We Interrupt this Program …

Dennis Abrams from Publishing Perspectives has started a new project: to read all 3,000 pages and 1.25 million words of the “Mt. Everest of literature”, Marcel Proust’s multi-volume “In Search of Lost Time” (which you may know as “Remembrance of Times Past”, a mistranslated title for the work).

Here’s the kicker: he’s reading it, and discussing it, at a pace of 15 pages a day.  So that makes it very accessible for those of us with working lives, families, or other pursuits that keep us from reading for extended periods.

If you’d like to join in, he’s blogging here. You can pick up your copy of the Lydia Davis translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way, at Amazon.  The first 15 pages will be discussed on Monday, November 2nd.

Three New Books on My Nightstand

Hi, my name is David, and I’m addicted to really good contemporary fiction! My three latest purchases (thank you Amazon Prime!), waiting in line behind Philip Roth:

Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God

It’s a book of monumental importance in the genre of 20th century literature. More than just a member of the Harlem   Renaissance school, Hurston’s stories are an integral part of understanding black culture in America in the early 20th century. Her stories aren’t about blacks trying to live in a world dominated by whites. They’re about blacks living, working, and loving other blacks.

Per Petterson – Out Stealing Horses

Translated from the Norwegian into English, “Out Stealing Horses” is the story of an older man taking a walk who suddenly has long-buried memories of his childhood. I found this book through my favorite fiction blog, “The Millions”  (I still don’t understand why it’s called that). They published a list last month of the best books of the first decade of the 21st century.  The list (actually two lists; one from “the pros”, one from The Millions readers) generated a lot of discussion, and in turn, a lot of good book ideas.

John Updike – The Maple Stories

It’s not Rabbit Angstrom. It’s not even a novel. It’s a re-print of an obscure set of short stories Updike wrote about a young married couple, from the time they get married until they’re grandparents. They’re vignettes from a life imagined. And it sounds fascinating. It starts with the story “Snowing in Greenwich Village”, ends with “Grandparenting”, and in-between, there are 16 short stories about our couple and their lives.

Review: Goodbye, Columbus

Published in 1959, “Goodbye, Columbus” is Philip Roth’s first work, a book of short stories featuring the title story. I was prompted to buy it when I decided it was time to read, “American Pastoral”, purported to be his magnum opus. Instead of delving straight into the famous work, I thought it would be a good idea to read some of his earlier works first, and get an appreciation for the young, developing Philip Roth before he hit his stride. It would also give me a chance to decide for myself if, “American Pastoral” was truly his best work, or just critically so.

“Goodbye, Columbus” tells the story of a young Jewish couple, one of means, the other not. It’s very straightforward storytelling, as readable and enjoyable today as it was 50 years ago. The best part of the book for me was a long speech given by Leo Patimkin, the Uncle of the female lead character. His speech harkens back to a more innocent time in America, the 1950s:

“When you got it,” Leo said, rubbing his fingers together, “you can afford to talk like a big shot. Who needs a guy like me anymore. Salesman, you spit on them. You can go to the supermarket and buy anything. Where my wife shops you can buy sheets and pillowcases. Imagine, a grocery store! Me, I sell to gas stations, factories, small businesses, all up and down the east coast. Sure, you can sell a guy in a gas station a crappy bulb that’ll burn out in a week. For inside the pumps I’m talking, it takes a certain kind of bulb. A utility bulb. All right, so you sell him a crappy bulb, and then a week later he puts in a new one, and while he’s screwing it in he still remembers your name. Not me. I sell a quality bulb. It lasts a month, five weeks, before it even flickers, then it gives you another couple days, dim maybe, but so you shouldn’t go blind. It hangs on, it’s a quality bulb. Before it even burns out you notice it’s getting darker, so you put a new one in. What people don’t like is when one minute it’s sunlight and the next dark. Let it glimmer a few days and they don’t feel so bad. Nobody ever throws out my bulb – they figure they’ll save them, can always use them in a pinch. Sometimes I say to a guy, you ever throw out a bulb you bought from Leo Patimkin? You gotta use psychology. That’s why I’m sending my kind to college. You don’t know a little psychology these days, you’re licked …”

I enjoyed the stories, and I’ve started in on the the first full-length novel Roth published, “Letting Go”, published in 1961.

Respite: Lyonel Feininger

Painted in 1926, “BARFÜSSERKIRCHE II (CHURCH OF THE MINORITES II)” is one of the best known works of American artist Lyonel Feininger. It hangs in the permanent collection of Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center. In 2002, they produced a curriculum guide entitled “So, Why is This Art?” in which it was written: “Feininger created a pictorial communion of a church (kirche) and the German Franciscan monks (Barfüsser) who reside there by depicting a harmonious composition of repeated transparent colors, shapes, and lines.”

A print of this painting hangs in my living room. I have a second Feininger print, “Vogel Wolke (Bird Cloud)”, hanging above my piano.

Respite: Ivan Vishnyakov

This portrait of successful St. Petersburg merchant S. Y. Yakovlev’s daughter-in-law, Stepinka, was commissioned sometime around 1756. An oil on canvas hanging today in St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum, this is perhaps the best-known work of the traditionalist Russian painter Ivan Vishnyakov. The painting’s beauty stands on its own merits, so I won’t say much. But I’m a guy and even I find the dress striking. I’d like to see a Hollywood starlet wearing something like that on the red carpet. Or better yet,  I’d like to go out dancing with a girl at a black tie function and have her wearing something like that! All men look good in tuxedos, right? Well, maybe it’s just me, but I think all women would look great in a painted dress like this one.