Game of Thrones Withdrawal: Part the Fourth

ISBN-10: 0312429983 ISBN-13: 9780312429980 Published: Picador, 08/31/2010 Pages: 640 Language: English 

In case you haven't already noticed, dear reader, this rather loosely defined "series" of blog posts is really just an excuse for me to recommend books that I quite like, so here goes another one: Wolf Hall. Now, Hilary Mantel's masterful historical work does share some  characteristics of A Game of Thrones-ian novel: byzantine plotting, courtly intrigue and-- sometimes literal-- backstabbings, strong female characters, etc. However, Wolf Hall sets itself apart in the way it so convincingly inhabits the mind and body of Thomas Cromwell, a low-born courtier who earned eternal notoriety by using Henry VIII's marital problems as a springboard into the upper stratosphere of 16th Century politics. Mantel radically reinvents the oft-reviled character as compassionate, worldly, and endlessly practical. 

Historians can argue over the validity of such an assessment-- it would seem like a severe case of nit-picking, given the obviously immense amount of research put into the book-- but Mantel's characterizations of Cromwell and his chief rival, Thomas More, sets up a philosophical conflict that is at the heart of the novel. Although Thomas More is usually depicted as a hero (A Man For All Seasons comes to mind) for refusing to sanction the king's divorce, in Wolf Hall he is shown to be a fanatic with a rigid sense of morality and justice. Spoiler alert: More was eventually executed and given a sainthood for his trouble, while English majors continue to study his--admittedly classic-- Utopia and do their best not to think about his ruthless persecution of "heretics."

Mantel forcefully makes the case that one should try to live in the world as it is, not as it should be-- a simple but resoundingly powerful philosophy that informs the entirety of the work. Wolf Hall is no mere writing exercise, but is instead imbued with a strong sense of purpose that is rare in our irony-soaked age. I'm afraid that I barely scratched the surface of this book-- not to mention its sequel, now out in paperback-- nor have I even touched on the subject of Mantel's highlighter-worthy prose, but blog posts have limitations. Mantel, fortunately, has few.

What to Make of the "Foodie"

ISBN-10: 0226651401
ISBN-13: 9780226651408
Published: University Of Chicago Press, 04/01/2013
Pages: 200
Language: English 

As a person who considers peanut butter on rice cakes to be the pinnacle of culinary achievement, I have found the growth of "foodie" culture to be fairly puzzling (the term "foodie" is nebulous and ill-defined, but, essentially, a foodie really really likes food). However, the rise of foodie literature clearly indicates some sort of shift in cultural attitudes towards gourmet eating, and an excellent book review on Slate convinced me to explore the topic further. I discovered a complicated, surprisingly heated world of pro- and anti-foodie literature. Take, for example, B.R. Meyers' fire-breathing polemic published in the Atlantic titled "The Moral Crusade Against Foodies." It's not hard to guess where he goes from there, but I'll give you the deliciously over-the-top closing argument: "Whether gluttony is a deadly sin is of course for the religious to decide, and I hope they go easy on the foodies; they’re not all bad. They are certainly single-minded, however, and single-mindedness—even in less obviously selfish forms—is always a littleness of soul." Ouch.

 On the other side, there are your Anthony Bourdain's, who seem to be dedicated to providing a kind of culinary voyeurism. These books re-shape the pursuit of a good meal into an exotic adventure. Many of these are surprisingly aggressive or visceral, such as Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (I usually try to cut long subtitles, but this one was irresistible). Even the skillfully written Blood, Bones, and Butter seems to promise violence and grit with its very title. I struggle to imagine where the legendary Julia Child would fit into this new cooking landscape.  

Memoirists thrive on the foodie literature scene. Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life is a good example of this sub-genre. Foodie memoirs often seem to link the preparation and enjoyment of food with spirituality. This phenomenon can be observed even in the more scientifically-oriented Michael Pollan, arguably the king of modern food writing, who constructed his new book around the four elements-- earth, water, air and fire-- and frequently references philosophy to support his exhaustive arguments. In opposition to B.R. Meyers, Pollan and his ilk seem to view good food as a window into a kind of primal expanded consciousness. 

As fun as it is to watch intelligent people squabble among themselves, the wisest approach is often the least flamboyant. Alison Pearlman's Smart Casual, the subject of the earlier Slate review, appears to be an academic and even-handed take on the evolution of fine dining in America. Give it a read and see which side of the fence you stand on. Join the discussion. Or hang back with me and watch the intellectual fireworks. I'll be eating a bagel.

 

The Quiet Contrarian

ISBN-10: 0374157693 ISBN-13: 9780374157692 Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 05/07/2013 Pages: 320 Language: English

On the occasion of the publication of Janet Malcolm's newest collection of nonfiction articles and essays, Slate posted an excellent feature about her body of work and its far-reaching influence. The subheading of the feature, written by Alice Gregory, says simply: "I'm in awe of her," and it's hard not to reach a similar conclusion after you've read one of Malcolm's slim books: The Silent Woman, In The Freud Archives, or Reading Chekhov, to name a few. Malcolm synthesizes literary criticism, biography, journalism, and just about every other discipline that comes to hand in a dazzling display that makes practically every other essayist look dim-witted in comparison. 

Malcolm's writing is somehow three-dimensional: she attacks her subject from every conceivable angle (and a few inconceivable ones as well), until the thorny question at the heart of each of her books seems to give way beneath her logical onslaught. Her arguments are bravely impersonal in an age of over-sharing-- there are a few exceptions, which are all the more fascination for their rarity-- and she is as unsparing in examination of her own profession as she is of any other. The Journalist and the Murderer famously opens with the line: "“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” If I ever wrote anything half as good, I would probably put away my (metaphorical) pen and go (metaphorically) home. 

You may also intuit from that line that "Malcolm’s severity, her terrifying neutrality" somehow does not prevent her from having strong opinions. And indeed, she has gotten plenty of academicians, artists, journalists and everyday readers such as myself stirred up for what Errol Morris called, in an excellent interview on Slate, making an argument for "the relativity of truth." Their concerns are understandable and even, in some cases, shared by myself, but you can't say anything really compelling without ruffling a few feathers: witness every truly revolutionary author ever. Besides, I would argue that Malcolm makes a case for humanity's inability to perceive truth with absolute clarity rather than for the nonexistence of truth itself. After all, her books are often made compelling by her focus on alluring, if flawed, human beings such as Sylia Plath or Ted Hughes rather than dry rhetoric.

Errol Morris rather memorably attacks Malcolm in his interview by giving this description of a hypothetical encounter between her and a drowning man: "I’d like to help you, but you misunderstand the nature of our relationship. You see yourself as a drowning man and me as a woman with a life preserver, but there’s a meta-narrative here. I’m studying the relationship between a drowning man and a person with a life preserver, and for me to throw it would be to break the constraints of the meta-narrative.” Now, that's a rather pointed satirical jab that's probably a lot funnier to an English major who's read a ton of Malcolm, but the important thing to note is that, just a few sentences later, Morris declares her one of his heroes, and her writing "extraordinary." You just don't get reactions that complicated and beautifully articulated without digging deep into the core of things that matter. For that, if for no other reason, give one of Malcolm's books a try.

Hoarding: Buried Alive (in Books), Pt. 1

Inspired by Nick Hornby's fantastic column in The Believer (which you should check out here), I thought I'd share with you a list of recent purchases and recent reads, mostly so that I'm held accountable for my hoarding-style habit of purchasing too many novels.

Books Bought:
*The Yellow Birds -- Kevin Powers
*My Antonia -- Willa Cather (Penguin Drop Caps Edition)
*Sisters -- Brigitte Lozerech
*Swamplandia -- Karen Russell
*All That Is -- James Salter

Books Read:
*The Kings and Queens of Roam -- Daniel Wallace
*Black Warrior Review Issue #39.2, Spring/Summer
*You Lost Me There -- Rosecrans Baldwin (in progress)
*Tin House Issue #54, Winter Reading
*The Liars' Club -- Mary Karr

Disclaimer: There are probably four or so more titles that I'm forgetting at the moment.

In the Books Read column, Wallace's Kings and Queens of Roam was a fantastical romp (more on that later...), Black Warrior Review was worth reading but still hit or miss, and The Liars' Club was positively life-changing. If you come into Flyleaf, I'm prone to recommend it. It's a little scary right now to have no memoirs on the slate, seeing as non-fiction is a perennial favorite of mine, but if the first couple of pages are any indication, The Yellow Birds might fill that void despite being fictional. Tin House was also hit or miss for me, but I think that's the nature of a lit review; I like seeing things that aren't readily accessible to me, that require some effortful reading.

What are you sinking your teeth into at the moment?

The Book is Better

ISBN-10: 0743273567 ISBN-13: 9780743273565 Published: Scribner, 09/30/2004 Pages: 192 Language: English

Before watching Baz Luhrmann pile-drive all the nuance out of The Great Gatsby with his recently released film adaption, I thought it would be worth reflecting on what makes Fitzgerald's book such a timeless masterpiece. For one thing, The Great Gatsby has never ceased to be relevant. Take a listen to this excellent Studio 360 episode on "how this compact novel became the great American story of our age." It presents a fascinating cultural history of the work and how its particular take on the American Dream has infiltrated everything from film to hip-hop. Gatsby is not the earliest attempt to define the allure and danger of America's rags-to-riches ethos-- Mark Twain's unfortunately little-remembered 1873 novel The Gilded Age springs to mind-- but it did inject a corrosive fairy-tale romanticism into the oft-told story that gave it a memorably dreamy, surrealist quality. This is why-- snob that I am-- I shudder to think of Luhrman's literalist, 3-D take on the greenish light at the end of Daisy's dock. Not everything has to be seen to be felt.

In addition, The Great Gatsby is an extraordinary demonstration of the value of writing with economy and verve. Every single sentence is beautifully crafted, as can be seen in the Studio 360 piece when an actor who has memorized the entirety of the book is asked to read from it at random and every line comes out like a perfectly formed gem. Although I think Jonathan Franzen might be better served if he took those lessons to heart, his take on Fitzgerald's winning combination of style and substance is dead-on: "In 50,000 words, he tells you the central fable of America...and yet you feel like you are eating whipped cream." In other words, it's the rare classic that's short and fun-- famous counter-culture comedian Andy Kaufman once read the entirety of the novel at a show. Granted, most of the audience was less than pleased, but there's no accounting for taste. 

So go buy it! At Flyleaf preferably. And avoid the garish movie tie-in covers, the one featured in this post is absolutely perfect. This is THE Great American Novel. With the exception of Moby Dick, of course, but I'll leave that post for another day.

What Not to Give Your Mom on Mother's Day

ISBN-10: 147781647X ISBN-13: 9781477816479 Pages: 22 Language: English

I considered writing a post on possible Mother's Day gifts, but the internet has been inundated with enough of these lists recently that I thought I might take a cue from this delightful picture book and tell you what not to buy them. For one, the book makes a few crucial points: under no circumstances should you give her, say, a rotting log or a bunch of flies. I'm told human mothers find that strange.

On a more serious note, don't pigeonhole your mother. Not everything has to be Oprah-approved (though Elizabeth Strout might not be a bad pick). Family drama is a fine subject for a novel, but not every novel. She might appreciate a change of pace with a whip-smart thriller like Gone Girl or Turn of Mind. History and social science are not as dry as you might think: let her give Cleopatra: A Life or Quiet a try. Don't give her "guilty pleasure" books-- it's condescending to a woman who is almost certainly older than you and probably wiser! 

In the same vein, don't think you're so 'cool with the moms, dig,' as the young people say, that you can buy her erotica. In an article filled with some great recommendations, a writer on Bookriot suggests you do just that, to which I present my eloquent counterargument: Ew. Besides, since when does romance have to be cheap and tawdry? Where my Jane Austen fans at? How 'bout my Anna Kareninites? Just because they're classics doesn't mean your mom has gotten around to reading them. She's been busy birthing you and keeping you alive! Plus there are plenty of fancy-schmancy editions conducive to gift-giving.

If you want to be more conservative, that's fine. Just don't ever waste a chance to give someone something good to read. Even in the stereotypical mom wheelhouse of cross-generational drama there are plenty of very interesting writers out there putting out quality product. Whatever you give her, take the lessons of What Not to Give Your Mom on Mother's Day to heart: something that was recently alive is probably not a good present.

Sick Day Reading

Dear reader, I have been forced to stay home today by some unknown pathogen, probably passed on to me by one of our valued customers visiting the store, so I figure all of you collectively owe me one. I will accept remuneration in hard cash or in suggestions of good literature to read while sick. I'm currently midway through the excellent Wolf Hall, but I have found it difficult to follow the intricacies of the Tudor court while feeling gross. 

Normally, I would pick up my copy of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, but I seem to have hit a wall at around a dozen re-reads. I'm burning through an immense backlog of comics that includes spin-offs of television maestro Joss Whedon's greatest creation: Angel-- yeah, Buffy fans, I said it. Most of them are workmanlike, but I am finding John Byrne's collection quite enjoyable. Strangely enough, I also enjoy a good rant when sick and so find some solace in Christopher Hitchens' polemics or in the heated debate over foodie-ism prompted by some recent books that I might treat on in another blog post.

I started this post with the intention of figuring out what makes for a good sick day read, but looking back on my own, very strange, picks, I realize I have no idea. Hey, I'm sick, give me a break. If you have any suggestions or just want to let me know what idiosyncratic literature you reach for when you have the sniffles, write below in the comments.