Chicago books pt. 2

Some more books I read whilst on vacation:

1. Autobiography of a Fat Bride by Laurie Notaro. This was my friend Kristen's book. She and I had a long talk about why I read such "serious" books (though I don't really think I do, but perhaps I don't have the proper perspective); we came to the conclusion that it's because, unlike her (who is in grad school, and tutors for a living), I get most of my intellectual stimulation through my choice of reading material, rather than from school or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I like my life and I'm not saying it's completely devoid of wit, but I'm not eating lunch at an Algonquin Round Table every day, you know?

That being said, this book was more on the frippery side than what I usually read. It was a set of stories/vignettes about Notaro's life, mostly about the single scene and getting married. Amusing enough; she definitely has an ear for funny crap, but the mechanics of her writing are really poor. She suffers from the inability to use the word "said," and instead feels the need to make everyone's words action-oriented: cried, moaned, shouted. (See also: Meyer, Stephanie.) Good vacation reading, but I probably won't pick anything else up by this author.

2. A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons: I will tell you a secret. I have started this book two times and haven't ever made it more than about 1/3 of the way through. It's a subject I WANT to like, but it's obvious that the author has spent most of his adult life wading through legalese. Irons himself is pretty cool: in the intro he says that he spent 3 years in federal prison for draft-dodging, whereupon he began a correspondence with my personal Jesus, Howard Zinn. After he was released, he went to law school, helped defend Ellsburg, and became a law professor.

But this book is dry, dry like bread left in the toaster overnight. I often find early American history to be such a riotous subject. Bitches was crazy back then! But this book makes even things like the XYZ Affair and Zenger's sedition trial into tedious subjects. The whole point of the book is that it's supposed to be accessible to anyone, even if they don't have a law background, but unfortunately it only succeeds about half the time. Eventually I WILL finish this, mostly because I borrowed it from Elise and I need to give it back someday.

3. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky. Continuing in a similar vein, this is a book about a Rolling Stone reporter who accompanied David Foster Wallace for one leg of his Infinite Jest tour. The feature article never happened, apparently; RS axed it at the last minute, which Lipsky said in his introduction was a relief to Wallace. And I don't doubt it, after reading this book. It shows us what we all knew all along about the man: that he was intelligent, to the point where it was pretty much crippling. He was a relentless deconstructionist, worrying constantly about the way he was going to come across (not only to RS and its audience, but Lipsky himself), wondering if his thoughts were valid, constantly trying to reassure himself that Lipsky understood where he, Wallace, was coming from. The entire book was just a straight-up transcription of Lipsky's tapes, with pretty much no added commentary save the introduction and a few off the cuff remarks about things like Wallace's facial expression as he says something. I found myself gritting my teeth with jealousy whenever it was indicated that either man had turned the tape off, which happened pretty frequently, especially as they bonded and came towards the end of the tour. Whenever Wallace needed to parse through a thought, or tell Lipsky something too personal, he would shut the tape off, and I would find myself bending the corners of the book, thinking, "What?!? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS."

It was great. I love it. I want to carry this book around in a Bjorn. Amanda, take note.

Okay, I think that's it. I haven't been reading nearly enough since I got home, mostly because I got Netflix back. But I will update and blah blah.

The next 25

I've been wondering why these books start back at 1923. Is that when TIME itself started? Because there is really no other logical explanation. According to wikipedia, here are some important events that took place that year:

Jan 10th: Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel
Jan 17th: Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro (see Fig 1.o)
March: Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar
March: TIME magazine hits newsstands for the first time (AH-HA!)
And my personal favorite, July 10th: Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union.


So as we can see, 1923 was obviously a watershed year, what with its old-timey flying machines and such.

Anyway. To continue.

26. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell

27. Death Comes to the Archbishop--Willa Cather. Man, Cather's so cool. 1) Nebraskan 2) Transvestite 3) named "Willa", and I'm always a fan of solid "W" names, like my adopted grandma Wanda. She was OG. Rest in peace, you awesome old lady.

28. A Death in the Family--James Agee. Previously mentioned in my "books that I haven't read yet" entry. Oh Agee, why must you come back and haunt me!? And how some sometimes I get you confused with Edward Albee, whom I consider self-indulgent and whiny!?!?

29. The Death of the Heart--Elizabeth Bowen

30. Deliverance--James Dickey. Whoa, is this what I think it is?? If so, I might have a hard time taking it seriously. Kind of like how First Blood is apparently a sober, introspective novel about Vietnam-era PTSD but when you think about it, all you can picture is Sylvester Stallone in a red bandana. Likewise, when I hear the name of this book, all I can think of is, "You sure do got a purdy mouth."

31. Dog Soldiers--Robert Stone

32. Falconer--John Cheever

33. The French Lieutenant's Woman--John Folwes. Man, I haven't read any of these. Shame on me.

34. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. Okay, awesome. I am actually reading this right now. It's sitting next to me on the couch as I speak, along with an Etch-a-sketch and Cookie Monster (who is wearing a pumpkin costume). So far I really like it, although I'm only on page 15, which is being marked by a Team Jacob bookmark. One of the things I like best about it is Lessing's extensive conversation with herself in the intro about what she was trying to "do" with this work--how she wanted to write something that she felt really embodied the mid-20th century, and what she felt she could bring to the table to contribute to people's understanding about the way life is right now (that is, in the early 60's, when she was writing it.) She compares her goals to those of Thomas Hardy's work in contribution to the poor during the Victorian era. This is definitely something I can get behind. So the main character, Anna, is an unmarried feminist who is also a communist. All I've really read so far is Anna and her best friend Molly sitting around in an apartment eating strawberries and waiting for a dude named Richard to drop by, and everything is very British and now I want strawberries. But I have high expectations!

35. Gone With the Wind--Margaret Mitchell. Man, I really do want to read this! I checked it out from the library once and it was eleventy million pages, though. And I was like 13. But I do like authors who are famous recluses (except Pynchon--fuck you, dude) and I like the South and I wish I could say "fiddle-dee-dee" but that's the kind of phrase that's hard to work into your everyday lexicon without sounding like a retard.

36. The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck. Look, I recognize that this is actually a seminal work in Amerian Lit, possibly the great American novel, and it's skillfully done. But I still hate it. It's still depressing and quite frankly, boring. Let me tell you a little story about this book. This was the last book we had to read in senior year American Lit. And I was the only person who'd read it before that, including the teacher (it was her first year at our school). So she had to read a chapter or two every night ahead of where we were, and was relying on the old teacher's lesson plan on the book in order to teach it to us. Last week of school, I drag in first period, having stayed up all night to attend a Bright Eyes concert (ahhh, 2003, how I loved you) and she's finishing reading the book right then and there. She looks at me and says, "I now understand why you hate this book." So at least I wasn't alone.

37. Gravity's Rainbow--Thomas Pynchon. Dude. I'm still mad at you about Crying of Lot 49. You're not pulling this one over on me! You're not Cormac McCarthy! Gtfo.

38. The Great Gatsby--F. Scott Fitzgerald. Garrick once had an amazingly well-thought-out rant about why he hated this book. I wish I could remember at least some of it. Then again, Garrick also once wrote me a several thousand word long email about the similarities between Will Turner and Luke Skywalker, so take that as you will. I love this book, but now as I'm sitting here trying to think about it, I don't really know why. It's...stylish? I guess? I like the character of Gatsby, how I imagine he seems like the kind of guy that sweats too much when he's nervous. And Fitzgerald is my ultimate example of how I don't think you can really fully appreciate a good work of literature unless you have at least a passing familiarity with the life of the author. Rich girls don't marry poor boys, Scott!

39. A Handful of Dust--Evelyn Waugh. I don't know anything about the life of Waugh! I'm a hypocrite. Also, Jack said one of his professors was writing a book about Waugh, and he (Jack) suggested the title "WAUGH--What is He Good For?" That made me snort just typing it out.

40. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter--Carson McCullers. I read this in junior high and don't remember much about it. It didn't dazzle me, but it gets such high praise in the annals of American Lit, maybe it deserves another chance. I remember it having this Peyton Place-ish vibe: a small town full of colorful characters and dark secrets. Man. I DO love PP. I wonder if it'll be on this list!!

41. The Heart of the Matter--Graham Greene. I once bought about half of Greene's books at a college library sale but I only ever got around to reading like, two of them. I have this book stored in my parents' house somewhere. Also I love Greene because of Donnie Darko: "Do you even know who Graham Greene is?" "PLEASE. I think we've all seen 'Bonanza.'"

42. Herzog--Saul Bellow.

43. Housekeeping--Marilynne Robinson

44. A House for Mr. Biswas--V. S. Naipul

45. I, Cladius--Robert Graves

46. Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace. THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME. THIS BOOK SAVED MY LIFE. LOOK HOW LOUD I HAVE TO YELL, THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE IJ. What could I say about this book that would communicate my undying fealty toward it, its genius, and its complex, vibrating understanding of who I am as a human being? When David Foster Wallace hung himself last year I stayed in my room all day and cried and listened to Elliott Smith, which is basically the same thing I did when Elliott Smith died. ANYWAY. I wish I still had this book, but I gave it away to my friend Liz. She later joined a Virgin Mary cult so I'll never get it back. Sad. I'll probably write a blog devoted to just this book someday, so I'll save the hardcore elaboration until then.

47. Invisible Man--Ralph Elliston. This is the one about being fake black, right? Not about being literally invisible?

48. Light in August--William Faulkner

49. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--C. S. Lewis. Hell yeah! I love Lewis, especially this series and The Screwtape Letters. I love how the kids take everything in with such cool British aplomb--oh, there's a war on and a magical land inside the wardbobe, how delightful--and the land of Narnia is one of the most well-spun fantasty universes ever created, from Magician's Nephew to The Last Battle. Also, movie version of Prince Caspian is so handsome!

50. Lolita--Vladimir Nabokov. This seems to be one of those books that becomes more and more vindicated over time, and rightly so. Highly lyrical, beautifully doubtful, you'll be re-checking the author section again and again; are you SURE English isn't Nabokov's native language? This book was important enough to spawn a whole new concept of how young women were viewed, for better or for worse.