Reading Sisyphus

So here it is, October, I'm recovered from my illness, and completed enough of the things that were taking up time in my life that I can once again blog regularly.

I was reading the travails of Joe, the new literary publicity guy at Penguin.co.uk, and feeling a great deal of sympathy. Under the fully appropriate title, "How does everyone here read so quickly?" he writes of his struggles to keep up with how well read everyone at Penguin is.

It often feels like a Sisyphean task, trying to be well read. It sounds that way for Joe, and it certainly seems that way for me. It's not quite like Sisyphus of course, he would reach the top of his mountain, and the boulder would roll right down to the bottom again for him to push it back up. My boulder only goes up, but the top of the mountain is climbing a lot faster than I am.

I type about as quickly as if I were simply speaking quickly, and I read a bit faster than that, but I'm not the fastest reader out there. I am diligent, but not in that I sit down for three hours and push my way through a single book. That happens, but when it does, it's a matter of the book, more than of me. Some books will pull me through them so fast that I have to force myself to read every paragraph, others, that I like just as much, I read so slowly it's like I'm crawling physically across the page. One of the reasons that I read more than one book at a time is to capitalize on momentum. At different times I have different moods as a reader, and different books suck me in.

For example, for the past few weeks, I have been reading The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt by Richard D. Polenberg, a really wonderful examination of F.D.R's presidency, largely through the lens of contemporary documents, at the same time though, I've read and completed about ten other books. Some of these books I've read in just one or two sittings (for example, I've already mentioned my terrible Nero Wolfe habit), and others have been read in and around those, like James Hamilton-Paterson's excellent Cooking with Fernet Branca from Europa Editions. Reading like this can be a bit chaotic I suppose, but it works for me.

Still, no matter how often I set specific goals, saying, "oh, when I read X, I will have climbed a step higher in being well-read" I get there, and it seems I've hardly moved, or worse, I've moved backwards.

There are a couple of directions I'm always trying to move in from the most focused, there is movement within an author's work, when I was young, if I liked an author, I read everything of theirs that I could get my hands on. Now, as I've gotten older, this happens less often, still, if I really like an author, I try to make it a point to read more than one of their books, and work my way to a complete set later.

The second direction is the list of authors of whom I've heard, but haven't read. I have a list as long as my arm of authors like that, and I try to find at least one of their books to read. Sometimes this moves them into the above mentioned category, sometimes not. Right now for example I'm also reading The Presidential Papers of Norman Mailer (Is there a theme in my current reading? maybe a little...), I may decide that this meets the initial criteria of having read some Mailer, I might not though, as it seems to be out of print and lesser known.

The third direction is the most vague, being for larger categories in which I would like to have read. This includes my desire to read one book by an author of each country out there. Almost certainly an impossible task, but a worthy direction. There is also my desire to read works of different periods or stylistic movements, modern, post-modern, Victorian, etc. Many of these categories expand the more I learn. As a tangent to reading from different countries in general, I also want to read more contemporary international fiction. (nota bene: I came to this desire before the permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize for Literature went off on his high horse.) I've been helped in this goal by the discovery of Europa Editions, who make it their goal to provide good English translations of contemporary European fiction.

It's so commonly discussed, that the observation is almost trite, but I strongly agree with the statement that the more one knows, the more one knows that one doesn't know. It's been said a million times, in many different ways, and it's still true. Every time I learn something knew, it opens up new realms of things that I should know, and I really enjoy that. I don't think ignorance is half as blissful as the opening up of new realms for discovery.

Books are more than just entertainment

To quote Richard Wright, "books are weapons." I really need to read some of his books.

I think that we as a culture know this. It can lead us to love books, or to fear them. Books can help us fight against injustice, and remind us that we are not alone when we struggle. They can educate us and give us the tools we need to advance ourselves and our ideas. They also enable authors like Richard Wright to be heard long after they're physical presence is gone.

In that regard, there are two links I wanted to pass on.

First, is this brief tribute to Richard Wright, who would be 100 years old today.

Second is this longer article about Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, publisher of 'The Little Blue Books.' Haldeman-Julius believed strongly in making books available and affordable to everyone. He was referred to as the Henry Ford of literature, and like Henry Ford, he was fairly eccentric, though not in the same ways.

Inspiring Readers

One person can make a huge difference in the lives of others. When it comes to fostering reading in children, a good librarian can make a huge difference. Queens librarian Sueli Zaqem is a good librarian. She inspired the kids in her summer reading program to read more than twice the number of books this summer as last summer, and donated her hair to Locks of Love. It's always nice to see a situation where everyone wins. The kids read more, and some sick kids will get to have hair. Also, the library gets some positive press in the news, which will hopefully encourage other parents to involve their children in their local libraries summer reading program.

An Experiment in Literacy

A small group of NYC public schools are embarking on an experiment in developing early literacy, the New York City Core Knowledge Early Literacy Project. This NYTimes article describes it.

I'm curious. I'm deeply concerned with encouraging literacy, and this idea sounds good to me from the rough description given in the article. Of course, the current program 'balanced literacy' also appeals to me. On a philosophical basis, 'balanced literacy' appeals to me more.

But I'm not the target audience. I've been a lifelong passionate reader, and I can thank my parents for that. I don't instinctively know how to make reading appeal to someone who is resistant to it, or struggling with it. Also, my understanding of 'cultural literacy,' that there are some things in our culture that one should know, and this will make it easier to function within our culture, makes sense to me. Certain common experiences are an important part of our culture, and they make our language richer, but if you don't have them, they can leave you confused. I really like how the Core Knowledge Foundation explains the theory in their FAQ.

"There is no incompatibility between teaching a core curriculum and adapting instruction to the needs of individual students. Moreover, even as we look to teachers to bring out the best in each child as a learner, we also ask them to recognize the needs of each child as part of a larger community. All communities require some common ground. The community of the classroom requires, in particular, that its members share some common knowledge, because this knowledge makes communication and progress in learning possible."

Still, I'm nervous about trying a new tack like this. If it's a success, then it's great for the kids who are doing it, but what if it's not? Those children will be further hampered in developing their reading skills. There are many people, from teachers and parents, up to principals and the schools chancellor, people far more qualified than I am on the subject, who will be devoting themselves to making sure that it works. I admire them. The risks are there, minimized, but if it works... If it works the benefits could be outstanding.

Hardcore Writers

Gerrit over at the 2log, has challenged me to blog about the Guys Lit Wire post about the five most hardcore writers. And of course, I will.

First though, I wanted to mention the blog Guys Lit Wire. I had never heard of it before, and I am grateful to Gerrit for linking me to it, because it is a great blog. One of my concerns, as a guy who reads, is how rare that seems to be among my peers, particularly as I get older. Here I'll quote their excellent mission statement.

Guys Lit Wire exists solely to bring literary news and reviews to the attention of teenage boys and the people who care about them. We are more than happy to welcome female readers - but our main goal is to bring the attention of good books to guys who might have missed them. The titles will be new or old and on every subject imaginable. We guarantee new posts every Monday through Friday and have a list of twenty-three individual scheduled contributors plus several additional occasional posters all of whom have different literary likes and dislikes. We hope to provide something for everyone and will strive to accomplish that goal.

That is definitely admirable, and what's more they succeed. I read through a number of their short reviews, and they've been excellent. If you need to find a good book recommendation for a teenage boy, I think they should be one of your first stops.

Now to the top five list. I like lists of five, it's a good criteria to create discussion. It will almost never be accurate, there's too many excellent and terrible authors out there to ever be able to get a universally agreed upon top five on any subject.

It's even better when you throw in the term 'hardcore'. Check out those definitions. Do any of them capture the current colloquial use of the word? Not really. You don't say, "Hemingway went all over the world reporting on war and hunting animals, that dude is unswervingly committed!" Ok, you can, but it doesn't mean the same thing.

The Urban Dictionary is better. Their definitions are closer. I particularly like #2. Most of their definitions are about the hardcore music scene, which I would argue is the origin of the usage we're looking at. The desire to say that something is 'hardcore' in similar situations to words like 'kick ass,' 'bad ass,' definitely comes from the musical genre which, for long, is known as 'hardcore punk rock and roll.' Boy that's a mouthful isn't it? That's because 'rock and roll' gets shortened to 'rock' when attached to 'punk' and gets chopped off when attached to 'hardcore punk', and then 'hardcore punk' is so hardcore that it chopped its 'punk' off, and became just 'hardcore.' Of course, 'punk' also was so punk that it chopped its 'rock' off, and 'rock' ditched 'and roll' because extra syllables are lame. But enough about that.

Right, so 'hardcore' writers. I've been writing for seven paragraphs, and I haven't made any suggestions of my own. I found the Guys Lit Wire list pretty interesting, but I can't say I agreed with any of their suggestions. I'm sure Hemingway would make a lot of people's lists, but not mine. I find him kind of sad. He's a great writer, but that doesn't make his life particularly admirable, and I'm not a fan of big game hunting. I don't think that killing animals for the fun of it makes you cool or tough. Though I do think that driving an ambulance, in or out of war, does.

Xenophon was an interesting choice, but I think when you get to classical authors, the question becomes, compared to what? Almost all of them are more hardcore than any of us. Xenophon was pretty tough, but I think Julius Caesar has him beat. This guy everyone thought of in his youth as a bit of a pansy, became governor of southern Gaul, where he shared the same hardships as his soldiers, and conquered what amounts to all of modern France, as well as Switzerland, parts of Germany, and England. For the technology they had then, that's pretty good. He then went home and conquered Italy, fighting the guy who was supposedly the greatest military mind of the day. Oh yeah, and he wrote about it all, in the third person, because that was more modest.

There's also Thucydides. He was, as far as I can tell, Zbigniew Herbert's pick for most hardcore. I'll let Herbert argue it for me with his poem, Why the Classics?*.

1
In the fourth book of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides tells among other things
the story of his unsuccessful expedition

among long speeches of chiefs
battles sieges plague
dense net of intrigues of political endeavours
the episode is like a pin
in a forest

the Greek colony Amphipolis
fell into the hands of Brasidos
because Thucydides was late with relief

for this he paid his native city
with lifelong exile

exiles of all times
know what price that is

2
generals of the most recent wars
if a similar affair happens to them
whine on their knees before posterity
praise their heroism and innocence

they accuse their subordinates
envious colleagues
unfavourable winds

Thucydides says only
that he had seven ships
it was winter
and he sailed quickly

3
if art for its subject
will have a broken jar
a small broken soul
with a great self pity

what will remain after us
will be like lovers’ weeping
in a small dirty hotel
when wall-paper dawns

Hardcore, right? Herbert is one of my favorite poets, and that is my favorite poem of his.

Now if we're looking at the military as hardcore, then we're talking B.H. Liddell Hart, the military theorist/historian, and author of Strategy among others. To understand just how many people died because of who had and hadn't read this book, I will give you one quote.

The British would have been able to prevent the greatest parts of their defeats if they had paid attention to the modern theories expounded by Liddell Hart before the war.

Which war? and who said that? That would be WWII and the speaker? Field Marshall Rommell. Basically, after WWI, Liddell Hart, having witnessed the shocking capabilities of the new technology (tanks, planes, etc.) wrote a number of books trying to warn his country of what could be done, and what they would have to do. The British didn't read it. The Germans did. I consider this to be a great tragedy, and can only imagine how it affected Liddell Hart when Rommell admitted it. Still, I believe that qualifies Liddell Hart as hardcore.

I think Liddell Hart is hardcore partly because he failed. If the right people had listened to him, we might not have noticed him. I've read the book, and some other writings, and he's also a good read.

So I'm at three right? Julius Caesar, Thucydides, and B.H. Liddell Hart. Let's try to be a little less old dead guy, huh? Well, maybe one more.

Surviving against impossible odds is pretty hardcore, don't you think? For that I would recommend author and holocaust survivor, Primo Levi. Levi wrote all sorts of books, in addition to his survival of the holocaust. To my mind that's the most hardcore thing about him. He's really a stand-in for all holocaust survivors here. They made their way through one of the most horrific experiences in known history, such that no adjective can do it justice, saw the things they saw, and came out of it. Most like Levi managed to hold on to their compassion and humanity, if anything they became more human, and more humane. How do you do that? That is hardcore.

And one to go. I'm not ranking these authors within my five, so this one isn't any more or less than any of the others.

Salman Rushdie. One word, fatwa. Seriously, that is some mind destroying stuff. A powerful religious group, with fanatical followers has demanded your death, and some of your translators and publishers have actually been killed. He not only doesn't give up, he continues to say what he believes. That's pretty hardcore.

*from Selected Poems by Zbigniew Herbert, trans. Czeslaw Milosz, and Peter Dale Scott.

Becoming a Reader

Alison Bechdel, the author of the graphic novel, Fun Home, a Family Tragicomic put together a great short piece on how she developed as a reader. It's a lot of fun.

Bechdel has been on my list of authors whose books I need to get my hands on for some time.

In this story she includes the advice that, if you really want your kids to read something, the best way to do it is to hide it on the higher shelves, and not tell them about it. I'm not sure this works for all kids, but for the more voracious reader it makes some sense.

This tails in nicely with the debate that's been going on in England over the age-stamping of books. Someone suggested that no one knows what book is most appropriate for any given kid more than the kid themselves, and that typically they won't read the books they're not ready for. This worked pretty well for me.

The question lies in what one does if their child is not already a reader. How do you then determine if a book is right for them before you make them read it?

There's a problem in that question. Can you see it?

Yeah, MAKE. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Trite, but true. The same is equally true for people of all ages and books. If you want to suggest a book to your child, but you're not sure if it will be appropriate, read it!

If you won't take the time to read a book, why should your child?

Of course, I don't know any guaranteed way to turn a kid into a reader, but if their parents don't read, and yet they try to make their kid read... well, it doesn't sound very successful does it.

I don't mind general age stamping. Children's, Young Adult (YA), and the like, but I don't think they need to be more carefully defined than that. As an early teen I read a mix of adult novels and more YA fiction, and as an adult, I know people who still read a sizable amount of YA fiction. If you're reading for pleasure, read what you enjoy. But for kids, well, they will already have the books they have to read, that's what school is for. For parents, you don't need to make your child read important works, just make sure they're comfortable reading. If they enjoy it, their reading will sort itself out. You're never going to be able to force them to like a specific type of literature, any more than you can force them to like the same music as you.

That just gave me a great image. A parent forcing a preteen to sit down and really contemplate Rubber Soul. It doesn't seem like the best way to produce a fan of the Beatles.

Readers' Choice

I've previously mentioned my fondness for Goodreads (which, spell-check informs me, is not a word). One of the great features is that you can look over the most recently posted reviews, and select it to show you just the most recent reviews of the books you've read. I really enjoy this feature, I'm curious to see what other people have read.

The first thing I learned is that I'm not the only person to have read and enjoyed Harry Potter. I know, I'm surprised too.

The second thing I learned is that there are a lot of people who are made incredibly uncomfortable by the graphic, sexually explicit nature of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I was quite confused by this, had we read the same book? Then one reviewer clarified it for me. The presence of a gay character upset them. Well, you live and learn.

The third, and most disappointing thing that I learned is that a lot of people who read books aren't too bright. They told me so outright. And I don't mean that their typos and poor use of language was as good as telling me, I mean they tell you so.

It is really depressing how many people explain that they didn't like a book because they were too stupid. If we, as a culture, have failed in creating readers, this is one of the biggest ways. People, even readers, who enjoy reading enough to join a web community focused on books and reading, are taught to feel stupid when they don't appreciate the 'right' literature, and embarrassed when they like the wrong books.

We have few enough readers in our society to criticize any of them, and the people who continue reading the 'right' literature after finishing school are a small minority. Most of the people in our society, including those measurable as they smartest (by whatever flawed measurement you use), don't continue to read Dostoevsky and Joyce. They might pick up the latest Pulitzer winner, or Nobel laureate, but they're probably more likely to read Harry Potter, or Jason Bourne.

The argument could be that we've got to make students read as many major works of classical literature as possible, since they won't continue, but I don't think that's it.

As much as I'd love to blame teachers, I can't do that either. Yes we all come away from school with some author aversions, but so what?

Teachers are paid incredibly poorly to do very hard work. It's important work too, collectively, they're guiding the future (Que singing of I believe the children are our future).

It's on all of us as a society, but parents most of all. Children of readers are much more likely to be readers themselves. Here's my manifesto for parents (because no one knows better what parents should do than people without children).

1. Read to your child.
2. Let your child see you reading on your own as well.
3. When your child is too old to be read to (if that ever really happens), be curious about their reading. If they are really moved by a book read it too, then discuss it.
4. Do not discourage them from reading, just because you think they're reading something too silly. The child who starts with Daniel Pinkwater (he's a lot of fun, btw), could end up reading just about anything. Let the teachers teach the classics, you teach the love of reading.

Ok, that's my little list. Any thoughts?

Celebrities Read: Mario Batali

In keeping with my theory that, if well publicized, celebrities reading preferences might lead their fans to pick up a book, we have Mario Batali.

In an interview with the good folks at Powell's he talks about both an author he thinks people should read, Jim Harrison, and a list of what he sees as five 'great American' books.

The Autobiography of Ben Franklin

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Now these five books seem a little bit like that list politicians will give out. With the possible exception of Brett Easton Ellis, who also wrote American Psycho, they are all 'safe' books whose worth is well established, and whether or not they fall under Mark Twain's definition of a 'Classic' certainly have that feel.

But what he has to say about Jim Harrison is great. It reads like the kind of passionate recommendation of an author that you expect from someone who has really read and loved the author's work. Score one for Batali, as I'll certainly remember what he said the next time I see one of Jim Harrison's books in a store.

Update: Of course, Bukowski wouldn't be a safe choice for a politician, but for a celebrity chef from New York with the reputation Batali has, it's almost mandatory that someone like Bukowski appear. Frankly, I'm just happy it wasn't Burroughs.

Celebrities can Read Books

Ok, so I know that your first thought, looking at the title of this post, is to scoff sarcastically. Well good for you, scoffing is an important skill, and doing it sarcastically takes effort. However, I am serious. There are celebrities out there who can read, some of them even choose to do so.

I come to you with proof of this. The website Poll the People has started up the ambitious attempt to create an unscientifically produced polled series of international lists about books, albums, and movies (or as they call them, films). This part is boring, go ahead and be bored by it.

Are you done? Good, cause there's actually something interesting too. It could get more interesting if people outside of England join them.

Poll the People is encouraging celebrities to contribute top 5 lists. Why are you excited by this, Matt? I hear you ask. After all, who cares what celebrities think, most of them aren't so bright, and in the States we best know them for saying dumb things around election time. This is true.

But hang on, you see the secret with celebrities, and I know I'm dropping a bomb on you here with this revelation, is that they are popular. It is highly likely that the Rolling Stones are more popular than literacy in America. So if they lend their fame to a support of literacy maybe more people will read. I know, I know, it's a fantasy, but it couldn't hurt.

The bad news is, the Rolling Stones are not, as far as I know at present, throwing their considerable weight behind the whole reading thing. Instead, right now we have a bunch of obscure British celebrities who have contributed their top five lists.

Among them is Nick Hornby, the author. We can rest assured he's not bringing anyone new to books. He did his share when people were told that that Cusack movie they liked was once a book.

Still, there's some hope. Tim Rice-Oxley, of the British band Keane, and Tom Simpson, of the band Snow Patrol, have both contributed lists. Now I will admit, I've barely heard of these bands, but if I've barely heard of them, they're probably pretty big. If their fans pick up any of the books they've listed, then we're in the black. So that's pretty cool. Now we just need A-Rod to announce that he loves to curl up in the dugout with his well-thumbed copy of Gormenghast and America will enter a reading frenzy.

RIP Reading

There seems to be a lot of talk going around about the death of reading, or of the book. I even have a book on my shelf about the future, or lack thereof, of books.

Of course, that book is itself now so old as to be laughably out of date. It never even had a chance to gloat at the creation of the Kindle, or frown contritely at the overall lack of reaction the Kindle garnered.

Reading isn't dead, and I don't think it ever will be. The internet is largely a written media, and is hugely successful. If looked at that way, more people are reading now than ever before. Of course, the problem is that they're not reading what the bloviators want them to. This is always the problem. You can find an article from almost anytime and find out that reading is in some form of danger, right up until you get to Plato, when the worry is rather that reading is endangering memory. Of course, no one remembers that, since as readers we can't remember anything.

It's currently being focused on for a couple of reasons. One, newspapers are dying. Since they know people aren't reading them, they now worry about reading. The other is that there does seem to be a decrease in the size of the literary fiction market. There's also the decrease in the literary fiction market, which is leading to some literary fiction authors talking about the increasing illiteracy of our society.

Looking at the numbers, they seem to be right. Literacy is decreasing, and flaws in our education system likely deserve a part of that blame. Of course, it doesn't help that readers of specific types of writing look down on each other.

Nonfiction fans look down on fiction fans, lit fiction fans look down on those who read anything else, romance fans are often just embarrassed. And then there are fans of science fiction and fantasy, who rightly or wrongly, often feel isolated and looked down upon. This is one of the richest literate societies we have, but they feel alienated. The works they love, be they Grand Masters, like Asimov and Clarke, or space opera like Bujold, are often seen as less in some way, than the books which appear on the general fiction shelf. Kurt Vonnegut stands as the shining example that, if an SF author earns enough attention, they don't bring prestige to the genre, rather, they get to leave the SF ghetto, and enter the regular fiction section in the bookstore.

So is it a quality judgement? It often seems to be. I'm the first to say that there is a lot of terrible SF out there. I mean really terrible, execrable. But there are a lot of really terrible books on the regular fiction shelves, too. Frankly, it's about even.

There's an easy way we should look at it. Don't look down on what people read, let them read it. You might get them hooked on reading, then, when they're hooked, you can get them hooked on the hard stuff.

Be careful about getting them on the hard stuff though, you have to do it right. It was done wrong for me once. I had an English teacher I really liked and admired in Junior High, and at graduation, he gave everyone a graduation gift. I got Moby Dick. I didn't want it. Inside he had written to me that he hoped that I would enjoy this tale of great adventures on the high seas. My alienated early teen alarm went off like a gong. I'd seen the same after school specials he'd seen.

The nerdy kid, who reads comic books, or SF, or something similar, and then his wise teacher gave him a copy of Moby Dick, the great American novel. It changed his life, the kid read that, and it changed his life. His glasses morphed into cool glasses, his spider man t-shirt into a polo shirt, and his voice deepened. He also started reading Kerouac and Hemingway. He always thought so fondly about the teacher who had changed his life.

I put the book on the shelf when I got home. It's still on the shelf in my parents house now. I may read it one day, I may not. Now I really liked this teacher, and I still do. I know he meant well, but it didn't work. And I'm a reader, these days I read about as much literary fiction as anything else. This same teacher also shares the credit for my current fondness for literature. He taught me Homer, and Shakespeare, two authors for whom I have a life-long affection. He taught the Odyssey superbly, complete with his own hand-made charts of the inter-relationships of all of the different figures in Greek myth.

Everyone comes out of high school with a list of authors whom they hate. They may never have even read them, but they know they don't like them. I think the attitude of looking down on the books that people enjoy fosters this. There's plenty to enjoy across the broad spectrum of books. Let them read what they enjoy, teach them to enjoy reading first, then expose them to books across the spectrum to broaden their tastes. If they don't enjoy reading then, when you give them the 'great' books to read, they won't enjoy them.

With that said, I'm curious. What authors did you come out of school with a strong aversion to?