up here, you die of hypothermia within minutes if you fall in most places, so very different.
I also joined Paperback Swap, which is super fun, but not aiding me in my quest to get rid of some books. I mean I get rid of one, and get another in return :)
Maureen – summer is definitely a good time to catch up on reading! I’ve barely been able to read at all since around February, just too busy, so it’s been great to get back into it.
I don’t know about Paperback Swap. Sounds interesting!
I went through a purge recently and got rid of tons of books – there’s a second-hand bookstore I donate to.
Sheila
I too read both Leverich’s and Lahr’s bios of Tennessee Williams and though it’s been a little while ago I definitely liked Leverich’s more. There a deeper warmer feeling to it as I remember. I liked Lahr’s book, it certainly is a page turner, but as I got into it there was a distinct feeling he didn’t think too highly of most of the later plays, and I was getting a little turned off. So I love and completely agree with you saying “His later plays are some of his best and daring work.” Yes!
Even today some people I talk with about TW will speak mostly talk about how messed up he was on pills and booze, completely true! But still! He wrote about it, wrote through it, and never stopped writing. TW breaks my heart too but he did say, “I’ve had a wonderful and terrible life and I wouldn’t cry for myself, would you?”