A Mood Captured

At present, one of the books that I'm reading is The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. There was a passage that I just had to share. He perfectly captures the mood and physical sensation, of lazing in the sun on a bench in the right kind of summer weather, with or without a book.

"The benches were white iron, roomy enough for three or four old gaffers to snooze on in the swamp-tasting sweet warmth that made the redwing blackbirds fierce and quick, and the flowers frill, but other living things slow and lazy-blooded. I soaked in the heavy nourishing air and this befriending atmosphere like rich life-cake, the kind that encourages love and brings on a mild pain of emotions. A state that lets you rest in your own specific gravity, and where you are not subject matter but sit in your own nature, tasting original tastes as good as the first man, and are outside of the busy human tamper, left free even of your own habits. Which only lie on your illusory in the sunshine, in the usual relation of your feet or fingers or the knot of your shoestrings and are without power. No more than the comb or shadow of your hair has power on your brain."

And a side note. Read that passage thinking about your 6th grade English class, and think about how many things he does that your teacher told you you couldn't do. Don't think about being the smart mouthed little kid who points out to them that Bellow did it, and he won a Nobel Prize. All they'd have done is say to you "Well, when you win the Nobel Prize, you can do it too." Unless they were really good, then they might have told you that you have to learn the rules before you can break them.

Author Labels

I've been doing some thinking about author labels. By this I mean the terms used to describe authors as being within a subgroup, like 'Gay Author, Jewish Author, African American Author."

This started when I was reading The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White. White discusses this labeling while talking about the history of American authors from minority groups coming to Paris to write. He described how they, and certain gay, French authors, avoided being labeled in this fashion, and objected to the idea of being so labeled. He doesn't agree with this and proudly labels himself as a 'gay author'.

Before I read his thesis, I was firmly on the side against such labeling. I saw it as a means of limiting an author's audience, relegating their work to a small specialty shelf in the corner of the book store or library, where it won't encounter those not already interested in that community. Further, it has a history of being used to intentionally limit those books to a specific audience. The shelf I see most in bookstores is the 'African American Literature' section. How many white people do you see browsing that section? How many great books are hiding in there, waiting for a wider audience? A very few, and a lot.

White softened my view but I don't think he quite changed it. I liked The Flaneur a lot, and his pride in his identity helped to create the book. If all being labeled a 'gay author' meant was that he was not hiding the fact that he was gay, then I'm all for it. But I don't think that's what it means. It means he has given them an excuse to put his book in the special interest section, 'gay literature' or 'queer literature' or whatever label a bookstore uses to indicate that a book is for people who are interested in the genre. And then, people who are interested in, let's say Paris, the main subject of the book, won't find it.

In this interview, Tony Kushner handles the problem in an interesting way. He identifies as an 'American author' a 'Jewish author' and a 'gay author'. I like this. No one is just one thing. In my opinion Kushner is also a 'moved-to-New-York-and-it-will-always-be-with-him author' but that doesn't work well when typed.

By encouraging several different labels, Kushner makes it harder to relegate him to the specialty shelves. Kushner also points out that, when writers like Roth and Bellow were avoiding the label 'Jewish author', they were doing so because prejudice at the time was stronger, and to be a 'Jewish author' or some other author with a qualification applied to 'author' made them less of an 'American author' and thus to be taken less seriously. Perhaps it's still true, though I think less so.

The real problem these days isn't the authors labeling themselves. That's fine and positive. The problem is when the genre gets printed on the book, on the spine or near the bar code, and then the author gets stuck in their special section. Edmund White would respond that the author shouldn't try to hide who they are on account of this, and I agree. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Authors should describe themselves however they want, and the more authors produce quality writing within a given 'section' the more their work will stand out. In this day and age, with bookstores struggling, it's hard to tell the bookstores to take a step away from a practice that has long helped them stay profitable, but it'd be nice if they let the 'specialty' books out to play more often.

Friday Five is Alive!

There's a rumor going around that they will remake the Short Circuit movie. Quake with fear!

Now for the Friday Five.

- R.A. Lafferty's Nine Hundred Grandmothers. It is well-known that the best golden and silver age science fiction came in the form of short stories. Lafferty is one of the masters, his strange, tripy, and humorous stories make for excellent reading.

- Colette's The Vagabond. If you haven't read any Colette, go fix that right now. The Vagabond is about a woman's struggle between control of her life, and romantic attachment. There are some things the French just do better, and existential struggles certainly seem to be among them.

- Gustav Meyrink's The Golem. This book has everything, creepiness, a gem cutter, Prague! Seriously, if there were a better surreal story of a Jewish gem cutter in the ghettos of Old Prague who becomes deeply involved with mysterious cursed imagery and the legend of the golem, then I don't know what it is.

- Saul Bellow's Dangling Man. This is the book that launched my abiding fondness for Saul Bellow (can you call it that when you've only read two of someone's oeuvre? I know, I know, I need to read more of them). The strange beast that is one man's life during the year that he waits to be drafted to fight in World War II.

- Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris. Surprised I haven't done this one yet? Me too. She's got a new book out that I need to read also. These are essays about being a reader and lover of books. It's a good cozy collection for anyone who likes books.