| The Bibliothecary Archive July 18 - 29, 2005 ______________________________ _________________________ |
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Friday, July 29, 2005 Some Sherlockiana for today: David Pirie, scriptwriter of a new BBC movie (just aired a couple nights ago) about a decade in Arthur Conan Doyle's life, tries to answer why Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes. And here's another piece on the same movie. And Conan Doyle, the Poisoner! Comments A friend recently asked me to list my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories and I realized that I've never figured this out for myself. Whenever I return to the stories, I tend to reread everything. But I've now taken a good look at the Canon and I think these are my favorites: The Man with the Twisted Lip. Hands down my favorite tale. It's a very simple affair, but the details get me every time: opium dens, beggars, and of course, Holmes' "Eureka" moment after sitting like some Rajah on a pile of pillows smoking shag all night long. The Sign of Four is my favorite of the four novels with its wildly bizarre cast of characters: the Sholto brothers, the wooden legged Jonathan Small and his pygmy sidekick, Tonga. But I also love The Hound of the Baskervilles for its characters as well, not to mention the gloomy gothic moors. To round out a baker's dozen, I think I would include: The Red-headed League A Scandal in Bohemia The Blue Carbuncle The Speckled Band Silver Blaze The Musgrave Ritual The Devil's Foot The Second Stain The Copper Beeches The Final Problem (for sentimental reasons, of course) Comments Lastly, I would kill someone dressed like this. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Thursday, July 28, 2005 I very much liked this Walter Kirn review of the new Cormac McCarthy novel: Like classic French cooking, the best American crime fiction relies on a limited number of simple ingredients (which may be why it's so popular in France). Too much temptation. Too little wisdom. Too many weak, bad men. Too few strong, good ones. And spread over everything, freedom. Freedom and space. The freedom (perhaps illusory) to make poor choices and the space (as real as the highways) to flee their consequences -- temporarily, at least. Corny and crude in the way of all great folk art, the intrinsically pessimistic crime novel -- as opposed to the basically optimistic detective novel -- is not about the workings of human justice but the dominion of inhuman time. As devised and refined by James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and their gloomy paperback peers, the crime novel aimed its cheap handgun at the heart of America's most prized beliefs about its destiny: that the loot we've scooped up will belong to us forever and that history allows clean getaways. That's a pretty good description of American noir. I especially like the "dominion of inhuman time." I tried to read McCarthy's Blood Meridian a couple years back, but had to give it up, no matter that I liked it so much. There was so much joy in my life then. My wife was pregnant. We had only just moved into our new home (hopefully, my last home). The violence in the novel was too grim, too relentless for me to stomach at the time. I was surprised. It was the only time in my life when I felt so happy that I couldn't stand the gloom. I've meant to return to it when I could get my head around it (or my heart, not sure which). Perhaps I won't. Comments Dan writes in to comment on my library panegyric (July 27): I know this sounds horrible, but I absolutely hate going to the library. I always have. I would rather spend all my money buying the books then spending more than ten minutes in the library. When I was doing my Thesis, I spent about 23 weeks in the library and I noticed something. As soon as I enter that building, I start to sweat and feel uncomfortable. I can not explain it, but I get antsy and just want to leave. I can take the books out and read them elsewhere. No problem. But any more than a few minutes and I go bonkers. I think that's why I always take out a lot of books at once and then pay boku late fees! Dan, I don't actually spend much time reading in a library. I can spend hours looking at books, reading snatches of them. But I, too, have to take them home to do any deep reading (this is a compulsion I will have to remedy this Fall). Of course, I am most comfortable in my study, but the real reason I can't read in the library is because I can't smoke there. I have grown so accustomed to my pipe while reading that I have a hard time concentrating without it. And why should I? Mortals say their heart is light When the clouds around disperse; Clouds to gather, thick as night, Is the smoker's universe. Dan also comments on "celeberty" novels (July 26): I'm not really up on the celeberty novels, but what gets me is the celeberty poets. There are too many to name here, but some are just so bad. The worst might be Jewel. Her book is horrible. And Suzanne Vega, who I am a big fan of, pretty much just wrote her lyrics out and published them. Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins' fame) has a lousy book too! Did Jim Morrison publish his stuff or was it published after his death? I know there are a few books out there. BTW... I'm probably opening a can of worms here, but I think he's horrible. The fact that people call him and Kurt Cobain great poets sticks in my craw! One last thing on Jewel...on Amazon.com, listed under her book of poetry is a list of other things people who bought this book bought. And wouldn't you know it...everything listed there are books about...Jewel. Those Jewel fans are really opening their minds! Dan, do you really want the minds of Jewel fans to open? I'll admit I liked Morrison's poetry when I was in college, but I couldn't bear to hear it now without Manzarek et al. backing him up. But you fail to mention the worst celeberty poet of all, Rosie O'Donnell! Her latest: carmex do not use carmex things are worse in pimpleville the sunscreen - i think maybe that it’s that i am getting up the guts to go to a dermo but fear her wrath i am not good 2 my skin windex tonight just a dab it’s odd to me that this blog makes the “news” ever - but it does as if so in iraq a new constitution secular seems to be the choice and our children died for democracy there in oil heaven the rbk kids 2 day in unison straight lines projection and smiles friday is r show parents friends family some homeless will watch the wonder of wonder miracle of miracles a cast opening night come on along and listen to the lullabye of broadway… there’s no place like home there’s no place like home there’s no place like home The scarier part is this poem has 54 comments, some of them including advice/treatment for getting rid of acne. I think I can now read Blood Meridian. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Wednesday, July 27, 2005 Thomas H. Benton (a pseudonym, not the dead painter) has a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about the charms of roaming the library stacks: I have had moments in reading a text -- an ordinary one that might now be found online -- when I noticed a minor reference in the margins that sent me a few shelves down to find a much more obscure book that was packed with unexpected clues that changed my project entirely. Much to my dismay, the library at the school I will be attending this Fall is closed for renovations. I can only search their database, request books I would like and they will be delivered the next day. I will have to wait a year or two before I can browse through the actual stacks. Perhaps more troubling is that the library was beautiful and, for me, in no need of "renovations." Many libraries are now renovating to create more socially friendly environments for their "readers." If you need a café and space to talk, you're not really there to read, are you? And isn’t that why we have these gargantuan bookstores? (Personally, I'd rather talk about books over booze and a smoke). But most of all, I will miss roaming the stacks. I cannot count the times I've come across books, authors, subjects that I never would have found searching a computer database, when unknown books have nearly jumped from the shelves, the resounding "Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege" ringing in my ears. Comments Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Ben Macintyre on celebrities who write novels, "It is easy to make fun of celebrity novelists. So we should." He rhapsodizes on Pamela Anderson's novel (I didn't know there was one) and another one soon to be published: I have before me Fan-Tan; a novel by none other than the late Marlon Brando, published next month, “a rollicking, swashbuckling, delectable romp of a novel — the last surprise from an ever-surprising legend”. I have read nine pages, but cannot get beyond the description of a man in prison having his fingers eaten by cockroaches (“oh, how delicately they chomped away at the husks of his fingertips”. Sadly, Brando did not live long enough to see the publication of his book. Sadly, I shall not live long enough to finish it. Comments Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Monday, July 25, 2005 An essay in the Wilson Quarterly (Unfortunately there are some glitches on this site. No one appears to have proofed the text after it was uploaded.) focuses on W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and their political dance for a decade before their political/ideological/sociological differences finally broke out into public criticism: If Du Bois could have maintained his scholarly integrity and offered clear but measured criticisms of the Tuskegee agenda while still supporting Tuskegee measures, and if Washington could have backed Du Bois without offending his donors and moderates, their limited partnership might have lasted until Washington’s death in 1915. When Du Bois published The Souls of Black Folk in April 1903, with its critical chapter on Washington, many thought it a declaration of war. But though the criticism rankled Washington, he’ d heard worse before, and he shrugged it off. Besides, Du Bois intended no threat to Tuskegee; three months later he was teaching summer school there, and in July he dined at the headmaster’s home. Washington even paid his traveling expenses, telling an underling, “If he chooses to be little we must teach him a lesson by being greater and broader than he is.” As long as Du Bois remained principled and independent of organized resistance to the Tuskegee Machine, their wary cooperation would continue. I finally read these two authors last year (I know, I'm almost 40. I should have read them before then. My only excuse is that I went to Philadelphia Catholic schools, including college, not exactly hotbeds of African-American studies). Of course, I couldn't help but love Du Bois' demands for civil rights and deplore Washington's acquiescence to an American caste system. However, my opinions of the authors may have more to do with the brilliance in style and idea of The Souls of Black Folk and the turgid nonsense of Up from Slavery. But how else are we to judge a man, if not for the prose in his books. Comments And then I read a piece like this by A.N. Wilson and I want to read the Harry Potter books (to understand my surprise, see my July 18 entry and the susequent comments of July 20). Comments Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Sunday, July 24, 2005 As last week seemed to be alternate book week here at the Bibliothecary, what with a wordless novel, a gender specific language, and odd second hand books (not to mention Plates of Fungi), I thought I'd add one more to the stew, perhaps the oddest one of all: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla in International Morse Code. You can even listen to an excerpt from the introduction. Of course it's an album, but I wonder if I can get more audio books in morse code for my long drives out to school this Fall. And this is volume 2 of the a series. I wonder what's on volume one. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Saturday, July 23, 2005 I stumbled across a wonderful website called Oddbooks about bizarre finds at second hand bookshops. Included are descriptions of Does the Earth Rotate? NO! (1919) by William Westfield, Moles and Their Meaning (1909) by Harry De Windt, and The Gospel by Signal (1904) by Webster and Dryburg. I am especially fascinated with Faces of World's Captains (1971) by Kenji Miyakoshi, a collection of six hundred sketches of ship's captains the author made while working as a harbour pilot. Most wonderful are the examples of "awful poetry," including the homage to breastfeeding, making the claim that it can end war, and another on constipation, containing this magnificent stanza: In the intestinal canal Waste matter lay and sad to tell, Was left from day to day; And while it was neglected there It undermined that structure fair, And caused it to decay. Sorry, hope you weren't eating. Comments Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Friday, July 22, 2005 Nazis today: Here's a good piece from Carlin Romano on the readablity of Hitler's Mein Kampf. Do we, should we read it? And here's a review I link not so much for the content, but for the title of the book: SS General Karl Wolff, the Man Between Hitler and Himmler. The man between Hitler and Himmler? What's next, the Nazi who worked near Hitler? Or the bad guy a few feet from the Fuhrer? I'm not saying a book on Wolff isn't a worthy study, but in our current age of grandiloquent subtitles, Enigma publishers needs a little help. More on Nushu (from Michael-Patrick Harrington). Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Thursday, July 21, 2005 An omnigatherum today: A piece on Les Liaisons Dangereuses and its many adaptations. An eclectic and interesting top ten supernatural books by Jeremy Sheldon. Julian Barnes on writing fiction: It's creating people who are fundamentally different in their beliefs... You take things that people believe in as seriously as they believe in them. Or how about writing a novel without words. And what omnigatherum is complete without Plates of Fungi. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Wednesday, July 20, 2005 A.S. Byatt's review of a new J.M. Barrie biography. I recently tried to watch "Finding Neverland," but it left me a little cold. I thought its melodrama was a little too glamorized. Perhaps this was because of the beauty of the actors. Depp is far too beautiful for Barrie. The underlying dark tragedy of Peter Pan is enough biography for me. Comments A piece on a newly discovered Rudyard Kipling manuscript featuring the original form of a fairy tale he wrote in 1893, "The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle." I love the resolution of the tale. I think I'll read this one to my girls. Comments A comment from Michael-Patrick Harrington on Monday's link to the Nushu museum: Ed, I spent a couple of months earlier this year researching Nushu for my book The Innkeeper at the End of the World. In October of last year, Yang Huanyi died. She was believed to be the last person to actively use Nashu. Since my characters are former child genuises, I thought it would be intersting if Zooey’s “hobby” as a kid was Nushu. Truly fascinating language. I’m not sure how much of what I learned I’m going to use in the book, but it was a great side-trip. "By writing, so much suffering disappears," Yang Huanyi said in an interview with Northeast Asian Weekly in 1996. Michael, I had never heard of Nushu and am not only fascinated by a gender based language, but also that it seems to have arisen to provide a voice for a dispossessed segment of a society. I wonder if there are any other dialects like this. Of course, my disparaging statements on the Harry Potter books brought in a few comments: Ryan Karp writes: "The problem with the HP books is you can find bad writing on nearly every page." And you're calling Bloom cranky? Even he didn't go so far. Ryan, When I wrote that line, I did think, "Now that's cranky!" I agree with Bloom that Rowling's prose isn't very good. But I don't think she's so bad that a serious editing wouldn't have greatly improved Goblet (the only long one I've attempted). While Bloom deplores her lazy cliches, I think they are fine for children. He doesn't think HP is even worthwhile for children to read. I think they are great books for kids, but don't hold up for mature readers. Sean Scotwell writes (succintly): Muggle! Sean, It's not that I'm a Muggle, it's that I belong to the Slytherin House. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Tuesday, July 19, 2005 A fascinating little piece on Osip Mandelstam's essay, "Conversation on Dante," dictated to the author's wife who, in turn, "did what the circumstances required during the Stalinist persecution: she learnt the essay by heart, in order to ensure its survival. It wasn't printed until three decades later." Here are some interesting comments on authority, but also, I love this description of Dante's work by Mandelstam: If the halls of the Hermitage should suddenly go mad, if the paintings of all schools and masters should suddenly break loose from the nails, should fuse, intermingle, and fill the air of the rooms with futuristic howling and colours in violent agitation, the result then would be something like Dante's Comedy. Comments Any review that concludes with Auden quoting an Icelandic proverb, "Every man enjoys the smell of his own farts," needs to be read. I very much enjoyed Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading and his Dictionary of Imaginary Places is wonderful, so his Reading Diary sounds like a must read for me. Comments Dead Writer for today: Francesco Petrarch died on this day in 1374, a day before his 70th birthday. His Canzoniere are so good I can't pick a favorite. And today is also the day Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954. Prosit, Ed The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. Monday, July 18, 2005 Another critic gets it wrong on Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Natasha Walter, in the Guardian: Although we can measure the size of the phenomenon by crunching numbers, that doesn't help us to understand why Harry Potter stands quite so large in our culture. And Harry is not alone - in a way his success only serves to echo and reinforce the equally unexpected breakthrough of The Lord of the Rings 50 years ago. The Lord of the Rings was not "conceived for children." The Hobbit was. LotR is a mature work that just happens to be fantasy. It's popularity did defy critical opinion, but most crit opinion of the Rowling books has been positive, except for the few academics and canon guardians who have gotten a little cranky (i.e. Harold Bloom). The real difference between the books is literary merit. LotR suffered critically only because it was set in a fantastical realm. Had Tolkien's work been cast in a pseudo-20th century-WWII setting, it would have been considered the great modern epic. This is because he is such a good writer. Are there slow spots in his work? Sure. It's 1200 pages. You can find spots of bad writing in [fill in your favorite writer]. The problem with the HP books is you can find bad writing on nearly every page. Don't get me wrong, I think these are great books for kids— Lots of adventure, complicated storyline, escapist— but so are a lot of other books. The Lord of the Rings is a great book for ANYONE, but especially adults, or at least, literate and intelligent adults who want to read great literature. Comments I was totally fascinated by this news: in China a museum will showcase cultural artifacts and manuscripts of the world's only female language, Nushu: The gracefully-written rhombic Nushu characters are structured by just four kinds of strokes, including dot, horizontal, virgule and arc, and can be spoken in a dialect to describe women's misfortunes and inner feelings. Comments Dead Writer for today: Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817, aged only 41. That's three years from now for me. I'd better get started on my novels. Today is also the death day of Horatio Alger, Jr. The Bibliothecary always welcomes readers' comments. |
