WordWacky

The Story of Forgetting: A Novel by Stefan Merrill Block

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I didn’t really like this book, I’d hate Stefan Merrill Block. The kid – and yes, I mean kid – was born in 1982, as his book jacket brags. He’s still in his 20’s. And this book is good, not good like macaroni art is good, or good like that time that your 12-year-old cooked you pancakes and forgot the eggs, it’s bona fide good. Maybe it’s not great, but jeez, he’s gotta have something to do with the rest of his life, right?

Block creates a familial mythology that is interwoven with a genetic disease, an imagined variety of early-onset Alzheimer’s. On his website, stefanmerrillblock.com, he details the personal origins of his fascination with Alzheimer’s:

When I was a small child, my grandmother was diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease. At that time, I hardly knew what the disease was (I thought the word was “Old-Timer’s”). For the first year or two of her decline, her symptoms were subtle and I was too young to notice anything unusual. By the time my mom invited my grandmother to come stay with us, however, the disease was in its middle stages, and I was old enough to understand that something was deeply wrong. Just before my grandmother arrived, my mom explained to me what I should expect: cognitively, I was now more advanced than she. Difficult as it was to comprehend, I would now have to think of myself as more mature than my grandmother. I would have to watch out for her, like a brother would for his little sister.

Like the disease, the myth of Isidora is carried from parent to child, from one generation to the next. The Isidorans start out unable to remember anything – this is not considered a flaw, but key to their bliss.

Complicated are his ideas on memory, but they are ideas, not permutations of characters at play, but actual ideas. He could have been more coy with his ideas, weaving them seamlessly into stories, but he states them outright, with poetry and grace, and I, for one, am glad he does. Take his ideas of DNA as Memory, birthed of its parent, Chance:

…Chance also created some astoundingly complex and resilient successes, and memory didn’t miss a chance to take these opportunities as far as it could. Eventually, with higher domains of complexity, Memory took on new responsibilities. Once Chance and Memory devised the nervous system, for example, Memory found work for itself beyond its endless, monotonous transcription. Chance interred Memory in their mutual creations, allowing, for example, a simple fish to remember not to eat a bluish alga, or swim too close to the coral. Chance encouraged Memory’s new work, and in new organisms new forms of memory were invented all the time: instinctual memory, procedural memory, sensory memory, short-term memory.

Perhaps the ending, which carefully leaves some laces untied, is still a little too perfectly assembled. I can’t say that I understand how you strike that balance between order and potential, though. Maybe in the next ten years, either Block or I will get there.

View all my reviews.

The Bright Forever: A Novel by Lee Martin

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seldom have I seen an author so skillfully align guilt and innocence, unfold a story with such dexterity as to confound the reader’s own judgment of these usually clearcut qualities.

Our protagonist — if he can be called such — in The Bright Forever is both heartbreaking, almost childish in his innocence, and yet terribly guilty. As lies are told and truths uncovered, we judge and empathize with the character. In the end, we feel nearly as guilty as he does, as we allowed ourselves to love a little bit those we would choose to scorn were the whole story revealed.

Loneliness, shame, and pride are explored in this book — left wide open: the question of redemption.

At many points the main character addresses the reader, daring us to put the book down in condemnation of his actions. While this is not my favorite literary technique, it’s used well here. When we don’t put the book down, read on at times in the story when our worst fears about our primary narrator seem most certain, we give a little bit of doubt away, place a little more trust in him. We collude with him, if you will.

Aren’t we as guilty as he? Aren’t we also the ones charged with forgiveness, if it is to be granted?

View all my reviews.

I am about to have my first traditional publication credit: two poems in an anthology. I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t pretty jazzed about it, but the subject matter of the book — if only because it’s my first publication — is a little embarrassing.

The book is called Women. Period. Wanna guess what it’s about?

Why is it that our “time of the month” is taboo? In some cultures, menstruating women are banished from their marital beds during Aunt Flo’s visit.

In our culture we come up with cute names to talk about menstruation, mimic it in television commercials with something that looks like it could clean windows, and charge exorbitant prices for pressed cotton wrapped in something called Dry-Weave — to keep it away from us.

And yes, even though I see right through all these euphemisms and whitewashes, I am still embarrassed that I wrote two poems — one of which I even count among my best — about the subject. Worse yet, they’re not hiding away in a document on my now dead computer. They’re out there, in the world. In a book.

So it is with a familiar mix of pride and shame, and shame of my own shame — metashame? — that I announce this publication. Truly it’s a gift that I get to put something in my artist’s resume. Certainly it’s an honor to be chosen. And someday it will be a funny story.

For now, it’s mine. And damn it, I’m proud of it.

So at my buddy Katie’s suggestion, I joined Paperback Swap today.

It’s a pretty good deal. To start out you post ten books you can part with (they don’t really have to be paperbacks, but keep in mind that you’ll be paying postage, so paperbacks are cheaper), and you get two credits to spend. One credit = one book.

Once I was done posting my books, I immediately had five requests, so half of my books were wanted — and these were the books I knew I’d never read again. I thought for a moment that the site was that active, but it turns out that you can make a wish list, and when the book comes available, you get first dibs (assuming you’re first in line, that is). Pretty neat.

When two of the members who had wishlisted my books confirmed that they wanted them, I promptly went to the post office to mail the books, which was my biggest mistake. I didn’t like the idea of setting up a postage account with them and printing my postage — how would I know exactly how much postage I would need? That would mean that some of my money was always in their hands: add all of that extra postage up, and it’s likely a lot of money. Smells like a racket to me, and I’m careful not to give money to something that feels that way to me, no matter how little money it may be, on principle. Well, as I mentioned, that was a mistake. It turns out that had I printed the postage, they would have considered the book not just mailed, but received. And therefore my two credits would already be available.

As it is, I have to wait until the members receive the books I mailed and go online to mark them received. According to their site, that could take 15 days! Also, at the automated mailing station at the post office (it was closed), I couldn’t buy media mail, only first class or priority, so I spent more than I had to, about $5.35 to mail two books.

The site was down for maintenance when I first visited, and pretty slow moving (and relatively unattractive… just saying) once it was back up. And my wish list is far longer than the list of books I wanted to read that were available. Like me, other readers are probably only putting their least favorites up for swap.

But this is only my first day, and some of my dissatisfaction was my own stupid fault. So I’ll have to keep you posted on how it goes from here on out.

Update: So another person confirmed that they wanted one of my books and I went the pre-paid postage route. It is not cheaper, and I do feel ripped off. I spent $3.50 on the postage, $.50 of which was a fee for using my credit card.

The postage cost $2.41, and I also spent $.43 on the per-book transaction fee of using the prepaid postage service. I did get instant credit, but when it costs 39% of the postage to mail it from home, that’s not a bargain.

Of course, I could have put more money into the postage account, thereby spreading the $.50 over multiple shipments, but even if I spread it over, say, 10 shipments, that would still be $.48 per shipment, or in this case, a 20% premium.

There is a second option I’m going to try next time. This feature prints the mailing label with a confirmation bar code on it — as soon as your mail is scanned in at the post office, you get credit for the trade. It costs something like $.23 (I can’t find the exact price, bad user experience, folks), and of course, since I only have $.16 in my account now, I will have to spend another $.50 to get my account balance up to the point where I can use it. Sigh.

  Just in time for Pride weekend, Tom Spanbauer will be visiting Seattle to read from Faraway Places. Spanbauer’s first book has been reprinted by Hawthorne Press, a cool Portland indie publisher:

All of our titles are published as affordable original trade paperbacks but feature details not typically found even in case bound titles from bigger houses: acid-free papers; sewn bindings that will not crack; heavy, laminated covers with double-scored French flaps that function as built-in bookmarks.

The new volume features an introduction by A. M. Homes, who’s a new favorite of mine. From the introduction:

Faraway Places, Tom Spanbauer’s first novel, is not enormously long, but it is a big book. And it is masterly—a near perfect book. Built upon keen observations of human behavior—ranging from God, to farming, the scent of one’s father, the magic of sex and the exact number of steps from here to there—there is enormous originality, drama and spirit to this tale. It is a family drama with a pitch perfect crescendo. The story is hypnotic, mesmerizing, delicately brilliant—and so well made. While you are lulled by the language and the characters, the storyline builds and then like a well timed firework explodes—surprising, enthralling, captivating.

I’ll be there to get his paw prints on my yet-to-be-purchased copy of In the City of Shy Hunters.

You should be there, too.

Tom Spanbauer
Elliott Bay Books
Friday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m, Free!
101 South Main Street
Pioneer Square, Seattle

by Anne Carson

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book marks, without an ember of doubt, the first time I’ve ever felt burned by my lack of education in the classics. I approached this book ready to feel cowed and lost, so I was enthralled when that was not the case.

I understand Geryon intimately, for I, too am a red creature.

From a forgotten notebook of mine:

“On my steady diet of nicotine and coffee, my thoughts grind (like bad teeth) into points. I am a sharp-shaped thing. A needle, an arrow, I cut. I can touch rage: rage that was the only sprig of life on the barren potato farm; rage tucked into the left work boot for the dark walk home from the plant; rage channeled into the line of a razor’s making, at first invisible, then blessed red. We all know the color of rage. Red will unmake me.”

Geryon’s red is a different hue, as has my own ripened with age. Passion. Shame. Love. The interior exposed and vulnerable. Heat. Longing. Did you know longing was red? Do you know how close you are to knowing that?

Like the terrestrial crust of the earth
which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul
is a miracle of mutual pressures.

Fuck Herakles. That bitch and his arrogance, never seeing the deep red interior of his jailbait trick. Winning is blindness. Winning is empty. Winning is lonely, even with a joint in one hand and a cock in the other. It is through losing that we learn to make bread in the volcano’s eye. It is through returning that we get wings.

Anne Carson, thank you for making a hero of the vanquished, for turning a flat story over and finding the life growing beneath it.

Geryon stood upright
within the rayon planes of his brother’s sports jacket. Sweat and desire ran
down his body to pool
in the crotch and behind the knees. He had been standing against the wall
for three and a half hours in a casual pose.
His eyes ached from the effort of trying to see everything without looking at it.
Other boys stood beside him
on the wall. The petals of their colognes rose about them in a light terror.
Meanwhile music pounded
across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being
a self in a song.

“What is time made of?” Geryon asks frequently.

Fear of time came at him. Time
was squeezing Geryon like the pleats of an accordion.

And:

…A man moves through time. It means nothing except that,
like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.

What does this thoughtful young artist have against time? We might think it’s his death — we all know his demise is assured before reading the book, or at least once we find out he goes up against Herakles:

on the other side of the world somewhere Herakles laughing drinking getting
into a car and Geryon’s
whole body formed one arch of a cry — upcast to that custom, the human custom of wrong love.

But here Carson has turned the story around — it’s not death Geryon waits for, but heartbreak. And heartbreak, as we all can’t help but know, is red like thunder.

View all my reviews.

Two more independent bookstores bite the dust. One is in the heartland, Bookstore on West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH. From The Plain Dealer:

About 18 months ago, the landmark store was in code blue and failing fast, but patrons and friends of owner Mike O’Brien held a rent party, giving the place a new life.

The revival, however, was short-lived. Now the old Mecca for suburban intellectuals and urban poor people — who for decades browsed among the high wooden shelves and the 25-cent rack — is in its final hour.

It’s not hard to imagine that independent bookstores disappear from lower income neighborhoods before richer ones. The anecdotal evidence I can provide from my own life confirms this, and it makes sense that the richer the neighborhood, the more they can support a specialty store. However, it’s tragic to imagine books as objects inaccessible to the poor.

And in Berkeley, CA, Cody’s closed its doors on June 20. From the Berkeley Blog:

I have been a longtime fan of Cody’s Books in Berkeley. It was a great independent bookstore with a big selection and very knowledgeable salespeople that supported local authors. It also brought a lot of great speakers to Berkeley, many of whom I had the privilege of hearing talk in a small, intimate space, and many of whose visits resulted in posts on this weblog. It was one of the institutions that enriched the city, kept it intellectually stimulating, and made it a great place to live.

In the good news section, a different bookstore called Amazon - not referring to the online giant, but a little feminist bookstore in Minneapolis - got saved at the last possible moment. The closing sale had already happened, but the new owner, Ruta Skujins, is thrilled to get started again. Quoting the new owner, Amy Goetzman at MinnPost.com says:

“‘I belong to several online literary groups, and I kept hearing about these great bookstores closing, in places like Iowa and Boston. When I heard that Amazon was closing, I thought, ‘No, that can’t happen,’ ‘ she said. ‘I talked with Barb Wieser [manager and most veteran employee of the cooperative] back in February about gathering a group of investors, but it just didn’t come together, so I gave up on the idea. But it bothered me.’

Then last week, Skujin’s partner ran into Barb at a concert, who told her the 38-year-old store had lowered its price but had not found a buyer, and was now in its final days. ‘I called Barb the next day, we met last Thursday, came to an agreement, shook on it, and I still can’t believe it, but I own a bookstore,’ said Skujin.”

Unconvinced that these stores are worth saving? For a great discussion on the many-pronged value of independent bookstores, visit Thoughts on Books, a blog by an employee of a publishing house.

Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fiction in which a writer is the protagonist bores me. Faulting the author for too little imagination, I imagine the protagonist to be an ill-veiled version of the real person, the author. Indeed, the protagonist of Diary of a Bad Year is a writer, a writer who is perhaps named Juan C. (The author’s name is John Maxwell, or J. M. Coetzee.)

That’s my own personal bias, not any kind of objective truth — but here’s another piece of much more reputable advice that this book ignores. Don’t build a book around your political agenda. Not only does Coetzee do this, he does it completely blatantly, with little narrative intertwined.

The protagonist has contracted with a German publisher to contribute to a collection of of six authors’ “Strong Opinions.” Those opinions, such as “On Language,” and “On Intelligent Design,” are short non-fiction passages from an old man to the world he finds himself living within.

About assigning the opinions of Señor C to Coetzee, The New Yorker says this:

Many of the protagonist’s essays are reproduced in the novel we are reading. Naturally, the reader wants to make Coetzee’s novels confessional, to claim these opinions as his rightful children. But Coetzee explicitly complicates the question of his paternity, so that these books read less like confessions than like books about confession.

This is an idea I consider, but at best I see Señor C as a self-conscious exaggeration of the author, not as being of an entirely different character than the man who created him. As Coetzee is notoriously reclusive, we may never know how closely the two resemble each other.

But there’s something else much more compelling in the book’s structure. Below each page of the writer’s “Strong Opinions” is a footnote of sorts, finally the narrative we need to hold our interest through this barrage of editorial. The story that surrounds the writing of the opinions is told by the writer, in the first person.

And both are good. Both are engaging, and if we prefer the narrative (which is generally limited in page real estate to less than a third, and often ends leaving white space), we are soon rewarded with more — a third section on each page representing our romantic-platonic leading lady, also told in the first person.

About the opinions I won’t say much, except that I agreed with many, including some harsher reviews of our American Empire. What’s very interesting in the reading of the book is that depending on the story that is taking place, the opinions seem more or less valid — as you grow to know the writer, your opinion of his opinions changes and adjusts. Ultimately, you are left to miss the author’s narrative voice altogether, left with only his opinions and those of Anya, his typist. Could this be the demise of us all, survived only by our strongest opinions and others’ somewhat misinformed ideas about us?

Reading this book is an experience I recommend. Its engaging, lively structure contains a story of its own.

View all my reviews.

According to a Random House funded poll conducted by Zogby, 82% of respondents favored a physical, pages-and-binding book to a digital version. A mere 3% owned an e-book reader, and 80% said they had no plans to purchase one.

The Census Bureau says sales at bookstores jumped 8% in April, and for the first four months of the year, sales were up 5.4%. [Editor's note: What the Census Bureau is doing tracking bookstore sales, I have no idea. I thought they just crawled out of the sludge every ten years to count us.]

So why are bookstores, particularly the independent ones who can’t take a loss and lean on another store to keep afloat, dying out?

From Wednesday’s Collinsville Herald, Madison County, IL:

“Piece of Mind Books has been in Edwardsville since 1991, but it is one of the last of a dying breed of independent bookstores in Madison County. The Book Nook and Faith Talk Company, both independent bookstores in Edwardsville, closed in that last few years. Main Street Books USA, in Collinsville, also closed.”

From Monday’s Republican, regarding the closure of Half Moon Books in Northampton, MA:

“At the entrance of the store, Ham has taped a New Yorker cartoon that shows a bookstore owner closing down his shop while, next door, a woman is receiving a package of books from a postal carrier. Unfortunately, he sees this as the future, which is why he is selling his inventory this month at 40-50 percent off. He decided against looking for someone to buy the business.

‘I wouldn’t feel right about selling the bookstore,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you can make enough money to live on.’”

Here’s that cartoon:

There’s the rub. It’s not the Kindle keeping people from their neighborhood cat-having, quirky-owner-presiding, local-economy-supporting bookstore, it’s the online retailers.

Also from the Zogby poll [via the P-I's Book Patrol]:

Independent bookselling did not fare so well in the survey either:
The top three retail choices for buying books were buying online (77%), buying books from a chain bookstore (76%), and buying from an independent bookstores (49%).

When asked if they “regularly” shop at an independent bookseller only 33% said yes and 64% said no!

Emphasis mine. Sigh.

I want to go on a journey across the States, documenting the independent bookstore. While it lasts. Who wants to come? I’ll need a director/videographer — and a lot of money.

To call In the City… lyrical, brilliant, epic, ambitious, and accomplished is certainly true, but also disappointing. Don’t use such ordinary words for this book. This book inspires the study of ancient languages and invention of new words to surround it. Choreograph a 1000-person line dance in Thompkins Square Park as a humble tribute. Buy a copy for every rehab and homeless shelter and gay community center in the country.

I want to live in this book. I have lived in this book. I am still living in this book. I’m in love with the characters: William of Heaven, Fiona Yet, Rose and Ruby, Charlie and True Shot. They are my Art Family, hanging out in the foundation of my memory, lovely new additions to the swarm under the jumbotron that says “Gotham.” How could new people — fictional characters, even — insinuate themselves into something so impermeable as my own history? It’s magic, but they have done just that.

Speaking of magic: I knew there was a divine tether between the Known Universe and this book, that it is somehow a hologram of the human experience twisted into a raunchy fable. That is magic enough, but here’s some more magic: In the City of Shy Hunters was published in the early months of 2001. A quote from p. 437:

“As I lit the cigarette, the World Trade Center was in the rearview mirror, and I turned around to look. The World Trade Center buildings were so beyond human they’d disappeared.”

This book is a beautiful example of contemporary urban wisdom, heart, and tragedy as it truly is — inseperable from, a celebration of Life Cafe: the ouroboros, the peace pipe, and the pungent wafts of dog shit.