Edan's review

Actually Manny -
I think you might like some (not all) Murakami.
If you are rally woried about the stain of the hip,
I'd start with The Wild Sheep Chase.
If you like it, and your counter hip too hipnesss
hasn't sufferred, read the sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance.

Edan -
(how does this comment thing work anyway.
who am I writing this too?)
I pretty much loved this book.
Having read some of his earlier stuff lately,
I think Lethem sufffers from what is also his
greatest asset. Cleverness.
Having said that, I'd love to know what you think
of his collection of stories Men and Cartoons.
One of the stories, Super Goat Man, I think
is very fine, although very clever, and about a
retired comic book hero. (I think I recall you
have a problem with that huge surch of comic
book heros a couple/few years back.)
Super Goat Man is a great hero though,
"rescuing old ladies ffrom swerving trucks
and kittens from lightning-struck trees,
and battling dull vilains like Vest Man,
and False Dave."

Robert, I think everyone can read these comments, which is unsettling. I may just try a Lethem story or two, to see what he does with the form. His cleverness might work better in that economical form. You tell Manny to read Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase, which I have read and thought: Eh.

Manny, I actually like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (well, not the most recent album), even though they were boring live. And I like some Wes Anderson, though I don't understand why everyone's so in love with Rushmore. I see what you mean, though, about the hipsters and their insufferable loves of things that maybe aren't that good after all--at least to you, or to me. (Opinions vary, and that's wonderful). But I believe that people actually DO love Murakami, and for genuine reasons, too, not because it's cool to love him. And I'm envious of their love--everyone wants to feel that way, no?

Oh god. this conversation has gotten long in the tooth.
Thanks for saying what you have Marshall. It's a good comment - spot on - and I'd love more discourse.
Somewhere, however, I picture some girl (why a girl? why blond?)
a buble gum blond, putting down her copy of the DaVinci Code to read this stream of comments and thinking what a bunch of jerk-offs we all are. A "she's filing her nails why their dragging the lake" sort of thing.

We are all bloody pretentious, and I think it's just fine.
There is more than one kind of pretention though. The worse kind is the emporor has no clothes kind. Putting down other's tastes in an attempt to appear hip in disdain, without much to back up the criticism. An argument without offering an argument. The tell is usually if the criticism is scornful and personal, or broad with this disdain: " I can't stand people who
...."

There is a more valuable type of pretention that most of us on this thread suffer from. We think of ourselves as serious readers. Most, if not all of us (I'm still on the cusp) are writer's.
We are each looking for a voice, and rely on what we read to help us find or inform this voice, and it is a very serious endeavor. Sometimes the noise that surrounds a novel that has acheived public acclaim is just too great, and gets in the way of
the joy we might have if we were to find the book abandoned, unheralded, on a park bench somewhere, or on a forgotten shelf in a book store. There is a lot to be said for this kind of discovery; it adds to the sense that the author is speaking just to us, to what is unique in us: our voice. I had that experience when I "acidentally" (through the Dedalus catalogue) found Hunts in Dreams by Tom Drury. A decade ago I was in Duttons and saw the newly published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
I was drawn to pick it up just because it had the worst-designed cover I'd ever seen. Read the blurb and decided it was something I'd probably never read, then bought it anyway. It sat on my shelf for a year. I finally read it at a time in my life when I was in my own particular well, and it was wonderful to have Murakami take me on an adventure to his. Would my experience be the same if I were to start reading him today, with all the clamor? Maybe not.

I do not care particularly what books my friends don't like.
I do care about what they do like, and will usually read something someone's suggested just because it offers a better incite into who that person is, and I can get closer in friendship.
I don't particularly like Atwood, but a lot of the finest, most intelligent people I know do, so I will continue to read her.
(I am missing something, and I need to know what that is.)
I probably won't read anymore Steven King, but the experience
I had with Carrie and The Shining was such, that I recognize the brilliance of what he does. And Vollmann- I really don't like his writing, but I know there is something there which will help me understand a younger generation , and how they experience literature, so I will keep trying.

Having said that, and all the mindless stuff above,
I will probably never read Life of Pi or The Kite-Runner.
I reserve the right to be that hip; I know that as long as
I am here alone in my apartment I am the hippest person here.

With great, blissful, heartfelt pretentiousness,
(I love you all,)
robert.

I love all of you.

the best.

I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt in Dublin, Ireland in the fall of 2002--nearly half of it in a little dim cafe over a bread-bowl of soup and three Cokes. It was raining outside, I was alone, and I hadn't read a book in over a month. By the time I bought the Tartt novel, I was craving words again.
This novel was wonderful to me perhaps for all or none of the above reasons. It felt perfect, but I don't think I can read it again for fear it won't measure up to my first experience. I know others don't like this book, or they like it okay, and that's fine. It doesn't change how I feel, or felt.

I respect that Robert continues to read Margaret Atwood with the hope that he might, with each book, enjoy her in the way that others whose opinions he repects enjoy her. In this same vein, I hope to one day return to Murakami and find what Marshall and Robert and Allison and all my other smart, wonderful friends have found there. Likewise, when I pick up a Norman Mailer book, I want to find what Manny finds there. Sometimes this can happen.

Oh shit...I think I might be that blond girl.

The best part is that none of you know me other than by what I read; and from the sound of your discourse, I might as well be reading dick and jane books.

I think there is a lot of pressure to like certain things or at least know of them to be hip. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to read something that entertains you, makes you think, challenges you or perhaps, just gets you through a long flight.

Forgive my intrusion, but the whole blond girl thing required a response. ;)

well. busted.I had intended that comment to come of as self-deperecating. I failed. bad joke. besides, I know full well, that you don't have to be blond to chew gum; I also have several blond friends - many of whom are my ex-wife.She does not chew gum, by the way. In her culture that would be tantamount to wiping your ass with the wrong hand (in a culture other than hers.)
I also think I made the mistake of doing exactly what I was criticizing, talking with too braod a mouth, about an issue that is mine.
I guess I am a book snob. My intention was to chart that out a bit, so I can better understand the why of it, beyond the obvious insecurities that cause someone to publicly wear their pretentions. (You can tell I'm insecure. Here I am appologizing for a unintended blond joke to a total stranger, when I have so many friends I could be appologizing to. Like the time I asked a girl I know- wonderfully elegant and true -who she thought was more fuckable, Kelly Rippa or Faith Ford? )
It's important to me, what I read, not so important what other people read. (Unless they are close friends and pretend not to like John Gardner.) It's (maybe) only important that they just read. Lately - the past decade - I've been reading fiction and poetry in order to come away with language. During one other decade of my life I read only Clancy, Ludlum , and tons of science fiction. It was great fun and kept me sane -literaly - but I came away without language. These days, when I pick up a book, I hope to come away seduced by story, but won over by words.
I hope you don't mind, I peeked at your list. You've included several books I like. I'm especially grateful to be reminded of Flowers for Algernon. I read it when it came out. (I'm not actually 12.)
I have to go now. Just picked up Harry Potter.
(By the way, great dog.)

So. I'll open discussion to the floor. Group, who do you think...Kelly Rippa? Faith Ford?

Welcome, Jaymi!
Two things:
1. Your list of books read is diverse and interesting, and not too different from mine.
2. I am also blonde!

amen to that.

Thanks for the welcome, Edan. I have taken some suggestions from your list of books and plan to proverbially "broaden my horizons". :)

Robert, no offense taken. I am hardly offended by a blonde joke for two reasons:
1. I make them myself.
2. In Dolly Parton's words: "I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know that I'm not blonde."

Thank god for bleach.

And thank god for bracious people in the world.
Can't think of an appropriate quote, but I'll send my
two favorites. (They should both come in handy.)

"...just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand."
Homer Simpson

"One never knows, do one..."
Fats Waller

This train's already left the station--these comments have probably derailed in some horrible accident underneath another book--but I'm rereading _Brooklyn_ to teach it, respect Edan's thoughts tremendously, enjoyed the exchange around her thoughts, so... I have a couple cents to spare:

_You Don't Love Me Yet_ is not good. If it was a first novel, I might (MIGHT) pick up another by the writer, but it seemed immersed in helium, and that thin squeaky voice is only funny for about five minutes.

That said, I love most everything else Lethem has done, with Brooklyn at the top of my list (sharing that spot with _Girl in Landscape_, a riff on "The Searchers" that works damn well). I might suggest picking up his _The Disappointment Artist_. He's such an interesting, enthused, self-skeptical, challenging fan (of so many writers, films, songs, artists) that I find myself referencing him in the back of my head every time I try to recommend a text to a friend. Would that I were so interesting about my interests. But I bring up _Disappointment_ because, once you've read about how Lethem read and watched and engaged himself into adulthood, his books -- with their linguistic, intertextual, pop-cultural play -- seem far less shticky and fully, sincerely, complexly alive. Or at least I think so.

(I think Eggers, Whitehead, Lethem, even July don't probably deserve to get knocked around just because some of their fans are schmucks. I don't blame Hemingway for the hundreds of American-studies manly-man dickheads I've met over the last twenty years. Then again, Norman Mailer might deserve some of the blame.)

And, who knows? Maybe in ten years I'd pick up _You Don't Love Me Yet_ and find it pitch-perfect for the day, the complement to Edan's experience of Tartt in Dublin? I'll keep my mind open, for that right rainy day, just in case.

Hmm. I think we're going to disagree here even on the salience of the authors' schmuckiness. I see you like Mailer--often brilliant, often (to borrow your terms) "incredibly irritating" and prone to vacuous insights about "deep" things and so on. It comes down to the work, which we're either going to dig or dislike, and I guess I was trying to say I try not to bring stuff outside the work (fans or authors) too much to bear on my reactions.

Why do you find their stuff--or is it just them?--insulting? (I understand that's a tricky thing to untangle, and might be very personal. Richard Ford really gets up my ass, all that mom's-boyfriend-taking-me-fishing serious poor-people-fiction of the early-eighties which I took almost personally when I was in college. And I try not to hold it against Ford.... who so many relish. But I'm weak, lord, I'm weak.)

Oh, Mike Reynolds, will you please teach some adult night classes in Los Angeles? I will definitely pick up The Disappointment Artist. Men and Cartoons has also been recommended by me ...
And, Manny, you are too hard on everyone!

Is mike the Oberlain teacher you were telling me about?

Sure is. See, Mike, your'e famous.

mike - any deep seated philosophy regarding the simple declarative sentence?

Few things, working backward:

--Good point about Mailer, Manny. His openness to any stray thought does lead to a fertile and oftentimes startling batting average of hits to misses. Pretty big misses, but you give the guy credit he deserves. And _Armies of the Night_ is as much a broadside against the Mailer ego as a ballooning sample of it. I guess I'm with you in some ways, but--if Dave Eggers isn't earnest, I need to get your definition of earnest.

(And, to quote Jon Stewart out of context, why does it have to be irony getting the bad rap? Where do Vonnegut or Roth or Didion go without irony? I'd be at a helluva loss--probably cut my quantity of speech by a good 30%--without it.)

--Declarative sentences.... I think I am with you on this, Robert. (I saw your post on Robinson, and this mostly echoes your thoughts there.) I hate the sense of portent that attaches itself to the-bread-is-hard school of style. He opened a can of peas. The peas were smushy. He didn't much like the taste, when smushed. But he ate them. He was hungry. And on and on. I blame it on Carver, who did it well, and who inspired lots of lousy acolytes. But then again, deep philosophy? Nah. I like digression and expansiveness--so I often dig riff-heavy prose, full of lists and hyphens and sidetracks. Then again, Joy Williams and Denis Johnson write dazzling little pinballs of declarative sentences. I haven't read a piece by Thomas McGuane that didn't make me swoon. (Maybe it's the straightforward declarative I can't abide. Maybe I ought to think about it some more. Sorry--confused reaction. I'll ponder. Where'd I put those peas?)

--Edan, when are you going to be in the Twin Cities teaching a class? Fair's fair--I haven't had the luck to be in one of your classes, yet, and I think it's my turn. And I think a monkey could have taught some of those Oberlin classes, with people like you, Molly, Doug. Monkey cavorts playfully, one of you says something smart, monkey flings feces--everyone's satisfied. Monkey's role minimal, but he makes people laugh.

In the time you all were talking about this I read 5 books. Just kidding. But after reading all of that - yes, the whole 2-page string - and feeling alternately insulted and redeemed and insulted again and redeemed (and after that I stopped keeping track) I enter the dangerous comment waters with a toe entirely in before I realize there's nothing more to say. Except I love A Wild Sheep Chase. And can't make it through Jonathan Lethem. And the reason we don't like Rushmore even if we do like other Wes Anderson flicks is because we have never been an awkward young boy.

Here we go again...
Manny, I respect your opinions but I think you get off on throwing out sweeping statements. If I'm correct, you haven't even read Miranda July's book, which I both liked and dislike. I was very much moved by some of her stories, and smitten with her language: she has a keen sense of alientation and awkwardness, and I don't think she's ironic about the desire for human beings to connect with other human beings. If you'd read the book, you might entertain that notion. She's more than just quirk and irony, as is Eggers. I didn't love Heartbreaking Work..., but I look forward to reading What is the What, which strikes me as a departure from the wink-wink style of his earlier work (and even when he was being witty and wink-wink, I agree with Mike that he was being earnest).

Robert, you know I only urge you to throw in a declarative sentence here and there, to keep your prose and rhythm surprising, and perhaps to give your reader some room to breathe. As I've said before, a skillfully placed short declarative sentence can just break a reader's heart. Or maybe that's just my preference.

Mike, get me a semester appointment at Hamline! And, believe me, you don't want to be in my class. It would kill you to see me donning my "craft and technique" brain. For instance: I have to make Robert shut up when he gets too English Class on me.

Sarah, welcome! But I must say, speak for yourself: when I was 13, I WAS an awkward young boy.

Well Edan, here's one: "Edan tells Robert to shut up."
Excuse me?

Regarding Rushmore: I speak not for myself but for an awkward adult male (once awkward young boy) superfan of Rushmore who attempted to explain the phenomenon to me upon my declaration, "Rushmore - huh?" Well, I too, was offended by his presumption that I had never been an awkward young boy, or at least awkward young girl enough to get it, but then I watched Rushmore again years later and agreed with him (and myself?) a little more. I don't know what that means. I liked it a little better the second time around but decided ultimately I was just going to have to be okay with not being okay with it. And now we've already said more about Rushmore than I care to ever again.

As for Ms. July, et al, I always find myself passing first judgments that sound very much like Manny's, i.e. they are all young schmucks trying too hard to be quirky. But I make sure I sometimes read them anyway and have found myself both pleasantly surprised and pleasantly affirmed, depending. The reading is the important part.

Incidentally, here's an interesting question: What counts as "reading" - starting, skimming, or only finishing? On The Elegant Variation: http://marksarvas.blogs.com/el...

Sarah: Well said.
Manny: I stand corrected.
Robert: I was only kidding, though you know I have to stop you when you get all literary on me.

love,
Edan

ps Am I the most popular GoodReads member or what? Look how many of you showed up to my review!