Call it too much reading about the villainy of Robert Moses*, but I am even more down on cars than usual. Cars are lame! I am sitting here at my desk merrily reading my friendly neighborhood blog, only to discover that the fourth accident in about as many weeks has happened on my corner. I am beginning to think it is a black hole where cars go to collide. I too was almost accidented once; those cars speeding down B will stop for no car, and certainly no man.
And cars are not only my immediate local problem. Seems to me they are responsible for many woes that plague our society (as well as, specifically, me). It’s best not to get me started, for instance, about the frustrations that have lately been created for and by the MTA, regarding service cuts and fare hikes and all that delicious stuff. Many people advocate putting tolls on the East River bridges or implementing a congestion pricing procedure in order to raise revenue for 24-HOUR PUBLIC TRANSIT used by MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. But are we allowed to do this to our precious drivers? Nooo! Heaven forbid.
And how about the health benefits that one may derive from not having a car? I read a study recently that said that only some horrifically small percentage of Americans actually walks anywhere. I’m pretty sure I’m responsible for basically all of that percentage fraction, ’cause I hardly ever met a walk I didn’t like. Someone told me about an exercise group that drives to malls to walk around them, for God’s sake! What is up with that.
And of course there are the more global concerns about what cars do to the environment, and the price of oil, and and and! Perhaps there are other alternatives to oil, but I don't know how I feel about that! Meanwhile when I go home tonight I will probably get run over by that stupid SUV driver who can’t be bothered to read a stop sign. It was nice knowing y’all.
(Full (and obvious to probably all of you) disclosure: I can’t drive. I am not morally opposed to learning how or anything, but during the times when I might’ve learned I was, y’know, having a job or immobilized by knee surgery or stricken by some other inconvenient life event. And, okay, I would like to pilot something other than a golf cart, and I get that it is a “life skill” that is good to have (though I have yet to experience any real-life situation where this was the case). Also, my sister has been gunning to get her own car ever since she learned how to drive at the ripe old age of 16 or whatever. So I know any vote of mine for a grand carless-world scheme will be canceled out. Grumble.)
O, tell me, driving public (as surely 99.3% of you are): What is so great about cars? Do you really need one? Should I learn to drive one? Will you buy me a nice one?
*Seriously, RM: Who wants to speed through Manhattan to get from New Jersey to Long Island, or vice versa? Aren’t you missing the point here? I know that you are dead and cannot answer me. But that’s no excuse!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Moratorium
Operations suspended for the week, ladies and gents. The excrement, as my eleventh-grade history teacher once said (to the laughter of no one but me), has hit the ventilation. Today at work feels like a midterm, as I have had to execute every single type of task that I have ever worked on (plus a couple of new ones for good measure). It's not even three yet. Speaking of three, I am proofreading THREE BOOKS right now. That's right. See ya on the flipside.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Concertolio
You guys! A couple of weeks ago I saw 4 concerts in a row and I said I would write about them. Life has intervened in the meantime, but now you can hear about my concertgoing exploits. If I wrote in depth about each one, I think it would be sufficiently lengthy to bore the non-musical yet somehow still fail to offer real insight to the musical. So, I condense the first three and offer somewhat more extended thoughts on the fourth, which was the most interesting for reasons you will find out, if you continue to read!
My first concert, at Carnegie Hall, was put on by a young musicians' orchestra ("young" meaning 18-30 or so, rather than a youth orchestra) as well as some more illustrious soloists including Joshua Bell. I really enjoyed their rendition of Shostakovich's 6th Symphony, even though I am skeptical of jolly Shostakovich. They ended with a rousing Bolero, which always entertains, and played Bach's Double Violin Concerto. I wish I could get into listening to Bach more. I enjoy playing (my paltry bit of) him on the piano because of how patterned and mathematical it feels, but largely fail to replicate this satisfaction in my listening habits.
The next concert involved the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and its graceful rendition of the Brahms Violin Concerto and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (thanks to C— for suggesting the latter). It was all in all a lovely contrast to what feels like all-power all-the-time from Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil (which I do also like).
The third was back to the Phil (though with David Robertson, not Gilbert) and Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. Which was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, one-armed brother of the more-famous philosopher, and which was totally awesome. It was followed by some dances by Ginastera which were much fun.
Then Sunday I dragged myself out of bed for a surprisingly well-attended (to narcoleptic me) morning piano performance by David Greilsammer. Who did this crazy-awesome thing inspired by John Adams's China Gates. He got to thinking about pieces of music as "gates" through which to see other pieces: What can we learn from these new juxtapositions? What new meaning does a piece up close to another allow us to hear? The whole idea puts me in mind of a surreal Pictures at an Exhibition, though Greilsammer never mentions that in his program notes.
The juxtapositions themselves are crazy; the pianist played part of, say, a Ligeti piece, followed by a snatch of Mozart, then part of Satie, an arrangement he's made of Monteverdi, Janacek...up to the centerpiece, China Gates, of course, and then back out: another section of the Janacek concerto, another related Monteverdi song, and so on. The whole time, he comes to the end of a piece and strips the relevant sheet music away, amassing piles on either side of him, gates of a sort, a surprisingly showy gesture in what otherwise, somehow, feels like an understated performance.
I wish I could play piano like that, the opening of China Gates so delicate compared to any lesson-book piece I can muddle through, or even the pounding way I usually experience it through headphones. It was beautiful while it lasted. Now I'm back to playing my tunes for bears to dance to.
My first concert, at Carnegie Hall, was put on by a young musicians' orchestra ("young" meaning 18-30 or so, rather than a youth orchestra) as well as some more illustrious soloists including Joshua Bell. I really enjoyed their rendition of Shostakovich's 6th Symphony, even though I am skeptical of jolly Shostakovich. They ended with a rousing Bolero, which always entertains, and played Bach's Double Violin Concerto. I wish I could get into listening to Bach more. I enjoy playing (my paltry bit of) him on the piano because of how patterned and mathematical it feels, but largely fail to replicate this satisfaction in my listening habits.
The next concert involved the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and its graceful rendition of the Brahms Violin Concerto and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (thanks to C— for suggesting the latter). It was all in all a lovely contrast to what feels like all-power all-the-time from Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil (which I do also like).
The third was back to the Phil (though with David Robertson, not Gilbert) and Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. Which was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, one-armed brother of the more-famous philosopher, and which was totally awesome. It was followed by some dances by Ginastera which were much fun.
Then Sunday I dragged myself out of bed for a surprisingly well-attended (to narcoleptic me) morning piano performance by David Greilsammer. Who did this crazy-awesome thing inspired by John Adams's China Gates. He got to thinking about pieces of music as "gates" through which to see other pieces: What can we learn from these new juxtapositions? What new meaning does a piece up close to another allow us to hear? The whole idea puts me in mind of a surreal Pictures at an Exhibition, though Greilsammer never mentions that in his program notes.
The juxtapositions themselves are crazy; the pianist played part of, say, a Ligeti piece, followed by a snatch of Mozart, then part of Satie, an arrangement he's made of Monteverdi, Janacek...up to the centerpiece, China Gates, of course, and then back out: another section of the Janacek concerto, another related Monteverdi song, and so on. The whole time, he comes to the end of a piece and strips the relevant sheet music away, amassing piles on either side of him, gates of a sort, a surprisingly showy gesture in what otherwise, somehow, feels like an understated performance.
I wish I could play piano like that, the opening of China Gates so delicate compared to any lesson-book piece I can muddle through, or even the pounding way I usually experience it through headphones. It was beautiful while it lasted. Now I'm back to playing my tunes for bears to dance to.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Deep inside of a parallel universe
I'm not much good at watching TV. Sure, I had phases where I was absorbed by My Little Pony (though, alas, not until after my grandfather retired from his job at Hasbro) and Care Bears; and later I was enthralled by the charms of Rugrats and Doug (left-handed, just like me!). But after that middle-school spree, I was pretty much done with television. Movies, too. I often like them when I see them but I am particular; my sister is endlessly vexed by my refusal to sit down in front of a movie when I won't have time to see the whole thing, or, worse, when I have missed even the slightest blink of opening credits.
I don't think my attention span, or my learning style, or my something, is compatible with movies. It's compatible with books, of course. I am (in case you did not notice) all about text. One thing I can really get into is foreign movies and TV shows. They've got words right there, on the bottom of the screen! It is much easier for me to follow that way. I have made it through movies in various languages, to say nothing of the somewhat-extensive amount of anime I absorbed back at the start of college. And, hey, foreign TV is a great language-learning tool. I can now say "little brother," "what's wrong," "thank you," and "alchemist," thereby rendering me totally conversant in Japanese! Though nowadays, that education has faded from my hoirzon. I can occasionally get into watching sports--tennis, baseball--but only sometimes.
Other than that, I am not much for that peculiar box. (And what a small peculiar box I grew up with--a classmate visiting a few years ago asked me if it was a toy. Nope.) R-- told me he is often embarrassed to ask people to catsit because there is no TV; I doubt I would've noticed if he didn't mention it.
The reason I am musing disjointedly about all this is that once again I walked to the subway past lampposts festooned with movie-shoot notifications. Apparently a show called Boardwalk Empire is going to be filming on my street this week. I always knew I lived in New Jersey. That and upstate and in various other suburbs, according to the welter of shoots that have sprung up nearby since I moved in. What with that and working where I do (and they are always filming L&O here), I feel like I live in one universe parallel to countless other, fictional worlds. There is something fascinating about these worlds, even if I never make it to most of their onscreen portrayals. When I lived with my parents, one day the crew of Revolutionary Road transformed the nearby park into a vision of the past--period costumes, period cars, realism only slightly marred by the surrounding tables full of bagels and croissants and orange juice. And those bright set lights are so mysterious on walks home from the train. What do they see? Clearly they've glimpsed some sort of potential beneath my neighborhood that I have not imagined.
How about you dudes? Do you like TV? A lot? Can you summon at least a modicum of understanding for oddball me? What are they filming in your backyard?
PS: Taking a break from writing this, I loaded up googlereader and look what I found. Clearly I am right on the pulse of breaking neighborhood news!
I don't think my attention span, or my learning style, or my something, is compatible with movies. It's compatible with books, of course. I am (in case you did not notice) all about text. One thing I can really get into is foreign movies and TV shows. They've got words right there, on the bottom of the screen! It is much easier for me to follow that way. I have made it through movies in various languages, to say nothing of the somewhat-extensive amount of anime I absorbed back at the start of college. And, hey, foreign TV is a great language-learning tool. I can now say "little brother," "what's wrong," "thank you," and "alchemist," thereby rendering me totally conversant in Japanese! Though nowadays, that education has faded from my hoirzon. I can occasionally get into watching sports--tennis, baseball--but only sometimes.
Other than that, I am not much for that peculiar box. (And what a small peculiar box I grew up with--a classmate visiting a few years ago asked me if it was a toy. Nope.) R-- told me he is often embarrassed to ask people to catsit because there is no TV; I doubt I would've noticed if he didn't mention it.
The reason I am musing disjointedly about all this is that once again I walked to the subway past lampposts festooned with movie-shoot notifications. Apparently a show called Boardwalk Empire is going to be filming on my street this week. I always knew I lived in New Jersey. That and upstate and in various other suburbs, according to the welter of shoots that have sprung up nearby since I moved in. What with that and working where I do (and they are always filming L&O here), I feel like I live in one universe parallel to countless other, fictional worlds. There is something fascinating about these worlds, even if I never make it to most of their onscreen portrayals. When I lived with my parents, one day the crew of Revolutionary Road transformed the nearby park into a vision of the past--period costumes, period cars, realism only slightly marred by the surrounding tables full of bagels and croissants and orange juice. And those bright set lights are so mysterious on walks home from the train. What do they see? Clearly they've glimpsed some sort of potential beneath my neighborhood that I have not imagined.
How about you dudes? Do you like TV? A lot? Can you summon at least a modicum of understanding for oddball me? What are they filming in your backyard?
PS: Taking a break from writing this, I loaded up googlereader and look what I found. Clearly I am right on the pulse of breaking neighborhood news!
Friday, February 26, 2010
I walked home, composing
ice berries; kids sled
brownstone steps; bronzed Washington,
white-laureled: still bright.
brownstone steps; bronzed Washington,
white-laureled: still bright.
Keep the customer satisfied
I realized after formulating the idea of this post that in some ways it's a rehash of the ideas in the last one (clearly it is Underdog Week in my head). But I think it'll be fun to write, so here goes.
This morning, after wading through drifts up to my knees (not saying much, but bear with me here) and sitting on the train for twice as long as usual as it slouched towards Prospect Park to be borne away from a signal malfunction, I decided that what I really needed was some warm, comforting caffeine. Since I left home extremely early in anticipation of delays, I had time to mosey over to one of my two favorite coffee spots in the neighborhood, which I'll call, for the purposes of thinly-veiled pseudoanonymity, Purple Spork and RBI.
I wound up choosing RBI, I think for pragmatic reasons--the train that would take me there arrived first; it is a bit closer to my office. But I feel a little bad for letting these reasons win out, as the following exposition will perhaps make clear.
I had never heard of Purple Spork prior to working here--it is a tiny little storefront, couple of tables and a line out the door, on a busy commercial drag: easy to miss if you're not paying attention. A friend of a friend recommended I check it out, and I was glad I took the ten-or-so minute walk over. The staff is extremely nice. They act like you're an old friend when you come in, more than any other coffee place I have been. They have the most ingenious tip-collection method ever, in which they write out a question on a business card every day and stick it in front of two bowls labeled "Yes" and "No" so you can put your tip in the appropriate container. The next day they announce the results. My favorite question? "Does you always corrects people's' Grammar?" You can guess where I deposited my quarter.
And let's not forget the drinks, which are excellent. This place makes the best mocha around, and believe you me, I have conducted, and continue to conduct, a most exhaustive search. The iced lattes are likewise amazing; the regular coffee's also quite good. They cost about what you'd expect from a fancy-coffee shop; they also have buy-ten-get-one-free cards, one of which I just this week completed. The service is efficient (at least insofar as it can be when the line's out the door) and my thermos always comes back to me with a smile.
RBI, the competition, is a hotshot upstart that just opened a few weeks ago. They're coffee-world-famous for having, like, the most expensive coffeemaker ever, complete with peculiar Buffy-esque name. They are located somewhat nearer to the office than Purple Spork and are a tad more expensive. But damn they make the best hot latte in existence, as well as a mean Americano. ("More water or less?" they queried my coworker, whose gleeful "More!" resulted in his bouncing off the walls that afternoon.)
I have two quibbles with RBI, which are the service and the service. The baristas are those ironicer-than-thou sorts that tend to proliferate in most place where coffee is truly excellent. There are usually about four of them loitering behind the counter yet it frequently takes a puzzlingly long time for one of them to deign to present you with your drink (a problem when you have to punch in at work precisely on time or risk losing precious vacation minutes). All the while, it feels vaguely like they are judging you, with your messy hair and headphones and snow streaming from your coat. Especially if you sit down in one of the two comfy chairs in the space, which seem specifically designed to make you feel guilty as you gaze out at the wood-backed chairs surrounding the larger central table. My other service complaint (which I concede is very specific but is very specifically vexing to me) is that they can be quite dumb, or, if you're feeling charitable, uncoordinated amongst themselves. Twice in a row when I gave the cashier my thermos to put my drink in, the maker wound up putting it in a paper cup, complete with delicately coiffed foamed-milk swirl pattern, and had to dump it unceremoniously into my container. Guys, I have brought you a thermos so we don't have to waste the cup, all right?
So it is with some trepidation that I hit up RBI today, and with some trepidation that I admit that my coworker and I wind up going there slightly more often than to the friendly, lived-in Spork. Then again, the first sip of that latte is godly. And last time there was a snowstorm, messy uncoordinated me managed to catch my coat in the door on my way out, spilling a little bit of jealously-guarded latte on myself while providing a slight offering to the snow-soaked street below. I went back inside for napkins and the counterhipster immediately offered to make me another drink. I declined, because I had hardly lost any, and why waste what was left, but I really did appreciate the offer. Maybe hipsteristas are not so bad after all. I do still plan to head Spork-ward next time I need a fix, though.
This morning, after wading through drifts up to my knees (not saying much, but bear with me here) and sitting on the train for twice as long as usual as it slouched towards Prospect Park to be borne away from a signal malfunction, I decided that what I really needed was some warm, comforting caffeine. Since I left home extremely early in anticipation of delays, I had time to mosey over to one of my two favorite coffee spots in the neighborhood, which I'll call, for the purposes of thinly-veiled pseudoanonymity, Purple Spork and RBI.
I wound up choosing RBI, I think for pragmatic reasons--the train that would take me there arrived first; it is a bit closer to my office. But I feel a little bad for letting these reasons win out, as the following exposition will perhaps make clear.
I had never heard of Purple Spork prior to working here--it is a tiny little storefront, couple of tables and a line out the door, on a busy commercial drag: easy to miss if you're not paying attention. A friend of a friend recommended I check it out, and I was glad I took the ten-or-so minute walk over. The staff is extremely nice. They act like you're an old friend when you come in, more than any other coffee place I have been. They have the most ingenious tip-collection method ever, in which they write out a question on a business card every day and stick it in front of two bowls labeled "Yes" and "No" so you can put your tip in the appropriate container. The next day they announce the results. My favorite question? "Does you always corrects people's' Grammar?" You can guess where I deposited my quarter.
And let's not forget the drinks, which are excellent. This place makes the best mocha around, and believe you me, I have conducted, and continue to conduct, a most exhaustive search. The iced lattes are likewise amazing; the regular coffee's also quite good. They cost about what you'd expect from a fancy-coffee shop; they also have buy-ten-get-one-free cards, one of which I just this week completed. The service is efficient (at least insofar as it can be when the line's out the door) and my thermos always comes back to me with a smile.
RBI, the competition, is a hotshot upstart that just opened a few weeks ago. They're coffee-world-famous for having, like, the most expensive coffeemaker ever, complete with peculiar Buffy-esque name. They are located somewhat nearer to the office than Purple Spork and are a tad more expensive. But damn they make the best hot latte in existence, as well as a mean Americano. ("More water or less?" they queried my coworker, whose gleeful "More!" resulted in his bouncing off the walls that afternoon.)
I have two quibbles with RBI, which are the service and the service. The baristas are those ironicer-than-thou sorts that tend to proliferate in most place where coffee is truly excellent. There are usually about four of them loitering behind the counter yet it frequently takes a puzzlingly long time for one of them to deign to present you with your drink (a problem when you have to punch in at work precisely on time or risk losing precious vacation minutes). All the while, it feels vaguely like they are judging you, with your messy hair and headphones and snow streaming from your coat. Especially if you sit down in one of the two comfy chairs in the space, which seem specifically designed to make you feel guilty as you gaze out at the wood-backed chairs surrounding the larger central table. My other service complaint (which I concede is very specific but is very specifically vexing to me) is that they can be quite dumb, or, if you're feeling charitable, uncoordinated amongst themselves. Twice in a row when I gave the cashier my thermos to put my drink in, the maker wound up putting it in a paper cup, complete with delicately coiffed foamed-milk swirl pattern, and had to dump it unceremoniously into my container. Guys, I have brought you a thermos so we don't have to waste the cup, all right?
So it is with some trepidation that I hit up RBI today, and with some trepidation that I admit that my coworker and I wind up going there slightly more often than to the friendly, lived-in Spork. Then again, the first sip of that latte is godly. And last time there was a snowstorm, messy uncoordinated me managed to catch my coat in the door on my way out, spilling a little bit of jealously-guarded latte on myself while providing a slight offering to the snow-soaked street below. I went back inside for napkins and the counterhipster immediately offered to make me another drink. I declined, because I had hardly lost any, and why waste what was left, but I really did appreciate the offer. Maybe hipsteristas are not so bad after all. I do still plan to head Spork-ward next time I need a fix, though.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Nationally awarded books
Coincidentally, I started a 2009 National Book Award finalist, American Salvage, on my plane out to San Francisco and began that year's winner, Let the Great World Spin, on my return trip. This juxtaposition inspired the following musings about what pepole like to read, the preferences of award committees (insofar as my mere mortal mind can wrap round them), and my own reading habits--all wrapped up in what I term a sort of "books review." What can I say, dreaming big here.
First up, I was totally enthralled by American Salvage. I learned of its author, Bonnie Jo Campbell, when she read from her competition-winning Love Letters to Sons of Bitches at my book arts volunteer job. As far as I can tell, she's a cross between a mechanic, a circus performer, and a rockstar; I've rarely seen anyone read so charismatically. Shortly thereafter, I discovered a book of her short stories was a finalist for the National Book Award. I acquired a copy from the Elliott Bay Book Company (whose bad financial straits I read about and was moved to alleviate, however slightly, on the always up-to-the-minute Moby Lives). Along with the excellent book, the Book Co also sent me a newsletter and bookmark in a lovely brown paper-wrapped package (Support your (not-always-so) local indie bookstore, folks!).
American Salvage is a (short) short story collection, a form that is not my natural element (for reasons perhaps I'll explore here one day). Even though it had that working against it, the stories completely gripped me. Seriously, they're unlike any other short stories I've ever encountered. Some of them were so short as to be almost snapshots, yet all of them conveyed a sense of character, as well as of place, mostly the rural Michigan landsape in which its author makes her home. Confusion and rancor abound, relationships take twists and turns, natural disasters are never far away, and Campbell's often-hapless characters find themselves caught up in storms of their own and the world's making. The lives portrayed in the stories are very different from my city slicker upbringing, but Campbell made them real to me. With few words she conveys unexpected situations: an immobilized injured man in the eye of a storm which he comes to conflate longingly with his girlfriend; a woman guiltily munching her way through a fancy chocolate bar on the way to pick up a hog in a last-ditch attempt to save the farm; an accident victim and the fleeting, almost loving connection that passes between her and her unwitting assailant. The stories often ended suddenly, but never abruptly. They do what my poetry teacher always urged me to do: end on a note that is never neat and pat, always unexpected yet somehow right.
Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, is, in contrast, a (long) novel. Weighing in at 350 densely-worded (though never difficult-to-parse) pages, it tells the stories of a sequence of New Yorkers affected by Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers. (It also, of course, offers implicit, and very occasionally explicit, commentary about September 11th) Of course, since this is a big, sprawling, many-points-of-view novel about a day in a city, "Joycean" gets bandied about by reviewers like nobody's business. Coming from Modernist-land as I do, I found that this adjective shaped my expectations of the book, I think in large part doing it a disservice. Sure, I felt, digging into one of the novel's early sections (which are short-story- or novella-esque, really), it's describing an Irishman's experience and it occasionally goes sort of stream-of-consciousnessy, but Joycean? McCann is a good prose stylist, certainly, but World's got nothing on the wordplay and inventiveness of Ulysses, not even close.
It's a shame that this is the baggage I brought to my reading, because World is really a good novel. Particularly in its later sections, McCann draws pictures of characters that make you cry for the agonies they've endured and laugh with them at the ways they still manage to stay one step ahead of their world. His section from the perspective of unconsolable-yet-strong Tillie, a prostitute in jail taking the rap for a robbery she committed with her daughter, is particularly noteworthy in this respect. And McCann gradually links together the stories of his disparate figures--a lonely Irish immigrant, a judge's wife, a teenager with photographer dreams, a lonely divorcee from the projects...--which ultimately add up to a moving meditation on the ways in which we are all connected. The book's final section, set in 2006, offers a look at what's happened to some of his characters in the intervening years, but never attempts to offer too neatly bow-tied an ending.
On the whole, I found World enjoyable and satisfying. I'd also like to add that, importantly for me, McCann does a pretty good job of evoking the city as character: defiant, snarky, browbeaten, ephemeral, transcendent. And there is a moment, just before the book moves to 2006, where I found the Ulysses comparison to be beautifully, gracefully deserved.
But! Affecting though I ultimately did find World, I still prefer American Salvage, which I think breaks more new ground, in terms of both the stories Campbell tells and how she tells them, than McCann's big novel-of-ideas. Call it a case of my tendency to perpetually side with the underdog, but McCann's novel seems like such an easy critic-and-fancy-reader-pleaser, with its epic-tending length, its highfalutin Modernistesque ways, and its New York panorama. I think it's a shame that large, sprawling epics tend to win these prizes most of the times I can recollect (even though I love many of them--I am a big fan of Oscar Wao, Middlesex, The Corrections). Why not let the truly-unexpected win for once?
Any thoughts? Has any of you read either of the books? As is probably obvious, I recommend both, and I've got copies for lendin'!
First up, I was totally enthralled by American Salvage. I learned of its author, Bonnie Jo Campbell, when she read from her competition-winning Love Letters to Sons of Bitches at my book arts volunteer job. As far as I can tell, she's a cross between a mechanic, a circus performer, and a rockstar; I've rarely seen anyone read so charismatically. Shortly thereafter, I discovered a book of her short stories was a finalist for the National Book Award. I acquired a copy from the Elliott Bay Book Company (whose bad financial straits I read about and was moved to alleviate, however slightly, on the always up-to-the-minute Moby Lives). Along with the excellent book, the Book Co also sent me a newsletter and bookmark in a lovely brown paper-wrapped package (Support your (not-always-so) local indie bookstore, folks!).
American Salvage is a (short) short story collection, a form that is not my natural element (for reasons perhaps I'll explore here one day). Even though it had that working against it, the stories completely gripped me. Seriously, they're unlike any other short stories I've ever encountered. Some of them were so short as to be almost snapshots, yet all of them conveyed a sense of character, as well as of place, mostly the rural Michigan landsape in which its author makes her home. Confusion and rancor abound, relationships take twists and turns, natural disasters are never far away, and Campbell's often-hapless characters find themselves caught up in storms of their own and the world's making. The lives portrayed in the stories are very different from my city slicker upbringing, but Campbell made them real to me. With few words she conveys unexpected situations: an immobilized injured man in the eye of a storm which he comes to conflate longingly with his girlfriend; a woman guiltily munching her way through a fancy chocolate bar on the way to pick up a hog in a last-ditch attempt to save the farm; an accident victim and the fleeting, almost loving connection that passes between her and her unwitting assailant. The stories often ended suddenly, but never abruptly. They do what my poetry teacher always urged me to do: end on a note that is never neat and pat, always unexpected yet somehow right.
Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, is, in contrast, a (long) novel. Weighing in at 350 densely-worded (though never difficult-to-parse) pages, it tells the stories of a sequence of New Yorkers affected by Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers. (It also, of course, offers implicit, and very occasionally explicit, commentary about September 11th) Of course, since this is a big, sprawling, many-points-of-view novel about a day in a city, "Joycean" gets bandied about by reviewers like nobody's business. Coming from Modernist-land as I do, I found that this adjective shaped my expectations of the book, I think in large part doing it a disservice. Sure, I felt, digging into one of the novel's early sections (which are short-story- or novella-esque, really), it's describing an Irishman's experience and it occasionally goes sort of stream-of-consciousnessy, but Joycean? McCann is a good prose stylist, certainly, but World's got nothing on the wordplay and inventiveness of Ulysses, not even close.
It's a shame that this is the baggage I brought to my reading, because World is really a good novel. Particularly in its later sections, McCann draws pictures of characters that make you cry for the agonies they've endured and laugh with them at the ways they still manage to stay one step ahead of their world. His section from the perspective of unconsolable-yet-strong Tillie, a prostitute in jail taking the rap for a robbery she committed with her daughter, is particularly noteworthy in this respect. And McCann gradually links together the stories of his disparate figures--a lonely Irish immigrant, a judge's wife, a teenager with photographer dreams, a lonely divorcee from the projects...--which ultimately add up to a moving meditation on the ways in which we are all connected. The book's final section, set in 2006, offers a look at what's happened to some of his characters in the intervening years, but never attempts to offer too neatly bow-tied an ending.
On the whole, I found World enjoyable and satisfying. I'd also like to add that, importantly for me, McCann does a pretty good job of evoking the city as character: defiant, snarky, browbeaten, ephemeral, transcendent. And there is a moment, just before the book moves to 2006, where I found the Ulysses comparison to be beautifully, gracefully deserved.
But! Affecting though I ultimately did find World, I still prefer American Salvage, which I think breaks more new ground, in terms of both the stories Campbell tells and how she tells them, than McCann's big novel-of-ideas. Call it a case of my tendency to perpetually side with the underdog, but McCann's novel seems like such an easy critic-and-fancy-reader-pleaser, with its epic-tending length, its highfalutin Modernistesque ways, and its New York panorama. I think it's a shame that large, sprawling epics tend to win these prizes most of the times I can recollect (even though I love many of them--I am a big fan of Oscar Wao, Middlesex, The Corrections). Why not let the truly-unexpected win for once?
Any thoughts? Has any of you read either of the books? As is probably obvious, I recommend both, and I've got copies for lendin'!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
